 :: Wednesday, April 21, 2004 :: One Take of Half of the Fourth Rail From the last interview with Shawn Baichoo: “Let others be brutally honest with your material, and TAKE THE CRITICISM. Like I said earlier, you act or write, in the end, for others to enjoy. People know what they find funny. Listen to the people, no matter how brilliant you think you are.” So what did I do, I found a critic to talk to about criticizing comics, and the life of a critic. Ended up finding out critics have a lot to say. SUPERSIZED SNAP JUDGMENTS Jay D’Ici: Okay for those who don't know: Who are you? What do you do? And why should we love you? Randy Lander: I'm Randy Lander, a 30-something guy living in Austin, Texas with my wife and 1-year-old daughter. My day job is working as one of the managers of Dragon's Lair Comics in Round Rock, Texas, part of a three store chain that was just the one store when I started working here. My hobby, which has consumed enough time to be considered a second career, is reviewing comic-books. I've been doing that since around 1996, mostly on an amateur basis but for about two or three glorious years I was able to do it professionally for money. This was before everyone realized that only porn makes money on the Internet, of course. As for why you should love me... Dude, I'm a critic. You're all supposed to hate me. Or at least, that's what my partner-in-crime Don MacPherson tells me. Jay: You started Snap Judgments on small on-line comic communities, but now you're having your name and quotes put on books and used for promotion, has the evolution of your influence as a comic reviewer ever surprised you? Randy: Oh, definitely. I think the biggest surprise for me came when Psylum, an Internet start-up, wanted me to come out to New York and do this for a living. I've been around the Internet long enough to remember when Mike Doran was posting Newsarama for free on Usenet, and when he got the call to do it for money on a website, that made sense to me. His stuff was news, more easily ad-supported and (quite frankly) seemed like more work, at least in my eyes. I couldn't see a way that reviewing would ever bring me any money or attention beyond a fairly small number of people online. Jay: How do you view the role of critic/reviewer in contrast to that of an on-line activist such as those who have written for Savant and Ninth Art.com? Randy: I think the roles are pretty similar. There are about a million ways to review comics and a million reasons to do it, and I like to think that everything from comics news to comics reviews to comics activism is all on the same kind of scale, just on different ends of it. I'm not real good at comparing and contrasting what I do with what other sites do, honestly. I read a lot of the other sites, but you generally won't hear me criticizing other reviewers... I don't think it benefits anyone. All I can do is say what I see as my role, which is to help build the buzz around books that deserve it. That's what I'm here for. Jay: How do you go about judging a comic? Do you ever rethink a review after the fact? Randy: There's nothing terribly scientific about judging the comics, actually. I do a read through for my gut reaction, and then I start analyzing why I had that reaction with a second read through, third read through, etc. I don't have a magic reviewer's scale where I give art, writing, plot, characters a score of 1 through 5 and then average them or anything like that. While I believe in objectivity in terms of leaving personal biases at the door and looking at the work for what it is and not what I would have liked it to be, I don't believe in objective reality when it comes to artistic taste, so I always, always view my reviews (and everyone else's) as a reflection of my personal taste. It is my hope that folks who are using my reviews to guide their purchases are also reading other critics like Johanna Draper Carlson, Greg McElhatton, Paul O'Brien and of course Don MacPherson so that they get a wide spectrum of takes on a particular book. As for changing my mind after the fact... it doesn't happen often, but it does happen. I'm more likely to sour on a book that I started out loving than to decide that a book I didn't like is better than I thought. The latter does happen, but it's a lot less frequent. Jay: Do you ever feel bad about giving a bad review to a creator who you've gotten to know online or in person? Has knowing someone ever made you hold back on a bad review? Randy: Ouch. Rough question, actually, because it's one of those things that I struggle with. Honestly, in general, I feel bad when I give a bad review to *anyone*, whether I know them or not. Even the stuff that I just hammer, I generally know that someone put their heart and soul (and oftentimes money) into putting it out, and I feel bad being the guy standing up and saying "Uh, yeah, A for effort and all, but this kind of stinks." It's worse when this is someone that I've shared a drink with at a comics show, or that I know the names of their kids, or I know just what a nice person they are. That said, if I'm guilty of holding back, it might be in not writing a review of a book that I didn't like, which has little to do with whether or not I know someone and more to do with what I'm hoping to accomplish with my reviews. If I read a book and just don't like it, I'm less likely to have anything to say about it than I am if I liked it, or loved it. Just the way my personality is wired, I guess. So if I'm not enjoying, for instance, Geoff Johns's Hawkman, I'm likely to just give the book a pass unless it's a jumping-on point or a crossover or something like that that my readers are really going to want to know about. That has more to do with my not wanting to kick a book that doesn't need a kicking than that I know and like Geoff Johns, or that he's occasionally written for the site. When I write the review, though, I'm not thinking of the person I know, I'm thinking of the book I'm