Bored at 8am

I'm not sure how many people do this, but whenever I read Silver Age comics I tend to skip 90% of the dialogue. I don't read issues of Ditko's Spider man to have Stan Lee tell me everything that's happening. Ditko accomplishes that by himself. The overwrought nature of Lee's scripts likely stems from his need to explain the action to his adolescent audience. These books were made for kids mind you, and the jokey nature of the dialogue add to that notion.

While the caption boxes and thought balloons that housed so many of Lee's blocks of text, have largely been abandoned, following the advent of "widescreen" comics and the influx of "mature" readers.The joke-y nature of Lee's dialogue is still readily used. In a series where the main protagonists girlfriend has her neck snapped, after being thrown off a bridge, Lee's "jokes" seem out of place. Uncomfortably so. And yet this "stylistic" flourish still exists. The introduction of moral relativism into comics seems to be predicated on the removal of its campish nature. In a dystopian future, featuring a fascistic Batman, Shark Repellant doesn't have a place. I am not advocating the removal of humor from comics as a whole, but I doubt it would be a stretch to think that Watchman's literary reception would have been dampened if it had a two page sequence were Night Owl had a bought of diarrhea. Injecting juvenile humor into a book that deals with "worldly" subjects like life and death undermines the whole process. Yet the practice is still common.

Now don't get me wrong, camp and satire have their place, but in books sold under PR snippets like "gritty" "realistic" "street level" all they accomplish is undermining the work. Cabbie, recently reprinted by Fantagraphics, takes the entire premise of the "streets" and subverts it. Dark and satirical at every point.

The difference between The Cabbie and the majority of the American Mainstreams output is that the Cabbie never strives for "realism".  An avenging cab driver with a whore for a sister, running up against the mob and a family of hoodlums, all under the direction of Saint Christopher, sounds like a ridiculous premise, which it is. And luckily Marti understands the failings of the Pulp genre enough to mock them. And that's where its humor is derived.

At the other end of the spectrum is a book about a millionaire with split personalities, dating a deaf super-spy named Echo, and fighting a magician across LA. This book though takes itself seriously.

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Maleev utilizes a "realist" style in Moon Knight, while not as stiff and heavily photo-reference as Scarlett, it doesn't capture the loose cartooning style of his early work on Daredevil. Its an amalgamation of the two, with a heavier emphasis on photo-realism. Creating pages which feature both static and frenetic panels. A odd combination indicative of this series. 

Bendis's script is bipolar. This issue features a night time rooftop battle which spills into the streets of LA, and culminates in the death of Echo (Moon Knights "girlfriend"). All of these elements are put in place to amp up the issues realism, especially when rendered by Maleev. Whenever Moon Knights split personalities are involved (both when they "take over" or are simple being mentioned)the realism Bendis and Maleev try to build goes haywire. It reads like a Bendis Avenger's script bleeding over into Moon Knight. Which makes the choice of split personalities especially alarming due to Bendis's long tenure on The Avengers (and that series distinct tone). His choices seem to be him purposely shooting himself in the foot.

Take this page for example, "WHAT IS HE THE COUNT OF ANYWAY? I BET NOTHING. HE JUST DECIDED TO CALL HIMSELF COUNT." this line of dialogue, while in keeping with Bendis's take on Spider man, creates a problem. If we are supposed to fear for Moon Knights life having Spider man "yuck it up" creates a tonal shift which undermines the seriousness of the moment. Even more so, having Echo die at the end of this issues (which Bendis surely had plotted before he even wrote the issue) makes these "comments" horrifying in retrospect.

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What we have here are two books, one that takes itself seriously, and the other which takes nothing serious. But only one of these books ever tells a joke.
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I understand your friends think your funny, but theirs a reason Citizen Kane doesn't have any dick jokes.

CITATIONS/FOOTNOTES/OTHER

Moon Knight #9

Written by: Brian Michael Bendis

Art by: Alex Maleev

Colors by: Matt Hollingsworth

Lettering by: Cory Petit

Publisher by: Marvel Comics 

Bored at 4 am

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This is just a exercise in reviewing, figured id give it a shot in between essays. I don't think I did to bad so I might fiddle around with the format again.

