Pure, Unedited Garbage

Tim Leong, over at Comic Foundry, has a fun little interview up with Alex Robinson, who I absolutely adore, and Robinson has a great line when he talks about the relative merits of the small press system...

It's one of the few ways to communicate with an audience without interference from editors, sponsors, producers, whatever. This is a double-edged sword, of course, since you'll get pure, unedited garbage as well as gems.

This reminded me of a discussion we had here awhile back about the team mentality of "indy comics vs. mainstream comics", and while Brad Curran's main point in THAT piece (which was that "Who cares, a good comic is a good comic!") is correct, I also think that it bears further mention that the world of small press is just SO diverse that it really cannot be seen as a genre any more than manga can be seen as a genre.

Anything that places Bone, Box Office Poison and "Pure, Unedited Garbage" in the same genre is probably missing the whole point of HAVING "genres," which is to classify things.

To choose, "Put out by a creator his or herself" as the main classification distinguishing, say, The Goon and Strangers in Paradise or better yet, Jim Balent and Alex Robinson is, to me, pretty silly.

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