It’s a relief to turn from life in Australia to comics, really it is. We’ve had about a week of Steve “Crocodile Hunter” Irwin and counting. I’ve got nothing against the man, honestly I haven’t. He seems to have been a bit of fun and it’s terrible that he died so young (ie three months older than me). But the Australian newspapers have been giving his death the sort of coverage that would be considered over the top if it were applied to Jesus returning to earth and helping the Rolling Stones to make an album that nobody felt embarrassed about buying, whilst solving global warming, bringing peace to the Middle East and abolishing the midriff look. Page after page has been lavished on every detail of Irwin’s life, death, relatives and the vexed questions of wether he was a great bloke and conservationist or just a bit of a ninny who annoyed crocodiles for a living. Rent-a-gob Germaine Greer wrote a column opting for the ninny side of the debate and has spawned countless articles about that. So now there are reams of newsprint being wasted on wether GG is right on the money or just a crabby old narcissist. The madness may never end. My Guardian Weekly arrived with only one small article about the Steve Irwin’s sad passing and I almost applied for British citizenship on the spot.
(Nobody says ‘crikey’ to Killer Croc)
The only relief to this orgy of crocodile-hunter related hysteria is the death of a famous racing driver this week. Unlike Irwin’s wife, the racing driver’s family has accepted the offer of a state funeral, thus enabling politicians to bask in the deceased’s popularity at the taxpayer’s expense.
After all this rubbish, I hold my shoulders high. So what if I write a column about comics? At least I’m not making a living agonising over Steve Irwin’s career and its ramifications for Gaia/feminism/whatever else can be dragged in. I’ll stop telling people the column is about ‘popular culture’, as I sometimes do, and say ‘comics’ in a clear, proud voice when asked ‘so what do you write about?’.
Of course, there are always comics shops to drag me down to reality. Last Friday I treated myself to an attempt to track down some missing Batman comics. I’d been picking these up from newsagents and had missed a few copies. It’s silly. I don’t need these comics. I can live without them. I’m pretty sure that Batman will survive. But I want to know what happened to the Red Hood and if Nitewing survived what seems to be a nuclear explosion. Worse still, when I bought what seemed to be the next issue, I wound up with Batman: One Year Later, which I think is different to Batman. Aaaargh.
(Batman wondering if millionaire Bruce Wayne can pick up every Batman comic and still call himself a millionaire)
Of course, I’m seeking professional help for this (on the 2000 AD message board), but in the meantime, I decided to spoil myself and go to a comics shop. Comics shop people know what’s going on, I reasoned. They’ll be able to tell me if I’m buying the wrong thing or not. Well, they could help me, using what passes for extravagant courtesy in the world of pictures with talk-bubbles (ie ‘Batman’s over there, mate’). Along the way, they put paid to my plans for holding my head high. I’ve now realised that every comics shop has to realise at least one popular stereotype about us books-with-pictures people.
Exhibit A, the LOUD shop. This is a nice big place with a good comics-to-toys ratio. One large section is devoted to graphic novels, there are acres of back issues, there’s the usual Ennis/Moore section, a few small-press comics and so on. One could cheerfully browse there for hours – if it wasn’t for the staff. The staff look like any other staff but at any given moment are talking at top volume with an equally noisy friend who has nowhere particular to go to. The conversation is archetypal nerd, lots of laughing at your own jokes a micro-second after you’ve finished them, braying references to tv show catch-phrases. Like the eyes in the portrait paintings, the yakking follows you around the shop and it never ends. Next time I browse there, I’m going in with those ear-muffs people wear in car factories.
Exhibit B: The Loony Clothes shop. Here there’s no uniform, but I instantly know who the staff are. The guy behind the counter has The Worst Beard ever – two pointy things growing out of each side of a stubbly chin. Another staff member was tidying up, sporting triangular bed-hair. Not gelled into a particular shape, like an 80s popstar, but a sideways column because that’s what hair does when you’ve not washed it for ages and then slept on one side. As I rummaged through the umpteen Batman titles searching for the three that would set my fears at rest, a customer trailed past me talking to himself and followed by a cloud of the kind of odour that clears crowded trams. I left quickly in case this kind of dressing is contagious.
Exhibit C: The fat pompous guy who bought my Phantom comics off me. Lumbering off back up the stairs, displaying a generous money-box and staring in a peculiar way. I think it’s a tv stare – hours spent looking at screens and a lifetime spent not making eye contact with anyone.
After all this comics-shopping, I can’t decide wether to go back to saying I’m a ‘popular culture’ writer or just pretend that there aren’t any comics shops here.
But I digress. My comics overdose continues with 2000 AD reaching some sort of pinnacle of quality. Judge Dredd is off in search of his origins, in a story of the same name by Wagner and Ezquerra. Another story, ‘Malone’ has just had an interesting twist which I didn’t see coming and the Banzais are back (this last group being 2000 AD’s spin on ‘Toy Story’ – a group of military cliché spouting little robots who kill garden pests. Much funnier than I’ve made it sound there. All is quality. The editor talks about ‘thrill power levels are rising to dangerous peaks’ pretty much every other week, but they really are this time. Believe the hype! And buy it, regardless of the shame you have to endure.
(Judge Dredd begins a terrific story, perfect for forgetting about bloody Steve bloody Irving)
