Originally published June 8, 2001, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1438
Well, well… Wizard’s got itself some attention, hasn’t it.
The comic computer boards lit up when Frank Miller torn up an issue of Wizard in the course of his speech at the Harvey awards. The same refrain was heard repeatedly: Wizard had it coming. Wizard’s a piece of garbage. Every axe anyone had to grind with the magazine, every bone that had already been picked over, was resharpened and dusted off and brought out again. Because, y’know, “Frank Miller is a legend in the comics industry” (as Wizard president Fred Pierce told us) and when Frank Miller takes aim at you, you know you’ve been shot at.
Did Wizard deserve it? Well, in terms of editorial styling, I’ve had serious problems with the magazine of late. There’s this tendency to diss the readership, the concept being that since the Wizard staff considers itself overgrown fan geeks, it’s therefore permissible and acceptable to treat fans of the magazine with comparable contempt. “We make fun of ourselves, therefore it’s okay to make fun of you.” Except it’s not. It’s tacky and rude and, if nothing else, bad business, because sooner or later your audience will realize you’re sneering at them and take a hike.
And then there was the time that I took Wizard to task in these very pages, citing a myopia in a “Top Twenty Greatest Moments in Comics” article which didn’t go much past 1980, as if Lee/Kirby (for instance) never produced anything truly memorable. Within six months from publication of that column, I’d vanished from Wizard’s “top ten writer’s list” and the magazine ran in quick succession wildly slanted negative reviews of both Young Justice and Supergirl that had fans of both titles asking me, “Geez, why does Wizard hate you all of a sudden?” Three guesses, kids.
Are there other problems with the publication? Yeah. I’ve got problems with it.
But you know what? I have problems with Frank’s visual aid stunt, too. And since I hold Frank Miller to a far higher standard than I do Wizard, that makes those problems greater.
Frank had some quality things to say, some valuable points to be made. But as if he didn’t trust any of them to be memorable—as if he didn’t have faith in the ideas he was expressing—he tossed in an inflammatory stunt which absolutely demanded that people attend his words. What was the headline in CBG? “Frank Miller rips Wizard—literally.” Right on page 6. Would the speech have made any headlines at all, sparked any discussion, without the stunt? Maybe. Maybe not. By tearing apart the magazine, however, Frank eliminated any possibility that the speech would be overlooked. As a result, his other points got attention paid to them where they might not have before.
Here’s my problem with it:
I don’t like seeing the printed word get ripped up in public.
I don’t like seeing publications—whether I like them or not, agree with them or not, think they should be landfill or not—I don’t like seeing them being destroyed. To respond to ideas with more ideas, to respond to free speech with more free speech… that’s the way this democracy we live in is supposed to work.
Except it doesn’t, and we’ve seen it all too often. We’ve seen the book burnings, with masses of people gathered ’round a bonfire, hooting and hollering and tossing Huck Finn and Catcher in the Rye on the flames. We see these actions and we, as supporters of a much maligned, often-attacked art form, shake our heads or shout into the wind that to physically destroy printed matter is the first, best refuge of the morally bankrupt; of those who are so intolerant that the mere existence of a particular kind of publication is an affront to them.
Is Wizard on a par with Huck Finn? God no, of course not. And hey, it’s only Wizard, right? A soulless publication put out by a soulless publisher, aimed at nine- to fourteen-year-olds, trite and facile, right? Why it’s… it’s stylish to bash it, trash it.
But consider for a moment: If Joe Lieberman stood up on the Senate floor tomorrow, held up a copy of Sin City, declared it to be a book “written by Satan” and ripped it to shreds, and the Senate applauded the action… why, we’d be up in arms. We’d be flipping out. “Written by Satan?” we’d demand. “Is he nuts? Where the hëll does he get off?” And we would say that because Sin City is art and Wizard isn’t, and Frank Miller is a legend, and Wizard isn’t.
And we would be as full of crap as Lieberman.
