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Monday, January 07, 2008
Black and white and read all over
A few days ago a colleague of mine asked why I didn't write about comics on this blog as much as I used to. I told her that there's just not much being currently published that really excites me. I like the four or so titles I follow regularly but I can't imagine it would be very entraining for me to just read "hey, Daredevil's still good!" every month. Looking over old posts on this blog I'm amazed that I could muster up the energy to write paragraph after paragraph about comics I didn't even like. I can barely achieve that same feeling to write about a comic I pay good money for twelve times a year. The funny thing about that conversation is not an hour later after it ended that the old spark returned. I didn't rediscover it in anything new. I found it in page after page of comics created before I was born or when I was a young child. Burying my head in Essential Spider-Man Vol. 3 started my relapse. I predict that by the end of February I'll be drowning in page after page of black and white newsprint with images of Batman and The Silver Surfer splashed upon them.
My buddy Graeme, he of Savage Critic and io9 fame, has told me that he occasionally gets bit by a bug that compels him to read volume after volume of Claremont's Uncanny X-Men in Essentials form. I've always read the big "phone books" of comics, my favorite being Essential Howard the Duck, but for me it was more out of an academic desire to catch up on comics history. Now it's the addictive nature of Stan Lee era Marvel comics, Noel Murray writes about it in his article about the Essential books, that has grabbed me. I devoured the Lee/Romita Spider-Man stories. They're a perfectly paced superhero soap opera. There's always some drama involving Aunt May and Gwen Stacy but these big slugfests with Spidey up against The Vulture or Mysterio always taking a firm lead in the narrative. I feel like I've got a darn good read out of each issue. Then there's also this great tingle in the back of mind saying "I don't know what's going to happen next with ol' Peter Parker but I gots to find out!" That feeling became so strong that my superhero jones reappeared in full force and I soon find my way to the local used bookstore.
I got Essential Spider-Man Vol. 3 for cheap on a whim a few months ago, only cracking it open recently. A few days ago I walked into Green Apple Books on Clement St. with a handful of books off my shelf that I had read long ago or was never going to read. I traded them in for more Essentials and even a Showcase books, DC's answer to the Essential line. It was Showcase Presents Batman and The Outsiders. I got it because I know the '80s was a wild and weird time for DC. You'd get Howard Chaykin's The Shadow or Watchmen and then you'd get Sonic Disrupters (I only know it from the house ads in DC back issues, where the tagline was "The United States Army vs. The United States of Rock"). The idea of the ever aloof and menacing Batman starting up a team that included Metamorpho and some rainbow girl was irresistible. I was pleased to find out the book is a great example of classic superhero storytelling. Mike W. Barr makes time for the characterizations of a team of misfits clashing against each other and there are even moments of political subtext. Those aspects of the stories are only touched on lightly, though. Like the Spider-Man comics I'm reading Barr and artist Jim Aparo's first priority is to come up with a ripping yarn with action and twists coming every which way. The creative team doesn't get distracted by devoting page after page of Batman asking himself how he could quit the Justice League and start a new team with a bunch of weirdos. The reader gets a few strategically placed thought balloons to deal with that and then it's back to hunting down Baron Bedlam or whoever. That sharp focus in storytelling is something I didn't find when I read a lot of current superhero books.
Come to think of it I never really had superhero comics this good growing up either. I started reading comics in the early '90s, the eras of expansive X-Men crossovers and dead Supermen. It's amazing I wasn't repelled by comics becuase that was such an unfriendly time for kids to be discovering superheroes. But I knew there was this wide patchwork of imagination as the foundation for all these stories and that kept me interested. My friends and I would collect the Marvel trading cards as well as the comics. From these tiny pieces of cardboard I gleamed the seemingly endless supply of mind-blowing things going on. I still remember the jolt I got reading about Ego the Living Planet and Eternity, not just a concept but an actual character who hung out with Dr. Strange. I was promised all these cool ideas but what I was getting in the comics was incomprehensible crossovers like Fatal Attractions. Hey maybe they made sense to an adult reading them at the time but as a kid who only got to go the comic book store every two or three months I had no idea what was going on.
At the time I started this blog I worried about balancing the time I spent reading superhero comics with the time I read reading independent art comics. Now I get art comics and manga sent to me for free to review for Publishers Weekly. I indulge in the dreamlike world of superhero comics with no guilt, although I do have to stop myself after a while and read a prose book. All the Essential and Showcase books I'm reading and will read are a kind of "new nostalgia" for me. They're old comics that probably serve as reminders of younger days to most of the people buying these books. To me it feels like I'm getting dose after dose of the superhero excitement I was always looking for.
I'm actually interested enough to check out some of the modern superhero comics I've been hearing good things about. If I do it would be by picking up the collected editions. A lack of time and a shitty memory has spoiled reading comics monthly for me. I suppose I'm spoiled getting two years of a comics run in one of these books. For right now I've got the feeling that I'm back in the tights and capes game.
Permanent Link: 10:48 AM |
2 comments
Comments:
I think I'd like to get that Essential Silver Surfer. I haven't read some of those stories in years. I always loved the two parter (was originally supposed to be a full-length 25 cent issue, but economics dictated the reduced size) that had the Surfer encountering that freaky bionic-blast-eyed Flying Dutchman.
I kinda got my fire restoked recently from skimming through Essential Spider-Man vol. 1, when I bought it for my grandson for Christmas. It contains one of my all time favorite comics, AS-M #16, in which Spidey teams up with Daredevil and beats the Ringmaster's Circus of Crime with fists and funny, snappy patter... I hope he likes it half as much as I did...!
# posted by Johnny B : 1:47 PM
Smart move buying the book for your grandson. As I suggested in the post these are the books I wish I had as a kid, instead of depending on indivual issues. Give one or two volumes of Essential Spider-Man to a kid and he's got all the superhero fun he needs for a few months.
# posted by Ian : 2:28 PM
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