13
for Thirteen
I recently read Ready Player One
by Ernest Cline. O.K., it was a 'book on CD,' but still effort (when was the
last time you spent fifteen hours and
forty-five minutes listening to anything?). Ahem. Cline's story takes place in
a dystopia where the only respite from a cafeteria of catastrophes is the 'Oasis,'
a virtual reality that is as lifelike as life, but, you know, not. All of the
characters -- Wil Wheaton narrates so, everyone sounded to me like Gordy
LaChance -- are only known to each other by their user names in the Oasis and
not their 'real names.' To sacrifice one's anonymity in Ready Player One, to tell someone your 'real
name' is sacrosanct, a holy thing; and face-to-face contact, outside of the
Oasis, is nearly verboten. This is, I’m well aware, a long wind-up, so here's
the pitch: I've never met Justin Giampaoli or even heard his voice, we live on
opposite sides of the continent, but we communicate over email and Twitter
several times a week, which has given me the (false?) impression that I know
this guy … he's one cool cat, a tastemaker and the kind of writer (and blogger)
that I hope to, one day, emulate. The characters in Ready Player One bond over nineteen-eighties ephemera and video
games, they are the dearest of dear friends and yet they never meet [spoiler!]
until the darkest of dark hours. At Thirteen Minutes, Justin's blog, I've found
an oasis myself, maybe more like the ancient library of Alexandria, a place
where an encyclopedic knowledge of comic books (current and past) stands
shoulder-to-shoulder with shrines to favorite writers and artists and all of it
curated with carefully-crafted criticism that is never lazy, dispassionate or
dismissive. When I asked Justin if I could send him some questions, he was
game. He did mention that he thought bloggers
interviewing bloggers was the nadir of … blogging, but that didn't stop him
from writing some six thousand words. So, think of this as one of those
old-school Rolling Stone interviews
(Justin offered up old-school Esquire) from the '80's or better yet the '70's, a quasi-rambling conversation that reads
like the best B.S. session, the type that occur in the small-hours
between fast-friends, who have never met.
Sophisticated Fun: What’s the significance behind the title of your blog, 13
Minutes?
Thirteen Minutes: I should have a better canned answer for this, but I don't.
It was a confluence of three different things in my brain. First, when I lived
in the San Francisco Bay Area, I used to frequent an award-winning comics shop
in San Jose called Hijinx Comics, which
was owned by an intrepid and charismatic fellow Silicon Valley Refugee named
Dan Shahin. He used to tell me that there doesn’t have to be much symbolism
behind a name, it just has to sound cool. He'd say "what would you
rather do, visit 'Dan's Comics' or [and he'd move in real close and whisper
this with a wild-eyed subversive smirk] come be a part of "the wacky hijinx?" It was just about standing out from the crowd.
Dan actually gave me my first paying job reviewing comics for his retailer
web-site around 2003 or 2004, essentially giving me store credit for whatever
books I wanted to review. Second, I just didn’'t want the word "comics" in the
title. Originally, I had lofty aspirations of getting more people involved and
cranking out music and movie reviews too (something I'd done in the past), for
a wider stab at pop culture. Lastly, it's a nod to a really obscure DC Comics
character named Traci
Thirteen. She came close to a brush with popularity a few years ago in a
book called Dr.
Thirteen: Architecture & Mortality by Brian Azzarello & Cliff
Chiang.
SF: You were writing (and writing about) comics books before
starting 13 Minutes in November of 2005. How has blogging changed
how you think and write about comics?
TM: When I started the blog, I felt like there was a big gap in
the market. On one end of the critical spectrum, you had the sometimes haughty
erudition of the Art Comix essays at TheComics Journal. On the other end, it was the largely vapid frat boy humor
of Wizard Magazine. I didn't feel
like anybody was writing the types of reviews that I wanted to read, that
reflected my personal reading habits. My reading interests always varied widely
based on my social circle on the fringes of the industry. I mean, I can
absolutely get down with the latest Tom
Neely book from Sparkplug Comic
Books, but I'd also like a fucking decent X-Men book once in a while, you
know? I just remember thinking about reviews that 'I could do this as good, if not better,' than what I was currently
seeing online. This is part of the reason I really miss the short-lived Comic
Foundry, a magazine that Tim Leong and Laura Hudson (now EIC at Comics Alliance)
put together. It bridged that gap pretty well.
