EVERYTHING BUT IMAGINARY #269: GOING WITH THE FLOW

[Blake Petit]

It’s been a rough day for yours truly, and even rougher getting a column out, and putting together something cohesive is proving nigh-impossible. So for this week’s Everything But Imaginary, I’m just gonna freestyle it, go stream-of-consciousness about various comic-related things that have occurred to me lately. I can’t promise any groundbreaking insights, but hopefully I’ll at least give you guys a thing or two to chew on.

For the last couple of days, I’ve pondered the idea of “reality comics.” Now I don’t mean there should be a comic where people eat disgusting things and get voted off one at a time, although I’m sure someone is planning exactly that thing. I’m thinking more along the lines of nonfiction stories told in comic book form. Virtually every storytelling medium has a nonfiction element – documentaries, biographies, and any number of other such works. Comics have them too. Vertigo recently published the original graphic novel Sentences: The Life of M.F. Grimm, an autobiography by musician and producer Percy Carey, for whom a rough lifestyle led to his confinement in a wheelchair. One of Judd Winick’s early successes in comics was Pedro and Me, a memoir and tribute to his friend Pedro Zamora, who died of complications from AIDS.

Of course, not everything that’s nonfiction has to be a downer either. I recently watched the documentary King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, and it was one of the most exciting films I’ve seen in all year. Who would have thought a movie about a guy trying to break the world record of Donkey Kong would be so funny, so intriguing, so Machiavellian, and so all-around awesome? It’s an incredible movie, and if you haven’t seen it already, you should.

So no, nonfiction comics aren’t nonexistent, but there aren’t as many of them as there are in other media either. Why is that? I suppose the knee-jerk answer is that the American comic book market is still dominated by superheroes. This is true, but why is that? And is it really, as we so often think, just an American thing? Look at all the Japanese Manga the kids these days love so much. While there may not be any Supermen or Batmen in the mix, a large percentage of them feature characters with amazing powers battling evil forces – a simple enough definition of superhero, if you ask me. European comics? Again, while this is a market far more diverse than the American market, there are still lots of popular fantasy and science fiction series which share many of the basic elements of the American superhero – just put together in a different way.

Superheroes, science fiction, fantasy, horror… these genres are dominant not just in the US, but throughout much of the comic-reading world. Why?

I think it relates to the inherent strength of the medium. Comics are a unique way to combine both words and pictures. A novel can only describe things, not show them. A motion picture is limited by the budget of the filmmakers and the practicality of creating the special effects. In comic books and comic books alone, the only limit on what you can show is the imagination of the creators. That’s a remarkable power. So is it any wonder that the genres that rule the medium are those that draw the greatest benefit from this facet? In a novel, it’s torturous to try to impress upon a reader the stature of a 50-story monster. In a movie, weak special effects and bad rubber suits can dilute the impact. In a comic book, you can make that work in ways that don’t otherwise work.

I’ve got a lot of trade paperbacks sitting around that I’ve started reading, but haven’t finished yet for one reason or another. Wildstorm: Armageddon, Showcase Presents Booster Gold, Essential Marvel Saga, The Nearly Complete Essential Hembeck Archives Omnibus, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus Vol. 4, Walt Disney Treasures: Uncle Scrooge-A Little Something Special and Penny Arcade Vol. 5: The Case of the Mummy’s Gold are all sitting around with bookmarks in them. It’s not that I don’t like them, or that there’s anything wrong with them. I’ve just been so busy doing a thousand other things lately I don’t seem to have the time to finish reading anything long-form. Another strike against the “waiting for the trade” mentality, at least for me.

Thing is, I start reading something, wind up spending a few days not reading anything, and then wind up picking up something else instead of going back to what I was reading before. At least it’s not just graphic novels, though. I’m also partially through readings of several prose books: A Year at the Movies, Casino Royale, I Am Invincible, and Sentinels: When Strikes the Warlord. You don’t even want to know how many DVDs I haven’t finished.

