Talk:The Comics Journal

Allegations
Those are some serious allegations just added to the article. What is the source of this info? Gamaliel 17:12, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

material removed by Hiding talk 21:49, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
This material seems questionable and seems to have been proven to be false by Thompson's statement.

However, TCJ has also been criticized for lapses in journalistic ethics. During a libel suit filed against it by comics writer Michael Fleisher, taunting comments about Fleisher were added to the back issues sales pages; when reporting on the trial itself, the Journal promised comprehensive coverage, but excluded Fleisher's own testimony without explanation.

TCJ co-publisher Kim Thompson on the above statement: ''"When reporting on the trial itself, the Journal promised comprehensive coverage, but excluded Fleisher's own testimony without explanation" is in fact untrue. The explanation AS REPORTED IN THE ISSUE ITSELF was that due to some sort of miscommunication, we were not supplied with Fleisher's testimony in time for the magazine's deadline. We suggested we might go back and print some of Fleisher's testimony at a later date, but so far as I recall everyone was so sick of the thing at that time that not a single solitary soul ever requested it. As I understand it, the best part of Fleisher's testimony was his trying to explain why, in the two or three years after Ellisons's supposedly career-crippling comments (his justification for seeking "damages"), Fleisher's comics income skyrocketed. Calling our (in fact, my) silly Fleisher jokes in the back issues page a "lapse of journalistic ethics" is just goofy. The Time Warner memo thing is news to me, and the conflict-of-interest note is ridiculous -- EVERY retailer or distributor is financially tied to EVERY publisher in some way or another; any news story involving either would need to be festooned with disclaimers like a Christmas tree ("XXX is a regular advertiser in THE COMICS JOURNAL... YYY sells Fantagraphics products... ZZZ once bought me a beer at SPX").

Wow, something on the internet that's mostly bullshit...wotta surprise.''

http://www.tcj.com/messboard/ubb/Forum3/HTML/000679.html

During the 1990s shakeup of the comics distribution industry, the Journal reported that Time Warner CEO Steve Ross had been involved in DC Comics' decisionmaking, relying on a apparently forged memorandum dated, and referring to events happening, months after Ross's death. TCJ also gave favorable coverage to a supposedly independent retailer's lawsuit against Marvel Comics' distribution practices, without revealing that the "independent" retailer was also the principal comics wholesaler to the Tower Records chain and one of Fantagraphics' largest customers at the time. Hiding talk 21:49, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Editing Jungrobot
User:Jungrobot wrote a load of unsubstantiated stuff on November 13th with a surprisingly negative and aggressive tone, so I've had a hack at making it all sensible and useful. A couple of chunks were removed due to no references and, in the latter's case, spurious worth, but I'll leave them here in case anyone can back them up and make them useful:


 * More recently TCJ has largely disregarded many of its own prevailing principles with actions such as publishing public domain artwork from the canon of legendary artist Alex Toth against Toth's expressed wishes not to ever be involved or included in the magazine. Additionally Fantagraphics Books has sought to profit from the works of artists that TCJ in its heyday routinely bashed. This has resulted in "special" editions aimed at bookstores featuring mainstream artists such as Frank Miller, Jack Kirby, and Barry Windsor-Smith, and even a book on Japanese manga, a subset of comics that had been all but ignored throughout TCJ's history, until it became obviously profitable. The magazine has also lost much of its luster in recent years as a result of poor editorial direction, and uncharacteristically weak writing likely due to taking on too many freelancers from weblogs and lining its pages with worshipful young TCJ devotees, instead of top-notch critics.


 * TCJ's most recent high profile spat came as the result of an article in Clamor magazine by former TCJ Managing Editor Anne Moore intimating sexual harassment by her former employers. Backed by no evidence and claims that seemed little more than bitter hyperbole, Moore's claims were simply ignored by Groth and Thompson and eventually went away.

Peteashton 06:11, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Mad Magazine vs. Mad Comics
In its Top 100 list, the Journal made a clear voting distinction between the issues it selected (#1-28, edited by Harvey Kurtzman), and all the rest that it omitted (following Kurtzman's ouster).