Now that I’ve been blogging a few years, I think one
substantive change is that a whole crop of other writers have come along to
fill that void I perceived. I'll just rattle a few off, but there are people
like David Brothers, and Andy Khouri, and
Abhay Khosla, and Sean T. Collins, and Kelly Thompson, who have all elevated
the review game and the level of discourse, yet kept it totally accessible at
the same time. The Comics Journal has even changed its format and leans a
little closer to center now. Brothers, for example, will go from reviewing Marvel's
Immortal Iron Fist to Brandon Graham's King City, weaving in all sorts of music
and pop culture references, without skipping a beat. In fact, some of his most
interesting posts are about race relations and may only tangentially touch on
comics. I love that there seems to be less compartmentalization. People just
follow their passions, wherever they lead. These writers are coming at reviews
with all sorts of abstract approaches, generating interesting and entertaining
content. Maybe it's time for me to move on to the next thing.
To answer your question a little more precisely, reading
comics for 30+ years and writing about them for over ten years has made me cautiously
optimistic. When I start thinking that I've seen it all, that it's rare
something will come along and surprise me or inspire me, it's then that I'll
find a book or creator that does just that. I find that I like considering
things critically, I like articulating a thoughtful opinion. It's not enough to
say, "I like this" or "I don’t like this," I want to know why it does or doesn't
work. I see a lot of overlap here with my day job, where I’m largely a
problem-solver, coming into organizations in a leadership capacity, or externally
as a consultant, and really identifying organizational effectiveness, strategy
flaws, process breakdowns and communication problems.
I also noticed, and this is just within the last couple
years of reviewing/writing -- for three sites concurrently -- something about my
reading behavior. It's that reading to review is a much different experience
for me than reading for pleasure, for pure entertainment. Being deliberately
conscious of my reactions and constantly cataloguing pros and cons tends to
push me out of the work a little. Sometimes I have to remind, or force, myself
to give in to the process, to surrender to the story in order to fully enjoy
it. I'll make an effort to worry about organizing my thoughts when I'm done,
rather than in real-time as I'm reading. I hate that distracting feeling,
reading a book and thinking "ohmygod what
am I gonna’ say about this?!" Sometimes, I yearn for that total immersion,
reading just for sheer love of the game. That's one of the marks of a great
book for me today; if I reach the last page and suddenly realize that I was so
captured by the art and swept away by the narrative that I didn’t even remember
to jot down a single note or type a single word.
SF: You've written mini-comics and you have others in the works,
but you are primarily a critic. How has your criticism affected/influenced this
(other) creative work of yours?
TM: It goes both ways. Having written comics and self-published
them has definitely tempered much of the snark in my reviews. Not all, but
most. Snark for the sake of snark is pointless. It's cheap and fast and common,
and I'd rather produce something more lasting. Having struggled with scripts, hammered
out the dialogue, done my crappy stick figure thumbnails, worked with artists,
and dealt with printing, distribution, and marketing headaches, all that, even
on a very small scale, makes you understand what creators go through. I mean,
nobody sets out with the goal of making a shitty comic. Yet it happens all the
time. Even in a comic that does not work at all for me, even if I give it a
poor review, I always try to find balance. I always try to find something
positive to sandwich in between all the negatives if I can, or to comment on
what the creator was going for and how it must have fallen short, just to
acknowledge the blood, sweat, and tears that goes into any creative endeavor.
