Month: September 2006

Brevoort’s an editor at Marvel, and responded to some comments on his blog with this gem:

"Here’s the thing: the characters are invulnerable.

"I’m not talking about super-powers here; I’m talking about the ability to survive bad stories and bad times and to live on and prosper again. The primary Marvel characters have been around for four decades at this point, and have been translated into animated cartoons, movies, television shows and more toys than you could ever hope to collect. They’ve become immortal, and a part of the pop culture landscape…

"The characters are indestructable. The worst you can do to them (assuming you’re behaving somewhat responsibly) is to tarnish them, and to make them unpopular for awhile. But literally anything can be fixed–and nothing repairs a character like good, compelling, exciting stories. As long as you can produce that, you can’t go wrong…

"The best of the Marvel characters are now functionally immortal–created before I was born in most cases, they’ll survive long after I’m dead and gone."

This is the silliest, most arrogant quote I’ve ever read from Marvel management. And it’s quite wrong.

Now I like Tom Brevoort a lot, and I like Civil War a lot. I think the mega-crossover is the most interesting superhero story in many years. It’s a period piece that’s perfect for post-9/11 America. Rather than replicating the events of that day with some sort of superterrortist, Mark Millar’s story captures the paranoia, fear, and bad decisions we make when we try to restructure society after a horrible event. I think many Internet critics have gotten it wrong when they criticize Millar’s handling of Tony Stark and Reed Richards; as Marvel’s wealthiest superheroes, it’s not surprising to me to see them strongly support the Registration Act. They have the most to lose if the public fully loses trust in superheroes. This is an argument I’ll get into more another day, but I have little qualms with how Millar’s written Civil War, and McNiven’s art is gorgeous.

What I have a problem with is the idea that Marvel’s characters are somehow iconic, eternal, or everlasting.

Somehow, we got it in our heads that superheroes have the ability to resonate forever, that Superman and Batman and Spider-Man will always look fresh and inviting to future generations. If that were so, they’d be a very rare subset of characters in human literature, because there’s very few eternal iconic characters out there.

Look at the great characters of the first comics boom in the thirties and forties. Little Orphan Annie, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Popeye- are any of these eternal icons? They’re all great characters, especially Annie (I have collections of the old strips, and they’re simply amazing). But iconic? Hardly. Sure, Hollywood can strip the Depression and WWII elements of the character, slap some CGI and breast implants in there, and present a fresh version of the character for today’s audience. I’m sure that, in 50 years with its smell-o-vision and virtual flesh and in-brain infobeams, similar techniques will be used to update the character for another audience.

But does that mean the characters are eternal? No, of course not. Is an updated Spider-Man really eternal? No. What happens is you take the character out back, shoot it, gut it, and put someone else in its skin. It’s got all the trappings of Spider-Man, and it may be fit for a new audience. But part of the old character is rotting in back of the shed.

There’s no guarantee of success when you’re creating something like the Marvel Universe. In fact, it’s the greatest storytelling experiment of the 20th century: a multitude of characters that germinated in the minds of three or four people (Lee, Ditko, Kirby, maybe Martin Goodman) that were then handed off to others, who then created their own characters. And then all of these went to someone else, and some characters were killed off, and some new ones were created, and the process grew bigger and smaller at the same time.

In any month, there are tens of Marvel comics published, each with its own subset of characters and viewpoints, but all in the same universe (or, if you want to include the Ultimate books, multiverse). All of it was created by the same company; it may have had different owners along the way, it may have been bankrupt at some times, it may have been flush with cash, but it’s always been Marvel. (Whereas a lot of DC Comics were created by companies that DC then bought, such as Shazam, the Blue Beetle and the Charlton heroes, and the Wildstorm universe with Jim Lee.) It’s an organic whole created by thousands of artists over 65 years (if you consider Namor was created in 1941; 45 years if you just look back to the start of the proper Marvel universe in 1961).

And every month, hundreds of thousands of readers poke holes into this storytelling concept 50 or more ways, each hole a different issue on the monthly schedule, and we change the Marvel universe through the act of observation (remember your quantum physics?). Some readers drop out each month, the concept/multiverse/mothership no longer resonating with them. Others drop in, sometimes accidentally. Occasionally, one of the readers becomes a creator and makes changes to the universe directly, and is himself or herself changed by the process.

There’s nothing else like it. And that’s why it’s so curious to see someone say it’s eternal, indestructable, immortal. Why? Many have tried to recreate the Marvel concept and have failed miserably, in some cases with much more money than Lee/Kirby/Ditko/Goodman had access to in 1961. If the concept can’t be duplicated, why is it guaranteed success forever?

