We should aspire to a higher place in popular culture, for the very practical reasons I give in that chapter, not because it's going to convey some sacred aura on the medium. It allows us some sort of substantial defense in the case of negative institutional scrutiny, like what happened in the fifties. These are all very practical reasons. There's quite a spectrum. From Lucy Caswell to Frederic Wertham - that's going a long distance.
Comics has a rich history of self-loathing.
C'mon, you're just one of us. Don't get too uppity. And I've seen this in action. The sort of stuff that people like Spiegelman have worked for, they see that as empty pretense. Some just like the gritty, sort of disreputable nature of comics, because they feel it conveys a certain freedom and authenticity to the medium.