CCW TV: the Comic Culture Warrior Channel

You will almost certainly have zero interest in this if you aren’t into comics, but recently I’ve been enjoying watching the CCW TV Comic Culture Warrior youtube channel.  Rather than bother to describe it myself I’ll just copy/paste their self-description below:

The CCW YouTube Channel features conversations between columnist/comic-book writer Elliott Serrano & comic shop retailer Jose Melendez, featuring reviews of their favorite comics, rants about the ones they dislike and talk about anything in the world of comic & pop culture.  Elliott Serrano is a writer/columnist/graphic artist/geek who has been reading comics since he was 8 years old. Jose Melendez is a comic shop manager who has worked for several franchises in the Chicago area. Both of these comic-nerds have plenty to say about everything, especially when it comes to comic books.

So yeah, it’s a single-cam static shot internet TV show of two guys talking about comics, exactly what you would think it would be — but better.  I find myself entertained by most of it, far above and beyond what I expected, frankly.  I still have no interest in reading Serrano’s ridiculously-themed Ash Saves Obama comic (yes, there really is such a thing) but the guys have opinions that are well-reasoned and thought-out for the most part, and passionate and honest even when they’re not.

If the CCW TV dynamic — “snarky thin guy and generally more forgiving less thin guy perform cultural review in the Chicago area” — seems familiar, well, it’s because it was done to perfection by Siskel and Ebert, whose partnership created the template after which CCW TV is patterned.  In fact, frankly, I’d like to see Serrano and Melendez adhere to the S&E model even more closely: very very often, CCW TV episodes take the form of its two leads in agreement, vigorously petitioning their audience to support a book they both like.  However, as any At The Movies/And The Movies viewer could tell you, it’s at the points where the hosts’ opinions diverge that real onscreen drama occurs, allowing more topics for debate and discussion to arise naturally through conversation.  And really, the joint admonitions and endorsements do get repetitive over time — “I like this book” “So do I” is just not an interesting conversation unless you wrote/drew the book in question.

Obviously, out of hundreds of ten-minute (for the most part) videos there are going to be ups and downs and I haven’t watched the majority of the older videos, but in my limited experience I’d have to say the magnum opus of CCW TV is their three-part review of Batman: Battle for the Cowl #3, which was an utterly unnecessary, terrible comic DC put out to fill the hole in their publishing schedule while they readied Grant Morrison’s Batman & Robin and Greg Rucka/JH Williams III’s “Batwoman” in Detective Comics, both of which are pure awesome.  Basically the awfulness of Battle for the Cowl #3 causes Jose’s brain to explode beautifully and horrifically, the scope from his rant expanding outwards from one shitty comic to indict creators, publishers, fans, and the entire comic industry, among others. His pain and frustration is palpably evident — these are guys who care about comics — but despite Jose’s often sneering tone, they never (okay, rarely) descend into easy kneejerk snark or glib fanboyisms.  Plus, unlike 99.999% of comics reviewers, they aren’t absolute idiots with no taste, sense, or critical thinking facilities — always a nice bonus.

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