http://sequart.org advancing comics as art Wed, 09 Jul 2025 21:12:15 +0000 en hourly 1 http://sequart.org/magazine/10852/making-a-dirty-breast-of-the-matter-part-2/ http://sequart.org/magazine/10852/making-a-dirty-breast-of-the-matter-part-2/#comments Fri, 20 Apr 2012 11:00:49 +0000 Gene Phillips http://sequart.org/?p=10852 I want to focus on one remark made by Kelly Thompson in the essay “No, It’s Not Equal,” regarding the inequitable objectification of male and female characters in superhero comics: “If women, like men, were… [more]]]> 28 http://sequart.org/magazine/10687/making-a-dirty-breast-of-the-matter/ http://sequart.org/magazine/10687/making-a-dirty-breast-of-the-matter/#comments Wed, 28 Mar 2012 11:00:03 +0000 Gene Phillips http://sequart.org/?p=10687 In “Pulp Friction” I addressed the logical problems inherent in the position of those fans I called “anti-pulpsters,” who oppose, in one way or another, the presence of extravagant sensationalism in superhero comic books. As… [more]]]> 58 http://sequart.org/magazine/10455/pluralistic-pulp/ http://sequart.org/magazine/10455/pluralistic-pulp/#comments Thu, 22 Mar 2012 11:00:19 +0000 Gene Phillips http://sequart.org/?p=10455 Like most writers, I enjoy seeing one of my assertions independently confirmed by a critic working in a parallel vein. In “The Growing of Adult Pulp,” I demonstrated some differences that separated “pulp fiction” from… [more]]]> 0 http://sequart.org/magazine/10438/invasion-of-the-character-snatchers/ http://sequart.org/magazine/10438/invasion-of-the-character-snatchers/#comments Wed, 14 Mar 2012 11:00:08 +0000 Gene Phillips http://sequart.org/?p=10438 In literature, I would say that it’s different. I would say, and it might be splitting hairs, but I’m not adapting these characters. I’m not doing an adaptation of Dracula or King Solomon’s Mines. What… [more]]]> 7 http://sequart.org/magazine/10322/the-return-to-the-new-52-and-the-new-adult-pulp/ http://sequart.org/magazine/10322/the-return-to-the-new-52-and-the-new-adult-pulp/#comments Fri, 09 Mar 2012 12:00:53 +0000 Gene Phillips http://sequart.org/?p=10322 In “The New 52 and the New Adult Pulp,” I endorsed the notion of mainstream comics embracing their heritage (yes, heritage) of extravagant sensationalism. A few months have passed, and it’s evident to me that… [more]]]> 3 http://sequart.org/magazine/9964/consumption-junction/ http://sequart.org/magazine/9964/consumption-junction/#comments Thu, 16 Feb 2012 12:00:54 +0000 Gene Phillips http://sequart.org/?p=9964 Human activity is not entirely reducible to processes of production and conservation, and consumption must be divided into two distinct parts. The first reducible part is represented by the use of the minimum necessary for… [more]]]> 0 http://sequart.org/magazine/9846/meeting-with-bosses-old-and-new/ http://sequart.org/magazine/9846/meeting-with-bosses-old-and-new/#comments Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:00:22 +0000 Gene Phillips http://sequart.org/?p=9846 [Marshall] Field asked, “What do you want?” [Milton] Caniff didn’t even have to hesitate. “I told him full ownership [of Steve Canyon] and full editorial control.” – “Setting the Stage,” by Chris Jenson in Steve… [more]]]> 2 http://sequart.org/magazine/9945/the-power-ring-and-the-comic-book-part-4/ http://sequart.org/magazine/9945/the-power-ring-and-the-comic-book-part-4/#comments Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:00:53 +0000 Gene Phillips http://sequart.org/?p=9945 In part 1 of this series I wrote: When DC Comics issued their refurbished versions of such characters as the Flash and Green Lantern, the heroes still fought assorted “done-in-one-story” menaces while the narratives remained… [more]]]> 0 http://sequart.org/magazine/9212/the-power-ring-and-the-comic-book-part-3/ http://sequart.org/magazine/9212/the-power-ring-and-the-comic-book-part-3/#comments Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:00:26 +0000 Gene Phillips http://sequart.org/?p=9212 Green Lantern #18 reads like something of a reprise of issue #11, with Sinestro once again playing mind-games on the hero and luring him to Qward as well.  