Toxic Alan Fans and Their Disappointing Discourse

The author of X-Amount of Comics: 1963 (WhenElse?!) Annual assails the paucity of critical debate surrounding the work ...

I have to confess that, some six months out from the publication of X-Amount of Comics: 1963 (WhenElse?!) Annual, that it has sparked so little intelligent discussion. It’s indicative of the state of comics and the current media landscape—and our respective siloing within that landscape—that most of the people who enjoyed my work already knew about it prior to publication, and that its arrival in printed form caused very few waves.

Most of the negative commentary that I am aware of has come from Toxic Alan Moore Fans who made up their minds to hate the work without reading it. Consequently, the commentary cannot possibly run very deep. Nor do they seem to be aware that, far from being merely an Alan Moore “hit job,” my satire actually targets Toxic Alan Fans themselves.

The few negative reviews of any substance at all have been tremendously disappointing in their paucity and shallowness of thought. The only ones of which I am aware are self-posted by self-styled critics—one who shadows Comics Journal reviews and apparently has convinced himself that he’s their resident critic-in-waiting in the event that their entire staff disappear—or on Reddit or Goodreads.

A Facebook group, Cartoonist Kayfabe Ringside Seats, turns out to be a hotbed of Toxic Alan Fans who don’t even seem to grasp the group’s credo—ostensibly, it is devoted to the work of creators who have been interviewed or discussed on Cartoonist Kayfabe (which I happen to be). Again, such discussion presupposes actually having read the work in question; the last thing Toxic Alan Fans can seem to grasp is that familiarity with a given work is a prerequisite to an intelligent discussion of it.

One TAF on CKRS (to use initials) actually denounced X-Amount as a “Rick Veitch hit-job”—the kind of received misinformation philosophers and proponents of critical thinking have been warning us about for millennia.

Yesterday, for fun, I proofread one of the more substantial (for lack of a better term, since it is only by comparison to complete dreck) negative reviews of X-Amount of Comics by one of many self-styled comics critics who believe they’re doing the world some good by posting their opinions for free. I copied the text into a Word document and made at least three dozen (and more like sixty) proofreading corrections—spelling, punctuation, grammar—including the reviewer’s jarring use of the term “comics” in the singular to refer a comic book.

X-Amount is not a “comics”; it’s a comic—short for comic book, you illiterate ass.

Among several pronounced lapses in logic were the reviewer’s assertions that he had neither read the original Image Comics 1963 nor very much of my previous work, but still making sweeping, omniscient pronouncements on both, including at one point that any of my past work was better than X-Amount—how would they know, one wonders?

A hallmark of the Toxic Alan Fan is their professed belief that Alan Moore is the greatest writer who ever lived—not just of comics but in all of literature (although the only comparison ever offered is to the most banal Batman hacks, never Shakespeare or Milton)—coupled with a manifest inability of the given fan to write well or even coherently at all. Their fixation on hackneyed phrases and delight in trivial quips should be an embarrassment to themselves, let alone Alan Moore, were he even aware.

In this case, our reviewer relishes the word “confused”—he finds X-Amount “confusingly named,” its contents a “confused mélange,” and the stories of the early Megaton Man a “confusing mes” [sic]. Apparently, the worst putdown one can devise is to call a work confusing, but one has to wonder if the common denominator here is not the work but rather the reviewer’s default state of mind.

“Mess” is not the only misspelling; “Nabisco,” “infallible,” “magazine,” and even “but” are also botched.

The reviewer offers, “This is the point in which I am probably meant to give you context into what 1963 is all about,” a remarkably tortured sentence that, strictly speaking, makes no literal sense, simply because it employs a number of phrases idiosyncratically. For example, usually it’s the point at which something happens, not in which something happens—one can hardly imagine being inside a point. Also, context usually surrounds a work, it’s not something that is given into a work—most likely, the reviewer meant they were supposed to offer some insight into 1963. Except that he’s not reviewing 1963 nor has he ever read 1963—he’s reviewing X-Amount of Comics and ostensibly offering insight into X-Amount of Comics—or providing context surrounding X-Amount of Comics, as the case may be. Sadly, neither context nor insight are the reviewer’s to offer at all—only confusion.

What is noteworthy about the review is the swipe it takes at my staking my “claim on comics history,” particularly my bold assertion that Megaton Man #5 influenced the tone of Watchmen—not all that bold considering Megaton Man #4 indisputably influenced Watchmen #4, with its “on patrol” scene lifted verbatim. It’s a wonder that the reviewer is able to discern something as subtle as an historical claim, considering how ignorant he is of comics history.

It would be futile to point out that the reviewer has missed the point of X-Amount of Comics, and that his assessment, presumably after having actually read it, is not substantially deeper than other Toxic Alan Fans who have judged the work without having read it at all. Readers who are predisposed to expecting X-Amount of Comics to be only about Alan Moore—pro or con—are going to be disappointed that Alan Moore factors in very little. It is, in fact, an essay on universes and syncretism and archetypes in an age of intellectual property, and a contemplation on stories and storytelling—and in some small way how a few spoiled, pampered storytellers can’t even be bothered to make good on their promises to finish a story when nothing in the world stands in their way. Sad to say that devotees of the works of Alan Moore seem so ill-prepared for such a discussion.

 

A fairly thoughtful reflection on X-Amount of Comics: