Bill Maher’s anti-fan rant

Bill Maher has informed us, both on Twitter and again last night, that comic books are for kids and that fans of them are basically stunted individuals who are unable to accept adulthood.

So let’s talk about fans.

Fans love to argue. They are particularly big on arguing who their heroes can defeat. And periodically they gather in large crowds, sometimes numbering over 50,000. They pay ridiculous entry fees to get in, and many of them dress up like their favorites. In the places where they gather, they cheer on their respective faves, chant together, eat and hang together. They buy a ton of merchandise, dropping hundreds of dollars at a time. And if they’re lucky, they get autographs and go home happy. Hëll, on rare occasions they even attend parades dedicated to their heroes.

And that’s just Mets fans.

It’s also Yankees fans, and Phillies fans, and Dodgers fans, and Jets and Giants fans, and Knicks fans, and so on throughout the country.

Hëll, Bill Maher even profits off it, since he bought a minority share of the Mets in 2012.

And all these games…they involve balls. Isn’t that interesting? Large ones, small ones, that get bounced or hit or thrown. Balls, which are–as you know–one of the favorite toys of babies.

Yet interestingly no one, not even the profiting Bill Maher, ever accuses sports fans of being juvenile. Of being overgrown children. Get a whole bar riled up about Yankees versus Red Sox and no one is going to say, “My God, grow the hëll up.”

That’s because, as Neil Gaiman pointed out, if you have stories told via words alone, that’s books and the realm of adults. Have pictures by themselves and that’s art, and also for adults. But the moment you combine words and pictures, áššhølëš believe that that makes it entertainment purely for children.

I’ve said this before but it bears repeating: comic books aren’t juvenilia. Comic books are modern myths. The definition of a myth is something that is defined within its own essence. If you ask someone, “Who is Gomez Addams?” they will reply, “He’s a character created by cartoonist Charles Addams.” IF you say, “Who is Superman?” people will likely respond, “He’s a superhero, the last son of Krypton, with the secret identity of Clark Kent.” In the same way that if you ask who Hercules is, you’ll be told that he is a half-god born of Zeus having an affair with a mortal. You don’t put it in context of its creation; you define it as itself. People who find Spider-Man fascinating are just as valid and adult in their interests as someone who studies Arthurian legend. The fact that it’s happening in modern time and we know who the creators are doesn’t make it any less mythic.

Nor is the multi-billion dollar success of their movies proof of their crossover appeal, according to Maher. “They’re all the same!” he declares, asserting that ALL comic book movies are about superheroes fighting over “glowy” things (like athletes fighting over a ball, remember.). The short answer is, Yeah, right, “Black Panther” is just like “Wonder Woman” (neither of which involved anything glowing.). The longer answer is, Yeah, right, super heroes fighting over glowing things is sure an accurate description of Men in Black. Or Road to Perdition. Or Kingsmen. Or V for Vendetta. Or From Hëll. Or 300, Sin City, American Splendor, Atomic Blonde, Ghost World, Dredd, Scott Pilgrim vs the World, and on and on.

BUT, Maher further asserts, comics aren’t literature. Well, let’s figure that out. The dictionary definition of literature is: written works, especially those considered of superior or lasting artistic merit. So what’s lasting merit? It seems reasonable to assume that it’s obvious: something that lasts. That transcends generations. So since Action Comics #1, which was produced over eighty years ago, still has resonance, that would seem to satisfy the definition, as does Spider-Man who was created fifty-five years ago. But perhaps it’s deeper than that. Perhaps to be literature, it must be critically acclaimed. Like Watchmen was when it won the Hugo. Like Sandman when it won the Bram Stoker award. Like Maus was when it won the Pulitzer.

How many Pulitzers do you have on your shelf, Bill?

I’m not pìššëd øff with Maher because he went off on a rant about fans. God knows I’ve done that myself. I’m pìššëd øff because he went off on a rant that was factually wrong, demonstrably inaccurate, and incredibly unfair. His words come from ignorance, and I wish to God he would do something, anything, to educate himself.

PAD

58 comments on “Bill Maher’s anti-fan rant

  1. Maher also said, I think this is verbatim, “I’m not sad Stan Lee is dead, I’m sorry you’re alive.” Meaning all of us who love graphic novels and comic books. I asked him via Tweet, if you’re sorry I’m alive, does that mean you’d be happy if I were dead?” I’ve been a Bill Maher fan for decades. This isn’t just saying “comics are for children,” he said, he’s sad comics fans are even alive. Did a rotating-rack of comics fall on him when he was a kid, or something?

  2. While I’m a Bill Maher fans, he does have his blind spots and irrational beliefs and moments of pomposity. That whole spiel was pretty bad, and struck me as an attention-seeking thing, kind of like…oh, Ann Coulter, who shockingly was also on the show. He let her run roughshod over him, reducing him to going “but” or “umm” as she rambled on, instead of doing what he was done to other guests, “Shut the fûçk up!” I also wished she was on the panel to watch Dan Savage rip her a new one.