This time, Hal Jordan begins to show… [more]]]> 0 http://sequart.org/magazine/9178/the-power-ring-and-the-comic-book-part-2/ http://sequart.org/magazine/9178/the-power-ring-and-the-comic-book-part-2/#comments Thu, 05 Jan 2012 12:00:55 +0000 Gene Phillips http://sequart.org/?p=9178 Green Lantern #3 makes the Weaponers of Qward the hero’s first repeat villains, as the extra-dimensional villains create an illusion to aid them in stealing Green Lantern’s power battery. The issue’s “B-story” is perhaps played… [more]]]> 0 http://sequart.org/magazine/9053/the-power-ring-and-the-comic-book-part-1/ http://sequart.org/magazine/9053/the-power-ring-and-the-comic-book-part-1/#comments Thu, 29 Dec 2011 12:00:46 +0000 Gene Phillips http://sequart.org/?p=9053 Whenever a critic speaks of any popular work as possessing a “mythology”—a term often applied to serial, fictional narratives—the most common objection is that popular fiction is too “low”—as in, “created for the lowest common… [more]]]> 9 http://sequart.org/magazine/8994/stan-lee-presented-part-3/ http://sequart.org/magazine/8994/stan-lee-presented-part-3/#comments Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:00:57 +0000 Gene Phillips http://sequart.org/?p=8994 In Part 2 of this discussion of editor / writer Stan Lee’s contribution to the creative process in the era of Silver-Age Marvel Comics, I argued that Lee had done far more than just dialogue… [more]]]> 0 http://sequart.org/magazine/8501/o-captain-not-my-captain/ http://sequart.org/magazine/8501/o-captain-not-my-captain/#comments Tue, 13 Dec 2011 12:00:30 +0000 Gene Phillips http://sequart.org/?p=8501 Captain America: the First Avenger—henceforth abbreviated to Captain—is a fairly entertaining film that illustrates both the advantages and disadvantages of applying real-world verisimilitude to comic-book superheroes. It’s axiomatic that comic books, particularly in their mode… [more]]]> 0 http://sequart.org/magazine/7864/stan-lee-presented-part-2/ http://sequart.org/magazine/7864/stan-lee-presented-part-2/#comments Tue, 06 Dec 2011 12:00:42 +0000 Gene Phillips http://sequart.org/?p=7864 In the previous installment of “Stan Lee, Presented,” I argued that Stan Lee had functioned as a “truly creative editor” during his tenure as editor/writer at Marvel Comics.  I argued that the process by which… [more]]]> 0 http://sequart.org/magazine/7639/stan-lee-presented/ http://sequart.org/magazine/7639/stan-lee-presented/#comments Thu, 24 Nov 2011 12:00:40 +0000 Gene Phillips http://sequart.org/?p=7639 “A creative producer is very involved with the writing, even though he does not do the screenplay and is not the author of the original material.  You work with the writer, you guide the writer,… [more]]]> 3 http://sequart.org/magazine/6348/the-growing-of-adult-pulp/ http://sequart.org/magazine/6348/the-growing-of-adult-pulp/#comments Thu, 17 Nov 2011 12:00:35 +0000 Gene Phillips http://sequart.org/?p=6348 In “The New 52 and the New Adult Pulp,” I asserted that DC’s new line followed the sensationalistic tradition of American pulp magazines, upon which most (though not all) early American comic books modeled their… [more]]]> 0 http://sequart.org/magazine/5690/the-new-52-and-the-new-adult-pulp/ http://sequart.org/magazine/5690/the-new-52-and-the-new-adult-pulp/#comments Thu, 10 Nov 2011 12:00:31 +0000 Gene Phillips http://sequart.org/?p=5690 “Thriving on unconstrained creativity, held accountable to few standards of logic, believability or ‘good taste,’ the pulps were literary dream machines, offering regular entry to intensive worlds of excitement, danger, glory, romance.  