Comments for RobSalkowitz.com

Comment on Does Comics Need an Auteur Theory? by Terry Levin

Terry Levin — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 17:11:43 +0000

All one has to do to accurately assess the relative contributions of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby is look at each creator’s work without the other. Lee’s collaborations with Steve Ditko, Don Heck, Wally Wood, etc., resulted in comics equal to and in some cases superior to his work with Kirby. Kirby’s non-Lee comics of the same general period (Challengers of the Unknown, the Fourth World saga) were very well drawn but lacked the heart and soul of contemporary Marvel work. I regard Lee-Kirby the same as Lennon-McCartney: both very talented creators who, together, created a whole greater than its parts. As for Schumer, lighten up, dude. There’s nothing sadder than a critic who can’t take criticism.

Comment on Does Comics Need an Auteur Theory? by Arlen Schumer

Arlen Schumer — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 02:33:31 +0000

oops! Reposted that last comment by mistake! Feel free to remove it and this!

Comment on Does Comics Need an Auteur Theory? by Arlen Schumer

Arlen Schumer — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 02:32:38 +0000

And lastly (for now) Salkowitz, why not actually QUOTE from my AT essay, like a REAL professional critic would do, versus your cowardly general put-downs and broadside generalities like my “rhetorical incoherence”? Let’s see an actual example of that, Salkowitz–we’re all ears!

Comment on Does Comics Need an Auteur Theory? by Arlen Schumer

Arlen Schumer — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 01:00:06 +0000

And lemme ask you both something: if Herman Mankiewicz’s screenplay for Citizen Kane had been filmed/directed by Ed Wood, you think it would’ve won an Oscar? After all, he was a “most talented writer,” wasn’t he? But the poor guy got saddled with Ed Wood, who autered his CK script into an Ed Wood film! Poor Herman! Same thing in comics, folks! A great script is still a great script (like stan’s dialoguing)–but the artist/director is STILL the AUTEUR of the finished artistic product. You both (all?) still DON’T GET IT.

Comment on Does Comics Need an Auteur Theory? by Arlen Schumer

Arlen Schumer — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 00:56:50 +0000

I notice that NEITHER Salkowitz nor you, Lemaire, bother to ever actually QUOTE from my essay, not even ONCE in ALL your published rants. Real professional critics would’ve quoted me and THEN rebutted it. All you both wrote are general put-downs, like Salkowitz’s “rhetorical incoherence”; care to quote some of that of mine? I’m all ears!

Comment on Does Comics Need an Auteur Theory? by Arlen Schumer

Arlen Schumer — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 23:13:52 +0000

And if a “most talented writer” has the unfortunate fate of having his “most talented” script illustrated by the “most mediocre artist”? Guess what, Salkowitz? Yeah, it means it’ll be a lousy comic book reading experience, because that mediocre artist is the auteur now of that comic book-reading experience.

Comment on Does Comics Need an Auteur Theory? by Patrick Lemaire

Patrick Lemaire — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 23:04:28 +0000

It isn’t very scholarly indeed but Arlen disdains writers and writing. I don’t think he’s a grade-A propagandist. While his theory has many holes, it is interesting that even allowing it, we wind up with Stan Lee as the auteur of Marvel Comics. Just as a director manages the various elements, screenplay, actors, photography, Stan Lee the editor controlled the content, what type of story Kirby or Ditko were supposed to write, the inker, letterer, colorist, he shifted them from feature to feature and regularly reinterpreted the delivered stories with his script and dialogue. He decided to spotlight the characters in other series, engaged the readers to participate via no-prizes, etc.

Comment on Does Comics Need an Auteur Theory? by Arlen Schumer

Arlen Schumer — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 22:43:46 +0000

Salkowitz says: “It is another to draw an overly-broad conclusion that implicates all writers and artists into some grand aesthetic construct that automatically elevates the most mediocre artist over the most talented writer simply by dint of their roles in the production process,” missing the boat at the dock and the forest for the trees: as long as he (and all his like-minded writer contemporaries) considers the artwork in comics–bringing a collaborating writer’s words to visual life–as merely “roles in the production process,” and not an ESSENTIAL (read: “auteur”) role in the CREATIVE process, we’ll never leave square one.