1. "You Sure Know How To Hurt A Girl's Feelings"
I read the afterword by Mark Millar to the first issue of Jonathan Ross and Tommy Lee Edwards' "Turf" to the Splendid Wife last night.
"Oh my God." she said, as I knew she would. "Read that bit again."
"What bit?"
"The bit about being a great writer."
"I knew you'd spot it."
"Read it out."
2. "If You Are Smart Enough To Agree To It Now, Then I Will Allow You To Love"
In "that bit about being a great writer", Mark Millar writes of Jonathan Ross that "He's got Detective 27, Action Comics number 1 and complete runs of pretty much anything you can think of. He's got the best collection of original comic-book art in the country and possibly even the word. But this doesn't make him a comic book professional. A great reader doesn't always make a great writer. I'm just trying to hammer home that he's not some smarmy media player hoping to cash in on a passing fad."
3. "Well, I Guess If You Just Look And Don't Go In"
Now, as some of you will know, I was a career teacher of 20 years service, and the Splendid Wife is still clocking in at the chalk face, as an Advisory Support Teacher for the Educational Psychological Services these days. And both of us know what "positive marking" is, because we've spent a third of our lives struggling with it and raging bitterly against it. For positive marking is the standard model for reports in all English State schools now, and indeed has been for many politically correct years. The theory behind it is straight-forward and laudable. Openly criticising students dents their self-esteem and inhibits their ambition. So, instead of saying "Colin can't spell words which are more than three letters long", a positive comment would say "Colin can spell words which are three letters long".
Along with all the warmheartedness, the kindness and the concern that motivates this approach, there come some serious consequences. It's often hard to express how much of a problem a student has, or indeed is, in a particular area while always being "positive". Saying "Colin can control himself if he's in a quiet one-to-one situation" has a very different meaning to "Put Colin anywhere near two or more other people and he'll attack them". Parents and children can, in some poor schools with dodgy communications, go through years of reports without ever realising that there's a problem anywhere at all, and teachers who want to avoid conflict or extra work become adept in massaging the positive and avoiding the contentious. Worse even than that, a large chunk of several generations of students have passed through England's schools who can't handle criticism at all, who regard anything other than a pat on the head and a "well done, you've already achieved" as an assault on their right not to have about worry about anything. (I believe several of their number may be currently inhabiting the England football team.)
And any teacher who's been through this procedure a time or two recognises when a statement may perhaps have been written not to reveal an unfortunate truth, but to obscure it, not to speak honestly to help someone in the long run, but to protect them, or even the writer themselves, at a particular moment. Being cruel to be kind is not an acceptable motto, for both good and ill reasons, in Britain today, unless it is, of course, where TV talent shows are concerned. (And perhaps that explains something of their appeal.)
4. "I Follow The Old Ways Because That Is What Seperates Us From Then"
Either Mark Millar didn't understand what he'd written in his afterword, which is extremely unlikely given his considerable talent, or he'd been so ineptly edited that his meaning has been obscured, or Mark Millar has deliberately written that afterword to give every impression he's praising Jonathan Ross's writing skills without actually saying a single word of praise for them.
Indeed, the precision of the construction of the afterword, in which the whole text seems to make a case for Mr Ross being a writer of some considerable stature without any supporting evidence or opinion being offered up, is so brilliant and watertight that it's hard to see editorial incompetence or authorial inattention being at play. Consider;
"But (having lots of expensive old comics) doesn't make him a comic-book professional. A great reader doesn't always make a great writer."
Well, that seem unequivocal, doesn't it? Mark Millar thinks Jonathan Ross is a "comic-book professional" and a "great writer". Except that he doesn't ever say Mr Ross is a comics pro, though with "Turf"'s publication he surely is. Instead, Mr Millar makes a general point that Ross owning a copy of the first issue of Action Comics isn't a marker of .... well, what? Is there anybody in the world who believes that owning the likes of Action Comics # 1 does make you a "great writer" of comic books? Is there anyone who imagines that handing over the cash to buy Superman's first appearance brings with it the talent to undertake the job of pencilling or writing one of today's books? Of course not; no-one's ever linked "owning comic books" with "being a professional comics creator". Mr Millar's statement is, on closer inspection, quite nonsensical. Of course all those comic books don't make Mr Ross a comic-book professional. Why would anybody write that? What's the point?
