Saturday 8 September 2007

The word police.

Yesterday I said I'd give a talk on the 'graphic novel' without using the actual words. That's my strategy for avoiding some of those clots who inhabit the subculture of comic books and who are eager to argue about the meanings of words at the drop of a hat. Such was the nameless clot who arrived in my comments box two days ago and served me a 221 word defintion of the word 'graphic' in a confrontational way, and when he refused to sign a name to two subsequent comments became the first person to be ejected by the bouncers here at campbell.blogspot. The bar had to be closed down after that. Apologies to anyone who wanted to throw in their two cents, not leastof all hayley campbell who emailed me to say: "what a fucking twat." It's a good job I threw the sap out before h.c. started on him, that's all I can say.
I suppose other areas of human endeavour also have their nitpickers and self appointed civil servants who make sure that everything is kept in order, and that none of this is unique to my own chosen field. However In a perfect world I would walk down the street and people would say: 'there goes Eddie Campbell, a man with some interesting notions.' But what happens is that a bloke gets on his cell-phone and says, "I just saw Eddie Campbell, the graphic novelist."
"The what?"
"The graphic novelist."
"What's that?"
"Can't you just Wiki it?"
" uh,... okay... thanks for roning."

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9 Comments:

Blogger drjon said...

That wanksplat had a lucky escape. Myself, I would have unleashed her with relish.

8 September 2007 at 00:37:00 GMT-5  
Blogger drjon said...

...I wonder if it were the same idiot who was ranting about Platinum Grit being rubbish, some time ago.

8 September 2007 at 00:40:00 GMT-5  
Blogger Paddy Brown said...

What particularly annoys me is the use of the term "trade paperback" as if it meant anything about anything other than the binding. Watchmen can't be a "graphic novel" because it's a "limited series" collected as a "trade paperback". Aargh.

8 September 2007 at 04:45:00 GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The splendid chaps at Penny Arcade summed up the anonymous comments syndrome perfectly:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19

I don't know if Blogger allows this but one of the (many) nice things about WordPress is that you can block comments abusers by IP so you don't have to put a stop to the whole conversation.

8 September 2007 at 08:27:00 GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

8 September 2007 at 12:47:00 GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

8 September 2007 at 13:21:00 GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

8 September 2007 at 13:23:00 GMT-5  
Blogger James Robert Smith said...

Bouncy bouncy. Squirt.

Word Police. Reminds me of the time I was on a panel with someone who was working for, as I recall, Marion Zimmer Bradley and she droned on and on about the definition of a novelette and a novella. Gods. I almost got up and left.

8 September 2007 at 15:57:00 GMT-5  
Blogger Bobby.N said...

Wil Eisner was quoted as saying that comics (in this day-&-age) were a misnomer. There's nothing 'comic' about them - which is why he was always looking for another term. He's referred to as the godfather of the graphic novel - but i can't really judge.

Personally, when I was a teenager, the comic books of the big 2 held my interest very briefly. I only became 'hooked' on the MEDIUM in my 20s when i discovered more mature themes were possible with it.

The medium is hard enough to explain to the layperson without having to endure the blank/strange facial expression of people whose first reaction is 'superheroes'. With all the garish movies being made from comics these days - i feel like a 1940's German being judged only as a Nazi.

Bobby.N

10 September 2007 at 19:13:00 GMT-5  

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