ABUNDANCE AND EXPRESSIVITY

I thought about relating this essay to the CRAFTING WALL STONES series, but it's not actually related to what MW herself wrote. Rather, in passing she made a partial quote of a famous passage from Matthew 12:34 (King James version):

O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.

In this case I chose not to check the original context of the passage, for I'm not interested in the moral stance taken by the speaker. I like the idea of "the abundance of the heart," though, for it takes me back to a subject I've not addressed much in recent years: the idea that all of the arts begin as expressive forms and only gradually are mitigated by considerations of reason, morality, et al. Ernst Cassirer was often my guide in this respect:

"Whatever we call existence or reality, is given to us at the outset in forms of pure expression. Thus even here we are beyond the abstraction of sheer sensation, which dogmatic sensationalism takes as its starting point. For the content which the subject experiences as confronting him is no merely outward one, resembling Spinoza's 'mute picture on a slate.' It has a kind of transparency; an inner life shines through its very existence and facticity. The formation effected in language, art and myth starts from this original phenomenon of expression; indeed, both art and myth remain so close to it that one might be tempted to restrict them wholly to this sphere."-- Cassirer, THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE, p. 449.

The Biblical speaker is only interested in the moral statement that bad people must and will reveal their badness through their words. I'm more interested in the fact that art, whether good or bad, proceeds from a given person's desire to express him/herself. That desire may be inextricably linked to the desire to make one's daily bread, or to any number of other personal factors, but the desire to make art is in itself sui generis. 

Now it should be obvious that what creates "abundance" in one heart may not do so in another. However, it seems indisputable that the best-regarded creators are those that are in touch with what moves them personally, rather than simply pleasing their readers. To reference briefly one aspect of CRAFTING WALL STONES PT. 2, I don't think that comics-artist Marie Severin would have necessarily created work on the same level as Wood and Kurtzman had her femaleness simply been overlooked. It's quite possible that she would have given more work if the industry had not been ruled by "the old boy's network." However, it doesn't follow that she would have created works of genius had she enjoyed constant employment, since there were innumerable toilers in the vineyards whose works only occasionally rose to levels of excellence. 

Where creativity is concerned, there's something to be said for unleashing one's demons. Since Heidi McDonald mentioned Wally Wood, I'll cite the example of his PIPSQUEAK PAPERS.

Even though I extolled PAPERS as one of my chosen mythcomics, it should go without saying that this is not an example of a work with widespread appeal. The story of "baby man" Pip and his discontents with femininity, while extremely expressive, does not measure up in other respects to Wood's best EC work, or even his superhero tales. I would imagine that many would judge the PAPERS to be a misogynist work, and it's axiomatic that Wood is not particularly fair to the fairer sex herein. But then, bitching about women was something that gave "abundance" to Wally Wood's heart, and so informs his art as much as a similar negativity toward femaleness informs the art of William Faulkner.

Rumiko Takahashi, whom I used as a counter-example against Marie Severin's staid formulaic qualities, is another artist whose creativity is, in my opinion, fueled by the abundance of the heart, even when it contains extreme negativity against the male of the species. Certainly even her endless assaults upon her character of Ataru Moroboshi argue that she was in part using him as a punching-bag in retaliation for male offensiveness of one kind or another. 

Sheer expressivity, of course, is worthless by itself; it has to mediated by excellence in what I've termed the four potentialities in order to communicate anything. But contrary to the Matthew citation, both good and evil things can be spoken by real human beings, who in every culture are ruled by disparate notions of good and evil-- and this is why art is often better when it too reflects an inextricable mixture of good and evil.

CRAFTING WALL STONES PT. 2

Assuming that one validates my equation between artistic creativity and Mary Wollstonecraft's concept of "virtue" as it is determined by the sexual division of labor-- what then?

Well, if everyone viewed such discrepancies in virtue as the result of a long-standing biological process, we wouldn't get things like THE OBITUARY MARIE SEVERIN SHOULD HAVE RECEIVED, in which we learn, according to author Alex Dueben, that it represents "the career she could have had, had she been born a man."

Not since the days of "Spiderbuttgate" have I seen such a display of blithering ressentiment, in which the shortcomings of any person who fits an intersectional profile can be excused by references to "endemic sexism."

Now, I wrote my own obit for Marie Severin, combined with one for Gary Friedrich, who coincidentally passed on the same day. Mine was not a general assessment of either comics pro, aside from crediting them both with "better-than-average formula entertainment," which assessment I would apply to both pros separately.

What we have here is sheer revisionism, an attempt to build Marie Severin up to a major figure in comic books. In the comments-section, Heidi McDonald avers:

Looking at the work here, Severin should always be mentioned in the same breath as Wood and Kurtzman.

