That's *entirely* a functionof the art establishment - or rather, of
*which* art establishment you're dealing with.
>To be honest, there are some comic books that
>are held in high regard - "Maus", "Mafalda", for example. (These are more
>political comic books.) But that gets us way off topic...
"Maus" is a good example because it's a very serious work. I can see
*no* difference between "Maus" and an ordinary (non-graphical) novel
about the Holocaust, except, of course, for the differences that are
due to the medium.
And there are lot of comix that are intended as art, treated as art,
appreciated as art - within certain circles. It may not always be
_good_ art, but that's entirely a matter of taste.
Please also remember that there are many areas of culture that are
reagrded as very "arty" today that weren't some time ago. Classical
music, for example, had a totally different role in society in the
18th century than it has today - the current view of classical music
was born in the late 19th century, and Mozart was perhaps the first
composer to regard himself as an artist rather than an artisan. A
similar thing holds for jazz - until the 1950's, jazz was popular
music, dance music, trashy music - today it's art, and almost as
genteel as "classical" music :-).
*However*, this having been said, I think it would be dangerous to
start treating all IF as "high-brow art". Viewing "Zork" as a statement
about human existence is similar to trying to extract metaphysical
statements from Bugs Bunny cartoons.
I'm not saying that we should apply different standards to different
peices of IF, or that all pieces of IF are equally good; I'm just
saying that we must keep the author's intention in mind. Criticizing
"Zork II" for failing to illuminate the existential dilemma of the
Wizard of Frobozz is rather pointless; saying that one prefers IF with
deeper characterization is of course not.
Magnus