(Me, defensive? Oh, no.) I read comic books. I'm not going to write "I still read comic books" because that would imply that it's something I already should have grown out of. No, it's simply this: I read comic books. I also read the great classics, books of essays, biographies, contemporary fiction, plays and screenplays, magazines, and the backs of cereal boxes. I read everything, and comics are just a part of the whole constellation. But for no particular reason, today I'm going on about comics.
I learned to read through comic books. When I was in the first grade they decided it was time to teach us to read, and for a while there, things were going badly with me. Eventually my school sent a note home saying that there might be some sort of learning disability involved. Mom, who knew me and didn't give a shit about statistics and studies, knew that a learning disability was utter nonsense. Pretty soon, she got cagey and smart. I came up to her one night, holding a "Legion of Super Heroes" comic, and asked if she would read it to me. "Well," she said, "I've got some things to do still, so maybe a little later." Slight pause. "But you know, if you learned how to read, you wouldn't have to wait for me to read it to you."
Within a week I had passed the rest of the class in reading skills. It was just a question of motivation, plain and simple. But it was my love for those four-color strips on cheap paper that got me over that hump, and I won't ever forget that.
Given the prevalence of super heroes in pop culture lately, it might seem absurd to even bother defending the value of comics. But three objections to that pop up immediately: (1) super heroes are not the only subjects of comic books, and indeed some of the best comics-related movies, like Ghost World, have been non-super hero works; (2) how many people attending Superman Returns wouldn't be caught dead reading a Superman comic on the bus?; and (3) there are still stories like this one:
Castillo was sentenced to 180 days in jail, a year probation, and a $4,000 fine. Again – in the eyes of Texas, selling a comic book created for adults, from the adult section of the shop, to an adult was deemed a crime because, in the prosecutor’s eyes, all comics are for kids.
That is from a Newsarama story in 2003 about the case of a Txas comic book retailer named Jesus Castillo, who in 2000 was arrested, tried and convicted of selling an adult comic book to an adult. He appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case. Still think that comics don't need defending? Talk to Peter Kuper, whose George Bush parody "Richie Bush" (a riff on the Richie Rich character) got his work seized by U.S. Customs agents.
The above news articles, by the way, were found through the website of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, a not-for-profit that specializes in First Amendment defenses for comics creators. They are, alas, very busy people, and deserve your support.
The list of truly gifted writers working in comics continues to grow. I've already talked about Neil Gaiman here, but of course Neil owes a great deal to Alan Moore (Wikipedia article here, and a nice long interview here). There are also notables like Paul Chadwick, Art Spiegelman, Eddie Campbell, Marjane Satrapi or the late great Will Eisner, father to them all.
But there's been some great super hero stuff as well. I'm a bit tired of all the linking, so I'll just mention Brian Michael Bendis, Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis and Kurt Busiek, and that the stuff Marvel has been doing lately, particularly in its "Ultimates" line, has been spectacular.
So yeah, that's right, I read comic books. They taught me a very clear-cut sense of right and wrong, Stan Lee's insistence on using a college-level vocabulary helped me learn new words, and Gaiman's Signal to Noise gave me my first full-length stage play, while Pat McGreal's collaboration on Veils is moving ever closer to a really fine completed screenplay. You'll never catch me saying a word against the delights of a good comic book, no sir.
No comments:
Post a Comment