  3. I know I have never understood this. Comic books aren’t really my thing (although I love the Star Trek New Frontier ones but that is because I love New Frontier.) But I have absolutely no problem with those that do enjoy them. You are right about sports and that fact it is sports seems to make everything okay. I think everybody should be able to enjoy what they enjoy. As long as no laws are being broken, they are not hurting themselves or other people what’s the problem?

    1. Alison – “Comic books aren’t really my thing”

      They used to be mine. For many years I’d pick up several monthly titles, both in Marvel, DC as well as some independents (ZOT, anyone?).

      That was then. Sadly, I’ve all but given up on the genre thanks to the publishers’ deciding that fans want dark, gritty, ‘edgy’ (whatever that means) rather than the lighter, fun versions we had in the days Claremont/Byrne or Keith Giffen’s run on JUSTICE LEAGUE EUROPE. Anyone remember the fall down funny JUSTICE LEAGUE ANTARCTICA? Or the great evening class issue where the JLE, trying to improve their French skills, wind up in the same class as their nemeses? Only to have both sides browbeaten by their formidable teacher? When was the last time we saw a break of this sort from doom and gloom?

      1. Well, there was “Young Justice”. A title that might be familiar to a lot of people here. Including our most gracious host. And there are quite a few others.

  4. But, PAD. Sports are enjoyed by manly men and trashing your city in celebration shows how masculine they are, while comic books are something only read by nerds.

  5. Even if we keep the discussion to super heroes, you are talking about a genre that celebrates doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do. Not a bad life lesson in my opinion.

  6. More telling, I think, is how vociferous his defense of Hugh Hefner after he died, when people were dismissing him as a misogynist and pornographer. He seems to miss the irony of defending Playboy, which people dismiss as being for males arrested in adolescence, while demeaning comics as being for children.

    1. I think Hefner was a more complicated person than the Intersectional Feminist Left wants to paint him as.
      .
      Just one example, Hefner was a supporter of the civil rights movement and integration in the 1960s, when racial segregation was still all the rage. He also supported gay marriage in more recent times.
      .
      Yes, he was not, by most definitions of the term, a feminist. But I don’t think that makes him 100% a villain and I don’t think that it paints Maher in a bad light just for wishing to defend Hefner (though, knowing how much of a a-hole Maher is, I have no doubt that his “defense” of Hefner painting both of them in an even worse light).

      1. I don’t think the flaw in Maher comes at defending Hefner. To an extent Hef was forced into having pornographer surpass his legacy as a publisher of smart material.
        I think the place where Maher is to be scrutinized is that he can’t see the parallel with Lee.
        That there was a person marginalized for where they contributed, and overlooked for what.
        The hypocrocy of ignorance, comes from not accepting that he could make thesame poor choices as those who belittled Hefner’s import.
        Also, Hefner was a comic and sci-fi fan. Which I think makes the split even worse and insulting to both figures.

      2. Oh, I see.
        .
        Yep, I can now see the parallel with Stan Lee. And how our boy Maher would fail to see it.

  7. Bill Maher is, arguably, the Rush Limbaugh of the Left. Perhaps even the Hannity of Liberals. Calling him the Progressive Steve Bannon might be, perhaps, a little excessive (if only for the fact that he’s never actually been someone’s primary political adviser), but comparing him to Ann Coulter wouldn’t be too much of a stretch.
    .
    In short, he’s kind of an awful example of everything we stand for, and he needs to go away before he Trumpifies the Left.

    1. Oh, please. Maher is NOT part of “the Left” except in the most tangential of ways. Yes, he was a big fan of Obama’s but he didn’t really begin his move to becoming “the Left’s Spokesman” until the GOP took charge of Congress in 2010 (yes–I realize the Senate remained in Democratic hands until 2014 but GOP Senators did everything they possibly could to thwart Obama’s agenda once the House fell to the GOP).
      Maher has always–ALWAYS–positioned himself as a “libertarian” more than a straightforward “Leftist” (if the Trump administration dropped every bit of opposition to marijuana legalization and Trump himself signed an executive order fully legalizing pot, you’d see Maher’s opposition to Trump virtually evaporate). He’s politically savvy enough to understand there’s really zero chance of anyone becoming President without being a “Democrat” or a “Republican” so he’s always aligned himself with the FACTION that most closely positions itself to his own personal views which, like many so-called heroes of “the Left,” tend to be a lot more selfish and self-serving than TRUE Leftists advocate; like Glenn Greenwald, Maher is willing to ignore things that don’t PERSONALLY affect him unless he can use them against the people he feels are “enemies” (I didn’t see Greenwald, for instance, talking or writing too much about the “security concerns” of his adoptive homeland Brazil even as that country was actively spying on its own people but, of course, Greenwald couldn’t attack the Obama Administration–and Hillary Clinton as well–enough for failing to completely dismantle America’s “spy network”; similarly, Maher was pretty quick to criticize the Obama Administration for “spying on its own people” even as he was quick to support “spying” on American mosques and American Muslims without ANY justification). Maher’s very quick to attack religion in general but he seems particularly perturbed at Islam while largely ignoring American Christians at various levels in American government (from the federal down to the local level) who routinely seek to impose “Christian law” on the country (and, if Maher does occasionally do the latter, he doesn’t display the same level of antagonism towards Christians in general; he recognizes it’s just a proverbial few bad apples–with Muslims, though, there’s almost always an underlying belief that they’re ALL “the same” and ALL are terrorists or terrorist supporters).

