“Gotham Central” and Cultural Capital
As a cult classic that eschewed commercial success in favour of grounded storytelling, Gotham Central’s successes and failures provide a potent case study for the concept of cultural capital in the comics industry and the variant ways that we might define “success” as a concept. #gothamcentral 1/12
Ed Brubaker notes that “It was a critical darling much more than a sales blockbuster, for sure, but there was never anyone at DC going ‘oh, we’re wasting a ton of money on this book.’ There was never any danger of it being canceled. It was beloved at DC.” 3/12
A useful approach here is to look at the argument on the cultural capital of comics that is articulated by Bart Beaty and Benjamin Woo in their 2016 book “The Greatest Comic Book of All Time: Symbolic Capital and the Field of American Comic Books.” 4/12
B&W use Pierre Bourdieu’s work on fields to create a system of comics valuation (based on quadrants) that breaks down to two variables: economic success and cultural success, aka commercial sales and “the esteem of influential cultural intermediaries.” 5/12
While these forms of success can coexist (and indeed, that is almost always the ideal pursuit) they can also antagonize each other, such as when a creator’s commercial success causes scholars, critics, and fan-influencers to ignore one’s artistic achievement (*cough* Claremont). 6/12
Gotham Central actually decentralizes the most supernatural and sensationalistic elements of the comics world it inhabits in order to see what remains and whether or not it’s enough to work. This is more than just a “gritty and real” take – it’s a stripped down version in some ways. 7/12
For context, the #1 comic bestseller in 2005 was Frank Miller’s All-Star Batman and Robin, a comic that has not been welcomed by the cultural intermediaries that Beaty and Woo mention. Indeed, it has been subjected, more frequently, to scholarly and critical revile. 8/12
This tale of two Gothams, and the staunch divisions that it portrays between cultural and commercial success, raises a number of interesting questions about how comics culture juggles the opposing forces of art and commerce. 9/12
Are comics readers willing to accept, en masse, a more mature and serious look at a beloved franchise, or do their expectations define what stories can be truly sold? How do art and commerce orbit the Batman universe and what-level of gravity is exerted on each? 10/12
Does prominently featuring a man dressed up as a bat in your narrative automatically lower its cultural status via associations with juvenilia, fan-service, or escapism? Are we, as a culture, shallow for loving Batman? 11/12
Gotham Central does not propose answers to any of these questions, but it certainly speaks to them implicitly, if a reader is willing to ask. GC was always a bit of an experiment, though, and that alone might attest to its enduring cultural status….as well as its short (but memorable) run. 12/12