But of course the "point" seems to be that it all sounds as if Mr Millar is saying that Mr Ross is a "professional" and a "great writer" while saying nothing of the sort. The sense for those who aren't concentrating is, perhaps, to paint a picture of Mr Ross being a fully-matured talent who is going to have his artistic virtues ignored or decried. Again, that doesn't make sense either, but this isn't about making sense; it's about manipulating sentiment and obscuring the absence of acclaim on Mr Millar's part. This is about, it appears, smokescreens, about making it sound as if the praise is rolling in like a tidal wave without any accolades at all actually appearing on the page.
5. "You Provoke A Response From Those Men Which Will Lead To Conflict"
But the cleverest misdirection can be located in how Mr Millar constructs the following: "A great reader doesn't always make a great writer." Ah, that word "always" is the key, isn't it, because it seems to announce that Mr Ross is an example of a particular if not rare breed, that he is a great reader who's also a writer of stature, although in truth it - again - means nothing of the sort. If I said "A great fan of horse-riding isn't always a great jockey", you'd think the statement absurd. Firstly, it's ridiculous in practical terms to suggest that being a fan of horse riding would of itself make a top jockey. Being a fan of racing doesn't rank in a list of the vital key skills needed to make a horse run faster in the right direction, though it is hard to imagine, I'll concede, that anybody who hated racing could make it to the top. Secondly, it's similarly ridiculous to suggest that anybody ever thought of the question of what makes a great jockey in those terms? Whoever thought being a fan of the horses was a key determinant of who gets to ride in the National? We're in the realms of the dippy here again. What's been written looks as if a badge of honour is being pinned by Mr Millar onto Mr Ross's lapel, but in truth it isn't.
- "A great fan of jazz isn't always a great jazz guitarist."
- "A great fan of Tolstoy hasn't always written a 19th century epic about the Napoleonic wars."
- "A great lover of pornography isn't always a good kisser, or anything else either."
And so the magician's trick continues, drawing the reader's eye here while performing the show-closer there. For Mr Millar has declared that great readers don't always make great writers, and we would logically expect him to go on and insist that such isn't the case with Mr Ross. He's implied it, but he hasn't said it. Instead, having given the impression in his reader's minds that such must come next, Mr Millar sheers off without saying anything - anything! - about Mr Ross's writing at all. Instead, he jumps to a statement of how his friend isn't "a media player hoping to cash in on some passing fad", which isn't a matter to do with writing, though it strangely follows directly on from a sentence which is. Furthermore, the idea that Mr Ross is "a media player" pretending to like comics isn't something which many, if any, of us comics fans, at least, would ever think. Indeed, any of the millions who've watched just an hour or three of Mr Ross's work on TV over the past few decades will know how dedicated he is to the business of comic books. In short, pretty much everybody knows that Jonathan Ross adores comics. He doesn't need to be defended from the charge that he's a Jonathan-come-lately. And where we comics fans are concerned, we've treasured his Steve Ditko documentary, loved him for being the Geek that could, and have generally regarded him through the years as half-best-friend-if-only and half-comic-book-expert in fact. Who is doubting Mr Ross exactly? The response from all quarters seems to me to have quite ecstatic.
Still, it doesn't matter that there's actually very little risk that Ross will be seen as a fame-seeking trend-jumper, because in writing what he has in such a way as to raise sympathy for his friend, Mark Millar has given us the impression that his friend's integrity, as well as his ability, may be called into considerable question. And so we feel concerned and protective and quite forget that nothing's been said - again - about what Mr Millar actually thinks concerning writing and Mr Ross. In fact, it feels as if Mr Millar has already established how excellent a wordsmith his friend is and has moved onto other important issues, such as defending Jonathan from the awful accusations which are unlikely to be made.
But it's one thing to praise the work of a close friend and colleague, and another to be seeming to while not actually doing so.
6. "That's What Happen's If You Mix Business With Pleasure, right, Marco?"
Yet all of the above restraint where directly praising, or rather not directly praising, Mr Ross is concerned stands in sharp contrast to the next paragraph, where artist Tommy Lee Edwards is exhalted by Mr Millar in very specific and fullsome terms for his considerable skills. There's no shilly-shallying here. Mr Edwards is one of "less than ten guys in the industry" that Mr Millar "truly" rates, we're told. He has "a quiet naturalism", "a unique style", a "classic approach that evokes a little Toth, a little Colan, a touch of Dan Spiegel and all the other greats ...". You'll notice, as no doubt you did anyway when you read the afterword for yourself, that Mr Edwards is called without qualification a great comic book artist, and his qualities are listed in depth and detail. Mr Ross, on the other hand, has, as far as we're actually told, a great comic book collection and shouldn't be disqualified from our respect just because he could afford all that original art. Which is true, of course, but disingenuous.