      1. Yeah. I agree.
        .
        I think part of it is this: for many decades, Christian identity has been mingled with being a Republican. And people who identify as secularists are automatically thought of as leftists, and people who are committed atheists like Maher are thought by many to have even MORE leftist cred.
        .
        This has always been a faulty assumption, because right-wing Libertarians are another group that usually scorns religion. The fault in the assumption has become even more evident since 2001 and the arrival of New Atheism onto the scene. Richard Dawkins always sounded vaguely Social Darwinist to me, yet people kept claiming he was a Champion of the Left just because he didn’t believe in God.
        .
        This came to a head with the appearance of the alt-right, many of whom are at once rabid right-wing and rabid anti-religion. Lots of the campus groups who keep inviting Alt-Right figures to campi are Hardcore Atheist groups, for instance.
        .
        Being pro-Atheism has no automatic bearing on a person’s position in the Left-Right axis.
        .
        On a small tangent, while I disagree with Maher, Harris, Hitchens, and other hardcore Atheists and their anti-Muslim prejudices, I have also to admit that the Left has a problem here with equating all criticism of Islam and Islamic figures to “Islamophobia”. The ruckus about the Women’s March and some of their head folks’s refusal to speak ill of Louis Farrakhan is a symptom of this larger problem. Folks who micro-analyze anything in Western society in search of sexism and racism, do not want to even countenance the obvious: that non-Western societies, including Islamic, can be rife with sexism, homophobia and racial chauvinism too.

  8. Maher keeps presenting the mistake that comics are strictly superheroes, hence his argument. Someone should introduce him to “Maus” (if he can get past the animal symbolism), “American Splendor” and other stories based on real life. Maybe then he’d stop thinking stereotypically about them, and, as Stan Lee once wrote, lions will learn to moo.

    There was one thing he touched on that got me thinking: Outgrowing comics. I still read them, but I have a different view from many of the stories when I was younger. Not being an internet geek, has there ever been a thread on this?

    Finally, a bone to pick with you, PAD. You say Action #1 still has resonance in regards to the definition of literature. But the definition applies to the novels themselves. Action #1 is only famous for Superman’s first appearance. How many people can cite the stories themselves?

    1. I don’t think the subject or genre of the comics would matter one bit to someone like Maher. And it’s not really a defense to disown the more popular comics genres; that only feeds the prejudice. It assumes that biography and confessional is inherently superior to fiction, which in turn makes Maher’s point for him.

      1. Did he say that? I’ll have to watch it again. I certainly didn’t. I still read comics, though my tastes have changed over the years, which is what I was getting at. In the case of Maher, I was trying to point out that comic books are not simply about superheroes, even though they take up the majority. He never once talked about comics outside that genre. I’m inclined to agree with you he wouldn’t care, but I don’t think it helps to stick to one aspect of comics. I’m not disowning – it sounds like you’re feeding the prejudice by sticking to it. You’re both guilty.

  9. My belief is that this all started because people kept giving attention to something he didn’t care about, and couldn’t have that.

    He is one of the many people who have grown very fond of Neil Degrase Tyson, which is great. I would never stand in line to see him, but I certainly tune often when he is on TV, and respect his ability to breakdown complex ideas.

    But even he commented on Stan Lee’s death, mourning the loss. Someone Maher respects, how could this be?

    He feels lost, alone in his interests. Not unlike comic book fans did before 2008.

    i could point out any number of things. That he was upset that Hugh HEfner was n ot properly mourned, and he was in a similar position of how people viewed him (plus a comic fan).

    That The Senator who pushed hardest against Kavanaugh becoming on the Supreme Court, Patrick Leahy, is a HUGE comic fa. He has written introductions, and been in multiple Batman films.

    That he has stated himself to be a fan (and friend for the creator) of Family Guy, a cartoon that has a talking dog, fart jokes, and pop culture references, tied together with gross out humor.

    But it should do no good, and he wouldn’t care, even on the off chance he read it.

