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There are many wonderful sites on the Internet where the casual or serious fan can enjoyably explore the world of comics, but for every standout example of sanity, there are ten or more online locales that no one should visit unaware, and that greatly offend the TRUE AND KINDLY SPIRIT OF COMICS.

Comic book veterans will be familiar with most of the following destinations already, but as a public service for our less knowledgeable readers, and with apologies to Dante Alighieri, we offer this guide to the nether regions of the comics blogosphere. We call it:

THE NINE CIRCLES OF COMICS INTERNET HELL

Um, this is all meant in good fun, of course.

CIRCLE THE FIRST. LIMBO

Here is the final destination of the honorable pagans, excellent and admirable comics bloggers whose only sin lies in their worship of false gods (i.e., crappy comics). Bully, Mike Sterling of Progressive Ruin, and David Campbell of Dave’s Long Box are only three of the more prominent members of this dignified and respectable but misguided group.

CIRCLE THE SECOND. THE LUSTFUL

The denizens of this circle can be found in many places, and they frequently haunt the less-traveled reaches of eBay .

CIRCLE THE THIRD. THE GLUTTONOUS

To be fair, I am not really familiar with the contents of this blog, but the writer does claim to buy upwards of 100 comics a month, and frankly, he’s asking for it.

CIRCLE THE FOURTH. THE GREEDY

This one is too easy.

CIRCLE THE FIFTH. THE WRATHFUL

Probably the most common of sins in the world of comics fandom, the overly angry and vengeful can be found almost everywhere. Honorable pagan Graeme McMillan has since moved on to greener pastures, but the archives of his defunct Fanboy Rampage still catalog many of the most egregious offenders from past days.

CIRCLE THE SIXTH. THE HERETICS

Dave Sim is the obvious choice here, but other than an unreasonably high admiration for the art and influence of Neal Adams, his heresies are mostly confined to matters unrelated to comics proper. So, even though he probably doesn’t deserve the attention, I direct you to this guy.

CIRCLE THE SEVENTH. THE VIOLENT

One of the most dangerous destinations on the internet, populated almost entirely by vandals, blasphemers, and the suicidal, COMICON.com’s The Gutters has carved out a sure and safe berth in the seventh circle of Hell.

CIRCLE THE EIGHTH. THE FRAUDULENT

Flatterers, panderers, false prophets, and would-be seducers abound in the eighth circle, effortlessly presided over by John Byrne. There are many lowlights.

CIRCLE THE NINTH. THE TREASONOUS

For attacking anyone with the temerity to question the critical wisdom of middlebrow thumbsucker Time magazine (a publication that previously gave us this less-than-astute pick as worst of the year, lest we forget). For burning his “Comics Elitist Fan Club membership card”, a clearer sign of treason than anyone has the right to ask for. (And on that holiest of days, Christmas, no less!) For, less than a week later, excommunicating a fellow blogger from the ranks of the “insanely interesting”, merely for jokingly (obviously) poking fun at an established figure. Most of all, for apparently believing that a book or genre’s financial success is proof of its artistic worth, and entitles it to be exempt from all criticism (at least as long as it sits well on his hobbyhorse). For knowing better. In the ninth circle of comics internet hell, ladies and gentlemen, I give you Dirk.

(Please allow me, as the aforelinked Jacob Covey once did, to affix a 😉 emoticon here, and also to inform all readers that this is commonly accepted as an indicator of facetious intent.)

DISCLAIMER: These views do not necessarily reflect those of Dan, Frank, any other contributor to Comics Comics, or even myself. Complaints should be directed elsewhere.

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I recently picked up Darwyn Cooke‘s Spirit and Batman/The Spirit. Cooke specializes in nostalgia-inflected revivals of superheroes. His mini series New Frontier was an epic re-imagining of the DC Comics heroes. It was good fun–a light, affectionate version of Watchmen. I’m not sure it adds up to much more than beautifully drawn fan-fiction, which, minus the “beautifully drawn” is more or less what a lot of superhero comic books are these days. In Cooke’s case, the drawings really make the work. His style is the best version of the contemporary strain of comic book drawing that began with Bruce Timm‘s Batman animated series. Influenced by the design atmospherics of Alex Toth and, in a later generation, the smooth renderings of Steve Rude, it’s a cartoon language that embraces the dynamism inherent in superheroes while glossing over the violence and darkness that has been so prevalent in comics in the last 20 years or so. I like it for its elegance and it’s always-1920s look (even if that clean nostalgia feels extremely easy), but am slightly put off by how sexless and toothless it is. Toth had bite, especially in his pre-1970s work, with grit piled on top of his impeccable formalist sense, while Cooke smooths out all the rough edges, replacing all tension with a soft-focus nostalgia for an imagined past. But really, I buy most of Cooke releases, just to peek at the elegance of the drawing. With these two comics, though, I realized that problem is that appeal is, in fact, just the drawings.

The two Spirit comic books, both with Batman and without, are fun exercises, but feel soulless, like a storyboard more than a story. The Batman/Spirit emphasizes the humor in both characters, but does little with either, and The Spirit comic just demonstrates that the fun of that character was not super heroics, but rather the incidental, O’Henry-esque stories creator Will Eisner used the Spirit as an excuse to tell. But more interestingly, while the drawings are, as usual, slick and fun to look at, it turns out that Cooke isn’t a great comic book storyteller. Comic book storytelling requires pictures that flow into one another, and a sense of the page as a whole. Cooke, however, thinks more like the animator he once was, creating single isolated moments in sequence, as opposed to groups of pictures that work together. His panels are often crowded with information, weighing them down in a way that works against his smooth surfaces and slick drawing. It’s a curious problem–a good cartoonist who can’t quite frame a story. The similarly talented Steve Rude suffers from it too. I wonder if that level of polish simply works against the flow of comics. It’s over-determined, in a sense, preventing the motion of the story and keeping readers at a remove. Toth worked in a cartoon shorthand, always emphasizing both elegance and minimalism and allowing readers to enter the story with him. Cooke, in his eagerness to describe every bit of his nostalgic world, over-renders, weighing it down and leaving the rest of us to watch with disinterested curiosity.

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From John Kricfalusi.

[UPDATE: Damn slow RSS readers! Apparently Eric Reynolds beat me to this by hours, but I honestly had no idea! He always beats me…]

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Let’s talk about your schooling. Why did you flunk out in 10th grade?

I think it was pure boredom. I loved girls [smiling]. I loved comic books. And for reasons I don’t understand, I was pretty lazy.

Incidentally, I don’t think I’m going to do very many more of these, except on the rare occasion that I come across something particularly interesting and/or surprising.

I don’t want to get too “Up With Comics” or anything, you know? And that was becoming a distinct and imminent danger.