Comics need a better reputation

As Empire Comics' sales figures had climbed, and the towering black cyclones of money came blowing in out of the heartland, Anapol, out of this residual ambition and a perverted sense of guilt over the brainless ease with which colossal success had been achieved, had grown extremely touchy about the poor reputation of comic books among the Phi Beta Kappas and literary pooh-bahs whose opinions meant so much to him. He had even imposed upon Deasey to write letters to The New York Times and The American Scholar, to which he then signed his own name, protesting the unfair treatment he considered those publications had given his humble product in their pages.

--Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (New York: Picador, 2000), p. 365