    Many people know the stereotypical guy who wishes he as still in high school, but Maher is the guy who wishes he was still in college. His way of talking about issues, all scream college sophomore, and have for some time.

    And is there anything as painfully adolescent as trying to prove you are an adult?

    Someone stuck in the past will never accept they are wrong, or mistaken.

    Of course, the great irony in first post, he claimed comic book type stories entering the mainstream was partially to blame for the rise of Trump (ignoring two Obama terms, and the rise of Sanders). In reality, it was more likely him, contributing to the “Úšhølë arms race” with the right, which lead to them embracing the the big orange a-ho… a-bomb. The big orange a-bomb.

    But what gripes me most of all is what he unknowingly did in that first rant online. As you said comic fans have issues. I have seen them. We argue, and as with many things on the internet, we go to far sometimes and come off as monsters. We hurl accusations and unflattering buzzwords.

    However, when Stan died, we were all united. Comic fans were all one, and making nerd come together in those numbers is dámņ near impossible.

    But that issue died down, but why bring it back now? My guess is that Black Panther was nominated for an Oscar this week, and he feels that a superhero movie’s nomination may somehow make giving people who play pretend golden statues, and had a standing ovation for a pedophile look silly.

    Was Bill Maher a jáçkášš? sure. But that is nothing new.
    Comic fans are getting insulted. This is nothing new. I may be the youngest person here, having been born in the late 80s, and I still won’t tell dates that I read comics until they are nice and invested.

    I suppose the little win we all get is that HBO’s biggest cash cow, is a high fantasy saga, created by a guy who loved comics, openly mourned Stan Lee, and who was fist published by a comic book fanzine… with art by Thanos dad, Jim Starlin.

    The fact is nerds cling to comics, fantasy, and science fiction for a reason. The hyper-reality allows you to explore issues in new ways. Stoke the imagination. Move beyond the every day. To see things beyond the obvious, and think differently.

    In short, there is a reason why the stereotypical nerd/geek is smart, and likes these things.

    Maher has made it clear he does not do this. You want him to educate himself, but nothing he does implies he does that beyond his own sphere.

    Well, thank you for your time, and I hope that wasn’t too much of a pain to read and decide whether to not to put up, Mr. David.

    P.S. I recommended your Mysterio story from Friendly Neighborhood Spider-man. when the topic came up. It really was a great story.

    P.P.S. I legitimately like you checking the dictionary reference. I do the same thing when someone says we don’t live in a democracy. Look it up in the Oxford English.

    1. Well, even discounting controversies about Roman Polanski, can anyone really argue that Academy Award winners like Gigi or The Sound of Music (as delightful as they may be) are any more “mature” or any less frivolous than any superhero movie?

      1. A buddy of mine sent me a video once comparing the superhero movies of today compared to the musicals of the 50s and 60s.
        It was fascinating, both were tent poles for studios. Both had insane budgets, both had memorabilia. Both were used to combat technology that kept people from going to theaters with spectacle(internet today, TV then).
        It is also important to note High Noon was nominated for an Oscar (best actor I think), and it deserved it. It was great. However, in story telling and critical view point) it could be said THOSE were the superhero movies of the day.

      2. High Noon is an awesome movie. And yeah, it too was badmouthed by lots of critics upon release.
        .
        By the way, as a rule of thumb, at least 50% of movies hailed as classics today had lukewarm-to-negative receptions in their day.

  10. The more I think about this whole situation, the more firmly I believe that Maher was voted Funniest Kid when what he really wanted was Smartest Kid In Class. He got angry at this, someone giggled, and his career path was launched. He’s an artist whose chosen medium is snark, and that’s a lonely life to live.

  11. PAD, I loved the comparision with sports fans.
    .
    I’ve felt that way for ages.
    .
    Maher has an outdated definition of what mature masculinity entails. And let me tell you, I see very little of real mature in the older model of manhood of guys from my father’s generation: guys that were crazy about competitive sports, drank huge amounts of alcohol, were unable to have real connections with their wives and children, and for all their disdain for comics and science fiction, usually read very little “real literature” either.
    .
    But in any case I feel like people are paying more attention to Maher than he deserves.

    1. Rene,

      The interesting thing about real life aspect involved. Not long ago, a right-wing pundit ws making accusations about what a man was supposed to be. Aggressive, able to fix things, not fond of fiction… you know.
      Well, I do agree everyone should be able to fix as much as possible, male or female.
      But I thought about my grandfather, oddly enough a life long Republican.
      He could fix almost everything, however he preferred to have a conversion than argue. He liked to garden. Enjoyed mysteries. Collected coins. Volunteered around his community, even teaching kids in neighborhoods with bad schools math skills for free. He liked to actually talk and get to know people he disagreed with.
      HE likely would have been called less of a man by this right-wing uber-macho commentator, despite being in the same political party (because it isn’t about that.
      My grandfather also provided ad took care of his family, including his mother -in-law who hated him. and was a WWII vet.
      It is important to be a man. A classic man. But that classic isn’t what you do in your free time, it is what you do for the people you care about. Being there for them.
      Also what you do with your principles, as I said, he helped his community, but spoke out against anti-black racism (I’m from Detroit) and antisemitism (despite being a WASP).
      I don’t get why THOSE qualities don’t outweigh hobbies in some people’s minds.

