"Also, though I'm not very well read in graphic novels, I'm fairly sure that a graphic novel about Batman written by a genre writer isn't the height of the medium."
Do a search on Google for a list of the top 10 graphic novels ever written. I'm sure you'll find The Dark Knight Returns to be consistently in the top 3. And if that's all you know about The Dark Knight Returns then you obviously don't know much about the book. It is an excellent expose of the idiotic, fascist policies that typified America under Reagan (and that would reappear in much worse form under George W. Bush leading to the present crisis the nation is in). It also deals with how a classical hero can be reborn in the modern age but in order to be successful he will also have to become a bit less noble than the revered heroes of the past. The Dark Knight Returns is truly a stunning work of literature.
"That's the problem with threads like this: You have people who aren't very well-read or experienced in high culture trying to pin down what costitutes a high-culture video game. It's like having someone who's only eaten fast food all of their life try to be a critic of haute cuisine. You just can't decide what's good or bad if you don't have the requisite "worldliness" to do so."
So, I suppose that only the people that attended whatever schools you did are the only people that can make informed opinions about such things? I think it would be pretty funny if Hunter S. Thompson, Jim Thompson, or Charles Bukowski were alive and you walked up to one of them and made some kind of statement like that.
My most anticipated games: Whatever Hideo Kojima is going to do next, Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy Versus XIII, Gran Turismo 5, Alan Wake, Wii Sports Resort. Cave Story Wiiware.
