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Sunday, November 28, 2004
Rock ‘n’ Roll Will Never Die
Recently in the blog world Joanna has gone over the awkward at best re-launched Doom Patrol which goes for an old-fashioned style of storytelling, as did the JLA story that preceded the title. Further back we get Dorian’s response to Bob Layton on the subject of Future Comics, a company whose sole purpose was to create superhero comics as if they were coming out in 1979. Now I must say I am someone who prefers to read superhero comics from the sixties and seventies than the ones coming out today, at least for the most part. Hell, I like reading the books that Doom Patrol’s John Byrne used to do. So does that mean that I’m all for a superhero book coming out right now that purport to return to a classic era of superheroes?
No I am not.
The reason comes to down to this. I believe the worst thing a creative person can do is refuse to evolve. In the case of Future Comics, John Byrne and others we get creators who hit it big decades ago and apparently don’t feel they have to improve the skills they used in creating comics back then. To them and many of their fans the problem isn’t they fact they haven’t changed, the problem is the fact that the rest of the world has. One can imagine Mr. Layton sitting in his office bellowing “I am big! It’s the comics that got small!” If we were going by sales there is actually truth in that. Alas, if we were going to take a cold hard looking at the contracting world of comics the fact that there aren’t a lot of books like Iron Man #128 around would probably not be the biggest concern.
This is not to say we need creators who are going to jump on every bandwagon that the spin people at Marvel and DC try to sell us. It goes much deeper than that. We need creators who believe that their best work is ahead of them. That everything they’ve done before, no matter how good it actually is, needs improvement and the goal is to keep improving at all costs. They need to tell stories that only they can tell and to utilize all of their skill and imagination. While I stated that we don’t need bandwagon hoppers, there are certainly enough already, we don’t need creators who are afraid of being influenced by those younger than they are. All that critical thinking and work is not as easy as sitting pretty atop Wizard magazine’s Top Ten I’ll admit. The reward comes when you find you aren’t someone chasing after the glory of being on that fabled list long after everyone has forgotten your name.
Now I mentioned that I prefer superhero books from decades before I was born. I may be young but I am an old soul. That is because in the older superhero books I choose to read I feel I am experiencing a level of creativity that I don’t feel I am getting today, even in the very same titles of those older books. The best example of this would be the first 102 issues as well as the first six annuals of Fantastic Four. This was a book where one can read Jack Kirby and Stan Lee coming into their talents. More importantly perhaps, it is a book that lived and died on what crazy concept those two were going to come up with next. There seemed to be no limits on what stories Stan and Jack would create for the book other than what they could think of. Lee says in the documentary Comic Book Confidential that before the FF he was at the end of his rope in terms of wanting to be in the comic book industry. His wife suggested that he’s got nothing to lose so why not do superheroes how you want to do them? It’s that type of thinking that leads to great works. Look at the comic book industry today, especially at superhero books sold through the direct market. I believe the Bob Dylan lyric that is “when you’ve got nothing you’ve got nothing left to lose” comes to mind.
This might be why I prefer my current superhero books to be original material, although I would never reject all corporate-owned comics and characters out of hand. Ex Machina by Brian K. Vaughn and Tony Harris is one example. In fact, comparing Vaughn’s work in Ex Machina and Y the Last Man to what he turns in with Ultimate X-Men is a great argument for more new concepts. Hard Time by Steve Gerber and Brian Hurtt is another example in what I’m looking for. Gerber is even from the same generation that Byrne and Layton are. So is Howard Chaykin, whose newer works like Mighty Love and Challengers of the Unknown show that he isn’t interested in doing American Flagg over and over like some past-his-prime vaudevillian repeating the same jokes to decreasing crowds. My favorite book currently Sleeper by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. The main character is an original creation by Brubaker but it does take advantage of the Wildstorm Universe and features characters created by Alan Moore and Jim Lee. Yet I feel that Sleeper is one of the best example of two artists coming up with something that they are really satisfied with because they get to touch on most, if not all, of the subjects and ideas they want to do in a comic book. It’s that feeling that attracts me to the book.
As always the place to go for more personal and creative output is away from The Big Two and onto those dusty racks your retailer keeps for Cerebus phone books and a few other smaller books that nobody remembers ordering. Not known for superhero stories, the world of alternative comics do offer perhaps some of the finest examples of what I’m going for. Dean Haspiel’s Billy Dogma might be the best superhero created in the last few years. Gilbert Hernandez has proven to be better at capturing the fun and whimsy of sixties DC and Marvel with new work like his mini The Naked Cosmos, “The Big Picture” in Luba’s Comics and Stories #4 and just about any story featuring the character Roy. And as always no discussion about the last stabs of imagination in superhero books today would be complete without mentioning the twin gods Grant Morrison and Alan Moore (who actually was mentioned previously but who’s counting). The fact that those two can give us the work they do for the companies they do it for is probably spoiling us.
When you are staring at a blank page you can write or draw anything you want on it. I ask why not put down what’s important to you, something that only you can offer the world? It’s not going to roll in the cash that’s for sure. But at the end of the day you’ll be happier knowing that there’s more thought and passion going into your work than simply putting out another comic for another month so some company that doesn’t give two shits about you can keep the hold on a copyright. What’s the harm in at least trying it?
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