      1. Yeah, I don’t mean to badmouth my father either. He had his faults, but he wasn’t a stereotype. Sure, he had a very traditional view of masculinity, but he was totally opposed to racism, for example. Hëll, my Dad was pretty much a Liberal as compared to a lot of “Nostalgic for the old days” folks you see in the right-wing nowadays.

  12. Okay, I have to write my long rant about this too.
    .
    A few years ago, in one of my sporadic searches for spirituality, I became a little disillusioned with how many spiritual gurus promoted chastity and disinterest in the pleasures of the flesh. More specifically, the REASON they promoted this.
    .
    It was explained to me that it was very hard to tell who had achieved spiritual enlightment. How do you measure or demonstrate spiritual achievement? It was far easier to prove that you were enlightened through a negative way – by showing how much you disdained things like sex.
    .
    Of course, it soon dawned on me that folks that want to PROVE how spiritually developed they are probably are the least developed of all.
    .
    I see something very similar with Maher and guys like him. How do you PROVE you are mature? Maturity is one of those things that are hard to measure, like spiritual development. The easy and cheap way to “prove” it is to show everybody how you disdain “immature” things. And, just like with spirituality, the desire to “prove” yourself mature is a sure sign that you’re not mature at all.
    .
    By the way, I’d like to tell guys like Maher that reading comics and watching superhero movies has not stopped me from reading James Joyce’s Ulysses (though the chapter with Stephen Dedalus in the beach is hard for anyone to get through), nor has it stopped me from watching movies by Bergman, Antonioni, Godard, and others.
    .
    On the other hand, my Dad – who hated superheroes and considered them childish, like Maher – never touched real literature or artistic movies. The closer he got to artistic movies were The Godfather and John Wayne movies (that I also enjoy). There is no real connection between enjoying or not enjoying superheroes and fine artistic tastes.

  13. I think the bigger point is not are comic books worth reading. It’s how many people have seen Batman, Spider-Man and the Avengers in theaters have never read a comic book? Literacy is a huge problem in America.
    What was the last time we saw a TV show or movie then went to find the source material and read? Thankfully, I still am not going to read a Deadpool comic.

  14. This might be a good time to do a quick review of the history of comics, which will explain why they’ve gotten a bad rap over the years.

    If you go back to the earliest comic strips (Hogan’s Alley featuring The Yellow Kid, The Katzenjammer Kids, Buster Brown, and Mutt & Jeff, they first appeared for one reason and one reason only, the main reason they continue to this day in newspapers — to increase newspaper sales. Furthermore, they appeared in newspapers published by the likes of William Randolph Hearst, tabloids that no “respectable” person would read. That’s why The New York Times has never run a comic strip.

    It wasn’t until a comic strip came along that appealed to “intellectuals”,” George Herriman’s Krazy Kat, that comic strips gained some respectability. And it’s interesting to note that, though Krazy Kat, at its height, didn’t appear in that many newspapers, Hearst refused to pay Herriman any less than he paid his other cartoonists for their strips. The reason was that one of Krazy’s biggest fans was Hearst himself. It was under Hearst’s orders to his newspapers that Krazy continued to run for as long as it did, until Herriman’s death in 1944.. And it says much for Hearst that, when Herriman died, Hearst would not allow the strip to continue under another cartoonist. He knew it wouldn’t be the same strip without Herriman. Sometimes, media moguls can use their power for good.

    Now, jump to the 1930s and the beginnings for the comic book. (Yes, there were bound collections of the newspaper strips which you’ll find in Overstreet under listings for The Platinum Age. But I’m talking about the magazine format that began with M.C. Gaines.) When comic books began to produce product with original material, the artists and writers tended to be people whose skills weren’t good enough for them to succeed in the newspaper strips. And so, if the comic strips were looked down upon, comic books were considered absolute tripe! It literally took a Superman to give the industry a big boost, though respectability was still years away, and not helped by the anti-comic-book crusades of the 40s – 50s, or by the Comics Code. And it was years after their heyday that the work of people such as Carl Barks, John Stanley, Will Eisner, and others began to be honored for what they did.

