By the way, if I say that some random person "hates superhero comics", it's not necessarily an attack. If I say that someone who has written a number of superhero comics "hates superhero comics", it is an attack, especially if I follow it with a snide remark suggesting that he should quit that job.

The problem with the review was not that the writer tacked this on at the end, but that the writer offered it as their summation. The writer had some points to make, but couldn't put them into a coherent argument, so turned it into a personal attack instead.

In complete isolation, I probably would have just ignored this. But personal attacks against comics professionals are becoming the norm (Didio's an idiot! Joey Q hates the fans!) and it really lowers the discourse. Which is too bad, because comics discussions should be good, too. (I'm no fan of Didio or Quesada, either - I've dropped all DC and Marvel from my pull list - but I don't attack them personally when I don't like their work.)

By the way, none of this was intended as some passionate defense of TKJ - see my first comment on this thread, where I said that I considered it "badly flawed".

Here's a basic example: you inferred from my writing that I disagreed with the review, and that is not true. I agree with most of its points and criticisms of TKJ, even though they're presented as part of a fallacious argument in that particular piece. I would actually even agree that Alan Moore wrote TKJ while going through a period of disenchantment with the superhero genre as it existed at the time. I just think it's crazy to try and prove this based on TKJ alone, and an inappropriate thing to bring up in a review of a single work.

The only reason why I use the Latin terms for logical fallacies is that their English equivalents are extremely terrible and not as widely known, so my apologies if I appear pedantic. I am certainly not using them to try and make myself look smart. (Hey, I'm arguing about comic books on the internet, that battle is long since lost.) I only use them in the name of precision. They sum up very complex ideas in a succinct fashion. I'll try again without using them in the name of courtesy.

You mention that the review is worth discussing, but the main reason why logical fallacies are to be avoided in writing is that they make points impossible to discuss without the fallacy obfuscating the rest of the argument's merit. In this case, since the writer brought up Moore's character, it means any points it made about TKJ are going to be lost as people's own personal opinions of Moore interfere with their ability to process his arguments. Look at Tyson interpreting the mentions of Moore as personal attacks, for instance.

If the reviewer had not mentioned Moore and instead let the list of flaws stand on its own, then I think you'd have something fans of TKJ wouldn't be able to dismiss easily. Instead, I think most off the people you'd most want to think about that review are instead going to write it off as biased or mean-spirited.

I don't think his assertion that Alan Moore hates superheroes was a left turn but a logical progression from his laundry list. You don't agree with it, which is fine, but I don't see a left turn at all. Any more than concluding Busiek loves old school superhero comics after making a bunch of observations of his Avengers run constitutes a "left turn."

Also, I never really enjoy the intellectual habit of getting caught up in competing to come up with latin fallacy terms, as that always steers the argument into a battle of who knows more latin logic terms and it all ends up becoming a spiral into competing pedantry. i don't really care about parsing it to find out what type of latin logic fallacy it possibly falls under, I'll admit up front I know little about the official latin names of logical fallacies, I just care whether it brings up a lot of valid points that make sense and are worth discussing. In my opinion, that review does. That's all I need.

What baffles me is that the reviewer does go through a fairly coherent laundry list of actual technical weaknesses in the work, weaknesses Moore himself has pointed out, before he takes an abrupt left turn into arguing that these weaknesses are somehow the result of Alan Moore not loving superheroes enough. If his conclusion had been, effectively, "No work with this many problems should be considered a classic, regardless of influence or authorship," and dropped all of the speculation about Moore as a person, it would've indeed been a fine negative review.

Unfortunately, even an argument in which individual statements have truth value is still fallacious when the argument's conclusion is fallacious. All this review ends up trying to prove is that Alan Moore is somehow incapable of writing superheroes because he doesn't like them enough, with TKJ's technical flaws merely presented as "proof". That makes it fail both as a persuasive essay and as review of TKJ in particular.

I think you're very much mistaken on what a "personal attack" is. A personal attack and an opinion are two different things.