holding in front of me. At least, in specific terms. I'm always thinking "Would I say this to someone's face" when I write my reviews, and if I genuinely believe that I would, it goes in the review. Like anyone else, I tend to be more positive in person, so if I'm talking to a creator, I'm not likely to start up the conversation telling them what I didn't like about their books. But if a creator asks me in person what I thought of a certain book, or gives me a hard time (usually in a joking manner) about something I wrote, I'm not likely to back down from it. Jay: In the Sixties and early Seventies critics helped rebuild a faltering film industry, and eventually that evolved into the blockbuster style film industry we have now. With the movement from the ideals of Savant and Warren Ellis' "Old Bastard Manifesto" to the new born event comics (JLA/Avengers and Bendis' Secret War) and 80's comeback do you think that something similar has happened to comics? Randy: I don't know that comics critics make any kind of difference except in our own minds. Warren Ellis's revolution pretty much fizzled, and many of the books that I (and other critics) love get cancelled before their time. I don't think you can credit online criticism and activism with saving the industry or raising its profile or anything like that. I think that the critics can make a difference in terms of creating a buzz that translates into companies putting faith in an underselling property, which then gets the time it needs to grow, and I think critics can make a tremendous difference for individual people, who will discover new books they might not otherwise have tried, but I don't think we have the kind of influence that changes the industry on the level you're talking about. I think that pop cultural trends tend to be modelled in various media. The return to nostalgic favorites and big events in comics is little different than the old TV/movie remakes dominating the film industry or the B-grade movie stars returning to TV and seven different flavors of Law & Order and CSI that dominate the airwaves. The majority of people, which you need if you're going to make a financial go of things, like their "comfort food" entertainment, and there just aren't enough people out there looking for something truly different and edgy for that to become the majority trend. Which isn't to say that good, quality, new stuff can't survive, in any medium, but that it's always going to be a bit of a niche, and the idea that the comics industry will ever be 90% creator-owned, genre-varied, intelligent works and 10% same-old corporate superheroes is as naive as the idea that television will ever be 90% Alias, Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Shield and 10% American Idol and Friends. Huh. Does that sound bitter or just realistic? I'm aiming for the latter, because while I do get depressed at the amount of good entertainment that goes away because it's just not popular enough, I'm really not a snobby, elitist person by nature. I mean, I love superhero comics and G.I. Joe, for God's sake! Jay: Okay, here's a nice open shot: Can you give me a criticism of the comic industry as a whole? The good and the bad, as things are right now? What would you change? Randy: Well, first my head would explode from the sheer responsibility. After that... In my darker moments, I've said (and truly believe) that this industry is broken on all levels. Fans, critics, retailers, publishers, creators... and I've been many of those things, so I'm not holding myself out as above these standards. Which means that any ideas I have about fixing the industry are about as busted as anybody else's would be. That said... if I could change things, I'd like to see the politics of the industry fall by the wayside, and for all of us to have a lot less ego. There's no call for online pundits to be bashing one another when they could be doing something more productive, no call for creators feuding, no call for publishers engaging in stupid and childish name-calling and bizarre marketing to try and make the other guy look bad. I know it's human nature and the nature of capitalist society, but in an ideal world, I'd love it if we could all just get over ourselves, love what we love, and look at the stuff we don't like as for somebody else, rather than as some great evil that must be eradicated. But that would mean I'd have to stop badmouthing Chuck Austen books and other things I don't like, so already I'm a big 'ol hypocrite. At any rate, ideal world sort of thing. On a more practical level? I'd like to see the fans be a lot more open to new ideas than they are. The percentage of people who won't read black and white comics or anything that doesn't feature a familiar superhero is alarmingly high in our industry. And I'm not just talking people who only read the superhero genre, I mean people who will not pick up a book that doesn't feature Spider-Man, Superman, Batman, etc. I'd love it if I could order a new book for the shop or review a new book thinking that everyone who reads comics might potentially give it a look, rather than knowing that about 5% of our readers *might* be swayed to give it a chance. Those 5% don't have the money to single-handedly fund a better industry. On the retail side, I'd like to see a lot less arrogance, a lot less assumption that everyone is out to get them and again, a lot more being open to new ideas. Even the best retailers can get into these pissy, stupid modes where they hate Marvel because of things they've done in the past so they won't give Bendis's books a chance, or where they're sure that the new DC line is going to fail so they don't order any for the shelf. I'd like a lot more retailers taking chances on new books even if they're a hard sell at first, rather than just relying on the easy sales of Jim Lee on Superman/Batman and Ultimate books. I know it's a risky proposition, I work at a smaller store and don't get to order anywhere near the