Readers of The Lost Art

The following gems of wisdom have all been pronounced at meetings of the Graphic Novels group. Names have been hidden to protect the guilty.

On the entertainingness, or otherwise, of terrible comics

“Car crashes can be interesting to watch.”

“It has to be a three-car flaming pile-up though, not a minor prang off the side of a tree.”

On authorial self-knowledge

“He presents himself as kind of a prat, but I sort of expected that.”

Disappointing works from great authors

“I’m afraid to say it is a big pile of poo.”

Both the name of a series and a general statement

“I’ve been reading Questionable Content.”

How to define it?

“There’s no supernatural element! Except that he’s dead.”

The genius of Will Eisner

“You read his work and think ‘This feels kind of familiar’, then you realise yeah, that’s because Will Eisner invented it in the first place.”

Just hop in your time machine

“Does anyone know any cavemen?”

English is a funny language

“It’s really hard to pronounce a backslash.”

A brief detour into intellectualism

“I’m going in search of the literary graphic novel.”

“All those layers of phoney self-deprecation.”

When comics fail to live up to expectations

“I’m trying to evenly distribute the disappointment.”

On reading certain people’s works

“A little Chris Ware can go a long way.”

When experiments with the form go awry

“Fifty pages of no punctuation!”

On wildlife rescue

“Why is there a seal in a garden? That doesn’t make any sense.”

The problem with spy comics

“There’s just too many catsuits.”

The perils of censorship

“The government read it, and then they took his grant away.”

It’s important to be on the right side of the line

“It’s a fine line between smart and smart-arsed.”

Reviewing Grant Morrison

“There’s not that many of his books where I read it and think ‘these are people’.”

The need to understand economic systems

“The nice thing about him is that he’ll sell it to you for £5, or free if you’re a friend.”

“Yeah… he really doesn’t get how capitalism works.”

Reviewing later Asterix comics

“’Asterix and the Chariot Race’: it’s a good cover version.”

On graphic novel formats

“Beware of getting the big floppy edition.”

On characters in Asterix

“All the female characters are wives of existing characters who are there to nag their husbands.”

“Mostly everyone is portrayed as an idiot.”

On historical comics

“There’s always a temptation with historical comics to do mythological”.

Like herding cats

“That was my ‘EVERYONE!’ voice.”

Try not to scare the normal people

“I really shouldn’t say things like that quite so loudly in a coffee shop.”

Not a flattering nickname for Geoff Johns

“Unfortunately it’s written by Arm Pull-Off Boy.”

On memory loss

“Have we got Oh-What-The-****’s-It-Called on the reading list?”

Upon starting a new quotes book

“I wish I could say something profound and epic, instead of utter nonsense.”