The reviewer that T. quotes saying that "Alan Moore hates superhero comics" after citing a few reasons why is not a personal attack. It's an opinion. And while I don't agree 100% with that opinion-- I get the feeling that Moore has some disdain for the genre, as I hinted in my own earlier post in these parts-- I can see where he's coming from and that does not constitute a personal attack anymore than T.'s response constitutes a straw man argument.

Let me give you a few examples.

1. Alan Moore hates superhero comics. OPINION.
2. Alan Moore has a huge scary beard. OPINION.
3. Alan Moore worships a snake. FACT.
4. Alan Moore is a jerk. PERSONAL ATTACK.
5. Alan Moore writes child pornography. FACT.
6. Alan Moore is a child molester. PERSONAL ATTACK.

It's true that personal attacks make no contribution to a conversation. They have no place in intelligent discourse. But opinions and facts-- even opinions and facts that you don't necessarily agree with-- are part-and-parcel of any discussion.

And I think the reviewer summed it up pretty well at the end: pretentious. The characters don't act like people, let alone themselves, the structure is sloppy, the dialogue hackneyed. To my mind, that makes it bad comics, period-- regardless of genre. I feel it shows a distinct lack of respect towards the characters and genre-- a distinct lack of respect that might lead some to say that Alan Moore hates superheroes.

Even when some love of the genre does come out-- 1964, for example-- there's a fair amount of camp. That being said, Watchmen is still a masterpiece and I've yet to meet anyone who hates Tom Strong. Moore's usually not a bad writer-- but to regard him as some untouchable genius of comics, like many do, is a little disheartening.

Second, I don't consider what the guy says about Alan Moore personal attack, any more than I think reading an Alan Moore comic and coming away with the conclusion "Alan Moore LOVES superhero comics" is personal praise. He is using the author's work and coming away with an opinion on Moore's attitude about the genre. If i read a Steve Ditko book and come away with the idea, rightly or wrongly, that Ditko hates liberals, am I making a personal attack or an educated guess? If I read Denny O'Neil's Green Lantern/Green Arrow or Question and say "Denny O'Neil hates conservatism" is that a personal attack or an educated guess? People read Alan Moore's works and come away with the idea that "Alan Moore loves superheroes and writes love letters to them all the time" and mention it in their reviews. So why can't this guy read Alan Moore's works and refute that claim by expressing the opposite idea in HIS review? If it's acceptable for reviewerss to conclude Alan Moore loves superhero comics and say so, why is it unacceptable for someone to conclude the opposite in a review?

A personal attack would be a statement having nothing to do with the work and not stemming from any analysis of it. "Alan Moore is ugly" "Alan Moore is a pretentious twit with a stupid beard." "Alan Moore has an ugly wife" etc, etc. What you mention is not a personal attack.

Sorry, but your whole last post was a straw man - I didn't reduce his argument, I addressed his own summation of his argument - he does begin that comment with "In short...".

I don't agree with most of the rest of his post, but I have no problem with it. But his own summary is just a personal attack, and that weakens his critique.

T - it’s one thing to say “I don’t like The Killing Joke, and here’s why”, and another, indefensible, thing to say “Alan Moore doesn’t write the way I like, so he must hate superhero comics”. That’s just weak, and adds nothing positive to the discussion.

I am really tired of the personal attacks that “fans” on the Internet level at comics professionals when they aren’t happy with them.

You reduced the guy's whole argument to just that? When did we become such PC prigs obsessed with being so damn NICE all the time? if you don't agree with the whole "Moore hates superhero comics" part of the guy's opinion, just ignore it or refute it. But the whole thing is not just some angry personal attack without merit. To ignore some of the better points and just call the whole argument weak and meritless just because part of it is not "nice" enough for your taste is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. And THAT really adds nothing positive to a discussion. The guy is entitled to his opinions, even if it leads to the idea that Moore doesn't like superheroes (an idea I'm not convinced of either by the way, but I can at least understand why the guy would feel that way).

Why not just say "I disagree with the idea that Moore doesn't like superhero comics." And then address the guy's other points too? I just can't take the whole "holier than thou" kum-ba-ya vibe that comes over this site sometimes, like some of the recent responses to Pol Rua's spirited bashing of Green Lantern Rebirth.

I am really tired of the personal attacks that "fans" on the Internet level at comics professionals when they aren't happy with them.

