Mr. Carmody, you are an uneducated bafoon that supports the stereotypes of christian media being sucky.

This whole blog is just abound with frustration. I had almost completed writing this very long entry my google account decided to log it self out. Thus when I pressed the publish button I found that my blog no longer existed and had not been saved. I apologize if this is not quite as good as I originally intended it to be.

I am not happy with the 14th chapter. It's called Converting Comic Books into Graphic Novels and Digital Cartoons by Thomas Carmody. If any of you know anything about my high school career; you will probably know that I spent a large portion of my free time viewing comics, manga, graphic novels, and the like. This was because growing up I always wanted to be an artist but one day it hit me that I couldn't draw. So I moved onto art appreciation and comics was the first genre I started with. This lead me to become the student of media that I am today. All this to say that I know a bit about the comic industry.

I might stray some times into a general rant about the book so I apologize if it breaks up the rant a bit. But I guess this disclaimer is doing just that.

Firstly, I'd like to point out the starting sentence of this piece. "Mark became an evangelical through the ministry of a local church and got excited about sharing his faith with classmates." Why can't people just become Christians any more Tom? Why do you have to immediately lump your potentially fictional characters into the cult you are currently part of.

Next, Carmody jumps into the apparent view of some random critic. Comics are, "crude, poorly-drawn, semiliterate, cheap, disposable kiddie fare." Are you stuck in the 50s Tom? The reason older comics were 'poorly drawn' is because like most other media, comic artists had to keep to a tight schedule. You try painting the Mona Lisa in 500 little panels jumping from building to building fighting crime Tom. It's hard work! With the advent of computers and digital technology it has made pumping out 'better art' quicker and easier, thus raising the total quality of the final product that is known as the modern comic. This would also account for the price increase from 5 cents to around 4 or 5 dollars in some places. Lastly you try reading V for Vendetta and tell me that, that hulk is Semi-literate.


Next, I would like to say something about these 'tribes' that keep getting mentioned in this book. ENOUGH ALREADY! Seriously, the definition given for why the term is used in this book is terrible. It isn't even used by anyone else in the world other than this selection of writers. Why can't Christian groups just be denominations or even just Christians? Why do we have to be linked to the Evangelical cult--I mean 'tribe'?

Tom likes to think that comics are low cost and low tech. The reason they are low cost Tom, the writers and artists are being almost exploited by the big companies like DC and Marvel. The only other reason that I can think of is that Tom has lumped evangelical comics into that fun little place where all christian media seems to fall. That place being low-budget, low value crap that many people keep pumping out. The reason it keeps coming out is because as long as it has that little 'christian' label it has to be sold at christian stores. Oh no! We can't hurt Rupert Murdoch and Zondervan's feelings, they might stop selling us bibles.

I also am growing tired of these little side pieces that Schultze keeps throwing in. Its not that some of them are not interesting. It is that they often ask a question like, Why We Love and Hate Cartoonists. The little section never even answers the question. It just goes into a little spiel about how John Lawing gets offended when people don't find his job an interesting conversasion piece. After he goes on for a little bit Lawing finishes his 200 word section with the same question!

I'd like to rant even more about how Carmody promotes piracy of comics but I just realized that this is getting a little long. So I'll leave the piracy talk for another day.