On the flip side, having been in the review trenches for a
while has really honed my eye. I look back on the first couple comics I did and can really find some flaws critically. They were
done with reckless abandon, trying to hit deadlines for certain shows or whatever,
more obsessed with getting them done than how
they got done. And while there's a certain raw flair to that young brash
bravado, they do possess technical problems that I'd love to correct if I knew then
what I know now. Still, making your own mini-comic is actually something I'd
encourage any reviewer to do. Sometimes I see some reviews that point out
problems with the "art," but what they're really picking up on has nothing to
do with the pencils. It might be an inking or coloring or printing problem, but
they can't even discern that because the reviewer doesn't grasp the fundamental
process.
SF: By their nature, blogs are personal statements, opinion. How
do you maintain a line between your opinions and maintaining some
degree of critical distance when it comes to blogging?
TM: In the early 00's, I did some writing for the long-defunct Savant Magazine, which was a
self-described "Comics Activism" site that advocated some very guerrilla
marketing ideology. It was a cultural touchstone at a very precise moment in
the history of online criticism. At the time, a (then) little-known writer
named Matt Fraction used to hang out there. Savant
was really the first time I saw the audience collectively pushing back on
creators in a meaningful way. We were just coming out of the Hologram-Die-Cut-Cover-Polybagged-Spawn-Pog-Death-of-Superman-Trading- Card-Speculator-90's.
These writers were demanding better
content. Aggressively. They were indie friendly, but not at the exclusion of
Big Two Comics. They just wanted quality; the source was irrelevant. These
writers weren't afraid to call out crap as "crap." Conversely, they weren't shy
about shouting the praises of a good book from the rooftops. I mean, this stuff
was actually enumerated in the mission statement of the site, a site which got
"retarded hits," as Fraction likes to say in interviews, and drew a lot of
attention. Point being, they were not afraid to voice a strong opinion, but
backed it up with evidence. I loved that. It taught me something.
To answer your question, I don't think I do, to tell you the
truth. I don't try to consciously maintain a line between opinion and critical
distance. I blur the line. That's what really drew me to blogging in the first
place: that you have the creative freedom to speak your mind, without being
beholden to an editor, or a house style, or a specific format, or some type of
journalistic detachment, or fear of alienating sponsors, or whatever. I want to
write about work I'm passionate about, and passion is very personal and
subjective, so I don't think it's intellectually honest, or even logical, to
position an intimate response as being objective. Now, my personal sort of work
ethic is that I will always try to back up my opinion with facts. You're
entitled to your opinion, but not your own set of facts, so I try to use that
as common ground. Before I say the art sucks, I'll try
to find at least three instances of that -- because as my high school stats teacher
Mr. Embry said "three points make a trend" -- to support my statement. If the
perspective or proportions are flawed, and I can cite evidence of that in
multiple panels, then it's hard to argue the point if I can position it as
fact.
One of the only real hard and fast "rules" I had to impose ethically
is that I won't promise anybody a good review. Period. It could be a creator
friend I've known for years or someone I just met at a con. I do promise *a* review of anything I’m comp'd on,
but I can only promise my honest opinion, which could ultimately be positive or
negative. I've actually had a
few guys challenge me on this, situations where creators at cons would offer me
a comp copy *wink* *wink* in exchange for a positive review. It's like, sorry,
but I don’t need free comics that badly. I've actually had to turn people down
and have gotten into mild philosophical arguments over this kind of Faustian Deal. I've
had some creators even get really mad when I pointed out typos in their work.
That's just ridiculous to me. There's no shortcut. Clearly these people are not
serious about comics, don't understand how the press works, and are not
interested in improving their craft. To
me, it's worth the risk of offending someone if it means that they can trust
that every word is my true opinion. It also means that they can actually
believe me when I compliment their work.
SF: You compare discovering new comic books (i.e. good comic books)
to panning for gold. Does the internet make finding comics easier or does it
make it more difficult due to too much information and/or too much noise/distractions?
