Re-Reading Comics
(Another Onomatoepeia essay, from July last year.)
“It’s no longer news that comics have grown up. A form that was once solely the province of children’s entertainment now fills bookstores with mature, brilliant works by artists like Chris Ware, the Hernandez brothers, Dan Clowes and Charles Burns, discussed in the sort of tone that was once reserved for exciting young prose novelists.”
Thus begins Douglas Wolk’s Reading Comics, which is described by the publisher as “the first serious, readable, provocative, canon-smashing book of comics theory and criticism by the leading critic in the field.” Some may say that that’s hyperbole, but not me – I simply like to point out that Douglas Wolk is a man who will surely burn in several separate hells for his role in stealing both the credits and the plaudits that should rightfully be mine. Why do I have such scorn for the accursed Wolk, you may find yourselves asking? It’s astoundingly simple:
I wrote Reading Comics.
Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “No you didn’t. I’ve read Douglas Wolk’s reviews on Salon and Rolling Stone and you only ever write for the Savage Critic, so if it comes down to me thinking that someone like Douglas could write a critically-acclaimed book that even has Hibbs saying that it made him realize new things about Watchmen, a book that he’s read twice a year since 1967, or someone like you, my money’s on the Wolkmeister every time.” And I have something to say to you about that. Firstly, “the Wolkmeister”? Really? But more importantly, that’s a fair point, and you may be right. But that’s not the point.
I admit it; I didn’t write the version of Reading Comics that was actually released. Instead, I wrote the first, unreleased version of the book – I was the first person contacted by the publishers, and the first person to come up with the title, although my version was slightly longer: Reading Comics Can Be A Fun and Fulfilling Pastime, Unless You Happen To Be Reading Civil War: Frontline Because, I Mean, Really. Apparently, my take on the book was decided to be “not exactly what we were looking for,” and I was ultimately passed over so that “Victor Von” Wolk would get all the plaudits and awards and love and and and.
However, knowing that good work never goes to waste, and also that I have to fill two pages of Onomatopea this month despite getting ready to go to San Diego, I figured, why not share some of my unseen work with all of you? This way, you can all know what you’re talking about when you bombard DaCapo Press with letters, emails and nuts (Hey, it worked for Jericho) demanding that my version of the book gets released. And so, my friends, I present to you, the real first chapter to Reading Comics, and you just tell me whether you’d want to read more:
Reading Comics: An Introduction
Reading comics is a solitary art, much like masturbation. Also like masturbation, reading comics may lead to a lifetime of sadness and loneliness if not done correctly, and can occasionally be responsible for weak eyesight in later life.
However, masturbation is popular amongst teenagers and adults of all walks of life, and the same cannot be said about comics, although I’ve heard that “manga” sells well to the kids these days. That’s why this book exists – To give you, Mr. and Ms. Joe Public, a chance to look inside the world of comic books, and learn just why this exciting bastard art form and discover just why it is responsible for making Transformers the most successful movie of all time that isn’t Titanic! Come with me on this exciting story I’m telling, why don’t you? Come on!
The History of Comics, 1
The first thing that you need to understand in order to read a comic book is the history of the medium. Comic books were invented in 1961 by Stan “The Man” Lee and King Kirby, a recently-deposed eastern-European monarch who had mad skillz with the pencils. Born in the midst of America’s “Great Depression” of the 1920s and ‘30s, Lee was raised that the one thing that America needed more than anything else was a readable anti-depressant. Understanding that comedy was said to be successful in fighting depression, Lee set out to create a cheaply-produced comedic periodical about life in the Fantastical Brothers Circus, illustrated by Kirby’s garishly-colored silent images of the circus’s celebrated freaks, including a rubber-band man, a disappearing woman, Pyro The Flaming Fool and a gentleman made of orange poo. Sadly, the first edition of The Fantastical Four Stories of Circus Magic Comical was printed so poorly by the sadly short-lived publishing division of New York’s Hodgeman Home For the Blind and Infirm that entire pages of text were printed on top of Kirby’s artwork, making it look as it the characters themselves were speaking the words.
Upon discovering that the botched print run had been mistakenly released to the public, Lee used his Mob connections to order everyone involved in Hodgeman Home murdered in seemingly-innocuous circumstances. That was before he found out that the public loved this accidental new medium that had been created, and as tribute, Lee went on to spend his seven-hour eulogy for the former residents of the by-that-point-exploded Home pledging that the new medium would be dedicated in their name. And so, comics were born!
