For the love

Just a couple of weeks ago, I got re-aquainted with a long-time friend & kindred spirit by pure chance (as these things sometimes happen even to me). We got together and it was (besides the obvious catching up) as if no time at all had elapsed, even though the last time we talked was certainly 2 years ago and the last time we really talked must have been a small decade ago.
Strange, but in the best way possible.

Now, as it happens, (and this ought not to surpise you, intrepid reader) during our encounters that decade hence, we spent most of our time in the blissful light exuded by comics and other printed pages, as well as a solid dose of games and the like, as befits adolescents.

No suprise then, that that afternoon some weeks ago, we spent talking mostly about comics, exchanging experiences, memories and the like.
As should be even less of a surprise, your servant is at all times keen to impart his endless wisdom & impeccable taste upon the unsuspecting as well as the initiated (for he would never discriminate) so we leisurely drifted in and out of the available material, picking out interesting objects along the way.

As my tastes have been running (for a good while now) much more towards the U.S. comics & Japanese manga rather than the European BD, and this evidently being evident in my collection, my friend at one point remarks that "I seem to prefer the pulp-side of the medium".

At first, I was defensive towards this term, yet I quickly realised that it concerned merely a difference in definition (furthermore, the term was not meant as a derogatory).
As he'd been weening himself increasingly on BDs when our ways parted many years ago, he'd veered more and more towards what I'll label 'auteur'BDs. I.e. material by Joann Sfar, Blain, Trondheim, Boucq etc. Plenty of Casterman, single volumes rather than series and so on.
These are more often than not a book per year, conserving a certain style that is almost inherent to that section of the medium.
A lot of the material in my collection, then, has monthly frequency, a plethora of styles, ideas, and, I suppose where he was going with the comment: a lot of genre exercises.
Think Stray Bullets, Star Wars, Vagabond, X-Men, Spider-Man, Batman ...

I'd never considered those pulp (as that term evokes images of Tarzan, The Shadow, The Spider or Doc Savage) and certainly not as derivative or inferior in either content or form to whatever
my friend was comparing them to. As the discussion went on, it became clear that quite simply, our definitions differed.

And I could safely conclude that the one cohesive line one could draw through my collection, from Hellboy to Wolverine, from Scott Pilgrim to Doctor Doom & from El Borbah to The Infinty Gauntlet, I think they are good reading.
True, that also means my collection will forever lack Isaac Le Pirate, Donjon, Michelluzzi books and plenty of others besides. I have tried them (more than once) and the detail that they are BD is wholly incidental. A certain rapport between their geographical origin and the creators' influence could no doubt be made, but bottom line, I quite simply don't think they are as good as the tomes making up my own collection.
And the only gauge I use to come to that conclusion is my own taste, no more, no less.

It certainly makes us no less good friends, on the contrary, the criticism allows for a more animated dialogue & it will always be based purely on what we have read and can therefore consider fact, rather than assumptions we make based on not much of anything.

I thoroughly enjoyed the discussion and feel the most rewarding was that we found more similarities in our arguments than differences.

Joy.

Say hello to his many talents!

Be seeing you
--nout