TM: Both. It makes the access easier. Meaning I can find things
online, I can look at an informal network of recommendations, I can make purchases
online, I have access to work that I probably wouldn't be exposed to because of
my routine habits, or because of geographic proximity. But, it also makes the filtering
process more cumbersome because of the sheer volume. The issue isn't a lack of
content you enjoy, it’s how do you filter through the sea of other content
you're not interested in? When EVERYTHING is available, how do you find
SOMETHING? How do I find Ryan Cecil Smith’s reinterpretation of
Matsumoto Leiji’s 1979 sci-fi comics amid the morass of YA manga out there, all
the European sci-fi comics, all the mini-comics distributors online, and
Dynamite Entertainment’s mediocre Voltron series? How would I even know that that
book existed? I think Warren Ellis
referred to this as "the attention economy" of the internet. You're not necessarily
fighting for market-share in a financial sense, but for mind-share, for
people's finite attention span. When you can look at anything, but can't
possibly look at everything, how do you decide where to focus? In my experience, you find voices you like, you gravitate toward them, and ultimately
you place some trust in them. You do this with enough sources and suddenly
you've built a customized network of credible opinions that can help you
navigate the overloaded thoroughfares of the information superhighway. For
example, Don MacPherson has been a comic book reviewer for a long time. He has
a loyal following. He's got journalistic training, so there's a very fair and
reasoned and objective slant to his reviews. I appreciate what he does from a
technical standpoint. But, he and I rarely agree on comics. If he likes a book,
I usually won't. If I like a book, he'll usually slam it in a review. It rarely
fails. I’m also not entertained by his writing, which I find to be pretty dry
and rote. [Sometimes, even if I disagree with what a reviewer is saying, the
delivery will be so entertaining that I’ll follow their work anyway. I'd put Tucker Stone in this category]. So, just for
me personally, I don’t put a lot of weight in Don’s critical feedback. Now,
someone like you comes along and says hey, maybe consider checking out The Strange Talent of Luther Strode and voila! I buy it, because the source of that opinion
has established credibility with me. On the creative side, the same rules largely apply. If a
creator like Noah Van Sciver or Julia Gfrorer puts out a new mini-comic,
I'm first in line. It's an automatic purchase, something I don’t even think
about or hesitate on, because these creators have a long track record of
entertaining me, of making me think about the world differently, and sparking
some very interesting critical responses. I trust them as creators not to
disappoint.
SF: I'm impressed at your dedication to post new reviews on
Wednesdays. There are a lot of mainstream sites
with legions of reviewers,
why do you make such an effort to be timely and what does the blog gain from
your efforts?
TM: Well, sometimes it'll stretch to Thursday or Friday, but
there's definitely a commitment to weekly
review posts, so thanks. When you really look hard, so many comic book sites
just don't consistently do regular ol' weekly reviews. Sometimes I question the
value that reviews actually add, if they ever really "move the needle" in a
significant way. Initially, this was another one of those gaps I saw in the
market. On the rare occasion I'd find a reviewer whose style I liked, I'd read weekly
reviews for a bit, and then their sites would just stagnate for long periods,
seemingly abandoned. Nobody goes back to those sites. The gain for me is that
successful blogs are consistent. There's something to be said for reliability
and fresh content. I mean, love it or hate it, you know if you come to Thirteen Minutes, there's going to be at
least three new posts or so every week. That said, it's definitely a balancing
act between timeliness and quality. There are weeks when I feel I'm sacrificing
a little quality or in-depth analysis just because I want to get something
posted. On those occasions -- when I really feel like I have something more
to say -- I'll go back and do a deeper dive on a graphic novel or collected
edition or whatever. And, it's instant gratification really. When I see a good
movie, I immediately want to talk about it with my friends and family who've
seen it, or encourage them to go see it if they haven't. I want to go read what
Roger Ebert had to say about it, so there's also that larger social aspect,
wanting to instigate or participate in a conversation.
