A Favourite Thing: Comics (Comics & Graphic Novels in general)

Name: hogsflesh

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Product:	Comics & Graphic Novels in general
Date:	18/07/02 (154 review reads)
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When you mention comics, people usually assume you mean superheroes, or maybe The Beano. Most people read comics when they're children. Then they grow out of kiddie comics, and are either unaware that there are some damn fine comics being published for adults, or don't believe they can possibly be any good. While there aren't any comics that match the best work done in other media like theatre or film, there's still an awful lot of good stuff out there.

You have to overlook the kinds of people that read superhero comics. (A broad generalisation, I realise, and there are plenty of people who read superhero comics who are perfectly normal and well-balanced. I read quite a few myself, if they're written by people I like. But there are definitely people who conform to the Simpsons Comic Book Guy stereotype - men (always men) who lack interpersonal skills and get a bit too excited by Wonder Woman. Such people will sneeringly dismiss any comics that don't conform to their ludicrously narrow minded standards. As long as they get to read their never-ending, meaningless soap operas about men in brightly coloured tights beating up other men in brightly coloured tights then they're happy. It's largely down to them and their attitude that comics as an art form are stagnating.)

(And I'm not knocking superhero comics in themselves. They're great when you're a kid. Unfortunately children don't have ready access to them any more. I remember when you could buy American superhero comics in newsagents. But then comic companies, for reasons best known to themselves, started distributing their products exclusively to specialist comic shops like Forbidden Planet, so unless you live near one of those you're scuppered. And most people don't like to go into comic shops because they're perceived to be full of the kind of people I described above.)

I'm not sure why superheroes have such a stranglehold o
n the market. I suspect it's because the pioneers of the genre in the early 60s (specifically artists Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and Jim Steranko) were so good that they inspired the current generation of writers to the extent that they just want to re-hash their ideas all the time.

Once there were loads of other comics available - war stories, Westerns, romance, adventure, horror, you name it. But they all died out. There's always been a sub-current of 'alternative' comics that's co-existed with the mainstream. In recent years it's come more and more to the fore as people who love comics as a medium but have little patience with 30-year-old superhero franchises have searched for other types of story to enjoy.

In the 1980s comics acquired a bit more credibility. Writers like Alan Moore (who did Watchmen) and Frank Miller (who did Batman The Dark Knight Returns) started to introduce more adult themes and a greater level of complexity and intensity into mainstream comics. For a little while it looked like comics, or 'graphic novels' as they were called, might actually become a part of mainstream adult entertainment. Unfortunately the comic companies squandered this by churning out more of the usual crap and trying to sell it in bookshops. If you'd just read Watchmen and went to your local Waterstones to look for something similar, only to be presented by shelf after shelf of Spider-Man pap you'd probably be a bit disillusioned. Which most people evidently were.

(This situation only really seems to exist in Britain and America. I believe that in certain parts of Europe, especially France, comics are treated with respect, and they certainly are in Japan. I'm not really familiar with many European or Japanese comics, but they show that the kind of cultural snobbery that comics attract in the UK and US isn't universal.)

There are some great comics out there. I already did a top ten list abou
t comics, so won't go on and on about much stuff here. But if you want to try something and don't know where to start I'll give you a few titles as pointers.

The Adventures of Barry Ween Boy Genius by Judd Winick (very funny science fiction stories about a kid who can't stop inventing really amazing things - South-Park-style humour, but with more swearing and a bit more heart). Age of Bronze by Eric Shanower (an epic, painstakingly researched retelling of the Trojan War). Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (huge superhero/science fiction conspiracy theory story, fairly complex in the way it's structured but very readable nonetheless). Ghostworld by Daniel Clowes (funny and sad coming of age story about two teenage girls who don't feel that they fit in with the world around them - now a major motion picture).

Jimmy Corrigan: the Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware (a rather depressing but fantastically well-designed tale of three male generations of a family - it won the Guardian first novel award last year). Maus by Art Spiegelman (in which Spiegelman tells of his parents' experiences as Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland, which culminate in their being sent to Auschwitz. Maus proves that comics are capable of dealing with big issues intelligently. This is perhaps the one I'd most highly recommend to people.)

The comic book form is unique. Telling stories using a combination of pictures and prose leads to a whole set of conventions that are quite different to any other media. I suppose film is the thing that comics are closest to, but comics have advantages over films (just as films have advantages over comics). For instance, there are no budgetary or technological limitations to what can be shown in a comic book. More visual detail can be included because the reader has time to properly take everything in.

The comic book form can be used to create effects that couldn't be done in any other me
dium. There's a page in Jimmy Corrigan in which the main character is flying to meet his father, who he hasn't seen for years. The page has Jimmy trying to imagine what his father will be like when he meets him at the airport, and what he will say. So Chris Ware, gives us a page of identically-sized panels, each with a slightly different looking father, each saying different things. The visual impact of this scene could never be replicated in the same way in a film, nor a prose story. They would both have to do it in completely different ways, and so the effects they would have on the viewer/reader would be different.

I could give other examples, but this opinion is already getting a bit unwieldy, and I can't adequately describe things that should be seen anyway. But there are ways that comics tell stories that couldn't be done in any other medium, and I guess that's why I like them so much. A comic adaptation of The Godfather would be as different to the book and the film as they are to each other, even though they would all be telling the same story.

Comics, at the end of the day, are just another way to tell stories, just like prose or film or theatre. If I don't like the story I don't buy the comic. While I love the way comics present a narrative I won't buy them unless the stories themselves are actually worth reading. It can be kind of difficult finding the good stuff (although most bookshops stock Maus and Jimmy Corrigan), but I think that's going to get easier. The American comic book industry as it is right now is dying, and I hope it will be replaced by something a bit more intelligent.

Basically, if I stopped buying comics I'd be cutting myself off from a rich source of genuinely inventive material. It would be like not watching films anymore, or refusing to read novels. It is true that almost no comics have been written that can genuinely stand alongside the best works of literature or f
ilm, but they're trying and I really believe they'll get there in the end.

Comics. I love 'em.


Jill Murphy asked me to write about one of my favourite things to help her celebrate her fourth anniversary of cancer-free living and to remind ourselves of all the nice things in the world. It takes more muscles to make a frown than a smile you know. If you'd like to join in, whether you've only just joined dooyoo, or you've been here ages, you're more than welcome. Just write about one of YOUR favourite things, make your title "A Favourite Thing: [your choice]" and include this paragraph at the foot of your opinion. And post before Friday, 9th August.

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