Don't Recommend A Comic/Graphic Novel for A Prose Fiction Work!

Seriously - I've done this a couple of times here in the last few months in member recommendations on this site and have gotten almost exclusively thumbs-down for them (usually right away, too). Does this strike anyone else here as just a little close-minded?

Ouch, those thumbs can be painful.

Did you explain your recommendation? Sometimes I find that it helps if someone has explained why they've recommended something.

Those people usually tend to be pretentious literary snobs. I'm certainly not as "smart" or as well read as they are, but there are some awesome comics out there, man! Their loss be being "holier than thou."

Thanks for the replies. :)

>2 wookiebender:

Yeah, I did, & I thought they were reasonably articulate & "in good faith" (as the little prompt says when you go to make a recommendation), too.

>3 ACGalaga:

Absolutely. I'd put something like Watchmen or Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth against anything produced in ANY media in the last 100 years in terms of aesthetic merit. What's amusing to me is that people who are truly sophisticated know that there's stuff that's worth checking in all art forms. Like you said - their loss.

Additionally, isn't the main purpose of member recommendations to make "outside the box" suggestions, i.e., books that a computer program (no matter how good) wouldn't "think" to suggest? It seems that not everyone sees it that way. :/

I could be classified as one of those "literary snobs" and I like comics just fine. Most people are still stuck in the mindset that the medium of comics is juvenile overall, regardless of the content of any individual story.

I think it is more a gut reaction from people that do not read comics. I usually won't recommend comics on non-comics works unless if the non-comics books is somehow related (there are some books out there that read as comics even if they are not).

For a lot of people, comics is something that you stop reading when you grow up. And most of these people won't touch any comics because of that. No matter how good they are. Their loss... I used to gift Maus to some of my anti-comics friends... not that it helped in most cases.

It's the same with retelling of fairy tales, YA books or genre books in general (regardless if we are speaking for SF/F/H, mystery/thrillers or romance books) -- some people just prefer not to admit that there is anything worth reading outside of the 'literary' world. And take offense when someone even tries to propose something that is not mainstream.

>6 AnnieMod:

You wrote:

"For a lot of people, comics is something that you stop reading when you grow up. And most of these people won't touch any comics because of that. No matter how good they are. Their loss... I used to gift Maus to some of my anti-comics friends... not that it helped in most cases.

"It's the same with retelling of fairy tales, YA books or genre books in general (regardless if we are speaking for SF/F/H, mystery/thrillers or romance books) -- some people just prefer not to admit that there is anything worth reading outside of the 'literary' world. And take offense when someone even tries to propose something that is not mainstream."

That's sad, isn't it? And they're probably folks that if asked if they would characterize themselves as "open-minded" and "eclectic" would respond "yes". :/

>7 artturnerjr:
Probably :) I had stopped being bothered from that... there is no point.

But I love the expression on their faces when I am able to talk about a 19th century novel or the Russian classics or a major mainstream novel or whatever almost in the same sentence in which I had been explaining how I read comics, horror and science fiction. It is priceless. Or when it turns out that I had read more books from their favorite mainstream author than they had... :) And as immature as it is, I like doing it occasionally.

It's a question of tastes after all - if you do not like something, do not read it. I can say that I do not like romance novels (most of the time anyway... I have my moments) but I had read enough of them... and I can accept that there might be a romance novel that must be read (unlikely but... I am open to suggestions).

In an interesting turn of events though, I had met people that don't want to touch mainstream novels... and cannot accept that there might be something worth reading there. So it is a double sided coin. Although most of the genre readers (and I am treating comics as one of the genres... as in out-of-mainstream works) are a lot more open to other genres or the mainstream than the mainstream people.

>8 AnnieMod:

You wrote:

"In an interesting turn of events though, I had met people that don't want to touch mainstream novels... and cannot accept that there might be something worth reading there. So it is a double sided coin."

Very true. Also, in the interest of fairness, I have to admit that my fiction reading has leaned toward the speculative fiction genres and/or comics simply because I have derived the most pleasure from this sort of reading over the years. Finally, I think the most intriguing fiction of all may be when an otherwise mainstream/mimetic author attempts a work in the speculative fiction genres (e.g., 1984, A Midsummer Night's Dream, A Christmas Carol, The Road) or vice versa (Different Seasons, Pattern Recognition, Dandelion Wine); they often bring something to the work that an author that writes in that genre all the time wouldn't.

There is that :)

I will admit that I am in the same boat - I prefer speculative fiction for the most part... But there is a difference between prefer and "read only this". I went through a SF only period and a Fantasy only period in my late teens -- then for a while I was reading only mysteries. I do not know how typical that is but that was my way. Slowly I moved to what is more a "I'll read anything that looks interesting" attitude than being genre-centric. These days I would probably try anything that has letters -- even if it is outside of my usual reading tastes. But then I read a lot - if someone reads 3 books per year, they are less likely to experiment. And the "mainstream only" crowd tend to consider a book per month to be a lot of reading (at least most of the ones that I know)...

"I went through a SF only period and a Fantasy only period in my late teens -- then for a while I was reading only mysteries."

I mostly read SF/F/Horror (and rock star bios) as a teen; fortunately, I've branched out a bit since then. :)

"These days I would probably try anything that has letters -- even if it is outside of my usual reading tastes."

In On Writing, Stephen King says his usual response to the question "What do YOU read?" is, "Everything I can get my hands on." :)

I think most people have "I am reading only this type of books" periods. Unfortunately some people never grow out of it. :)

And I had forgotten this answer from King :)

#1 Yes! But that's because "dem comic books is da DEVIL!"

>13 Death_By_Papercut:

Perhaps there are more Fredric Wertham fans on LT than we may have guessed. :D

#14 Indeed. I can't stand scapegoat seekers. Freedom of speech FTW!