If I or anyone else “called her to task” for “complaining”, it’s because statements like “We don’t see more literary quality in comics being published today because too few critics treat comics as serious literature and art”… it’s because those statements are oblivious to the reality of what’s being written out there (as well as, of course, decades of history, market forces, etc.). And because they blame a convenient scapegoat (ooh, bad critics! bad!) for the failings of creators and, more importantly, the failings of publishers.

Claiming that people who recognized that were “a cozy circle of publishers, comic book stores and readers, and it seems there are many who like it that way” … Yeah, no, it’s because I don’t get it! I’m part of the problem! Brian Hibbs is throwing a cuddle party and you’re not invited, New Yorker readers! The cozy circle demands more pablum! We demand pablum because we are so cozy!

I mean, after all, isn’t that what every comic creator has done? Waited for the oh-so-influential comic critics to create an audience for them before going off and creating literary comics…? If I weren’t elbow-deep in cozy circle wetness, I’d see that. But spending years and years slowly creating a literary comic page by page– that’s something people would only do so they can get hosannahs from comic critics, so without us– it all falls apart! The center does not hold!

I read things like “new readers are … those people who do not go to comic book stores”– I just don’t even– is that English? What do those words mean? Wait, so new readers DON’T go to comic book stores already? I thought new readers were people who went to comic book stores already– you know, the people who are just there for the ambience. DOES NOT COMPUTE. DOES NOT COMPUTE!

If only the Cozy Circle included more regular people who think “pull box” is a porn genre– next year. Next year, we’re getting Buffy the Vampire Slayer on that top ten list, and Kim Dietch can suck on it.