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In a spark of brilliance I downloaded Batgirl #7 off Comixology, I paid a whole $3. Yeah $3. Fuck. People really pay $3 on a regular basis for this comic? Jesus. I watched an old episode of Real Hookers of the AC (that's Atlantic City for you folks not in the know) a few years back, and a toothless "lady of the night" promised the best hummer of your life for a twenty spot. By the end of the episode she agreed to give one to what appeared to be a sixteen year old, for $10 so she could pick up a pack of smokes. So there was definitely room to negotiate. I don't know where this is going, but it's definitely an important digression. Oh yeah, comics are expensive.

Onto the comic. Three dollars man that still bugs me. Page One: Batgirl is thrust headfirst into a pool of water, slowly being drowned by The Grotesque! This looks like the end of Batgirl my good friends, and whats that? Her chilling last thoughts, no it could never be! Its, its a shit joke...or a sewage runoff joke, either way good job to everyone involved. Batgirl in a spark of brilliance then does something and the villain heads home for some reason. Maybe he's Union and his mandatory smoke break started. I don't know, its not explained.

Barbara then power knocks the living shit out of Black Canary's window to go do some extreme training and gab talk. Or "Bab Talk" your you LOVE puns. I hate myself. See, Batgirl just doesn't feel up to snuff anymore and she cant figure out why, but Black Canary's wonderful insight finds the culprit in no time! Its that whole "i was crippled 3 years ago, but now I'm not" thing. A quick slap across the face (as the ladies are known to do) and speech containing the inspirational words "AND ARE YOU SERIOUSLY GOING TO COMPLAIN THAT YOU CAN WALK AGAIN? YOU THINK YOU'RE THE ONLY PERSON WHO EVER REGAINED MOBILITY?" whips her back into shape.

Some quick scene with the villain, a party, something about a bottle of wine, and a cliffhanger about some guy who was with the Joker the night Alan Moore caped her ass, and FIN.

 "All Killer No Filler", in this issue.

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This comic is really mediocre, bordering on bad. Simone undercuts the book at every turn, creating a tonal mess and muddled narrative. The villain, even when he has the upper hand, walks away mid fight on two separate occasions for no reason. If that's not lazy writing, I don't know what is. Moments of seriousness (her impending death due to drowning) and inspiration (coming to grips with her past/present/mother/crippling/etc) are rendered moot within pages by instantaneous character regression and inappropriate (tonally, not subject wise) jokes. It reads like a book written by five authors. With a sixth author giving it a final pass to play up the yucks!

The art...exists? Its low rent house style. Part Jim Lee /Part you have 3 days to finish this book or else. Or else what? or else ill kill your fucking family your piece of shit. What was i talking about? oh yeah this looks rushed, in the sense that it looks like shit. That's probably why theirs two pencilers on this issue. The colors are inconsistent between panels, backgrounds change color at random, and light sources appear and disappear for no reason. When ever you see the work of Dean White and Dave Stewart you should thank your lucky stars these men exist to prove someone knows how color works.* Because this comic is an exercise in why I cant read more than one comic at a time, without my eyes bleeding.

Seriously look how many light sources are on this page? Its lit up like a Christmas Tree at this party. Adding more lamps doesn't make your lens flares and random over rendering make sense. It only hurts my eyes. I would also like to point out in the above image, the two men in the foreground of Panel one seem to suffer from a broken elbow and a broken left index finger.

Footnotes/Citations/Other

*Or Laura Allred if you need a lady example.

Batgirl #7

Written By: Gail Simone

Pencils By: Ardian Syaf & Alitha Martinez

Inks By: Vincente Cifuentes

Colors By: Ulises Arreola

[Exclusive]

Ive been trying to write about Jason Aarons Punisher MAX run for a couple of weeks now, I've gone through four or five drafts at this point. I chucked a thousand word essay that devolved into a sermon over the nature of the definitive run, I followed that up with a rehashed Chad Nevett idea. Twenty minutes into that digression I became disgusted with myself and scrapped the thing. This mild plagiarisms made me think about comics and the internet communities obsession with exclusives.

Comics is plagued with theft and dishonesty; I don't want to add to that continuum. Even if it comes from a retrofitted academic critique with MLA formatted sources and quotations.Comics requires more than that, and I require more than that. The Internet is so obsessed with "exclusives" they fail to realize that every original idea uttered by an author is a "exclusive", a Comics Alliance interview that can be quoted whole heatedly at iFanboy is not so much a exclusive, as the tired terminology of a PR and editorial department desperate to justify there paycheck. An exclusive is merely an original idea, a fully formed thought never uttered before. Not a leg in one of the Big Two's propaganda tours.

Chad Nevett's talking about Marvel Boy is an exclusive. Sean Witzke's take on Elecktra Assassin is an exclusive. Matt Seneca's essay on Acme Novelty #20 is an exclusive. Tucker Stone, Tim Callahan, and Joe McCulloch produce exclusive's every time they put word to paper*.

Exclusives emanate from their authors, not the subjects of their column.

The only writer who's interviews I can even stand at this point are those 40 page long carrear retrospectives Gary Groth pumps out, and Tom Spurgeon's equally long interviews, because there's nothing being pitched in them. It is simply a conversation conducted by someone who loves talking about comics, and more so wants them to be better.

Much like Kirby, Ditko, and Moore comics operate as exclusives. A definitive run isn't so much about the character being "defined" as a creator defining there idea of what that character represents.Which is why so many "definitive" runs stand alone. Writers are too focused on repeating and rehashing the idea's of there intellectual betters than coming up with something new.

The most topical example of this is Scott Snyders Swamp Thing. Spending 6 issues, all he tells us is how amazing Alan Moore's run was, rehashing plot point after plot point, in a fetishistic manner. For the $18 you spent on those 6 issues you could have bought one of those nice 12 issue Moore Swamp Thing hardcovers and realized that fact for yourself. Snyder isn't the only offender though, he may even be one of the lesser, if you've read any Daredevil comic in the past 20 years congratulations you just read a lesser version of Frank Millers run.

Before Watchmen isn't so much a exercise in fucking creators as it is the mining of ones predecessors. Watchmen was a cohesive whole, but DC decided to bleed it dry. Like so many ideas before it Watchmen was dived up in the chop shop that is Intellectual Property and sold off for parts. But that's what happens to "Exclusives" in the modern era.

I cant look at Hickman's FF run and not see 40 year old recycled ideas, just like I cant read any "fan" site without seeing a PR man standing behind them, rubbing there shoulders and promising more exclusives as long as there next event gets a 5 Star "Totally Rad" review.

Even this blog, this measly blog that I am the sole author of is guilty of this crime. I try my hardest not to be, but i constantly find my idea's derivative. I don't want to become the "House Style" of comic criticism.I look at serious comic critic in awe of the exclusivity of their idea's. I want every one of my posts to become a exclusive like theirs and not a "Exclusive" like everyone else. Just like i want every comic i read to be a exclusive and not another boring retread of decade old tropes.

Here's a couple things i define as Exclusives:

Tucker Stones Comics Reporter Interview:

http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/cr_holiday_interview_4_tucker_stone/

Matt Sceneca's essay on Guido Crepax

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/02/29/guido-crepaxs-valentina-porn-comics/

Gary Groth x2

http://archives.tcj.com/2_archives/e_groth1191.html

http://archives.tcj.com/268/e_groth.html

Sean Witzke and Matt Sceneca on Elektra Assassin

http://deathtotheuniverse.blogspot.com/2011/03/free-agency.html

Footnotes/Citations/What Not

*There's several authors i didn't mention because that would become excessive, but if your an intelligent reviewer / commentator then I mean you.

I Just Want Some Skank

“We are fighting a war, a war that will end all wars”

Earlier this week I posted a photo of my “stack” the pile that every comic reader encounters at some point in there life. More likely at every step of it. The photo I posted wasn't even my complete “stack” I probably have a dozen other comics tucked away that I haven't read, and at least one book a week added. I ultimately failed to read the entirety of my stack. Leaving eight books unread. A failure that could only be compared to Henry Kissinger's retreat from Indochina. That may be a overstatement. I mean I did fail to read EIGHT books, but Kissinger caused the deaths of millions due to vanity. Ill call it a wash.