Top 100 list
Is that list in the correct order (i.e. 1 is favored over 100) according to the magazine? --Newt ΨΦ 13:38, 23 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, it was presented as a ranked list, with Krazy Kat as "best". BTfromLA 15:35, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks. --Newt ΨΦ 16:13, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Kurtzman's Jungle Book
The Wiki reference to Harvey Kutzman's Jungle Book (Number 26 on the list of 100) brings you to Kipling's Jungle Book.Lestrade 15:23, 30 August 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

Top 100 list, method of compiling.
The present wording seems definite as to how the list was compiled:

To create the list, eight contributors and editors each selected up to 100 works. The eight lists were then informally combined and massaged into an ordered list.

...but I'm not sure as to sources. Was it just eight? Were the lists up to 100 items, over 100, all under, or what? Were all eight lists ranked, some, or none?

I added the "massaged", as I recall reading on some long-gone TCJO thread that GG tweaked it himself to include or raise certain favorites. Not that that there's anything wrong with that, compiling a list of artworks ought to be more of an art that a science, but we shouldn't mistake that for science.

The former wording:

Eight of the magazine's editors and contributors each selected 100 works. These ballots were combined to determine an ordered consensus for the Top 100 English-language comics of the 20th century.

Seemed misleading; I've read that some contributors couldn't think of 100 items. Calling their separate lists "ballots" implies a statistical rigor (equal vote weight, etc.) that wasn't there. "consensus ...for... the century" seems pompous, and makes a kind of fetish of it. --AC 10:03, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I simply need to comment that the "The Death of Speedy Ortiz" link leads to a band of the same name instead of Jaime Hernandez's work. This needs to be amended. I honestly don't really know much about this topic so someone should find a good page to link to. I couldn't find the page. This may work but more experienced minds should be the judge of that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_and_Rockets_(comics) Saltybalty (talk) 18:57, 4 May 2014 (UTC)Saltybalty comment added by Saltybalty (talkcontribs) 18:53, 4 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Done. Thanks. Nightscream (talk) 18:56, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
 * That was quick. I didn't see the L&R link right there.Saltybalty (talk) 18:59, 4 May 2014 (UTC)Saltybalty

Mellowing bias: cause or correlate of Top 100?
Some of Tortoiseshell's edits are good, some seem dubious but not worth arguing about, and then there's a few recurring ones that are puzzling:

(AC) After the Journal ' s "Top 100" list in 1999, suspicions of bias mellowed...

(TS) By the time of the Journal ' s "Top 100" list in 1999, suspicions of bias had mellowed...

I'm saying "after" because it's my considered opinion that suspicions of TCJ as comics haters mellowed as a consequence of the list. Not a coincidence, nor some vague correlation. I read every issue of the period concerned when it came out, and followed with interest the results online.

It's not clear why you believe the phenomena are so foggy as to deserve being reduced from a cause to a mere correlate, ("by the time of"). If your reasons for doubting are better than mine for not, by all means share them.

Second, the comment "a charge the publishers of Fantagraphics have cheerfully confirmed" -- is that attribution of confirmation relevant? The paragraph is about how criticism lead to false prejudice, not about the in-your-face POV of the TCJ's merry men. I don't question that they've confirmed the fact, since it's obvious they've confirmed it 1000 times, (e.g. in TCJ's reader's polls from the '90s they dubbed the top poll results "the Snobbies", that is, an award given by snobs), and even if they hadn't their actions and publications confirm it. Confirmation granted, we should only state the fact. --AC 08:13, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

For Deletion? List of interviews
There is a nomination of the TCJ interview list article for deletion here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Log/2007_March_24#List_of_Comics_Journal_interview_subjects

Please join the debate, whether pro or con. Rhinoracer 21:19, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

For the record, the debate is done. They voted "keep". --AC 07:51, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Noteworthy interviews include
To at least one editor it's not clear the "noteworthy interviews" are primarily excellent as interviews, (considered as literary dialogs), and not interviews of relatively famous people. For example, Denny O'Neil gets the nod, but not Stan Lee, even though most would consider Stan Lee more noteworthy as a subject, because Lee's interview in (#4?) isn't, for various reasons, up to snuff as an interview. I agree with Tom Spurgeon that Groth is a great interviewer; any TCJ article should try to note its best interviews, and the six listed are outstanding.

If there is any POV in this noteworthiness, it's necessary POV. Otherwise there'd need to be unfeasible levels of meta-critique; a Journal of the Comics Journal dedicated to critiquing the critics, the better to cite what's notable, or worse, a lame sock-puppet "I'll post it, then cite it" method. --AC (talk) 07:25, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Industry News & iJournalista!
Before today's revision:

The Journal's practice of investigating industry news objectively, although the norm for traditional journalistic enterprises, was in sharp contrast to the affectionate and promotional methods of publications like Comics Buyer's Guide and Wizard.

