THOR’S COMIC COLUMN 12/9

Funny how Adam and I came to the same conclusion about the fantasy genre in modern fiction without consulting each other.

Oh, that was me eating your brain. Sorry.

The fantasy genre is one I have a love-hate relationship with. As I basically said in my review, it's one of those crannies of pop culture that has so much potential precisely because it's largely inhabited by hacks--though I'll amend that to say that there seems to have been some progress in the last decade in terms of bringing quality to the epic fantasy genre. (And yes, the Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones books are actually really good, and hopefully that means something coming from a guy who can't stand the crap churned out by Robert Jordan and Terry Brooks, and isn't even that big a fan of Tolkien.) I also think fantasy used to be a lot better, and more diverse, as a genre, before everyone started trying to be Tolkien. I've always got a long list of pre-Tolkien fantasy writers I like to recommend to people, several of whom are listed in the review. In particular, "Jurgen" by James Branch Cabell is a bit of a lost masterpiece, if you can dig it out, do so.

The problem with so much fantasy is that the writers get so caught up in the world building that they sideline plot and character and everything else that you need for a good story. I actually like dense narratives with lots of detail in the world they create (which is something comics do really well), but you also need to hook me with an interesting story first, and most fantasies tend to fall back on Hero's Journey cliches. In fact, they seem to actively revel in them. We need more fantasy writers who call bullshit on Joseph Campbell.