November 26, 2006
I had just put out three comics on a monthly schedule. It was too much work for me to get the work produced AND try and promote every issue, so I promoted the first, Dr. DeBunko, and then waited until both Doris Danger 16-pagers were out, and then I sent both issues to all my usual reviewers. Now that it’s been over two years of doing this technique, I’ve been collecting a larger and larger list of people who are willing to say something about my works online. I honestly don’t know if I’ve cracked the printed review world, but I doubt it, because I haven’t seen anything written about my comics anywhere. But I do continue to send out copies to these magazines as well.
About a week after sending review copies, I begin doing periodic ego-searches of the books’ titles on search engines, or ego-searches of my own name, to see if anyone is saying anything about the books. Dr. DeBunko did pretty well with reviews. People online were wanting to do interviews, sneak peeks, and reviews. New reviewers who hadn’t given me reviews before spoke out about Dr. DeBunko. That was nice, and I assumed it meant I would get all these same reviewers looking at the Doris Danger books. But for some reason, the Doris reviews didn’t seem to pop up so heartily as Dr. DeBunko’s. And they were slower to appear, as well.
One common theme people mentioned in Dr. DeBunko AND Doris Danger reviews was how the stories are just “one-gag” jokes, building to a punchline. That had been one of my insecurities with the Dr. DeBunko stories, enough so that I even joked about it in the introduction to the issue. But now, are people saying it in reviews because they feel the same way I do, or are they just unclever, and read that I had said it, and believe everything they read? Or they believe anything the writer says about what he writes? The reviewers tended to agree with me, though, that it’s still a good joke, and you just have to read it in small doses.
But then I got a first review suggesting that the reviewer felt that the Doris Danger stories were “one-gaggers” as well. And that’s beginning to get me a little defensive, even if that IS all they are. Because Jesus Christ, aren’t we talking about comic books here? And aren’t ALL comics just a crappy goddamn one-gag joke? And I’m not just talking about flaccid vapid newspaper funnies (which are HORRIBLE DAILY one-gag jokes, year after year). I’m talking about mainstream comics. Superhero comics. Don’t they all just have the same goddamn character fighting a couple thugs on the street as an intro, then finding out a plot from some asinine villain that’s the same as all the others, then fighting them, then beating them, and then moving on by repeating the whole simplistic formula again? Isn’t the entire MEDIUM just one goddamn “one-gag” joke??! Doesn’t it HAVE to be, if you want to keep using the same goddamn character over and over, EVERY MONTH, for forty or sixty years for Christ’s sake?? So why should my characters be singled out?
Except that, of course, I’m being pessimistic because I love superhero comics, all the more if they’re no good. And also, of course, MY stories are pretty formulaic.