    THAT’S why Maher and his like still look down at comic books. (I’ve got an older sister who, years ago, I loaned a copy of the first Sandman trade paperback. She returned it to me not long after, telling me it wasn’t worth her time. She is so anti-fantasy and anti-science-fiction that, after the AFI did their list of “100 Greatest Lines from the Movies,” she could not identify the movie that the gave us the line “I’ll get you, my pretty — and your little dog, too!” It took everything I had in me to resist reporting her to the FBI.) They grew up being told comic books are all trash, and refuse to believe otherwise. (They don’t give any credence to Sturgeon’s Law, either.)

    I do try to keep in mind that those of us who are comic book fans have to be aware that this plethora of super-hero movies, TV shows, websites, etc,that we’re experiencing is to be enjoyed while it lasts. Sooner or later, just as with westerns and secret agents, the super-hero bubble will burst. We can hope that the non-super comic book sources will continue to give us great movies, and that everyone will be reminded that’s there’s more to comics than super-heroes. (I wonder if Maher would ever try to get Gary Groth on his show.)

    But, keep in mind this history the next time you hear this argument. And, if you see the argument online or in a letter to the editor, take a moment to share this history with them.

    1. I’m not sure most people who look down on comics or science fiction are introspective enough to try to understand the origins of this prejudice. I think most of them simply see an easy and effort-free road to appear mature and sophisticated.
      .
      As for anti-fantasy prejudice, a great example in fiction is Eddie’s brother in Stephen King’s Dark Tower novels – a guy that disdains Tolkien on account of it having elves and hobbits, but loves a daytime soap opera with very implausible plots, because it’s superficially realistic.
      .
      As for the superhero bubble, I guess it must end sometime, because all things must end, but still… I’m hearing it since 2002 or so, that the NEXT summer will be the summer when people finally get sick of superheroes. Honest, I remember this being said when Spider-Man 2 was just released and X2 was being produced. It has been more than 17 years of this “fad”. This fad is legally an adult, even though the fans of this fad obviously are not adults according to Maher.

      1. I wasn’t saying knowing the history of comic books and prejudice against then would help its attackers. I was saying it might help the supporters of the medium,

      2. I see. Yeah, I agree.
        .
        You know what really gets to me? Of all the prejudiced views people nurtured in the 1950s, the only one that has not become a province of hardcore nostalgic conservatives is the anti-comics prejudice. Actually, I see more leftists nurturing that particular prejudice.
        .
        It’s ironic that a lot of Maher’s rants are very Whertan-like. Whertan called superheroes fascist, and Maher thinks comic book fans gave birth to Donald Trump. Whertan said comics would turn you into a homosexual, and Maher hints at it in a roundabout way by saying comic fans aren’t real men or something.
        .
        The only thing that is lacking is the comics will turn you into a delinquent spiel.

      3. P.S.: I’m not implying that being homosexual makes one any less of a man, though. Just that that was the sort of view prevalent in the 1950s.

  15. Are comics literature?

    My favorite answer has to be one Neil Gaiman gave some years ago, which was “I certainly hope not.”

    Literature is whatever the academic hegemony decides it is at any given time. At one time Shakespeare wasn’t considered literature; neither was Mark Twain nor Herman Melville. To be sure, there’s much of value in what has been elected as literary canon, but at the same time if, when studying the written word, you only focus on “literature” then you’re missing out on a lot of what people actually read.

    I think some comics are definitely literature; I think others are definitely not literature. On the whole, I don’t really care one way or another, and neither should you (and, for the record, I have a Master’s Degree in literature). We also shouldn’t care about what a pseudo-intellectual proto-hipster like Maher thinks we should or shouldn’t read.

    I’d say the sports analogy has the best hope of penetrating Maher’s crippling narcissism, but it probably won’t. He’s obviously the sort of guy who feels the need to chime in on discussions about things he doesn’t like or care about.

    1. Yes.
      .
      In the span of one lifetime, “genre” guys like Tolkien and Lovecraft went from being lepers to being talked about by respected academics.
      .
      Academia is made up of people, people with their own biases and prejudices. With every generation, things change enough to make the previous generation of experts all “quaint”.
      .
      I mean, the simple matter that Maher’s opinions are seen as controversial already speak for how much more respected comics are now than in, say, the 1980s, when almost anyone not directly involved with comics would have opinions like his.

      1. As far as I can remember, critics treated Lovecraft as any other writer of pulp magazines: as beneath their notice.

  16. I don’t respect his opinion because he makes overly simplified, conflated arguments. He seems to think Stan Lee represents ALL comics. It’s an idiotic generalization.

    If you’re going to have a hot take on something, at least try to have some knowledge of the subject.

    “I hate this New Math thing! I think it’s ruining the country! Now I don’t actually know all the particulars of new math and actually haven’t read about it, but I think it’s terrible!”

  17. I used to enjoy Maher. As an atheist it was fun watch another atheist go after believers. Eventually that got old and I started paying attention to other things he said and became embarrassed that he was a fellow atheist and I even grew concerned that he might be perceived as the unified public faith of atheism. The man is generally an arrogant, condescending pseudo-intellectual with little in the way of critical thinking skills.

