![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
So, why comics?
Feb. 12th, 2007 01:12 pmI often debate with K. about what's got a worse rap these days -- comics or musicals. (Each feels our favourite medium is the more hard done by.) I'll concede that there seems to be very little variety on Broadway today, mostly retro-pastiche, revivals or South Park-like humour. Even if comics are dominated by the long-underwear (and long trenchcoat, since the late 1980s) brigade, there are still plenty of critically acclaimed options out there -- comics such as Louis Riel by Chester Brown, Chicken with Plums (and of course, Persepolis books 1 and 2) by Marjane Satrapi, Blankets by Craig Thompson, and Acme Novelty Library by Chris Ware.
But no matter how many blockbuster and indie movies are based on comics (Spider-Man, Superman, Ghost Rider, X-Men, American Splendor, Ghost World, History of Violence, Road to Perdition, V for Vendetta, Sin City ... and the list goes on), the general public still looks at medium as if it's all the "Pow, zap, zowie!" of the 1960s Batman TV series. Literary critics might love graphic fiction. It might get positive mentions in Entertainment Weekly and the New York Times. But again, for the office sports fan (PB, in case you're wondering, J. - see, I finally mentioned you), it's still a joke.
I'm sure when Stephen Sondheim dies, there will be deservedly multi-page tributes to his genius. Certainly there are great tributes to deceased film directors, playwrights and novelists. But when Will Eisner, a giant in the comics industry (hell, the comics' equivalent of Oscars are named for him), died all he got was an inch or two of column space. It's wrong than someone like Eisner wasn't better known by the general public. And it's not only Eisner. I know a supposedly big X-Men fan who when I mentioned Jack Kirby said "Who's Jack Kirby?" (That's a bit like someone gushing about Hamlet and then asking "Who's Shakespeare?" or praising Mean Streets and then failing to recognize Scorsese's name.)
So, why comics? Sure, my childhood love of superheroes has a lot to do with it. I hate when people get all pretentious about calling Superman and his ilk our modern mythology, but really it isn't far from the truth.
Here's a digression that was going to be an entry on its own. Take the Superman comics of the 1960s (shaped in large part by former Captain Marvel writer Otto Binder - an underrated talent). Kandor, many shades of Kryptonite, the Phantom Zone -- that stuff is fun and cool to a child. DC stripped a lot of that stuff away in 1986 trying to get back to basics. But the basics of Superman was originally a brawler avenging the wrongs done in the Depression-era New York and Cleveland. After 1986, Superman didn't go back to stopping wife beaters, arms dealers, lynch mobs and corrupt mine owners with Krypton only being the McGuffin to explain his powers. He was still a superhero fighting costumed foes, but now with a blander backstory with fewer cool toys. No wonder writers like Mark Waid, Geoff Johns and Richard Donner have gone out of the way to restore a lot of Binder's additons to the mythos.
But that's more about my interest in superheroes.
My love of comics as an artform goes beyond that. After all, none of the comics I mentioned in the first paragraph are superhero books. Comics has some of the visual qualities of film and TV, but it's a much more active medium. TV, for example, is completely passive. You just let it wash over you. But in comics, the reader is a vital part of the experience. You control the pacing, the sense of time, imagine what the voices sound like. The reader is involved. Comics isn't the bastard stepchild of pictures and prose. It's an alive and vibrant medium that tells stories in a way no other medium does.
One of my complaints with a lot of superhero comics these days is that it's become all "kewl" pinup shots that make little use of how to string panels together. But the talented comics creators (including Jeff Smith, as I mentioned in my last post) know how to tell stories, know how to make stories flow from panel to panel. Also, I like different styles of art. I think the "photo-realistic" approach of Alex Ross doesn't exploit the narrative potential that more varied approaches do. (I say this to refute another co-worker's, MF - by the way - reason for not buying Shazam! - The Monster Society of Evil.) Good cartoony art is better than bad "realistic" art.
