If you don't want a cluster of undergrads to swarm you, all big-eyed in their "we've been on campus since August and we all miss our pets" wonderment, don't sit outside on a nice fall day, playing a truly lazy game of fetch with a devistatingly handsome Labrador.
If you don't want to field constant questions akin to "What's it mean?" "No, really, what does it say?" "Come on. You can tell me - what's it say?" - don't get a decent-sized tattoo of a foreign word placed on a really, really obvious part of your body.
And, finally, if you don't want to field the same three questions over and over again, don't mention to anyone - least of all academics - that you're writing your dissertation. It's just a bad idea.
It's been said before that I'm a bit of a slow learner.
It's when I forget the importance of this last one that I realize that I'm having the same conversation on loop. You'd think I'd find a way to change things up but - again - slow learner. Here's how it always shakes out:
"You're getting a PhD? What's your dissertation on?"
And then I think, lost in the Choose Your Own Social Anxiety Adventure. Do I answer honestly? Blatantly lie? Lie with a purpose? Squeak and run away? I've tried them all. For some reason, though, I end up having the exact same conversation:
"Graphic novels? You mean like comic books?"
Well, no. I don't mean "like comic books." While, yes, I am working with a few comic books - one multi-issue run, one stand-alone issue so far, though I'm looking for a third example to balance things out - they don't really come in until the end, the last (hypothetical) chapter - and then I'm using them mostly as a counter-example. While I think there is academic value in many ongoing comic titles, what I'm working with is a bit more specialized. So, mainly, I'm looking at stand-alone graphic novels and collage journals/artist books like Dan Eldon's The Journey is ---
"I used to love Superman. Have you read that Superman comic, the one where he flies around and stuff?"
To be honest? No. No, I have not read that Superman comic. Or the Green Lantern comic. Or the Wolverine comic. Or any other hero - mutant, alien, regular guy clad in leather or Lycra or truly embarrassing bodysuit or anything else thrown together to look "cool." I've read none of those. I used to geek out on early to mid 90s X-Men comics, and I have a particularly terrifying collection of Shadowcat and Gambit comics - at one point, I had every appearance of Gambit for an eight or nine year period, which, I guess is kind of sad when you ---
"What do you think about that new Avengers movie, huh? It's going to be awesome, don't you think?"
Well, I mean, I trust Joss Whedon to deliver the awesome, but again, I don't really read Marvel titles anymore and I never read straight Avengers books, so I really have no idea if it's --
"So, they actually let you get a PhD in comics? What's that about? How is that at all a legitimate subject? Did you do your undergrad in Peanuts strips?"
Yes. And I minored in Coloring Within The Lines.
At this point, I generally find a way to slink away. If I have the mis/fortune of running into the same person again later, I will undoubtedly field questions about my comics - "How are your comics coming along?" "Changed the world with your comics yet?" Why they have suddenly become mine, I do not know.
(sigh)
So, you'd think I would learn and come up with some suitably slackademic non-answer. "What's my dissertation on, you say? Oh, contemporary visual rhetoric. Multi-dynamic narratives. The use of parallel narration to renegotiate the tension between symbol and icon and to resist the pressure of compassion fatigue in an image-saturated environment."
But, you see, I'm a slow learner. For some uncharacteristically bright-eyed reason, I stick with the truth and listen to people deride "comics" on the single hope that maybe, eventually, the conversation will change.
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