Yesterday I gave this trade paperback a second read, and I can't say it changed my first impressions. As a Bat-fan, I picked up the book because it contains an important moment in Bat history, central to the story of a character I care about. /Batman: The Killing Joke/ is the storyline in which the Joker paralyzed Barbara Gordon, former Batgirl -- a constraint that eventually led to her becoming überdecker to the hero world, Oracle.

I've bought some fairly cheesy trade paperbacks in the name of Bat history lessons -- /Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying/, for example, is the story of how Tim Drake becomes Robin, and it's dripping with cheese and earnestness. I can cope with cheese (see my enjoyment of 70's X-Men) but there's something about /The Killing Joke/ that really rubs me the wrong way. It was written by Alan Moore, one of the two "dark" writers of the 80's, who shocked the comics world out of its idyllic 70's fluff and into grittiness. The other was Frank Miller. And while it's obvious that Frank Miller has dark thoughts and muses far too much on sex with Wonder Woman, it's equally obvious that Frank Miller loves superhero comics. Alan Moore, I have read and I now believe, hates superhero comics.

I omit my summary of the plot of the book, out of respect for Amazon's no-spoiler guidlines, but you aren't missing much; a linear plot with no real twists or surprises, or acts of astounding intelligence or fortitude by our hero. The only thing that enlivens the very twistless story is the counterpoint of a possible creation story for the Joker, where he's a loser stand-up artist who can't get a gig, tries one night of crime to support his pregnant wife, etc. The creation story is a little more interesting than the rest of it, but it's a little more set in stone, a little more definitive, then I've ever seen DC let anyone do for a Joker story. He's SUPPOSED to be mysterious -- an image of the madness that can be birthed without reason from man. Except for "he fell in a chemical vat", there is no bottom line on this man, and this weak explanatory backstory detracts from the Joker mythos, it doesn't add to it.

The story lacks emotional punch where it needs it -- the crippling of a major ongoing character, for heaven's sake, and Gordon finding the resolve not to snap in the face of this 'sophisticated' psychological torture -- and, in fact, seems emotionally illogical. Gordon doesn't ask Batman whether Babs is ALIVE when he's rescued. The fiercely protective Batman, after never laughing at a single thing the Joker has ever said (I mean, that's part of why Mr. J hates him!), laughs at a mediocre joke he tells after nearly killing Batgirl. Are these human beings? Flatly, no they aren't. They're mouthpieces for Moore's shallow conceits -- "one bad day makes people insane, in different ways," and "the world is so awful you just have to laugh" -- and the only thing they show any commitment to is disputing those overblown theories.

On top of that, the story makes no LOGICAL sense, something I am more than happy to overlook in a comic book, provided something else -- emotional punch or comedic value -- fills the void. Who was the guy in the Joker suit in Arkham? Where did the Joker get the money to buy the amusement park, or, for that matter, to outfit it with vast flat-screen displays and deadly traps within a few days? Where did the Joker find so many sideshow freaks who like to hurt people? And finally, when did bondage dwarf minions become part of Joker's schtick? Joker is, Jack Nicholson aside, an asexual villain (please see Harley Quinn's sexual frustration for details.) Stripping Babs for the pictures, naked Gordon leashed by bondage minions, et cetera, are Alan Moore saying, "Ooh, I'm so BAD!" NOT anything the Joker would do.

In short, I do believe Alan Moore hates superhero comics. And as Lana said on Smallville once, "If you hate your job so much, why don't you just quit?"

Bottom line:
Pretentiously "meaningful" and pretentiously dark, not to mention painfully 80's. Characterization shallow and perfunctory, story trite and unexciting. Pictures okay -- a few very good Joker portraits.

He didn’t shoot and rape Barbara to put an end to one of his enemies[...] He did it because at the time, he thought it was funny.

Mmm... I always thought he was trying to prove a point. I mean, I could be wrong; but it seemed like he thought that all you needed was a bad day to turn a sane person insane (hence the Dark Knight Movie connection), and he was trying to give Gordon the wrost possible day imaginable. That's why he is dressed as a tourist, that's why he takes pictures and shows them to Gordon, that's why the story flashes back to his "origin", and that's why, towards the end, he turns to Batman and says... "I bet you had a bad day once."