I don’t question Frank’s passion, or his sincerity, or his fervent belief that the future of comics—if there is to be one—lies in the hands of creators with a greatness of vision and the determination to see it through. That the salvation of the industry is going to come through them rather than movie versions of mainstream superhero comics. (Although on the other hand, I would venture to guess that CBG’s most popular writer, Alan Moore, didn’t refuse to cash the check for the From Hëll movie, nor did James O’Barr for The Crow.) I don’t question Frank’s integrity.
No, I question the methods by which he chose to get his message across, because I think it was beneath him, and it also left him on a very slippery slope.
“Even though this monthly vulgarity reinforces all the prejudice people hold about comics—they cry to all the world that we’re as cheap and stupid and trashy as they think we are—we sponsor this assault,” said Frank.
What does that mean, “sponsor this assault?” That we cooperate with it? Let ourselves be seen in it? So if Wizard, slammed for concentrating solely on mass market superhero material, called Chris Ware about doing a Jimmy Corrigan article, should Chris hang up on them, because to do the interview would be “sponsoring” them? Kind of a dámņëd if you do, dámņëd if you don’t situation, wouldn’t you say?
And what “people,” precisely, are being referred to? Since Frank’s talking about “prejudice,” and prejudice is only formed by those who haven’t truly been exposed to something (hence “pre-judge”) one can only conclude that he means people who don’t read comics.
Except I haven’t seen any issues of Wizard being held up on the nightly news and indicted as wildly inappropriate or stupid or trashy. There might have been; I don’t pretend to monitor all TV news and newspapers everywhere. I just haven’t seen it or heard about it.
I have, however, seen such words as cheap, trashy, stupid—and worse—applied in news items to the collectible talking toy of Sin City’s Marv being electrocuted. Yes, I know, it may seem unfair to mention it, since it’s not actually a comic book. Then again, neither is Wizard.
And hey, mom and dad, pull the lever and make Marv light up! Watch him fry! Listen to him sneer contempt at his executioners! Watch every prejudice of every parent who considers such a device cheap and stupid and trashy be inflamed when seeing this bizarre little apparatus in action on the 6 o’clock news, available for sale at the local comic shop where their little Bobby can ogle it or play with the one on display. And… oh my God… it came from a comic book? You can fairly hear the parents say, “But, but little Bobby’s Wizard magazines made comic books sound so… so… so… fun.”
Because ultimately, in the words of the late, great Douglas Adams… Wizard magazine is mostly harmless. And Sin City mostly isn’t. And of those two publications, if either is going to prompt “all the world” to get upset about comics and reinforce prejudices, it’s the latter.
Frank Miller is a leader of this industry, and we expect our leaders to lead by example. The question is: Should that example be one that’s acceptable when indulged in by someone we like with a publication we don’t… but unacceptable when done by someone we don’t like with a publication we do? If we follow that example, embrace that belief… we’re all on that slippery slope together, and speaking for myself, I can’t say I like the footing.
Let he who is without Sin…
(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY, 11705.)
Scott Shaw! (I think) had a cute bit at the Eisners that year where, aping Miller, he ripped up a copy of the Overstreet Price Guide. (Or tried, anyway, since the thing’s about as big as War and Peace.)
I met Frank a few years ago at, ironically, a Wizard World Chicago (I don’t think it was the same year I met you there,Peter.) And while getting Jim Lee and him to sign All-Star Batman, I had the idea of getting him to tear in half and autograph a copy of Wizard. He was quite amused, as was Bob Schreck, who seemed to be serving as Miller’s handler. Miller was enthusiastic about doing it, but I didn’t follow through,mostly because there was too much other stuff to do to stand in line twice. But the idea did make them laugh uproariously.
Frank Miller has long since burned through whatever respect for him i developed in his “Daredevil” days.
Frank Miller torn up an issue of Wizard in the course of his speech at the Harvey awards.
My first thought, of course, was to Sinead O’Connor, and the fact that right now Frank Miller is probably viewed as the one who’s completely lost his mind.
In O’Connor’s case, she claimed it was to shine a light on the massive child abuse that the Catholic Church was (and by all accounts) still involved in.
Why did Miller rip up a copy of “Wizard” I think PAD nailed it: to get attention and whatever his points were (and probably are) lost to the ages.