I gather that comics are about to become cool again, again. A gigantic article by ex-yoof dj Helen Razer in Melbourne’s Age newspaper brings us several amazing facts about the world of comics.
I should note here something that comics have in common with Japan. Both are good topics for slow news days. There are certain preconceptions that the public have about both books-with-drawings-and-talk-bubbles and the Land of the Unconvincing Excuse for whale slaughter which allow journalists to do bright features which seem new and interesting despite being pretty much annual fixtures and as variable as the Queen’s Christmas message. In the case of Japan, you can always make a few bucks with features suggesting that:
– women used to be oppressed there but now have spending power and sexual freedom (they’ve had these since about 1982, but it’s always a good excuse for a picture of some cute women)
– there are nerds called ‘otaku’ who are deeply odd/amusing/nerdy (note to editors, the picture will have some exciting manga porn behind a nerd)
– the Japanese economy isn’t the titan it used to be (picture editor note; you can always get a picture of a hottie in a business suit looking worried)
In the case of comics, the eye candy has to be drawn rather than photographed and there is always mileage in reporting the following astonishing developments, as Razer breathlessly does:
Astonishing development the first:comics are very adult these days and not just simple tales of improbably muscled blokes beating the crap out of each other while rescuing women with breasts the size of basketballs. The comics lover that Razer interviewed is pictured against a background of intelligent Alan Moore comics, pretentious Neil Gaiman comics and miscellaneous super-hero stuff depicting improbably muscled blokes……. Maybe it was a phone interview, more likely it’s that picture editor again, shuffling through the interviewee’s collection for the Marvel comic with the biggest knockers on the cover.
In more not-so-breaking news, comics are now called ‘graphic novels’. Razer doesn’t tell us who started this, but helpfully points out that the word ‘comic’ suggests silliness and humour. That’s true. The word ‘novel’ used to suggest the same things, especially the cliché ridden three volume novels of the nineteenth century. ‘Film’ used to be an innately trite thing, back in the days when seeing a train come out of tunnel was a big deal, but now that there are serious, adult and artistic films, nobody has waged a battle to call films ‘visual sound stories’* There may well be a few decades of debate behind the decision to use the ‘graphic novel’ tag for comics which take themselves far too seriously and/or bound comic collections. If so, thank God I’ve missed it.
To me ‘graphic novel’ suggests taking one’s innocent fun way too seriously. I suppose the term is here to stay, with people regularly using ‘GN’ for a collected comic, but I don’t have to like it. As I’ve said before, it reeks of defensiveness, trying too hard and an outmoded idea of high versus low culture.
By the way, does anyone get offended if a comic is not described as a graphic novel? Years ago I met a sci fi fan who earnestly explained to me that using ‘sci fi’ for science fiction rather than SF was exactly as offensive as using the ‘N word’ was for black people. I’d be fascinated to know if there are any comics buffs who are that put out by ‘comic’.
Back to Razer’s feature. Comics, it turns out, are no longer for children and the collector helpfully explains that little children would be very unlikely to read Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
I’m a long way from childhood, and I don’t have a convenient thirteen year old and copy of LOEG to experiment with, but I think the example is a bad one. In LOEG, various famous literary characters battle the odd arch-fiend and some aliens, as well as each other. A lot of parents wouldn’t want their kiddies to see the bloodshed involved, nor wish to explain to them exactly what Mr Hyde does to the Invisible Man (hint for adults; remember the joke about Superman?), but kids who got the chance would find the story readable and fun, even if they wouldn’t understand a lot of the references. LOEG is as difficult as the adventures of Buzz Lightyear.
For sure there are dozens of comics that wouldn’t interest kids – all that dark, pseudo poetic Sandman stuff for a start. A lot of children would probably find Moore’s ‘From Hell’ the stuff of nightmares or just plain confusing. What’s interesting about the kids/comics quote is the unspoken assumption that not being interesting to kids is a good thing for comics. This could mean I no longer have to worry that the people reading Clive Cussler books in the seat next to me think I’m dim for reading ‘Asterix and Cleopatra’ on the way in to town. They’ll know from the Razer article that I’m a cool inner suburbanite with a collection of Nick Cave CD’s at home.
Leaving aside my lack of cool (I’ve only got one Nick Cave CD, honest, and my sideburns are not pointy), breaking news is that comics are for women as well as for men. O brave new world, women, adults, cool people, all reading Graphic Novels, even though ‘the shadow of the super heroes hangs over the genre’. The imminent involvement of women in comics is another evergreen. Women read comics and always have done and certainly women have been doing good comics since time immemorial, Claire Bretecher and Nicole Hollander to name but two of my favorites. In general comics is a boysy sort of thing though, an innocent pleasure and not about to be changed into something else overnight.
There’s another perennial for features editors; James Bond. He’s always about to become less sexist, practice safe sex, become relevant again, or fade away for being irrelevant and sexist etc. Sexism and objectifying women are definitely Bad Things, but I can’t see that they are Bad Things which stop pop culture success. A recent opinion piece in the Gaurdian newspaper argued that Bond was finished because men were no longer satisfied with childish fantasies involving speed boats, fast cars and gorgeous women. I mentioned this on the 2000 AD messageboard and Gordon Rennie said “what happened? Did we take a vote or something?”
It’s like that with comics. Nobody took a vote, they are what they are and that’s great. I don’t know about you, but I have a David Bishop ‘Phantom’ story, a Ranma 1/2 book, the latest 2000AD and an Extreme Edition to hop into. Helen Razer can photograph my smiling dial against a background of lycra-clad hunks and spunks anytime.
It’s ironic. Not only did I not run out of comics-y topics to chatter about, I gained a new lease of life from the comic section in the city library and the train time in which to read them. Reading in trains was one of my major joys in Japan. In Melbourne I’m distracted by the graffiti and trees (things I didn’t see much of in Japan) and by the wan listless faces of the other commuters. However, having a train to read things on is very helpful for a distractible type like me and I have gotten through the following since I last wrote this: Batman World’s Finest Comics Archives, Justice League of America Archives, Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing, a shitload of Ranma 1/2 books, my regular allowance of everything that 2000 AD puts out, and the Phantom.
Now, I have a gorgeous new computer to write on and I’m spoiled for choice. I think I’ll write about comics fans.
The move from Japan back to Australia has left me very self-conscious about being a comics fan. In Japan everything I did was odd anyway. I was eccentric by virtue of being non-Japanese, so my comics fandom didn’t stick out too much. The only peer group I had was English teachers, who are a literary lot anyway. Now I’m back amongst my own, the people I grew up with. Eurrgh! Who knows what they might think. The trains certainly seem like a library on wheels, full of pale sad-looking people grimly getting from one end of the new Harry Potter to the other. I should be ecstatic to be back in a country where English-language comics aren’t as rare as unpretentious Peter van Greenaway movies.
Anyway, comics fans, where was I? I haven’t met many of these rare beasts, probably just as well.
*well, not to my knowledge. There are more pseuds in the world of film than there are people in the world of comics, anything is possible.