I also think that not only am I trying to offer efficient
and skilled reviews, merely for the end goal of the discourse itself (because
writers are compelled to write, not for fortune, not for glory, but because
they simply can’t not write), but
because I want the audience to know if a book is worth their time or
hard-earned money. I believe I'm a part of the filtering process. That's why I bother attaching grades to the reviews. I hate getting to
the end of a review that's degenerated into nothing more than a plot summary,
and being left with the "ok, but is this
any good or not?" question. Some people think that the letter grades
objectify the work or simplify the review process, but it's not meant to
diminish the gravitas of art. It's just a consumer guide, and everyone has
their own rating threshold for perceived value. So, for the audience that finds
me a credible voice, I can help filter out the crap and point them to titles
they should be supporting or are otherwise unaware of. On the creative side,
I'd like to think creators who trust me and want honest feedback are being
offered some small measure of value too. The reviews will either confirm that
their intent was achieved, or flag something they might tweak in the future, or
even just consider subliminally in their process the next time they sit down to
create.
SF: Other than honesty (and an internet connection) do bloggers
have a responsibility to their readers or the writers and artists they cover in
what they contribute to the critical conversation?
TM: I hate to overlay a business model onto your question, but I
think a blogger's degree of responsibility to readers and/or creators depends
on what they're getting paid to do. If you're working for one of the bigger
sites like CBR or Comics Alliance in some paid gig, then
you absolutely have a responsibility to write with the tone, format, and
timeliness you were hired to do. I've had editors who were sticklers for things
like listing all the creator credits, and the price, and the page count, etc.
If that's what I'm being paid for, that's what I produce. That's boring to me,
though, and I don't do that at Thirteen Minutes. It's more conversational in
tone, like I'm telling one of my friends about the book.
If you're not being compensated in some fashion -- and that
professional arrangement doesn't apply -- then I think it comes down to the work
ethic of the personality involved. For me, yeah, I believe I do have a
responsibility to my readers and to the creators who bother to investigate the
critical feedback I provide. I think that's what creates loyalty: knowing
you're going to get a reliable, thoughtful, and honest opinion, one that's
hopefully halfway intelligent or illuminating, and one that you'll hopefully be
entertained by in the process.
However, there's a limit to that sense of obligation. I like people who have contrarian opinions, and I like getting
comments and feedback, even if they disagree (in a civil manner) with me. If you consistently don't like what I'm saying and just want to engage in
mindless argument, then don’t read my site, pick another of the thousands of
comics blogs to harangue, or start your own damn blog. I have very low
tolerance for blatant sniping. All of these troll comments are "tales told by idiots, full of sound and
fury, signifying nothing." Sorry, I had to work in a literary reference in order to establish my
street cred around here.
SF: You review comics from both mainstream and independent
publishers, but how did you get involved reviewing mini-comics?
TM: I’ve always reviewed mini-comics to some degree, because of
the books I came across through friends or acquaintances in the Bay Area, which
has a very vibrant indie scene, and then supplemented that with finds at
conventions, store signings, etc., but it really took off when I joined Poopsheet
Foundation in 2009. I'd actually sent one of my mini-comics, Blood Orange, in for review to Rick
Bradford, who owns the site. Rob
Clough, a reviewer I really respect, ultimately did review a pair of my
mini-comics, but Rick discovered Thirteen
Minutes in the process and asked me if I'd be interested in a reviewing
position. It's been a very deep dive into that corner of the medium. So far, I've done something like 320 mini-comics reviews at the Poopsheet Foundation alone. I guess word spread, because now I'm getting mini-comics creators
from all over sending me their work directly.
The "panning for gold" analogy certainly applies. In the
mainstream, the ratio of silt/gold is probably 90/10. For mini-comics, the
ratio is even more ridiculous because things are being produced at such an amateur
level the majority of the time. The ratio is probably more like 5%, yeah, I'd
say that one in twenty mini-comics, on average, will grab my attention. That's the small pool of the crème de la
crème in mini-comics. I was following creators like Tom
Neely, Trevor Alixopulos, Katie Skelly, or Austin English prior to my involvement
at PF, but without that job I can honestly say I probably never would have
discovered the work of some other creators like Lauren Barnett, Brendan Leach, Patrick Keck, Kelly Clancy, Mari Ahokoivu, or Mike Bertino.