The History of Comics, 2
Thanks to the successes of Stan “The Man” Lee and his most successful creation, The Amazing Spider-Man, comics went from strength to strength throughout the later half of the 20th Century. Sales kept rising as comics were seen as the only form of entertainment not to be under threat of the wave of political relevance that had ruined popular culture from Bob Dylan to Sidney Lumet’s movie where everyone’s as mad as hell and not going to take it anymore at least until they leave the theater and start taking it again after all. As Stan Lee grew older, his mind crept further and further into senility; following the creations of post-feminist icons like Spider-Woman, She-Hulk and finally disco diva Dazzler, Lee was ousted from his own company Marvel Comics and placed in a local old folks home.
Sensing a void in the comics marketplace, indie publisher DC Comics quickly pushed out its first three books on the same fateful day in 1987: Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns and Maus. These three funny animals books dealt with issues that comics had previously avoided, such as cartoonists growing old, cartoonists’ fears about growing old, and cartoonists dealing with fears about growing old by talking to their fathers who survived the holocaust but still feeling sorry for themselves for growing old. Finally, comics had achieved a legitimacy with an audience that was also growing old! And so, adult comics were born!
But How ARE Comic Books Born?
That’s a really good question, and I’m glad that you asked me. Comics are a collaborative artform, with many pairs of eyes, ears, hands and other body parts responsible for the final product. But it all starts with the most important ingredient: The desire to entertain.
Normally, that desire comes from the writer. His (or hers, but, come on, let’s be serious here) hands will be the first ones to start the process of creating the comic that you’re going to give your hard-earned cash to a shop owner for. His will be fingers that will touch the keyboard, crafting a script for his collaborators to ignore later in the process. A script for a comic is similar to a movie script, but can involve more complex visual ideas than a simple motion picture. Let’s look at this example, from Chris Ware’s script to L’il Nicky Fury, The World’s Shortest Super-Spy #19:
PAGES 1 THROUGH 6
A rigid grid of nine panels on the page. Each panel is exactly the same size as each other, and each panel is entirely black, like the void that is my talent. Sweet God, why must I fail my readers so badly with how talentless I am? Each time that I release a precious book full of my well-designed and good-intentioned multi-colored stories illustrating the essential worthlessness of life and win not only critical plaudits but also awards, I want to scream back at them, I AM WORTHLESS! I AM SO PATHETIC, WHY MUST YOU ALL KEEP LOOKING AT ME? STOP IT STOP IT STOPPPPPPPPPPP IIIIIIITTTTTT!
Anyway, each of these nine panels on each of these six pages are entirely black. They are all wordless on the first five pages, but on the sixth page, the following script should be rendered in precise handlettering NOT COMPUTER LETTERING, PHILISINES:
PANEL 1
BALLOON (NO POINTER): *SNIFFLE*
PANEL 3
BALLOON (NO POINTER): MOM?
PANEL 5
BALLOON (NO POINTER): MOMMMMMM!!!
PANEL 7
BALLOON (NO POINTER): WHAT IS IT, NICKY?
PANEL 8
BALLOON (NO POINTER): I… I CAN’T SEE, MOM. I CAN’T SEE ANYTHING.
PANEL 9
BALLOON (NO POINTER): WELL, SILLY, THAT’S BECAUSE YOU’RE WEARING YOUR EYE PATCH ON YOUR GOOD EYE. *SIGH* HOW WILL WE EVER MAKE A SUPER-SPY OUT OF YOU AT THIS RATE?
From there, the script will go to an editor, who will look it over for spelling mistakes and occasionally insert parenthetical sentences ending in ” – Ed.” into new captions to see how much the writer is paying attention when it gets returned to them. Once the writer has approved the editor’s approval of his script, said script then gets scanned into a large supercomputer in Texas, where a “rendering farm” of 23 computers quickly transfers the difficult concepts into easy-to-understand pictures for the unwashed masses. After the art has been produced, crack teams of tech-savvy elves “letter” the book, and then send it to the printer. Amazingly, this entire process takes less than a day, and is performed seven million times each month across the globe to allow you, the reader, to be able to choose between such varied products as Astonishing X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, New X-Men, X-Men and Persepolis.
Now that you understand where comics got their start and just how they’re made, it’s time to move onto our next chapter, where I’ll explain just why comics have taken over popular culture, and what that means for not only popular culture, but also highbrow culture, in the next fifty years. It may sound weighty, but I’m sure that you’ll understand exactly where I’m coming from once you’ve finished reading We’re All Doomed: Roy Lichtenstein, I Blame You For Making People Think This Stuff Should Be Taken Seriously In The First Place.
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