The answer is, it isn’t. There’s no guarantee that this very week, a Marvel comic isn’t going to come out that will throw the whole concept into oblivion and extinction. The chance of such an occurence is small, true, but it’s not zero. Every week, Marvel walks a multidimensional tightrope, and so far they’ve stayed upright.

Heck, I think the concept’s thriving. But entropy watches the whole thing, waiting patiently. Now that’s functional immortality.

Colleen Doran posted this LA Times story about a retiring librarian from Mississippi and his struggles with a community where illiteracy runs rampant. There’s some comics content in there too, including a note about a custom comic the people at Archie created for the community.

I’m lucky. I’ve been able to read all of my conscious life. I was a bit of a child prodigy; I had a high school reading level while in second grade. I have bookshelves filled with books and graphic novels. I make enough money to support my love of reading. I cannot imagine what life would be like without words.

I dare you to make it through this article without shedding a tear.

How many major Frank Miller works aren’t in oversized books?

Dark Horse put out Sin City in 8 oversized tomes. Marvel’s putting his Daredevil work into two Omnibus volumes, and they’ve already published his Spider-Man work and collaborations with Bill Sienkiewicz in oversized hardcovers. 300, his story about the Persian invasion of Greece, was originally published in an oversized hardcover. The Martha Washington stories are rumored to be put out in an Omnibus format next year by Dark Horse. Even his Comics Journal interviews are in an oversized softcover. By my count, only his Batman: Year One story and Ronin novel are missing from the "big" scene. (Feel free to correct me in the comments!)

This volume houses the classic Batman: The Dark Knight Returns story and the not-so-classic sequel Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Back, along with an elaborate sketchbook, scripts, and the original proposal for the project. Chip Kidd plays designer here, though he doesn’t have much to do; much of this material has been presented before in trade paperback, 10th anniversary hardcovers, and the first round of Kidd hardcovers that came out a few years ago. Strangely, Kidd chooses as endpapers blown-up panels with the sort of "dotted" coloring that you’d associate with material older than Miller’s first book; it makes the work look more dated than it should. The work’s never been presented better, though; sewn binding eliminates gutter loss on two-page sequences, and the printing is top notch. I did see one page in the first novel that was missing some delicate linework, but that’s it; everything else is perfect (as it should be in a book with a $100 price tag).

Chances are, you have at least the first book on your graphic novel bookshelf. Dark Knight Returns, along with Watchmen and Maus, made up the triumvirate of graphic novels in 1986 that marked the first wave of well-publicized literate graphic novels in this country. If you haven’t read this, you’re in for a treat. Both novels deal with the premise of a Batman long past his prime returning from retirement to combat evil. In the first book, he returns to 80s urban America, with New Wave street punks, rampant street crime, and Ronald Reagan locked in a Cold War with the Soviets. In the second book, we start in a twisted Y2K America, an era of stock market heights and teenypop girl bands, but by the third chapter we’re in post-9/11 times, as Metropolis is awash in skyscraper ash.

The first book deserves any kudos it gets. The work is dense and flowing; the page designs absolutely work. Lynn Varley’s washes and Klaus Janson’s inks complement the work, but this is Frank Miller’s best moment as a comics craftsman. And on an oversized page, everything just looks better.

Over a decade passes before Miller takes on Daredevil again, but in the interim, his approach to comics changed. He’s no longer interested in crafting pages with 10 or more panels. While working on Sin City, he learned how to utilize negative space, and his choices run more to splash pages with powerful images. In an interview, he said, "People are attempting to bring a superficial reality to superheroes which is rather stupid. They work best as the flamboyant fantasies they are. I mean, these are characters that are broad and big. I don’t need to see sweat patches under Superman’s arms. I want to see him fly." He’s interested in playing in the toybox of DC Comics, and less interested in plot. We end up with a story that drags at times but does entertain at times. Miller gives us the sex lives of Superman and Wonder Woman, a monstrous Braniac destroying Metropolis, and Batman rising triumphant at a concert.

The accompanying sketchbooks are worth the price of admission. There’s a page where Miller draws Batman nude in black ink, and his costume over the figure in red ink. Miller says, "I learned the approach by studying Yoshitoshi. This way you can feel the anatomy under the capes and clothes." This quote illuminates Miller’s approach to comics. Some artists look for a character’s heart or brains. Miller’s searching for muscle, and he finds it in senior citizen Bruce Wayne. The sketchbook caps a fantastic package, one that will entertain anyone willing to shell out the ducats.

Two Millers have I;
Expensive but exquisite.
How can you resist?

Buy this book at Amazon.com!