SF: Can mini-comics benefit from digital distribution?
TM: From a business perspective, digital makes all the sense in the world. From
crowd-funding tools like Kickstarter, to gauging reprint demand for work
initially published online, to outright digital distribution like DC, Marvel,
and the other majors are currently doing, it's absolutely worth exploring. I
think that's the direction that the industry is experimenting with right now, though
it's far too immature a model to measure the long term viability and effects of
yet. From the content perspective though, I think print is just endemic to the
true comics experience. I want the tangible object. I love books. It's tactile and very sensory. I want to be able to hold the
physical thing, flip it, feel it, touch it, smell it, open it, run my hands
across the spine, see the paper quality, the way light hits the ink, the print
quality, put it in my back pocket, chuck it in the recycling bin when I hate
it, stack it on a shelf, give it to a friend. When you talk about mini-comics,
I think that’s even more the case. There's such a wide variation in styles and
format with minis, embossed covers, letterpress printing, newsprint format,
hand-assembly, inventive construction techniques, silk-screened covers,
different bindings, the list just goes on and on, and all that diversity, that
joie de vivre, would be lost with a digital model. Artistically, I think it
would be a major blow to the appeal of what makes mini-comics intrinsically mini-comics, purely as unique objets d’art.
SF: One of the premier critiques on 13 Minutes is The Brian Wood Project. In a post from
December 2005, you wrote, ''Impressive
debut [Local]. Brian Wood’s scripting
finally starting to grow on me.'' How did your appreciation for Wood go
from ‘growing on me’ to writing the introduction to the trade paperback (available June 6,
2012) for DMZ Volume 12: ''The Five
Nations of New York''?
TM: I think 2005 was a turning point for Brian creatively. I’d
read Channel Zero in 1997, Couscous Express in 2001, and Pounded in 2003, and I liked them all just
fine, but it wasn't really because they were branded for me as "Brian Wood
books." That idea wasn't in my vernacular yet. Honestly, at that time, I was
reading so much at that time that I
probably didn't even make the conscious connection that they were all written
by the same guy. I came in late to the serialized Demo singles in '03 because it was getting so much buzz, especially
in the Bay Area, where the original publisher AiT/PlanetLar was located.
I'd just moved to San Diego and started the blog in 2005,
which was coincidentally right when Local
and DMZ started. It was like something
just clicked in my brain. Suddenly, there was Brian Wood. Dude spoke to
me, what can I say? I just *got* what he was doing on an intuitive level. I
started to see these inter-textual connections in the work, and really identify
with his authorial voice. I rushed out and caught up on most of the other books
I'd missed. His whole creative library just fell into place and made sense to
me. [At the time] I was kind of getting mad at the comics community because I didn't think
he was getting the acclaim that he deserved. The name "Brian Wood" had suddenly
become synonymous with quality comics, and he became a creative voice, an
aesthetic, that I was loyal to -- straddling that sweet spot between indie
swagger and mainstream appeal. Local was
probably closest to a universally praised book from him, and Oni Press
ultimately published this gorgeous oversized hardcover. DMZ is still his longest running book to date at seventy-two issues, one of the
longest in Vertigo history, and it garnered all kinds of mainstream press
because of its social relevance.
I reviewed the crap out DMZ
and Local, and followed suit with
reviews of Supermarket and Northlanders when they began in '06.
Brian is very media savvy, found the reviews, and we started some online
correspondence which was initially very sporadic. I remember him pushing back
on a review of Northlanders and
clarifying what his intentions were with the script. I think we first met in
person in 2007 at San Diego Comic-Con. Honestly, my first impression of the guy
was that he was kind of aloof and dismissive. In hindsight, having a brief
conversation with someone on the tail end of a con marathon, who is likely
jetlagged and burnt out of talking to other humans probably isn't the ideal
setting to form the basis of a meaningful opinion about someone. Haha! I've
also learned in the years that have passed since, that we're probably alike, in the
sense that oftentimes people who don't know us well can mistake our quiet
confidence and self-reliance for disinterest or arrogance.
