Current Events > Bill Maher sucks so bad

(+) Yeah! (+)

averagejoel posted...

Shadowplay posted...

Eh, he's saying basically the same thing that Alan Moore has been saying for years. Personally I don't see the harm in reading comics if one acknowledges that they are not important and tries to learn about intellectually stimulating things, as well.

Graphic novels are not a lesser medium. they're just different

Correct, but most comics are not pushing for something deep and thought provoking, they're just harmless entertainment. The point is that since comics largely try to appeal to an insular sub culture, just like video games or anime, we don't really see the medium push for something deeper than harmless genre fiction, like the Dungeons and Dragons or Star Wars books.

I agree with the notion that comics are merely different to the point that I think that Watchmen is better than many of the books people are forced to read in high school.
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Shadowplay posted...

we don't really see the medium push for something deeper than harmless genre fiction

We totally do, though.

I mean, you cite Watchmen. You know there are others, right?
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Shadowplay posted...

averagejoel posted...

Shadowplay posted...

Eh, he's saying basically the same thing that Alan Moore has been saying for years. Personally I don't see the harm in reading comics if one acknowledges that they are not important and tries to learn about intellectually stimulating things, as well.

Graphic novels are not a lesser medium. they're just different

Correct, but most comics are not pushing for something deep and thought provoking, they're just harmless entertainment. The point is that since comics largely try to appeal to an insular sub culture, just like video games or anime, we don't really see the medium push for something deeper than harmless genre fiction, like the Dungeons and Dragons or Star Wars books.

I agree with the notion that comics are merely different to the point that I think that Watchmen is better than many of the books people are forced to read in high school.

whether they're pushing for something "deep and thought provoking" or not isn't really relevant the writers and artists still make specific choices that are worth discussing, in writing or otherwise.

Shakespeare wrote for the layperson. his plays were wildly popular even while he was alive, and he's still studied worldwide

to use another example: do you have any idea how many academic essays there are about Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

(edit: after some googling, I found out that "Buffy Studies" is literally a thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffy_studies )
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EnragedSlith posted...

And then thousands of adult children threw a tantrum and proved his point.

averagejoel posted...

Persepolis and Maus are also pretty widely acknowledged as great graphic novels

these are definitely taught here each semester in various courses
I both read and watched the former for an fma elective, fantastic film adaptation tbh

there is one course taught here now that apparently goes over Batman: Hush, Kingdom Come, and Civil War by examining them against the epic of Gilgamesh

EnragedSlith posted...

And of course people are missing the point. This wasnt a missive on comics, it was an examination of what decadence does to society

this was certainly a missive on comics, and it was a poor examination of what decadence does to society
but that is to be expected when you springboard your point by citing one mediums inability to mean more via short, shitty blog post
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CyricZ posted...

Shadowplay posted...

we don't really see the medium push for something deeper than harmless genre fiction

We totally do, though.

I mean, you cite Watchmen. You know there are others, right?

Yes, but most comics do not. There's a reason that everyone from Alan Moore to Darwyn Cooke talked about the rut that the industry is in where nearly everything is made to appeal to an insulated fan base.

averagejoel posted...

the writers and artists still make specific choices that are worth discussing, in writing or otherwise.

And I never said that they were not. My view long before Maher made his remarks was that comics as a medium should not be viewed any differently than prose fiction. However, the industry has shrunk so much that the medium is overrun with a specific type of story meant to appeal to the fans that have stuck around.

In other words, comics, a medium that is not inherently inferior to others, gives the appearance of being vapid just because it is swamped with stories that are so narrow in scope, even if they are well written.
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Lol
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lmao @ that blog

That said, I agreed more with Bill when he railed against USA's infatuation with superhero movies. I'm sure someone can find that (I think it was a) new rule.
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Shadowplay posted...

CyricZ posted...

Shadowplay posted...

we don't really see the medium push for something deeper than harmless genre fiction

We totally do, though.

I mean, you cite Watchmen. You know there are others, right?

Yes, but most comics do not. There's a reason that everyone from Alan Moore to Darwyn Cooke talked about the rut that the industry is in where nearly everything is made to appeal to an insulated fan base.

One of the more prestigious literary awards, the Man Booker prize nominated a comic book as its "Best book of the year" award. Its not like the only get superhero stories.

Besides stuff like Superhero comics and such is like, the bare bones most common thing of what comics are. Its like saying you can't appreciate a good movie because there are so many Transformers movies

What a dick.
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What a dumbass

"Hurr but people get mad at him when he says stupid things, so he must be right"

If that was the case, literally everything is right, even things that fundamentally oppose each other.
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prettyprincess posted...

there is one course taught here now that apparently goes over Batman: Hush, Kingdom Come, and Civil War by examining them against the epic of Gilgamesh

One of these things is not like the others. >_>

I thought Civil War was largely thought of as trash and full of heroes being OOC.
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Wow people really don't like Bill Maher here, lol.

I still like him and find him (or his writers, whatever) funny as hell but that blog post was one of the worst pieces of shit I've read in a while

But the bright side of all of this is that there'll be no more cameo appearances in Marvel films
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He's so damn out of touch that it really shows in things like this that he can't understand modern cultural shifts. And he gets paid to.
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He is just jealous of Stan Lee.
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I like Batman but he's not wrong.
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Bill Maher fucking sucks. Even the left cant stand that guy. He, unfortunately, has a schtick thats kept him in business and this is part of it.

Hes mostly just an abrasive asshole who somehow manages to be part of the left while having just as much in common with every racist uncle out there.
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Well look on the bright side, 50 years from now, who will more people remember? Bill Maher or Stan Lee?

Maher's attitude towards comics is the same as Roger Ebert was to video games. Both don't understand the culture and have that old mindset that these things are exclusively for children which tells you right away how ignorant both are as none of them have apparently heard of Watchmen or Grand Theft Auto. Really out of touch with media which is confusing since Roger reviewed movies and Bill surrounds himself with social movements, really expected him to know better but again he's way too goddamned arrogant at times that he crosses towards just ignorant.
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I didn't click the link, but Bill Maher has always been intolerable.
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Wetterdew posted...

I didn't click the link, but Bill Maher has always been intolerable.

It's honestly a pretty short read.
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This was already a stale and self-indulgent take for angry hard-right father figures in the 90's.
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I'll just leave this quote for rebuttal for those that like to tell others to "grow up" for liking things that kids can also enjoy.

Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

-C.S. Lewis, an infinitely wiser and more influential man than Bill Maher

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This article sounds like a blog post made by some edgelord in the mid 2000s (besides the current day references of course).
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to add to amusing things being examined, this was submit for a course:

https://www.sunypress.edu/p-4663-taking-south-park-seriously.aspx
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