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So there is this new comics publisher that is very much NOT MY THING creatively and politically who are putting out books at Walmart, and usually I'd just roll my eyes and stand aside. But y'all, I'm COMPELLED to comment on their big PR launch describing them as "Middle Grade" /1
If you haven't seen this stuff, it's a textbook example of "Android's Dungeon definition of mainstream comics" with creators who have been making cape books for decades cranking out pictures of grown men holding guns and axes and shit. /2
And you know what? I like Butch Guice's stuff fine! I own many of his comics! But if a picture drawn by him of a guy with a handlebar mustache wielding two instruments of killing is Middle Grade, then I'm Stan Fucking Lee. /3
Middle Grade is the kind of terminology that up until about 4 years ago only children's book editors, authors and librarians used, but the basic definition is books starring and about the emotional experience of kids ages 8 to 12. /4
There is some category creep between MG and YA, but you know what? No one in comics ever really understood what YA meant anyway, so it's not worth digging into.
Point being, these are pulp products for men over 40-years-old being marketed as MG, & it's more than laughable. /5
Point being, these are pulp products for men over 40-years-old being marketed as MG, & it's more than laughable. /5
I'd not even comment at all on people who have caught a buzzword because Raina is great and are using that energy to bilk some businessman out of obscene amounts of money he'll never make back...BUT! I think it's important to note what's really going on here. /6
This whole thing is premised on the idea that over-rendered tales of violent juvenilia is a category of comics that millions of readers would be begging for if only "ThE syStEm WasN't KeEpINg Us oUt." It's Snyder Cut-levels of delusion. Push back on that shit! /7
If you're a comics press mutual who somehow gets roped into writing about this stuff, PLEASE give context to what this is and what it ain't. Don't swallow PR whole. It's your job to give people in this community proper context. /end
