The Four Color Media Monitor

Forbes spoke with the Canadian writer/artist Jeff Lemire, who's written up a comic titled Minor Arcana. He had the following to say about the 1990s:

His love of the edgier, adult-oriented comic books put out by Vertigo, the DC-owned banner spearheaded by industry legend Karen Berger, also played a major role in the birth of Minor Arcana. “With a few notable exceptions, the ‘90s were the nadir of superhero comics, and if it weren’t for the Vertigo books, I likely would have quit reading comics all together,” he admits. “There was a certain feeling and aesthetic to these early Vertigo books that I just love. It was somehow both timeless and very much of the time. I think a lot of the writers were influenced by post-punk and Goth music and culture, and that is very much in my wheelhouse as well. So, I’m trying to capture that feeling with Minor Arcana for sure. But, of course, it gets filtered through my own style and comes out as something a bit different.”

Lemire, who was just 16-years-old when Vertigo (now branded as DC Black Label) first launched, devoured almost everything it had to offer, with Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean’s Sandman standing out as one of his favorites.

“Dave McKean’s covers and Gaiman’s dark, but humanistic, stories hit the mark with me and started to really show me what comics could do,” he continues, also citing Teddy Kristensen and Steven Seagle’s House of Secrets a major source of inspiration. “Unfortunately, I think it’s out of print now, but I love it and revisited it last year when developing Minor Arcana. House of Secret’s protagonist, Rain, very much inspired my initial take on Theresa in Minor Arcana.”

Look who's talking. Somebody who hasn't done much on his part to emphasize what must be done to improve superhero comics, or point out unambiguously what went wrong from then till now. That Mr. Lemire would consider dark and grisly tales from Vertigo to be the most wonderful ideas that could come in the 90s is decidedly also biased, and as far as I'm concerned, Sandman was anything but "humanistic". It goes without saying Gaiman's overrated too. And at the end of the article, Lemire indicates he's not thinking very long term when it comes to formats:

The overall goal with Minor Arcana is “to get back to telling a long-form story” and “emphasize the importance of the monthly comics again,” Lemire concludes.

And this is enough to fall off the couch laughing. He really can't tell his tale in a whole paperback/hardcover format that doesn't rely on separate parts? Well I'm sorry, but Mr. Lemire has once again demonstrated he's pretty out of touch with what the industry needs to survive and thrive, to say nothing of how cliched it's become to emphasize darkness. What a shame, but the guy's just not proving he understands anything about what would work best for the medium at all. So if this new comic he's brewed up remains minor, it won't be a surprise.

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