Of course, this failure to finish reading or watching anything is making it harder to come up with things to write about on my own revamped website. On the other hand, this allows me to write stuff like yesterday’s discussion of how I write my reviews. Of course, the centerpiece of that are Monday’s chapters of my novel-in-progress. You guys have all been reading those, right? Right?

The Hero Initiative tribute book for Mike Wieringo came out today. He was working on a What If? special at the time of his death, so this book includes the seven pages he had done and an all-star lineup of his friends to complete it in his honor. It’s not bad – the story basically supposes that the temporary “New Fantastic Four” from Fantastic Four #347-349 had become permanent. You can’t help look at it and wonder what it would have been like had Wieringo managed to finish it himself, but really, you should get this book. The proceeds go to a good cause, and Wieringo deserves the tribute.

I think that’s about all I’ve got this week, friends, sorry it wasn’t more substantive. Come on back next week – hopefully I’ll be able to get a little deeper for you. Until then, have a good one.

Favorite of the Week: June 18, 2008

There were a few really good comics last week, but Superman/Batman #49 really blew me away. The Michael Green/Mike Johnson writing team took a book that had become stale and tepid since Jeph Loeb’s departure and gave it all the adventure and excitement that the World’s Finest heroes deserve. The interaction with Lana Lang was great, the last-page reveal was perfectly handled, and the relationship between the two heroes was balanced beautifully. For a long time there, this was a book coasting on fumes. Now it’s back in the game, and a major player at that. I can’t wait for the big 50th issue.

Blake M. Petit is the author of the superhero comedy novel, Other People's Heroes, the suspense novel The Beginner and the novel-in-progress ”Summer Love” at Evertime Realms. He’s also the co-host, with the inimitable Chase Bouzigard, of the 2 in 1 Showcase Podcast. E-mail him at Blake@comixtreme.com and visit him on the web at Evertime Realms.

[Ben Lehnsherr]

Wow. I thought S/B #49 was the worst issue of the arc.

[B. Schatz]

Seriously? I thought that was an awesome story. The whole thing came together very nicely, and there was some serious emotion depth there.

Some awesome non-fiction comics, coming at you:

American Splendor by Harvey Pekar
Blankets by Craig Thompson
Carnet de Voyage by Craig Thompson
American Elf by James Kolchalka
True Story, Swear to God by Tom Beland
Palestine and Safe Area Gorazde (and several others) by Joe Sacco
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
My Uncle Jeff, A Sort of Homecoming, The White Elephant, A Strange Day and Pictures of You by Damon Hurd
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

...and I know I have more but this is a hard game whilst you're all packed. Or mostly packed. Packing blows.

Of those, I would highly, highly, highly, highly, highly recommend anything by Damon Hurd. A big range, all the way from the blindness of teenage love, to loosing a friend, to some intense family issues. Nerd points are added to his "A Sort of Homecoming" series as it includes plot points involving Star Trek that I didn't even hate. Even though I'm totally not into the Trek.

[virtuadept]

American Splendor by Harvey Pekar
True Story, Swear to God by Tom Beland

I've tried these two and hated them.

I probably am not in the market for true-story comics. I don't much like watching the news, I don't much like watching documentaries, and movies based on a true story usually don't do it for me either unless there's a lot of embellishment of truth.

But there are a lot of comics that are based on real-life that aren't necessarily true stories, such as the CSI ones and such, and those can be pretty OK. I sometimes watch Law & Order and Bones and they can hold my interest for 30-50 minutes or so as long as I'm reading a comic at the same time.

[Andrea Speed]

Capote in Kansas is a semi-fictionalized version of a true event, and it's an awesome graphic novel to boot. Then there's Torso, which is also pretty awesome.

[B. Schatz]

OOoooooh, yes! I fergot about those. Ande Parks can write some awesome stuff. I really wish he'd get to do more stuff, like Phil Hester is now.