But like I said, it's all subject to interpretation, and that's probably why Moore's stories are regarded so highly.

I think that TKJ is where Joker made the jump from evil super villian to Evil super villian. He didn't shoot and rape Barbara to put an end to one of his enemies (as in, attacked Batgirl to get to Batman). He didn't even do it because she was in his way. He didn't do it to establish dominance over her or over Gordon. He did it because she was there. He did it because at the time, he thought it was funny.

And, that, to me, is the definition of the Joker. He does what he likes because at the time he finds it funny. I can almost see him standing in the hallway thinking, "Wouldn't it be funny to answer the door and get shot? Shock value humor, but humor nonetheless. I'll try it."

Theno

(BTW - Please note - I'm "Blackjak" without the second "c", in case some of you think I/we am/are schizophrenic)

I think my favourite Joker story is probably in Dark Knight Returns, though perhaps more for the "epic final confrontation" quality of it.

Finally, for all of Moore’s brilliance, his great weakness (well, it’s a weakness in this instance) is his precise, every-word-has-meaning and every-action-has-purpose storytelling, a rationalist style that suits the insanity of Joker not at all...

But isn't that the Joker Heath Ledger presented, way moreso than Moore?

99.5% of the Joker's behavior in the new movie is rationally-rooted, making him what may appropriately be described as hyper-rational. The 0.5% of wrongness he nurtures is actually a common wrongness: he equates discretionary authority with freedom.

Then Batman turns around and sacrifices his own social standing to halt the influence of the Joker's reign of terror -- demonstrating freedom isn't about discretionary authority, but about what we are capable of, including the preservation of our highest ideals.

I kid! He's got a better strike rate than that. Blind squirrels can find multiple nuts.

Joking! He's a good dude. Despite being Australian.

What? I don't care for Australia.

Also, I remember like the Laughing Fish, like apparently everyone else ever, but I remember the bits with Silver St. Cloud more than the Joker. The fact that they adapted it in the cartoon doesn't help. May need to fish that Strange Apparitions trade out again.

My dark horse pick for best Joker story is "Endgame," the finale of "No Man's Land." Rucka (and/or Devin Grayson, who co-wrote the arc, and the whole NML braintrust for that matter) succeeded in presenting a Joker who is at once a down-to-earth menace and an unlimited psychopath, a Joker who could assume the role of climactic villain of Batman's biggest event based upon little more than the feared extent of his insanity rather than any specific plot (the stuff with the babies wasn't particularly inspired, I must admit). And though it was more a Huntress moment than anything else, Joker's assault on the shelter and the threat he posed toward Huntress was truly one of those "only Joker could work here" roles. The finale at GCPD HQ does fizzle out, but as Joker-shoots-a-Gordon moments go, it carries more narrative weight than TKJ's.

"Soft Targets" in GOTHAM CENTRAL was in many ways "Endgame" 2.0. Only Joker could have inspired the sheer panic that brought Gotham to its knees, and Rucka (or was it Bru? I can't remember now) really got across the sense that despite the horrific bloodshed, it was just another day to the Joker. For all that LONG HALLOWEEN and TKJ get credit for "The Dark Knight," the actual plot is pure "Soft Targets."

DETECTIVE #826, Dini's Robin/Joker carpool, is probably the most distilled Joker story. No operatic drama, no thematic deconstruction, no mythic meditations, just the Joker doing what the Joker does, laughing all the way.

"Laughing Fish" has such a colorful hook (not to mention a great fight scene), even though it cribs much of Joker's MO from his original appearance. Which is itself a stupendous story -- so dark, shadowy, & unsettling!

How about Joker tricking Snapper Carr into revealing the location of the JLA's secret cave? No? Okay, then O'Neil gets in with "The Five-Way Revenge" instead.

Maybe "Killing Joke" is number five, with a fantastic ending that subverts the conventional fisticuffs with actual human connection. Yeah, it's got exploitative violence too, & drains Joker's origin of some mystery (tho' the original Red Hood story back in the '50s did it first, & nearly as artfully for the era). But it's great art & so well-paced.