In 2010, I wrote The
Brian Wood Project after repeatedly joking that I wanted to write a
Brian Wood book, one that examined the consistent themes running in his work. I
guess that sort of cemented our burgeoning friendship. We're not 'besties' or
anything, but there's mutual trust there. I've really learned a lot from him
about how the industry works and about placing value in your own intellectual property.
LIVE
FROM THE DMZ became a reality in 2011, and when plans for the final
volume of DMZ began in late 2011 for
a mid-2012 release, the short story is that the collected editions editor
approached me as a sort of "DMZ
historian," and offered me the work-for-hire assignment. I'll gush and say I
honestly can’t wait for it to come out. It’s a piece I'm really proud of, and it's
such an honor to not only bring the final volume of the series home, but to
have a high profile forum to comment on it within the context of his larger body
of work.
SF: How did ''Live from the DMZ'' come about and how did you get
Brian Wood and the other creators in the series to agree to come on-board the
project?
TM: DMZ is such an
achievement for Brian and an important cornerstone in his library that I think
he felt like it should be commemorated in some way. There were a number of
different ideas that got kicked around, from print to existing online outlets,
and for one reason or another, those just ultimately weren't feasible. With me
as a blogger and Wood a fervent proponent of creator rights, we were both drawn
to the creative control that a dedicated site offered. The idea was always that
the audience would be getting a "backstage pass" with "director's commentary,"
an in-depth examination of each collected edition, and never before seen bonus
materials. I hesitate to use the term "fan site" because that just sounds weak
to me, and it's so much more than that. My inability to conjure a concise
descriptor just proves how unique it is. There really isn't any precedent for
it, or a commonly accepted name for it, and I always felt like we were breaking
new ground. I was kind of amused with how Wikipedia tried to describe it, as “a canonical companion site curated by
Justin Giampaoli.”
With the other collaborators, I just got their contact
information and asked. They were all eager. Brian and everyone who participated
were so generous with their time and content. I was able to reel in most of the
other collaborators, even Senior Editor Will Dennis, who is rarely allowed to
participate in interviews like that. The others that really stand out in my
mind are Jeromy Cox, Nathan Fox, and Kristian
Donaldson, who is now working on The
Massive with Brian at Dark Horse. Kristian actually created an original
piece for the site, which totally blew me away. I think it underscores what
a special book this was, even for the people who worked on it. The only way I
can think of to improve the great experience I've had would be for DC/Vertigo to
announce they were publishing the series in their Deluxe Edition Hardcover
format. I mean, regardless of my slight involvement, it’s a rich title like 100 Bullets, like Y: The Last Man, and like Ex
Machina, that deserves that treatment. My little pipe dream is that DC
would acquire the LIVE FROM THE DMZ
content and include it all as definitive bonus material, and keep those suckers
in print forever. That’d be the perfect icing on the cake for me.
SF: How do you think 'getting to know' an author or artist
affects your objectivity as a critic?
TM: For the most part, I think it actually helps, which may
sound counterintuitive at first glance. I believe, the more background information
you have on a person, the more you can understand how their personality --
what cultural anthropologists call their "culture of origin" -- the more you can see how it informs their work. It adds
another layer of meaning to analyze. For example, sometimes I joke with Brian
Wood that his writing changed when he had kids, [I believe] you can see traces of it in Northlanders. Another friend, Ryan Claytor -- who self-publishes an
excellent examination on autobiography in comics in the series And Then One Day -- became one of my best
friends after we met at an in-store signing. I still have a professional comics
relationship with him because of our temperaments. He knows that I'm going to
review his work fairly and honestly, and I know that he's genuinely open to
feedback and improving his craft. We actually did an interesting
exercise where he posted one page a week of one of his new comics prior to
printing, and I reviewed each page in-depth as they debuted, inviting his
readers and mine to chime in. It allowed for a more personal and unique
reviewing experience because of our relationship, one that probably couldn't
have existed otherwise. We're all adults. I mean, I don’t think the reviews
skewed positive just because he's a friend. If anything, it's made me a better
reviewer because when I do find the occasional opportunity for improvement, I
have to position it as very factual and measured and in the least off-putting
manner, so that it really fits the bill as constructive feedback. I think the
relationship between creator and critic should be symbiotic and mutually
beneficial when it's working like it should. This kind of relationship is something I'm continually
striving toward with more creators.