Each brittle page… [more]]]> 5 http://sequart.org/magazine/6231/how-to-level-a-lumpy-playing-field/ http://sequart.org/magazine/6231/how-to-level-a-lumpy-playing-field/#comments Tue, 01 Nov 2011 11:00:45 +0000 Gene Phillips http://sequart.org/?p=6231 In The Linking Myth I stated that I thought that the Jungian approach to understanding the myths in all the stories humans tell proved superior to any linguistic analysis. Or, to put things in a… [more]]]> 5 http://sequart.org/magazine/6199/why-thor-soared-and-the-lantern-failed/ http://sequart.org/magazine/6199/why-thor-soared-and-the-lantern-failed/#comments Thu, 27 Oct 2011 11:00:12 +0000 Gene Phillips http://sequart.org/?p=6199 Movie theaters in the summer of 2011, like most summers for the past 30-something years, were dominated by films heavy on crowd-pleasing elements, with particular attention to heavy FX content. Unlike many other summers, the… [more]]]> 3 http://sequart.org/magazine/4808/seeing-through-spectacles/ http://sequart.org/magazine/4808/seeing-through-spectacles/#comments Thu, 29 Sep 2011 11:00:58 +0000 Gene Phillips http://sequart.org/?p=4808 Julian Darius’s essay Hollow Spectacle cites a current DC comic for its overuse of meaningless spectacular scenes, such as a scene in the recent Justice League #1, in which Green Lantern uses his power ring… [more]]]> 2 http://sequart.org/magazine/5160/man-of-steel-woman-of-legs/ http://sequart.org/magazine/5160/man-of-steel-woman-of-legs/#comments Thu, 22 Sep 2011 11:00:55 +0000 Gene Phillips http://sequart.org/?p=5160 Given how often Superman and Batman have been paired into dualisms ranging from “day and night” to “Apollo and Dionysus,” it’s surprising that in the second week of DC’s “new 52” they paired the Grant… [more]]]> 0 http://sequart.org/magazine/4734/clash-of-the-mythologies/ http://sequart.org/magazine/4734/clash-of-the-mythologies/#comments Thu, 15 Sep 2011 11:00:49 +0000 Gene Phillips http://sequart.org/?p=4734 I can appreciate someone like Chris Ware for his artistry, which I think is beautiful, but I think his attitude stinks, it just seems to be the attitude of somebody really privileged, and honestly, try… [more]]]> 11 http://sequart.org/magazine/4161/the-linking-myth/ http://sequart.org/magazine/4161/the-linking-myth/#comments Tue, 23 Aug 2011 11:00:58 +0000 Gene Phillips http://sequart.org/?p=4161 So why do I claim that “archetypal criticism” should be a principal (if not exclusive) means to understand the connections between mainstream and art comics?  Talk of “archetypes” implies the idea of mythology, whether cultural… [more]]]> 0 http://sequart.org/magazine/2892/the-future-of-a-re-fusion/ http://sequart.org/magazine/2892/the-future-of-a-re-fusion/#comments Tue, 02 Aug 2011 12:00:13 +0000 Gene Phillips http://sequart.org/?p=2892 Not long ago, I saw a post on the the Comics Beat by former Comics Journal contributor Robert Boyd remarking upon the virtual separation of the world of “mainstream comics” and “artcomics.”  Boyd didn’t comment… [more]]]> 0 http://sequart.org/magazine/531/chief-concerns/ http://sequart.org/magazine/531/chief-concerns/#comments Thu, 20 Jan 2011 13:00:34 +0000 Gene Phillips http://sequart.org/?p=531 Back in October 2010, Scipio of the Absorbascon wrote an impassioned salute to the character Niles Caulder (a.k.a. “The Chief”) of the 1960s comic Doom Patrol by Arnold Drake and Bruno Premiani. As a longtime… [more]]]> 0