“and I got a girl named Cynthia to blow my brother. For a fix”

I had a nice chat with Alec Berry of Chemical Box fame and fortune (he also writes for Spandexless, his most recent post being a literary raping of some shitty Oni-Press book, I never heard of, nor cared to. I found it particularly funny since today, or yesterday since I'm writing this at 4am, was CREATOR OWNED DAY!!! a day I assume like FREE COMIC DAY is filled with a communal circle jerk over how hardcore everyone is....I for one am quite hardcore within the circle jerk community.) about the gaps in our reading. When I look at that pile I don't see 8 books I need to read, I see 8 books in a ocean of thousands I need to read.

“lets wash the taste of blood out of our...being”

Every time I look at my “stack” (for some reason “stack” sounds dirty to me...if you boil it down its just a pile of unabsorbed knowledge..but “stack” sounds like the noise an object makes when it enters a unwelcoming orifice. It seems like a chore instead of a pleasure.) I see all the books I haven't read, I'm five years into the game and I feel like I've barely read anything of note.

“lightning bolt, old lightning bold why don't you strike them down”

Whats shocking to me is that, when I think about the “Mainstream” I'm fairly certain I've covered it all. There may be a few runs I'm missing (the only ones I can think of are Ditko's Spider man and the various Kirby projects I've neglected to read) . But you never know whats around the corner. We may be a year away from a critical reevaluation of CREATOR X that I completely missed. Or some definitive run ive never heard of is getting reprinted for the first time.

“Rejoice, Rejoice, you'll never make it out alive!”

I don't see ever not having a "stack" because that would mean i was done. Their exists entire continents worth of material I haven't read or heard of. Every week hundreds of titles are released...at least 5-10 a year amount to something. That's not a bad average. Under the 90% of shit paradigm at least, which to me seems like a overestimation of the mediums collective quality.

MINI REVIEWS!!!!

All-Star Superman:

This is my fourth of fifth time reading this book, and each time it takes me 20-30% longer to read. Frank Quitley's art is so subversively dense, his panels have so much "room" to breath you'd think they'd fall apart under closer examination. Instead they become denser. Issue #2 really stood out this time around. Issue #10 is still the "best" and the death of Pa Kent still heart breaking, but issue two is just an amazing "date" comic. Its also -oddly- the only issue which uses voice over.

The Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard:

Eddie Campbell describes his storytelling process as being organic, one panel leads to the next. This technique worked to great effect in his auto-bio comic Alec were the story could go on tangents or become muddled in the details, because that's how life works. If Alec was a cohesive narrative like so many other "auto-bio" comics it would loose its authenticity. That's one of the biggest failures of the auto-bio sub genre, to many of its major works have definitive endings. While that may work within story it doesn't work as a document life. That's why the last 30-40 pages of Paying for It feel so hollow, Brown needed to shoehorn something in to make the book finite. When Campbell approaches a finite narrative though this organic method becomes a detriment. His best (non-autobio) works (From Hell and The Playwright) have a very confining structure, limiting his tendency towards the organic. Monsieu Leotard and The Black Diamond Detective Agency works as a series of pastishes, but fails as a narrative. They are lovely to look at though.

Come in Alone:

This is the collected edition of Warren Ellis's CBR columns from early 2000. Its a interesting read because, along the same lines as the Joe Casey/Matt Fraction "Basement Tapes", there a call to arms for the comic industry. Ellis refers to this generation (I presume focusing on those writers which spawned forth from his forums) the next comics vanguard. He calls it the "Old Bastards Manifesto". Whats interesting though, is that while you can see him trying desperately over the next ten years to jump start the revolution, none of his disciples seem to follow through. Its a book which time has proven to have been a failure, but is fascinating in its passion to change everything.

Emitown:

Its reductive to call this books "cute" right? What took a while to get used to is Lenox's use of pastiche's, their may be five panels on each page, but they don't relate to each other in any way. There's no connective tissue between panels. Its a odd use of the page which i don't recall seeing before. I will have to concur with the introduction that each strip works better when you've read every one before it. They build on each other and reference previous events.

Citations / footnotes / random shit.

