Misunderstanding Comix
Posted on : 08-10-2009 | By : Joe Craig
In : Brilliant Books!
4
So this week is all about Words and Pictures, is it? Well, I like words. I like pictures too. So why was I never into comics? I remember loving the Asterix books, but I never moved on from those to other comics. Not even Tintin! To be honest, I don’t really remember seeing any comics.
None of my friends read them and I never saw any copies at home or at school. When I thought about them, I thought of them as foreign, American things that existed in the past but weren’t really around any more.*
So I’ve got a lot of catching up to do! Sam’s post (see below) was very timely for me – gave me a great chance to start getting into some comics, and as it happens, I’ve just finished reading ‘Understanding Comics’, by Scott McCloud.
Obviously, you don’t need to read ‘Understanding Comics’ in order to be able to, um, understand comics, but I really recommend it as a wonderful deconstruction of what comics are and what they can do. In fact, it goes even deeper and gets into the nature of the whole creative process, taking it from an angle that I haven’t really come across before. Interesting stuff. And it will definitely make you see comics in a new way.
One thing still puzzles me, though: people who are into comics seem to insist on referring to one single comic as ‘comics’. And they say things like, ‘Comics is a form of storytelling that can… blah blah blah etc.’ – comics is? What’s going on there? Would a comics fan like to explain? Is it an attempt to make it sound like a more serious artform? Like saying ‘art’ or ‘music’ or ‘film’? If so, haven’t they noticed that the equivalent is ‘the novel’? Shouldn’t comics fans be referring to ‘the comic’?
I’ve even seen it spelt ‘comix’. Now that’s just weird.
*Actually, I’ve just remembered that I also read all of the amazing ‘Maus’ books by Art Spiegelman. I loved that his name was ‘Art’.
Joe, you’re right about the term ‘comics’. Totally. In fact, to the outside world it sort of promotes the nerdy ‘comic book guy’ cliquey stereotype that so many lovers of comics are trying to play down. But there we are. You and I are both new to comics and those who have carried the torch and bear the scars of the comics wars have probably got dark and arcane reasons for their use of the word… this is a fantastic book though!
Understanding Comics is a fantastic book, and the fact the whole thing is done as a big comic itself really helps clarify a lot of the points raised.
I think comic book fans are actually quite proud of the whole nerdy side of things. I know I am. I’m an out and out comic geek, with hundreds (if not thousands) of issues in my collection, and while I’m glad that comics are losing a bit of the stigma associated with them, part of me will be disappointed if they ever become truly mainstream.
During my school visits I always talk about comics, and take great pleasure in arguing with any teachers who try to dismiss them as ‘juvenile trash’, as one once put it. There are as many genres of comic as there are of any other kind of book, and to say that they’re somehow less worthwhile because they have pictures along with the text shows a massive lack of understanding of the artform. I like to ask them if they ever watch TV or films, then point out that those are are a combination of words and pictures, too.
I think I’ve mentioned it before, but my ultimate ambition is not to write the great novel of our times, but to write the definitive Incredible Hulk story – a kind of Dark Knight Returns for the big green brute. Hopefully one day I’ll get to do it, but until then I’m happy just to read them.
A note from a nerd!
Well, technically a comic is a single image (like the hyper-funny Gary Larson FAR SIDE comics) – and the drawings in “comic books” (including trade paperbacks and graphic novels) is known as sequential images – so a series of comics…
So…. calling it “comics” is technically correct… although I do agree – a tad annoying!
Thanks Andy,
Now I can explain the term to people myself. Hooray!
When I was recently introduced to comics I thought I was a novice. Then I realised that I was re-entering a continuum from which I had simply had a 20-year break… The Beano, Asterix, Tintin, Battle Action Force, those old Tiger annuals my Gran used to find goodness knows where… they used many of the same techniques as the new comics I was being shown, although with very different levels of complexity, and generating very different effects, admittedly.
Reading Preacher, Sandman, Watchmen and Transmetropolitan, I realised that just because I had stopped reading /kids’/ comics, there was no reason that the form shouldn’t, and doesn’t potentially work for teenagers / adults / everybody. That any stigma should exist in continuing to read and appreciate comics in adulthood is a repressive Victorian nonsense, of which my own parents, as teachers, were as guilty as anyone. I will ensure that my kids are encouraged to see comics as a completely valid standalone art form – certainly one which requires more interaction and concentration than the typical 90-minute film.
I am an absolute nerd myself, but you never know, a few cooler friends of mine might still just be convertible, if I explain that comics can be radical, inflammatory, unpredictable… cool…