SF: How long have you been using Twitter to promote your blog
and how did readers find 13 Minutes pre-Twitter?
TM: I can be such a Luddite when it comes to technology, which
is surprising considering that I spent eleven years working for a Fortune 100 high-tech
company. The real issue is that I don't like spinning my wheels. I avoided
Facebook for so long because I saw what happened to MySpace. The thought of
learning all the intricacies of some new social media tool, only to abandon it
once it fades into obscurity, is not appealing to me in the slightest. I'm
still not on Facebook, and I honestly feel like Twitter is the new Facebook,
though I'm sure something will inevitably come along to make Twitter obsolete.
I came late to Twitter in November 2011, so I've actually
only been on a few months. I'm still very much a Twitter newbie and I don't think
I"ve really found my groove yet, but, even in the first three months when I
looked at the metrics, it's literally doubled traffic to my site. Essentially, I'm
just doing condensed versions of what I do at Thirteen Minutes, telling followers what to look out for on the
stands that week, very condensed micro-reviews in 140 characters or less, and
then pointing them to the full review. I try to make creators aware
too by sending out tweets to them and hunting for that precious RT. Originally, Twitter was part
of a longer term contingency, that if I ever stopped blogging at Thirteen Minutes, I could use Twitter in
its place, wholly, or at least during a transitional period to a new project, or
site, or whatever the next stop was.
Pre-Twitter, it was a much slower, a much more manual process,
[most] by word of mouth. In
the early days, I was also very diligent about emailing creators or even
publishers when I'd post a new review, until I subjectively deemed I was sufficiently
on their radar. That led to some pull quotes early on (one last plug, for Wasteland,
you always remember your first pull quote!) and built something of a creator
base, but I don’t do that anymore, especially not with the ease of Twitter
functionally doing the same thing. Overall, I'd say I've found Twitter similar
to blogging in some respects, in that it's been a nice way to demonstrate
knowledge, establish credibility, network with like-minded individuals, and
exert some degree of influence on the things I’m passionate about.
Read Thirteen Minutes at http://thirteenminutes.blogspot.com/ and follow Justin on Twitter at @thirteenminutes.
This interview was conducted over email.
My sentence in
graduate school only served to deepen my love for essays especially things like
'Bullpen Bulletins' and letter columns in the back of comic books. So, for all
the business The Goon #39 takes care
of up front, the party (for me) was in the back. Powell's column, 'Correspondences
and Whatnot with Eric Powell' finishes what The
Goon starts and in some ways it's less subtle and a lot less funny. Powell
writes: ''Out of the top 1,000 comics sold in the US in 2011, 24 were not Marvel
or DC superhero titles. (Sales
figures found on ComiChron.com).'' That's a staggering statistic, but it begs
for a comparison to other print industries -- of the top 1,000 selling books, how
many were sold by corporate owned publishers?. I don't subscribe to Powell's
doom and gloom forecast that if Disney and Warner Brothers decided that comic
books weren't as profitable as licensed products (toys and bed sheets) than
comic books would cease to exist, but maybe he's right. Even the least robust
revenue stream still makes money, right? If movies and TV have taught me
anything, it's that corporations aren't above milking a trickle. I like to
think about comic books like the dinosaurs (no pun intended) in Jurassic Park. All the dinosaurs were bred to be female in
order to halt reproduction, but as Jeff Goldblum haltingly says, ''nature, uh, finds a way.'' The Goon #39 (and Powell) champion
creator-owned comics over corporate-ownership and that's fine, but it does make
me rhetorically (naïvely?) ask who doesn't support creator-rights? Oh, right,
us.