To say the least, I do not agree. Severin simply was not that imaginative. Forget comparisons to Wood and Kurtzman; Severin was not even as accomplished as a contemporaneous "Marvel Bullpen" artist like Bill Everett. Everett is of course most famed as the creator of the Sub-Mariner, but even if one compared Everett's accomplishments in the Silver and Bronze Ages to those of Severin in the same period, there's nothing on Severin's resume that even rates with Everett's co-creation of Daredevil. Indeed, Everett even created one of Marvel's most prominent sixties villainesses, Umar the Unrelenting--

--whom Severin also drew a few issues later.

Now, if one agrees with my proposition that, based only on their Silver-and-Bronze Age contributions Everett was superior to Severin, is there a biological explanation for this opinion? Certainly I would not advocate Camille Paglia's explanation, as discussed in Part 1, to the effect that Everett's abilities in male projection-- and being able to write his own name in the snow-- had anything to do with it.

But Everett may have been a better creator simply because, being a man, he was more invested in excelling in a largely male arena, while Severin was not so invested.

Granted, one can certainly find male practitioners who weren't even as good at formulaic entertainment as was Severin. But on the whole, there were simply more good male creators than there were female ones, and no revisionism can change that.

I assert, further, that there are a fair number of female comics-pros who not only show exceptional creativity, but who arguably can excel their male contemporaries. An example would be Rumiko Takahashi, one of the foremost manga-artists, who IMO easily outpaced her former manga-teacher, the recently departed Kazuo Koike. I admire Koike's writing on such properties as LONE WOLF AND CUB and LADY SNOWBLOOD. But even allowing for the manga-works I have not read, I would say that Takahashi displays a far greater profusion of disparate characters and concepts. And she did so, even though it seems likely that Japan had its own tradition of "endemic sexism."

R.I.P. MARIE SEVERIN AND GARY FRIEDRICH

Synchronicity strikes thrice. On August 30 of this year, two comics professionals, best known for  their Silver and Bronze Age works, passed away. Both had endured lingering health problems (a stroke for Marie Severin, Parkinson's for Gary Friedrich).

An additional odd "meaningful coincidence:" Severin and Friedrich had briefly collaborated, principally (if not exclusively) on Marvel's INCREDIBLE HULK feature right around the time that it shifted from the "split-book" TALES TO ASTONISH to its own title, which has continued in one form or another since then.

A third coincidence meaningful only to me: just yesterday, an anonymous commenter on my blog called my attention to an error in this essay, wherein I'd written about a run of SUB-MARINER comics (#9-13, not long after Subby departed the title he'd formerly shared with the Green Goliath). The commenter pointed out that I'd credited John Buscema with the pencil-art on that sequence of stories, when said art was actually produced for two issues by Gene Colan and three by-- Marie Severin.

And finally, though it's in no way a coincidence, my personal acquaintance with the Hulk in his own feature started with that period in which Severin and Friedrich briefly collaborated.

Technically, the last issue of TALES TO ASTONISH, before it was re-titled THE INCREDIBLE HULK, was a collaboration by Severin-- who had already done assorted earlier stories-- and Stan Lee. TALES TO ASTONISH #101 was the first part of a two-part story, and the first part was scribed by Stan Lee, who hurled the bellicose behemoth into the fantasy-otherworld of Thor's Asgard.

So this was my first exposure to the Hulk in his own series, beginning with a killer scene wherein the monster-hero thrashes Heimdall, guardian of Asgard's Rainbow Bridge.

Gary Friedrich picked up scripting-duties for the second part of the mini-epic, which, among other things, involved Bruce Banner being saved from death by two of Marvel's dastardly demigods, the Enchantress and the Executioner.

The Enchantress actually strikes the Hulk dead in this issue, but Odin conveniently brings the monster back to life and sends him home. The sorceress meets the Hulk in numerous stories later on, but she never seems to remember that handy instant-death spell. But I digress.

In HULK #104, Friedrich and Severin collaborated on a kickass battle between Old Jade-Jaws and Spider-Man's foe, the Rhino. The story ends with the villain's apparent death, which I found very impressive at the time. Naturally, the Rhino got better as soon as some writer needed him.

Finally, Severin bid farewell to the feature. at least for several years, in TALES TO ASTONISH #107-108.  This two-part tale pitted Old Greenskin against Iron Man's villain, the Mandarin. Friedrich again wrote, though Severin contributed only layouts for a penciller who would soon become dominantly associated with the Hulk: Herb Trimpe. Here's a panel in which the monster saves Nick Fury from the villain, not so much out of a desire to benefit Fury as to thwart Mandarin.

Today I can't say the Friedrich-Severin HULK stories are any sort of pinnacle in the history of the character. Still, even aside from these issues being my quasi-introduction to the character, I still think they're better-than-average formula entertainment. I'm not even claiming they're the only times the two professionals crossed paths, but these stories were probably the most meaningful to me.