* If you have not picked up on this, the various quotes are meaningless, just lyrics i am grabbing from whatever is playing at the moment

On the State of the Industry (circa 1991)

 "Marvel's only goal, with which honorable men and women in this profession have nothing in common, is to generate as much profit for Ronald Perelman as they can, and to shovel as much shit down the public's gullet as they can get away with. They prey upon the ignorance of children and the stupidity of adults, and if they could wish every sophisticated reader of comic books to become stupid tomorrow they would do so, such is their commitment to art and humanity. They see comics not as art but as product from which the only end to be gotten is profit."
- Gary Groth 

The Comics Journal #146, November 1991

Just What It Isn't

I started reading comics five years ago give or take, it was around the time the Dark Knight was released. I remember because there was a big hoopla over the Watchmen movie, it being based on one of the mediums greatest achievements. Five years ago though i was a different person. That sense of joy of leaving high school for college, that cynicism which told me people sucked but film, books, art, and comics...oh comics...they were better than that. Media couldn't disappoint you, just people.

Its been five years though and disappoint me they have. All that hope in a new form of media, that glee i took in trying to find a new Kubrick has all dissipated. I remember reading Transmetropilation after being told it was like Hunter S Thompson and being so excited, four years later i now realize its not the same...Warren Ellis isn't Hunter he's just a veiled imitation like so many others. It just took me four years before my blinders towards comics wore off. 

I moved a majority of my comics into my attic recently, to free up some space in my room. I had filled five book shelves, with piles of books stacked throughout the house. And that was just over the course of five years. I ended up whittling it down to two shelves. Two shelves of books i wanted to have constant access to. Two shelves i was proud to display in my room. The problem though is those two shelves are made up solely of books I've purchased over the past year. Four years and three shelves worth of trades, singles, anthologies, graphic novels, are to me little more than bound paper now.

I know no one starts reading by being handed Ulysses, but by high school your teachers have at least forced you to read a couple Shakespeare plays and spark notes your way through The Scarlett Letter. So why is it that comics starts you with Dr. Seuss and graduates you to the Hardy Boys. Comics as a community, with the exception of a few critics, actively dissuades you from branching outwards. If you go on any message board or forum and ask for recommendations, the lists generated are so nauseatingly bad if i were to start reading in my present mindset i would brush off the medium as a whole after a days reading. People actively argue that Green Lantern is a better comic than Watchmen for new readers.

Some may invoke the "99% of stuff is shit" principle here, a solid point. But I'm speaking precisely towards that 1% which is so ardently held up as "great". Those three shelves of books i deemed ancillary, those were the books held up as the 1% amongst the mainstream. Those runs "comics people"  call definitive the Y the Last Mans, the Walking Dead's, Blankets, those runs by and large are terrible.

If Jason Aarons run on Punisher MAX has taught us anything, its that their is no such thing as a "definitive run" just a lack of talent to out due what has come before you. And if there is one thing comics has, its a lack of talent, even in its definitive form.

And for four fucking years i read this trash with self imposed blinders on, oh after a while i knew it was bad, no one reads a Geoff Johns comic for a extended period of time without the sneaking suspicion this guy has no clue what writing is beyond yelling and splash pages, but i thought i just didn't get it. Look at the top 10 comics list for 2011 for any website and it will read like a fourth graders favorite book list, books that verge on competency are labelled magnum opus's . When the community as a whole holds up Daredevil and Habibi as the best they can achieve in a year, I have serious doubts about that community.

When I talk to someone who's into movies the conversation is never about Transformers, its about Kubrick, Hitchcock, Kurosawa. Likewise with television its about Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Wire. But with comics its about who's hotter Black Canary or Supergirl. I wish for the day i come across someone who wants to talk about Ware, Hernandez, Clowes, but i doubt that will ever happen.

I remember asking the guy at my shop if they had Love and Rockets New Stories v4 when it was released, I was told they only special order those books*. That's the industry and culture comics is forced to pander to. Its not that good comics don't exist, people are pushing the medium forward every day, its just that no one is bothering to notice. Comics as a whole has not been able to move past their initial honeymoon period with the medium and finally realize that bitch has a lazy eye and my god do you hate her mother. This year though has been mine... i just hope other people wake up to.

K I'm out of wine and don't care anymore. This is disjointed as fuck but whatever, I'm going to go to go read some Milo Manara comics and try to find some whiskey while the comics zeitgeist jerks off to Power Girl's cleavage. 

Goodnight.

Footnotes

*Keep in mind i live 5 minutes outside a major city and my shop is next to a busy train/bus stop.

On How to be a Lazy Blogger and Such.

