Pushing the Envelope

So Phil's over on his blog talking about Warren's latest email. The gist of it is that nobody's going to see Japanese movies, therefore Japanese filmmakers are free to do whatever they want, since it doesn't matter anyway. It's a weird kind of optimistic defeatism, but it really reminds me of something Grant Morrison said a few days ago.

I don't remember the exact quote, but he talked about how insane Silver Age comics are (and I can vouch for that, Scott and I spent a good hour looking at crazy-ass Jimmy Olsen Covers at the shop yesterday). He said that back then, people did stories where Superman shot little supermen out of his hands, but when he does a story like the Filth, where you have talking monkey assassins and the supercontext, people dismiss it as being weird.

But what a lot of people don't understand is that weird comics are where you get the best ideas. Nothing Jack Kirby ever wrote makes any kind of sense whatsoever, and yet they contained some of the best and most enduring ideas ever produced.

Man, I've really got to stop talking to Scott about Jack Kirby.