{"id":99,"date":"2002-11-19T00:35:09","date_gmt":"2002-11-19T00:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/?p=99"},"modified":"2002-11-19T00:35:09","modified_gmt":"2002-11-19T00:35:09","slug":"stop-trying-so-hard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/2002\/11\/19\/stop-trying-so-hard\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop Trying So Hard"},"content":{"rendered":"

I can’t count the number of times over the years I’ve read news articles along the lines of, “Guess what! Comic books are serious art!” Here’s another one<\/a>.
\nInevitably, these articles always present a laundry list of serious issues ripped from the headlines of the day that are dealt with in current comic books. Inevitably, reading this list always makes me think, god that sounds boring.
\nIn my mind, comics—like so many other forms of art—are at their worst when they consciously try to be serious and earnest. The magic of comics has always been found in unexpected places and in surprising forms. Alcoholism, sexual-identity crises, drug addiction, abusive childhood, terrorism? Including these issues within stories is not a bad thing, per say. But it shouldn’t be the main focus.
\nThere are exceptions, of course. The astonishing Maus<\/a> always tops that list. But when you try to mix, say, Green Lantern<\/a> and the serious issues of the day, the effect comes off as kind of sad and comical, or a lot like a lecture from Tipper Gore.
\nI wish the comic book world would stop craving mainstream legitimacy and go right on creating worlds of wonder for those who know where to look.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I can’t count the number of times over the years I’ve read news articles along the lines of, “Guess what! Comic books are serious art!” Here’s another one. Inevitably, these articles always present a laundry list of serious issues ripped from the headlines of the day that are dealt with in current comic books. Inevitably,… Continue reading Stop Trying So Hard<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5heLP-1B","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}