This weeks post was originally going to be on the conclusion to Jason Aarons Punisher MAX series, but that post took on a mind of its own so it won't be done till next week. So in the grand tradition of lazy blog posting here are random links / comments and a couple random thoughts thrown in to pad the word count.

Comics Alliance is doing a month long expose on "sex" in comics, most of these posts are little more than jokes about boobs, but two of them (so far) have been quite good.

The always wonderful David Brothers talks about how the over sexualization of female characters has hurt the story telling ability of artists. This is primarily due to, like the over reliance on splash pages and double page spreads, artists creating pages for collectors instead of as devices to tell the story. What strikes me as odd is that most of the artists who spring to mind doing this draw some hideous looking woman. While the more subdued artists, primarily those who routinely draw female characters in the nude, know how to restrain themselves. It's a odd variety of repression afflicting the direct market, if only some artists could draw a nipple every once in a while we may be saved from 20 pages of ass shots.

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/02/16/superheroine-sex-art-story/

On a side note Brothers also wrote a exquisite piece of comic-journalism about who exactly is pirating Marvel comics (which was quickly picked up by dozens of comic websites, who i assume payed him for his article and didn't just run it as "general news")

http://4thletter.net/2012/02/are-they-scanning-marvels-comics-from-inside-the-house-of-ideas/

The other Comics Alliance story which i found interesting was Jason Michelitch piece on Milo Manara. The main thrust of his argument is that Manara's frankness about sexual exploitation is more about confronting the readers own feelings towards sex and exploitation than it is about drawing pretty girls fucking. While Manara is certainty more than simply producing Tijuana Bible's i think this reading may be over-intellectualizing his body of work. There are certainty instances of his work transcending the confines of the genre (that genre being S&M spank books) ,but the vast majority of his work is simply meant to be scene as pornography. Its one of those readings which is used when someone praises 120 Days of Sodom for its brutal use of sexualization and violence to convey a philosophical point about the nature of man, while dismissing entire genre's of exploitative films as trash. If exploitation is read as being art its given a pass on most fronts, while if it not its reviled.

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/02/17/the-honesty-of-exploitation-sex-in-the-art-of-milo-manara-sex/

The Comic Journal featured an old Gary Groth interview with Kevin Eastman (co-creator of The Mutant Ninja Turtles) in a two part interview, the first focusing on the Turtles, and the second on Tundra press. The first section is a great read about their struggle to retain the rights to the Turtles, and how difficult it was to manage a multimillion dollar corporation while trying to follow the tenants of the creator rights movement. The second part of the interview though is an amazing look at how comics as a whole took advantage of Eastman, just inundating him with pitches and please for work, only to take his money and never deliver. The section on Big Numbers is especially fascinating.

http://www.tcj.com/the-kevin-eastman-interview-part-2/

Alex Berry does a great job summing up why Glory may be one of the biggest steps forward for female characters in comics in a long long time. I would also like to add, in addition to not spending 20 pages proving to me Glory has a awesome rack, Glory also features only one splash pages. This choices allows them to parse our the necessary exposition over 20 pages instead of info dumping it in the last two pages following nine double page spreads of ass / tit shots / people looking EXTREME! 

http://www.spandexless.com/2012/02/the-grey-area-glory-23-just-buy-it/

I'm late to the game on this one but Chad Nevett's '28' series of posts is one of the best things I've read in a while. Its not so much a series of reviews as Chad just looking back on how he's changed since the first time he had read these books. Its a level of honesty and frankness that's missing in comic journalism. Also its great reading Chad work through his cynicism towards everything.

http://graphicontent.blogspot.com/search/label/28

I also listened to an old Splash page podcast (episode 22) were they discuss a clip in which someone threatens to punch Tim Callahan in the throat because he didn't like X-Factor. I love the fact that a review, however mundane, could elicit such a reaction. I'm not sure if its that certain groups of fans are easily angered at any perceived criticism of their favorite "thing" or that people just like to punch other people in the throat for no reason. Even more interesting is that a person who would go so far as to threaten a critic, would then tell said critic that they take comics to seriously...i wish it was satire, because that would be brilliant, but i doubt their smart enough for that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a25zStutU1o

Well that's about 800 words and required next to no thought. Ill try and have a real piece up next week, which sadly enough will have taken 10x as long and might be 200 words longer.

I now see the appeal of "Copy and Paste" journalism.