#and also someone who seems to embody that kind of gen-x contradiction

[queen-mabs-revenge]

v happy to sound like an alien right along with you bc i cannot fathom a world where this is not the peak of fascination oh my god.

i'm just -- where else do you get this kind of primary source exploration of the contemporary-to-publishing world in such a constant and uninterrupted stream over nearly a fucking century? like you can argue serial magazines - which have been around since idk the mid 1800s or whatever idk don't quote me - but it's not the same bc it's not an unbroken story!

even the serialized novels published in those magazines are different to the singular serialized narrative of comics. how in comics even over different authors and editors the narrative framing has to maintain a certain level of consistency -- the characters and their world are the constant lens through which the cultural changes of the passing years are interpreted and gooooood HELLO HELLO ARE WE NOT SCREAMING???

and esp bc they're categorized as low art? as juvenile media written by adults about mostly adults? as an initially working-class art form that has been subjected to increasing corporate capture? except bc this is a constant narrative you can actually trace those changes through historical moments??????? you can read them as a material record of the way we tell stories to each other about the history we experience??? mediated through an increasingly dominant profit motive??????

i will never shut the fuck up about this FUUUUUUCK

me 🤝 @queen-mabs-revenge: the "playing with the cardboard box it came in" of mainstream comics fan experience