Gary Groth makes a number of valid points in “McCloud Cuckoo-Land,” his two-part demolition of Reinventing Comics in Comics Journal #232 and #234. He's right that my book's optimistic tone largely neglects, to its detriment, some of the darker scenarios for corporate interference on the Web. He's right that 20th Century inventions such as radio and television received much the same over-the-top hype in their infancy as the Internet now does, and that much of the hype in both eras was (and is) nothing more than shallow, corporate manipulation. Groth is also correct to point out that my old series Zot! was far from the 1980's most groundbreaking comic, that 1998's The New Adventures of Abraham Lincoln was a widely-derided train wreck, and that my line drawings in Reinventing Comics were as stiff as a board – even by my standards.
Armed with such legitimate complaints, Groth broadens his attacks and attempts to persuade Journal readers that my belief in the potential of selling comics on the Web is a dangerous pipe dream fueled by corporate propaganda, while my ideas for the aesthetic potential of digital comics on the Web are crack-pot nonsense; and after a blistering array of attacks from every conceivable angle, I'm guessing many readers were indeed persuaded, if only by the sheer scale of it all. Those same readers were left, however, with a depressing choice at the end of this bloody massacre. Having so thoroughly excoriated the supposed blind optimism of my own suggestions, Groth proceeds to offer only bitter pessimism in return, never once in the course of 10,000 words allowing for even the barest hint of a benefit to placing comics online.
McCloud in Stable Condition Following Review, Groth Still at Large [1]
Gary Groth [2] had his say about Scott McCloud's [3] Reinventing Comics, so here is Scott McCloud's reponse to that.
And he makes several good points about the several good points that Gary Groth made.
Just balancing out the viewpoints here …
[1] http://www.tcj.com/235/e_mccloud.html