And that's what the splendid wife immediately heard, though she knows nothing, and cares less, about comic books and comic book creators. (She has a considerable fondness, as have I, for Jonathan Ross. We're folks of the Eighties, he's part of our cultural backdrop. She even watched the Steve Ditko documentary with me and clapped at the end. As did I, as well as snuffling about how true it was to the craft I so admire.) But she had seen what hadn't been written, and noted the sheer artistry by which it hadn't been stated.
Either some editor screwed up, or Mr Millar was damn careless, or perhaps, perhaps, the truth is that Mr Ross is a fine chap, a loyal and valued friend, and a deeply passionate comics fan who hasn't yet learnt all of his chops. Perhaps he doesn't yet deserve the praise that Mr Millar implies without ever stating, and perhaps Mr Millar was being kind to be, well, kind. But whatever, there's no point in, at the very least, writing an afterword that gives the impression that praise is being lavished when it's never delivered. Comic book fans are, after all, much more literate than the great rarely-reading masses, who look down on us because they often can't focus hard enough to realise what they're missing. We can see when we're being misdirected, and in a popular form that has traditionally prided itself on being democratically open to all comers where criticism is concerned, it feels wrong for Mr Millar to be twisting our arms without being willing to actually put his reputation on the line. (Writing that "Turf" is a "conscious break from action-driven, decompressed story-telling", as Mr Millar does later on, is again the ghost of praise. Pick at it and once again there's no commendation there.)
And though I'm positive that I must be the umpteenth person to write about that afterword, I'm repeating what I'm sure is a familiar argument both because it's relevant to what I'm going to write next, and because the principle of, as Aaron Neville would surely expect of us, telling it like it is is important to me. I've seen the consequence of telling it like it's not so many times, and it's never good. And though perhaps what I'm going to blog about next time is completely and utterly wrong, there's also the possibility that I'll be right when I argue that somebody should have told Mr Ross that his skills weren't quite sharp enough yet as regards the draft of his script which went to press as "Turf" # 1.
7. "Whoever's Behind This Is Trying To Take Us All Down"
We'll come back to Mr Millar's afterword in the next piece here on "Turf", because it raises some excellent and applicable points about style and the way in which old techniques can be resurrected and put to work in the modern day. But mainly, I'll be taking some time to discuss "Turf" and the degree to which it might, and perhaps might not, deserve to be considered as the product of a fully mature, "comic book professional".
But it's a matter which it feels almost disloyal to raise. Mr Ross is not just one of us. He's the one of us who convinced more of them that our hobby was alright. But does that mean that he can't be criticised, or that, in the apparent fashion of Mr Miller's afterword, he ought to be treated with kid gloves and the closed ranks of close friends? (At the very least, if unqualified praise can't be offered, an editor ought to ensure that the impression of it isn't offered up without that praise actually being there on the page.) Because I'm sure that there are fundamental flaws in that first issue of "Turf", flaws which any editor of note should have seized upon and had corrected, and somewhere down the line, a whole series of beginner's mistakes which should have been caught haven't been. And those flaws aren't matters of opinion, any more than playing loudly and totally out of tune in the middle of a hushed ballad is a question of taste. Unless you're out there performing on the exalted fields of high conceptual art, or within the cosy circle of an end-of-evening singalong, having your guitar in tune while playing that mournful version of "Yesterday" is always a good idea, unless everyone's so drunk that it doesn't matter at all.
And so it is with comic books. Sincerity of intent, depth of talent and breadth of ambition aren't relevant as to whether a comic book is competent or not. (Nor, as Mr Millar quite rightly tells us, is the size of the creators' library.) What counts is whether the craftswomen or man has worked on his or her skills for so very long that they're razor sharp and ready to use. It's not about dreams, it's about practise and experience and application. Or: in order to make a "Sgt Peppers", and "Turf" is indeed an exceedingly ambitious venture, you need a good four or five years of making a "She Loves You" and a "Paperback Writer" first, and about seven years before that as gigging band.
8. "The Age Of The Vampir Begins"
I hope to see you here next time, when we'll take a look at where, shall we say, that guitar of Mr Ross's has been tuned and picked to pleasing effect, and where it's as welcome and appropriate as a drum solo played over "Career Opportunities", or "Penny Lane", or "My Baby Left Me", or, well, anything really.
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