  18. I also thought of sports when Maher decried liking things “you liked when you were ten”. Clearly it’s perfectly fine to like the things you liked when you were young, such as comics, sports, movies, hobbies…especially if along the way you open up to new interests at the same time and keep broadening your horizons.

    I also agree with PAD that Maher has blindspots for stuff like this. A few months ago he had a joke making fun of the idea that video games need writers, and to prove his point presented his own parody of a video game script, which only made him look like an old man who hadn’t seen a game since 1981.

    I like Maher’s show and enjoy a lot of his takes on politics and media, so I’m willing to forgive him for missing the mark on this topic. This is a subject he clearly knows nothing about and has no interest in learning about, so I have no problem dismissing him outright on this. I think the more extreme, hostile blowback he’s received online is not a good response. I’d much rather he be allowed to express whatever views he wants, whether or not I agree or disagree, without over-the-top outrage trying to shame or scare him into shutting up. Kevin Smith, whom Maher poked fun at in his latest rant, seems to have taken it all in stride, based on his Twitter feed, and sums up Maher as a fellow stoner who’s a pussycat when he’s actually confronted (Smith included a link to his own appearance on Real Time calling the host out for making fun of Smith’s weight).

    I think the heart of Maher’s argument, as poorly expressed as it was, is that maybe some people place too much importance on pop culture. I choose to take that point and apply it to late night talk show hosts like Bill Maher.

    1. That would be fine if he made that distinction. There’s an argument for that that I think alot of comic fans will agree with.

      Problem is, he didn’t even try to make that distinction. He was being irony man (childishly bìŧçhìņg about people who criticized him) while the irony of his own words were lost on him.

      1. It is all the more strange because it was two months after the whole thing died down, and it became a vague memory.
        I would ask if it was that stuck in his mind, but he had a whole show before hand without it mentioned. It couldn’t have been THAT big of a deal.
        It was a bit akin to a moody teenager, angrily reminiscing abut a party his parents wouldn’t let him go to two months prior, and getting worked up again.

  19. Can anyone give me a citation for exactly what Neil Gaiman said about combining words and art? I wasn’t able to quickly find it.

  20. The sports comparison is spot-on. I’ve been saying something similar for years.

    A sports fan will wear a team jersey with another man’s name on it while watching the big game. I read comics, but I don’t wear a cape while I do it!

    A sports fan will paint his face in team colors and cheer when “his” team wins. “WE won the game.” As if the fans’ devotion had anything to do with the outcome of the game. It’s pure fantasy.

    A lot of sports fans’ behavior is childish, and they follow sports for the same reason I enjoy comics: I liked them as a kid. Still do.

    I don’t know why it’s okay to still be a sports fan as an adult but not okay to be an adult comics fan. The only reason I can think of is that Bill Maher likes sports but not comics. In other words, it’s personal. It’s something HE doesn’t like, therefore WE shouldn’t like it. Kind of fascist for a liberal.

    The strangest thing about all this is that Bill’s position doesn’t benefit him in any way. With the popularity of comics-based movies eclipsing literally everything else, what’s the point in knocking something that millions of people like? What does Maher gain? All it does is alienate people who watch his show (or used to).

    With all the things in the world to be angry about (insert your own list here) it makes so sense to come out as anti-comic book.

    1. Not to mention that sports fans sometimes get into physical conflict, and in places like Europe and South America, sometimes people are even killed just because they’re supporters of a different team. As far as I know, Marvel and DC fans never came to blows over whether the Justice League is better than the Avengers. 🙂
      .
      I think what Maher gains in all this is publicity. He likes to be the rabble-rouser and to be in evidence, even if he earns the disdain of a large portion of the population.
      .
      I don’t have anything against atheists per se, most atheists are wonderful folks, but it strikes me as the modus operandi of a few of the more arrogant ones like Maher, to court controversy, to mock people who believe things that they don’t. What he is doing now with comic fans is pretty similar.

  21. One thing I’d like to add. I’ve heard that Maher believes adult comics fans all turn into rabid conservatives. I’m sure there are some comic book fans who are just that. I think it depends on what comic they read. I think those who follow Spider-Man are very different fans from those who follow Punisher.

    But I also know this: Comic books did a lot to help form who I am today as a person, and Stan Lee helped greatly with that.And one of the things it helped me with was knowing that, yes, all men are created equal. (Yes, Thomas Jefferson came up with that, but there were times he had problems putting it into practice.) From Gabe Jones in Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos (which also had Izzy Cohen) to the Black Panther, I learned that skin color, gender, religion, etc, didn’t make a better or a worse person, it was how he or she) behaved towards others that mattered. And, if there’s one thing that I took from a lot of comic books, it was that anyone could be a hero if they used what they had to make the world a better world to live in.

