Why Comics Criticism Still Matters

By Tiffany Babb

The Comics Courier Issue 2 Kickstarter is live, and to promote it, I’ve been making the rounds on comics podcasts and websites. Unlike many, I do enjoy these conversations. I find it fun to chat with colleagues and talk about new work that I’m excited to share. Unsurprisingly, these conversations do always eventually lead to questions about the state of comics criticism, its future, and where The Comics Courier fits into all of that. 

While I have no rosy view of the future of comics criticism as a business or even as a career, I do stand, as I always have, by comics criticism as an art form. 

It may be because I’m a critic, but I do believe that criticism is an art form and should not be dismissed (as many often do) as solely a tool to buttress an industry. Does criticism promote comics and boost sales? I hope so, but that is not the reason that most writing about comics exists. In a time post the advent of social media, in which the sharing of ideas seems to have been devalued to a point beyond nothingness (and perhaps even morphed into a cause for annoyance), it is hard to sell the idea that writing is a craft. Yet, it is.

And I am a believer in craft because craft is what creates culture. While I do think it is important for people to create art for themselves, criticism written for audience is not that same practice. It is about communication and sharing, explaining and analyzing, arguing and defending. It is, in my opinion, an essential part of how a community responds to the art of their time and to the art that has come before. Criticism is a part of contextualizing, of creating culture, not just commenting on it. 

We can talk all day about how some comics criticism isn’t up to professional snuff and what we would like it to be, but these are all pie in the sky conversations. They’re as useless as the artist vs. writer debate. At the end of the day, if we want better comics criticism, we need to give it some support.

Of course, no one’s pockets are unlimited, and the economy is rocky right now, but there are other ways of supporting criticism – reading it, writing it, sharing it, discussing it, and publishing it. This is where I think The Comics Courier fits into the future of comics criticism. Not as a publication that stands alone but ideally as a publication that stands within a network of others that can find a way to pay and platform and mentor writers. 

As of now, the work of the comics critic mostly relies on passion and goodwill as well as the donating of unpaid time. It will probably be that way forever, but if there is a way for us to build systems, even small ones, to help make things better for critics, I think we should. Not only because I’d love to read loads of new, quality comics criticism, but also because I believe in supporting artists, and so I believe in supporting critics. 

Tiffany Babb writes and edits articles on comics and pop culture. She is the editor of The Comics Courier and The Fan Files. She has previously served as deputy editor of Popverse and as co-editor of the Eisner Award winning PanelxPanel Magazine. In the past, she has written for The AV Club, Paste Magazine, and The Comics Journal.