amount of indy books that I'd like to, but I'm always, always trying to get my customers to try out new stuff. From the publishers, I'd really like to see more thought in the long term and less "throw it at the wall and see what sticks." If a series is getting critical acclaim but low sales, and it's breaking even at least, maybe keep it going for a while, put out some trades, try to get it a TV/movie option, any of the things that a self-publishing creator would do to keep their baby in print. If you don't believe enough in a concept to do that once you've launched it, just don't do it in the first place. Honestly, I love seeing new stuff from DC and Marvel, I'm glad when they try new stuff, but sometimes I'm just banging my head against a wall trying to figure out why they tried this in the first place. Every fan and retailer can look at something new and figure out whether it has a shot in hell or not, and while part of me admires the publishers for taking a shot on complete dark horse projects (like Focus, or anthology books), part of me also wishes they could figure out a way to do these new, necessary projects in ways that don't look dead on arrival to pretty much everyone. Like every other level of the industry, there's a lot of "I've been doing this/reading this for over 20 years, I know what works" and that prevents what seems like some pretty obvious decisions from being made, whether it's taking well over a decade to reprint classic material like Walt Simonson's Thor or George Perez's Wonder Woman or deciding to yank the trade editions out from under Tsunami right when there's a buzz developing around some of the titles that could keep them going. Also, what I'd really, really like to see, and this ties in to what I've started with, is less snobbery. I'm sick to death of otherwise intelligent people looking down on superheroes, and I'm just as sick of superhero fans who badmouth alternative comics. The industry is a small, niche, industry, but it's big enough for everybody, and if it isn't, well we might as well just hang up the whole thing and find a new medium. I've been guilty of just about everything I mentioned above, in one way or the other, by the way. Prejudging a product unfairly, not giving a new series a chance to really impress me, being a snob about someone else's tastes... but we're talking ideal world here. And while I'm at it, I'd like a BMW Z4 convertible. Jay: Do you ever feel that some indy books get a lot attention because they are different from the standard bang 'em up fare? Or has this changed in the past few years and they've started being looked at with a more critical eye? Randy: I think folks are more willing to overlook things in a lot of smaller books than they might be with the big bestsellers, in the interest of increasing word-of-mouth and increasing those books' chance of survival. I don't think it's just indies, though. Gotham Central, Sleeper, Runaways, these are major company books that get the same sort of universal acclaim that beloved indy books do. I don't think major flaws get overlooked. I think that if Gotham Central had really bad artwork, it wouldn't be critically acclaimed. If Sleeper had bad dialogue, that would get mentioned and analyzed. If Runaways only came out every six months, like The Ultimates, folks would talk that up. I just think that people are willing to overlook art that maybe isn't perfectly to their taste, or writing that misses the point of some of their favorite characters, in the name of accentuating the positive. To forgive things from these smaller books that they might not from books that can survive more critical drubbing and maybe improve as a result. The name of the game in criticism should be to make comics better, not to glorify your own ego by bringing down comics you don't like or show how smart you are by pointing out every flaw you see in a comic that was made under pretty horrific deadline pressure. That means, first and foremost, that if there's a good book that isn't selling, you don't start nitpicking it to pieces so everyone decides it isn't worth the effort. That said, when there are major issues, they get mentioned. To use a specific example from my reviews, it killed me to mention the outrageous price/format of DC's New Frontier, given how much I loved that first issue, but I didn't feel like I could write a complete review without mentioning it. That kind of thing is part and parcel of being a reviewer. Jay: What are some of your favorite comics of all time? What made you love the comic industry? And what makes you stay? Favorite comics of all time is a huge list, and changes everyday, and I'm sure to miss something. But to kind of cover a variety of time periods and reading tastes, the stuff I'd take with me to a desert island includes the full run of John Ostrander's Suicide Squad (especially the latter no costumes period of the book), Garth Ennis and John McCrea's Hitman, the Claremont/Byrne run of X-Men, the first 50 or so issues of Hama's G.I. Joe, most of Bendis's crime/funny output (Fortune & Glory, Jinx, etc.), the three volumes of Uzumaki, Whiteout, Adventures of Barry Ween, the Geoff Johns/Scott Kolins Flash... too much stuff to mention, really. That barely scratches the surface. If there were some weird scenario where someone said, "OK, you can read only one company's comics from now on, do you want Dark Horse, Oni, AIT/Planet Lar, DC...?" I couldn't possibly choose. Everyone publishes or has published something that I absolutely love. What made me love the comics industry? Nothing. Like most involved with it on any level, I friggin' hate this industry most days. But I love the medium, and that's down to the underpinnings of heroism in books like Roger Stern's Avengers or Geoff Johns's JSA, the flexibility of the medium as a storytelling tool for guys like Alan Moore and Brian Bendis and the beauty to be found on the printed page from guys like John Buscema, Greg Land, Mike Mignola or Scott