Good Magazine has only been around for a short while, and we have had our disagreements about what’s actually “good”. However, the first issue did leave me with one indelible impression, from an essay by Dan Pearson.

He starts the essay by setting the scene of post-slackers Generation X and the eruption of Hate and Love & Rockets from the underground.

The generation needed something primitive, honest, something from deep within reminding them that they hadn’t been reduced to characters in Tron.

From there he dives into Bush-era America, where “it was getting way worse than you could have ever imagined”. He uses Jimmy Corrigan and Eightball as his prime examples, and this is where he drops the killer graph that has stayed with me all this time.

See the characters of Daniel Clowes and Chris Ware? See them shaking and perspiring? It was about more than doing covers for Estrus singles. It was about fear, and loathing, and pain; and more than that, it was about isolation. What, the generation had to ask itself, did we accomplish with our privilege and opportunity?

That’s the best delineation of a new millennial indie art mission statement that I’ve ever heard.

The rest of the essay is great too, and it’s all better in context, so please click over here and read it at GOOD’s website.