The Journal's news staff has been accused of failing to appreciate or disclose editorial and personal conflicts of interest that inevitably occur when covering Fantagraphics. For some errors, the Journal has issued corrections and apologies. In general, the magazine sought to balance its unabashed criticism of commercial comics with incisive investigative reporting on industry practices. This crucial news function was largely abandoned in 2006, in favor of a daily blog which covers the same issues with greater topicality.

...the second quoted paragraph's topic sentence (about conflict of interest) had nothing to do with sentence #3 & #4's mention of TJC's general news policy or 'Journalista!'. After moving #3 & #4 up to the first paragraph, I noticed that that following "investigating industry news objectively", the phrase "incisive investigative reporting on industry practices" seemed redundant.

Some terms look like unsupported POV, 'crucial' for who, or in what way? 'abandoned' implies some forsaken duty or thing, while 'incisive' and 'unabashed' sound a bit promotional.

Current revision:

The Journal’s practice of investigating industry news objectively, although the norm for traditional journalistic enterprises, was in sharp contrast to the affectionate and promotional methods of publications like Comics Buyer's Guide and Wizard. In 2006, the print Journal's industry news was largely abandoned in favor of a topical daily blog that covers the same ground.

The Journal's news staff has been accused of failing to appreciate or disclose editorial and personal conflicts of interest that inevitably occur when covering Fantagraphics. For some errors, the Journal has issued corrections and apologies.

Questions remain: like "does the blog cover the same ground as the old news section?", and is a daily blog even comparable to a monthly or bimonthly news section? -- granted a daily blog is much more topical, but it's also inherently less deliberative. Maybe the pre-revision text suggested that the old news was meatier, (in the sense of being more deliberative, studied, and historic), but I'm uncertain that was the was the intent, or if I'm just reading stuff into it. If it's known that the older monthly news favored the more substantial, versus the topically trivial, we should say so. (I haven't read enough of 'Journalista!' to decide.) --AC (talk) 07:21, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Good points. I don't read much of Journalista either, but I think The Journal's shift away from 12 issues a year has as much to do with the lack of news as anything else. But there's been a shift away from that since, hmm, maybe since Spurgeon left? A lot of the stuff covered in used to be just editorial moves, so I don;t think it was too meaty, occasionally there'd be someone fired and you'd get interviews with all the main parties, but I can't think of the last time a firing got that level of coverage. They still cover the bigger things in a more detailed approach, I would expect something on the Gordon Lee case, so I'm not sure I'd agree that the blog covers the same ground as the old news section.  It covers some of the same ground, in that it replaces the trivial coverage. I can't remember if there's anything in the Journal to describe the changes though. Hiding T 08:42, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Notability
I do not understand the tag; I don't see how it can reasonably be questioned, given the awards, the contributors, and the controversy. Some more sources would help show it, as is generally the case. DGG (talk) 22:36, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
 * If it really has these things, please demonstrate this with reliable independant sources. As it stands now, it is not readily aparent how this publication is notable.  --Kraftlos (talk) 00:22, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I've removed the tag. A quick google will turn up the many independent sources in newspapers, magazines, scholarly articles and books which either discuss the magazine, its impact and its role or instead cite it.  Rather than add or re-add a tag it would be nice if these could find their way into the article.  If you don't have time to add them, you don't have time to tag it as lacking.  84.92.54.229 (talk) 11:21, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Lead paragraph epithet: "the largest" -- how so?
A recent lead-in edit asserts that TCJ is most sizable:

...the largest US magazine of news and criticism pertaining to comic books and strips...

Yet it's not obvious what spatial or dimensional attribute the asserter believes merits the epithet "the largest". Nothing comes to my mind but guesses. ''Page count? Circulation? Cover price? Square inches? Height of all back issues when stacked? Number of contributors?'' --AC (talk) 08:29, 10 April 2009 (UTC)


 * After a week of no response, I changed "largest" to "foremost", which avoids dimensional attributes. "Foremost" seems about right, in the sense of "most advanced; chief in rank or dignity".  --AC (talk) 06:30, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Advertising Policy
User Sharksaredangerous recently excised the 'Advertising Policy' section, helpfully adding:

completely unsourced, erroneous notion that it's unusual for a publication to run ads they may disagree with

It's not clear which noun is claimed to be completely unsourced, the advertising policy of TCJ itself, or the erroneous notion? If the former is held to be unsourced, I submit the source would be none other than TCJ itself, its decades of pages of ads and text. These exist in 2010, they're not lost classical works.