Morse. Which is something of a cheesy answer, I know, but really, I can't explain why I love comics. If you do too, you know what I mean, and if you don't, you'll never understand. That's kind of my philosophy on the whole thing. What makes me stay? Well, I'm very stupid and something of a masochist. :) Or, more seriously, it's because I love this medium too much to give it up. That's the general reason I'm still reading. As for why I stay in terms of being a reviewer, it's much the same, with the addition of "where else am I going to go?" It's not like Entertainment Weekly is knocking my door down to pay me for writing, nor do I have any interest in switching from reviewing to writing comics (although I'd probably give up reviewing for being a publisher or editor, if only because it's a step up in terms of influencing the direction of comics). But the main reason I'm still doing this is because I can't not do the reviews. I tried retiring after Fandom stopped paying the bills, and I had too much to say about the books that were coming out. I've told Don every year since, I think, maybe more than once a year, that this is it, I'm retiring after this year. Every year, I change my mind, because for all the lost hours reviewing and formatting or the weeks where it's like pulling teeth to get something written, there are days when I feel like I'm on, or there are emails from pros saying thanks for the kind words or constructive criticisms or fans saying thanks for turning me on to this book. As long as I feel like I'm contributing something, even if it's just putting Sleeper trades in the hands of five more fans than it otherwise would have gotten, I don't know that I can quit. Jay: What was the absolute worst comic you've read, and why was it so bad? Honestly? I can't even answer this one. If I remembered all the worst comics, I couldn't possibly keep reviewing. It would just be too depressing. Also, when you review and read so many, it becomes tough to pick out favorites, best or worst. That said, while I don't know specifically what the book was, I feel certain it was probably a Marvel book in the '90s, and was probably written by Terry Kavanaugh, Howard Mackie or Scott Lobdell. Jay: I'm going to give you a series to write (and I know you don't want to but play along, this is called "revenge on the critic"), any series. Is it your own character or someone else's property? What is the story line? Who do you want on art duties (if not yourself)? And what would you rate it, and what do you think Don McPherson would rate it? Randy: This is way out imagination stuff, because really, I don't have any interest in being a writer. Actually, that's not entirely true. I'd do it for a living if I could, but I don't have the drive to break in that it requires, and I don't think my writing skills are anywhere near the top dogs like Rucka, Bendis, Winick, etc., which is what you should strive for if you're going to try to write comics. Anybody can beat the average guys. When I do my fantasy camp type stuff, I imagine the idea of being an editor or publisher. If I had money, I'd hire Bill Rosemann right now to be editor-in-chief of a new, small, creator-participation company. I'd do the sort of things Crossgen started doing after it was too late, expanding into different genres (but not ignoring superheroes), but letting the creators have a pretty significant say in what we did. I'd go after guys who were great but just haven't had the chance to shine in the current market, like John Ostrander, Roger Stern, William Messner-Loebs, find out what they really wanted to do and try to make that work with some A-list, up and comer or brand new, stupendous artists that nobody has discovered yet. And I'd expand when we were ready, not when I felt like I really wanted us to be bigger. Which isn't really the question you asked, so: If I were going to write any series, honestly, it'd probably be for Marvel, because we're assuming ideal world here, and while Marvel has a history of screwing creators, they have the characters I love, and I'm going to go ahead and assume for this hypothetical that writing this book has nothing to do with financially supporting my family. (If it did, I'd go with DC in a heartbeat, or creator-owned with Image or Oni with an eye toward getting a movie option). More than likely, given my druthers, I'd want to write an X-Book, because I've got a big love for those characters and it breaks my heart that they've been done right so infrequently and wrong, so very wrong, so very often. I'd love to get a team book of some stalwarts who haven't been treated well, like Cyclops, Colossus, Nightcrawler and maybe throw in a few oddballs that I have a fondness for, like Longshot, Havok, Dazzler and Rogue. Probably try to write a straight-up classic superhero style book, with some classic villains both X and non (I'd love to see the X-Men match up with Dr. Doom or some other A-list villain from outside the mutant ghetto) and some new villains, trying to see if something new can be said with these characters. On art, I can think of a half-dozen guys, but ideally, for a big team book like this, I'd want someone like Carlos Pacheco or Stephen Sadowski or Phil Jimenez. Someone with a classic superhero style, but someone who really has the chops for a big 'ol classic superhero throwdown when it's called for and who can do the character stuff as well. As for what it would get rated... I have no illusions. Don would probably give it a 6/10, and I'd probably wind up hating it and giving it a 4, mostly for the art. :) Jay: And for the finale: If you could supersize anything in the world what would you Supersize? Randy: My daughter's college fund. ** Check out Randy’s weekly (except this week) comic reviews at: www.thefourthrail.com, while there you can also check out Don McPherson’s reviews as well. Next time I should have a very late quicky diary of APE and other things San Francisco -Jay 9:02 PM + Jay D'Ici + permalink |