Andrew D. Arnold: Q&A

Posted: Tuesday, March 16, 2004
Posted By: Tim O'Shea

TIME.com columnist Andrew D. Arnold is in a fortunate position (from the perspective of folks like myself) with his TIME.comix column. When I write a piece praising a comic book, I make an audience already well-versed in the ways of comics aware of a product. Sometimes, in essence, I’m preaching to the choir. Arnold, on the other hand—to extend/mix-up the whole choir metaphor—is a missionary preaching, to the unconverted, the non-comic reader (AKA the mainstream consumer), through his column at TIME.com. Even better for “Preacher” Arnold, he sometimes is asked to write comics (or “comix” as he calls ‘em) pieces for the newsweekly’s print edition—a publication with a circulation of 4,095,935. So to say his comics knowledge can sometimes reach a larger audience than the typical comics columnist is no understatement. With this in mind, I decided to interview him. Before launching into the questions, here’s an excerpt from his bio:

“His comicbook reading began as a child with the Tintin books and Stan Lee's The Origins of Marvel Comics. Then, in 1990, he was introduced to Daniel Clowes' Eightball and has been collecting and reading alternative graphic literature ever since.

But it wasn't until 1996 that his career in comix journalism began with an almost mystical vision. ‘I thought, 'Huh. I should put out a fanzine,'’ Arnold says with his face in profile, his eyes pointed heavenward. As bold and ambitious as its creator, The Comix Review launched as a Boston-area freebie with the mandate to cover all the alternative comicbooks released each month. Suddenly, after two huge six-page issues, and halfway through the third, he was forced to quit because, "it was too much work."

Undaunted, Arnold decided to volunteer his desperately-needed services to a local semi-monthly, freebie ‘throwaway’ newspaper, Boston Rock. His column, Hooked-On Comix, generated a silent buzz in the industry and caught the eye of New York University's Graduate School of Journalism when he sent them an application and photocopies. Before graduating in 1998 Arnold started work at TIME.com. Very quickly after two years, in spite of popular demand, he revved up his engines with the weekly TIME.comix.”

Now, on with the interview.

Tim O’Shea: Would you say your goal with TIME.comix is to provide an advocacy forum for alternative comics literature?

Andrew D. Arnold: TIME.comix is very much a kind of advocacy journalism. Exposing Time's more general readership to the constantly growing array of interesting and sophisticated graphic literature has been its main point. To that end I almost never do negative reviews, except in the case of particularly high-profile books that do not live up to their hype. Instead I try to encourage readership by covering books that I think would offer a positive and enriching experience.

TO: As you've covered the industry over the years, have you become more or less optimistic as to the future growth potential for comics/comix?

ADA: Certainly more optimistic. Comics are getting more coverage in both middle-brow and high-brow general media than ever before. I get the sense that many more people, even if they don't actually read them, would at least admit that comics could go beyond disposable children's entertainment. The increasing availability of comics at regular bookstores has also vastly increased their exposure as well as their sales.

TO: Are there certain unheralded series/projects that you think you can take partial credit for garnering it greater mainstream attention and acclaim?

ADA: I'm not Clement Greenberg (SBC background aside: Greenberg is an art critic credited with boosting the profiles of many artists, such as Jackson Pollack). My influence on "mainstream" coverage and sales is debatable. About the only thing I feel I can take full credit for is introducing last year's Eisner judges to the work of Jason Shiga, who went on to win Talent Deserving Wider Recognition.

TO: Periodically a version of your online column will make it into the print edition. How often does it come about and do the TIME editors understand the nature of your coverage well enough to know you're not the type of person to turn to only when the next Spidey or X-Men movie is close to being released?

ADA: Occasionally I will write an article for the print version of TIME, but it's not the same as my column. The print pieces tend to be more collaborative and shorter. I have become something like the magazine's "go-to" guy for any comics-related article, but most of my magazine pieces were the result of me pitching an idea.

TO: As a voice to the mainstream about the comics medium, what do you find to be some of the greatest mainstream misconceptions about the comic literary form?

ADA: Among the mainstream public or among the mainstream media? Among the public I think there remains a lingering association of comics with children's/adolescent entertainment. The mainstream media, however, seems fairly savvy to the new wave of comics. I'm not sure that there are many misconceptions about comics left. If anything, alternative comics creators and the media that cover them should stop being so insecure about how they are perceived.

TO: When TIME’s sister publication Entertainment Weekly started devoting space to comic books in 2003, did they approach you about providing content, or was that something that would have even interested you?

ADA: No, I didn't hear from them. They have their own staff, and although the same company publishes both TIME and EW, they do not share resources. If somebody wants to pay me my current salary to do nothing but write about comics, I will be glad to do so. As it is I do comics coverage strictly as an extra-curricular activity.

TO: I was struck that superheroes didn't come close to making it in your top comix of 2003 (unless one wants to count Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen). But Gaiman's 1602 earned the top worst spot. From your perspective, what makes the superhero genre unable to warrant a mention in your top 10 for the past three years? (The closest that made it was Spiegelman's book about Jack Cole and Plastic Man in your list for 2001 or Moore's Promethea in 2002).

ADA: The vast majority of superhero books are created with the same consumability, shelf-life and indistinguishability as bottled mayonnaise, and are just as critic-proof. They exist only as product and not as art. There is nothing to talk about except how well an individual issue or series fulfills the formula. For the record, though, Gaiman's 1602 was not the worst comic of 2003. The editorial mandates of the best/worst list required that it be labeled as such. Many, many books were far worse than 1602, but were read by so few people or else had so little ambition that even to highlight them as the "worst" would be to give them too much attention. I chose 1602 because it felt like the greatest disappointment of 2003.

TO: Do you fear too many publishers may jump on the manga bandwagon in the wrong manner and for the wrong reasons after reading your recent column?

ADA: My column has no influence on publishers. They look at the skyrocketing sales of manga. I am confident that the U.S. manga market will soon become over-saturated and collapse within a couple of years. First, the vast majority of manga is disposable -- there is nothing lasting in it. Second, it seems foolishly founded on the interest of tweener girls, possibly the most fickle consumers on planet earth.

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