Pope searches for literary quality in comics
Paul Pope blogs at the First Second website:
Each facet of the comics medium is important and deserves its own special consideration, but it’s the writing in comics I’m thinking about right now. I often wonder why we don’t see more literary quality in the comics being published today, why we don’t have a John Steinbeck or Robert Penn-Warren in our medium, authors who can unfold a filagreed theme across an extended storyline and touch on that ineffable shade we call “the human condition.” Where are our Sam Hamiltons, our Willie Starks, our Jack Burdens, our Cal Trasks? It may simply be that good writing is rare. It is also entirely possible that most comics creators are simply unconcerned with developing literary themes in their work, favoring instead sweeping epics of good versus evil, populating their paper worlds with colorfully costumed heroes and villans invested with very little psychological complexity or self-awareness. It may be that most people who are attracted to the medium want very little more out of life than to draw pretty pictures, tell exciting, splashy stories, and get paid for it.