    Nor am I saying that all conservatives are bigots or that all liberals are not. I’ve known conservatives (especially those who have served in the military) who are steadfastly not prejudiced, and I’ve known liberals who, just because others believe in some of the more conservative political points of view, think those people must be ultra red-wing bigots.

    I grew up in one of the smaller towns of Northern Indiana, and I attended school with some out-and-out prejudiced rednecks. (I should mention that, in Southern Indiana, especially Martinsville, which is only about 20 miles away from Bloomington, the home of Indiana University, had one of the strongholds for years for the Klan. And the entire state had towns where, before the Civil Rights act, it was against the law for blacks to be in town after dark. But I can’t recall feeling that way. My dad was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. (He passed away 25 years ago tomorrow, so I don’t think exposing his anonymity matters anymore.) We had all kinds in the group. And what we looked like, where we came from, what god we prayed to didn’t matter. They all were struggling with the same problem, and realized that problem made us all equal. (I am proud to say that, when my Dad passed away, he had been on the wagon for exactly 33-1/3 years, a third of a century.)

    And I came to like often going to A.A. meetings with my parents. (My mother was a member of Al-Anon, which was for spouses of alcoholics.) This is because, many times, my Dad would stop at one of two drug stores and let me get a comic book. I built up quite a collection thanks to A.A.

    But a lot of my political, my social beliefs are thanks to Stan Lee, and I’ve got a feeling that goes for a lot of comic fans my age, and followers of a lot of writer and artists who followed in Stan’s footsteps. They’re good footsteps to follow.

  22. I remember lots of glowy things in Black Panther and Wonder Woman. Lassos, gods, vibranium suits, heart-shaped herbs.

    1. Not sure if you’re just playing “Devil’s Advocate” but here’s what PAD wrote because it otherwise nullifies your comment:
      ——————-
      Nor is the multi-billion dollar success of their movies proof of their crossover appeal, according to Maher. “They’re all the same!” he declares, asserting that ALL comic book movies are about superheroes fighting over “glowy” things (like athletes fighting over a ball, remember.). The short answer is, Yeah, right, “Black Panther” is just like “Wonder Woman” (neither of which involved anything glowing.
      ———————
      See, PAD wrote that Maher was asserting that superheroes were FIGHTING OVER “glowy” things–not that there were no “glowy” things in those films. There’s a BIG difference between what PAD wrote and what you “thought” he wrote. I didn’t see the “Black Panther” movie but I did see “Wonder Woman” and I do NOT recall Diana’s fighting OVER some “glowy” thing to possess it.

  23. My biggest issue here is that not only did Maher make those remarks, he piggybacked them on someone’s death and people being in mourning. There are many in the comics world I’m not a big fan of, but were any of them to die and someone were to use their death as a platform, I’d still be appalled. The irony is that Bill Maher is very vocally an atheist, and yet using someone’s deaths to get attention is right out of the Westboro Baptist Church playbook. Even people who agree with his views on comics should be calling him out on this part.

    Which is not to say his remarks would be reasonable any other time, but at least had be not piggybacked on Stan’s death they’d be unreasonable at a more appropriate time.

  24. One thing about Maher’s rant I want to talk about : he said that “Trump could only be elected in a country that thinks that comics are important”. Well, France and Belgium think that comics (or, to give it its rightful name, “bandes dessinées”) are important, and we never elected somebocy as stupid as Trump (although, to be fair, Nicolas Sarkozy came close). So there.

  25. Bill Maher needs a list of comic-books that show him that it’s a developed art. Otherwise 80% of comic-books are just fast entertainment and forgettable, the usual guilty pleasure for fandom of any medium. It’s not difficult to generalize for people who doesn’t care.

  26. When Maher goes into “whiny old man” mode he goes one of two ways: either he spectacularly misses the point, or he deliberately mischaracterizes what the point is of whatever he is complaining about this time.

    Take the NASA effort towards a manned landing on Mars. There *is* a viewpoint that it would be smart to not have all our eggs in one basket when it comes to the long-term orbital mechanics of the solar system, but that isn’t the justification that NASA uses to promote the effort itself – unless you get your information from a Bill Maher “bit” at the end of New Rules. Gets a laugh. Win.

    His writers simply picked an easy target with the imagined overgrown 60s-style comic-book reading kid. Neither he nor they have anything amounting to an informed opinion on the subject.

    While I was listening to the rant, a little voice was saying: Hey, when was the last time you read Proust for fun, Bill? Or Jane Austin? Or Dickens?

    It wouldn’t have been funny if he had admitted that people who read “comic books” also might read Bob Woodward’s cleverly constructed “accounts” or one of Neil Degrasse Tyson’s doorstops, both of which get double thumbs-up in the panel section or initial interview.

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