You know what? Another reason I love comics, because so many people just don't get it. I like being a fan of the underdog. I long for the day when most people will know who Jack Kirby or Will Eisner were. Who Seth, Chester Brown and Marjane Satrapi are.
I think I'll be writing more comics reviews in the future. Even if I'm just shouting into the ether.
Allen
But no matter how many blockbuster and indie movies are based on comics (Spider-Man, Superman, Ghost Rider, X-Men, American Splendor, Ghost World, History of Violence, Road to Perdition, V for Vendetta, Sin City ... and the list goes on), the general public still looks at medium as if it's all the "Pow, zap, zowie!" of the 1960s Batman TV series. Literary critics might love graphic fiction. It might get positive mentions in Entertainment Weekly and the New York Times. But again, for the office sports fan (PB, in case you're wondering, J. - see, I finally mentioned you), it's still a joke.
I'm sure when Stephen Sondheim dies, there will be deservedly multi-page tributes to his genius. Certainly there are great tributes to deceased film directors, playwrights and novelists. But when Will Eisner, a giant in the comics industry (hell, the comics' equivalent of Oscars are named for him), died all he got was an inch or two of column space. It's wrong than someone like Eisner wasn't better known by the general public. And it's not only Eisner. I know a supposedly big X-Men fan who when I mentioned Jack Kirby said "Who's Jack Kirby?" (That's a bit like someone gushing about Hamlet and then asking "Who's Shakespeare?" or praising Mean Streets and then failing to recognize Scorsese's name.)
So, why comics? Sure, my childhood love of superheroes has a lot to do with it. I hate when people get all pretentious about calling Superman and his ilk our modern mythology, but really it isn't far from the truth.
Here's a digression that was going to be an entry on its own. Take the Superman comics of the 1960s (shaped in large part by former Captain Marvel writer Otto Binder - an underrated talent). Kandor, many shades of Kryptonite, the Phantom Zone -- that stuff is fun and cool to a child. DC stripped a lot of that stuff away in 1986 trying to get back to basics. But the basics of Superman was originally a brawler avenging the wrongs done in the Depression-era New York and Cleveland. After 1986, Superman didn't go back to stopping wife beaters, arms dealers, lynch mobs and corrupt mine owners with Krypton only being the McGuffin to explain his powers. He was still a superhero fighting costumed foes, but now with a blander backstory with fewer cool toys. No wonder writers like Mark Waid, Geoff Johns and Richard Donner have gone out of the way to restore a lot of Binder's additons to the mythos.
But that's more about my interest in superheroes.
My love of comics as an artform goes beyond that. After all, none of the comics I mentioned in the first paragraph are superhero books. Comics has some of the visual qualities of film and TV, but it's a much more active medium. TV, for example, is completely passive. You just let it wash over you. But in comics, the reader is a vital part of the experience. You control the pacing, the sense of time, imagine what the voices sound like. The reader is involved. Comics isn't the bastard stepchild of pictures and prose. It's an alive and vibrant medium that tells stories in a way no other medium does.
One of my complaints with a lot of superhero comics these days is that it's become all "kewl" pinup shots that make little use of how to string panels together. But the talented comics creators (including Jeff Smith, as I mentioned in my last post) know how to tell stories, know how to make stories flow from panel to panel. Also, I like different styles of art. I think the "photo-realistic" approach of Alex Ross doesn't exploit the narrative potential that more varied approaches do. (I say this to refute another co-worker's, MF - by the way - reason for not buying Shazam! - The Monster Society of Evil.) Good cartoony art is better than bad "realistic" art.
You know what? Another reason I love comics, because so many people just don't get it. I like being a fan of the underdog. I long for the day when most people will know who Jack Kirby or Will Eisner were. Who Seth, Chester Brown and Marjane Satrapi are.
I think I'll be writing more comics reviews in the future. Even if I'm just shouting into the ether.
Allen