If the latter 'erroneous notion' is supposedly unsourced, then your phrase "ads [the editors] may disagree with" as catch-all qualifier is misleading. The article makes a much stronger assertion: "ads that blatantly contradict the magazine's sensibilities". That is, the publishers printed many ads for what they condemn, and on some occasions in effect used that revenue to publish lampoons and critiques of those same ads. The advertiser pays for the editors' public scorn, who seem to relish biting the hands that feed them, when merited, as a matter of principle.

In the larger world of advertising driven American magazine and newspaper publishing this is unusual; in the field of comics, it's exceptional; and in general hobbyist periodicals it's uncommon. Advertisers effectively define much of what is sacred and unmentionable, and any consistently dissident publisher without substantial outside support must bend or break. With the increasing powers of media conglomerates, todays' publishers must also be wary of (or blind to) their owner's multiple commercial and political interests.

Almost any periodical's business model can survive regularly publishing modest critiques, or occasionally publishing stronger ones. A newspaper publisher can appear to cover a story critical of some necessary advertiser or superior influence, but almost never diligently. Or they can publish a blast, (does good, gets circulation), and publish weaker but incessant refutations, and not follow up; and make that a policy, balancing between interesting but dangerous (if unchecked) articles for the readers, then failing to support it for business reasons, until once again more spice is needed. In this way even a timid publisher when accused of timidity can point to their best journalism as proof of their bona fides, and employ a reliable stable of haggard reporters, who bite, but are doggedly resigned to careers of perpetual reassignment.

TCJ isn't like that at all. Perhaps some examples are needed. Calling all TCJ readers for typical anti-advertiser blasts and battles. A personal favorite is a an obscure Christian superhero comic-zine, advertised with full page ads, then critiqued, the comic's author was "a man to watch". Need to look up some names & dates...

As a result, TCJ doesn't attract or even repels certain advertisers. Those who do advertise are, by natural selection, either innoffensive to the editors, uninterested in their critical methods, or sympathizers. --AC (talk) 11:24, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

TCJ formats & form factors
A separate section might be good. TCJ started out as a newsprint "adzine", switched to glossy covers with newsprint inside, (and what appears to be IBM Selectric paste-up), "critzine?", later gets thicker, the typesetting and graphic design improve, "magazine", later the paper improves, later square binding, then the winter specials, "coffee table magazine", and the post #300 deluxe version, as well as the web/zine/blog/archive/hybrid online edition. The prices have changed. The advertising policies may have changed for the winter specials, (or perhaps higher prices drove out lower budget advertisers), and probably for #300 on. --AC (talk) 05:40, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Any Post-300 TCJs Published?
Does anyone have sourced information on TCJ material published after issue 300? Have any issues of the bi-annual publication gone to print? What is the form/format? The TCJ website offers little information and what it offers is stale. Any help or link leads would be welcomed.  Mr  JM 16:09, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Minor Correction to List of Contributors
The 'Don Phelps' in the list currently links to the football player. There is no page for Donald Phelps, the comics critic and historian. JWMcCalvin (talk) 04:35, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Top 100 list
The Top 100 Comics list here is a copyright violation. Yes (unlike some other Top lists I've seen) there's some critical commentary, but not enough to justify the inclusion of the entire list. This is incontrovertible I think. It's way beyond fair use, it's the core of the entire work. You can't take people's intellectual work and just put it into the Wikipedia.

It should be removed. Herostratus (talk) 08:23, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
 * ✅. Good catch. I've removed it. Woodroar (talk) 08:53, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Good job. I added back in the top four entries as being a legitimate fair use excerpt (I guess) and legitimate encyclopedic interest. Herostratus (talk) 16:01, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
 * If it's a copyvio, then it continues to live in the edit history. Doesn't an admin have to do something about that? Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 21:39, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. I usually just edit it out, but it seems to meet the requirements for revdel. I'll check on IRC or with an admin since it's been in there for almost 10 years. :( Woodroar (talk) 22:00, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I asked in IRC but didn't get a reply, so I added the copyvio revdel template. Hopefully an admin will be along shortly. Woodroar (talk) 22:17, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified
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