ESSAY // 1.16.03

NOT YOUR DAD'S COMIC ANYMORE
By Lionel Beck

When I was a kid in France… well, basically I grew up in piles of comic books. Mostly TINTIN, ASTERIX, GASTON LAGAFFE -- three European series that have the ability to get the attention of children and adults together.

At the same time, my father had collections of translated American comics, and by American, I mean Marvel. He had issues of SPIDER-MAN, X-MEN, FANTASTIC FOUR, SILVER SURFER, DAREDEVIL, CAPTAIN MARVEL, as well as IRON MAN, put together in monthly anthologies published by Lug Editions.

I remember flipping through the books a few times when I was eight or nine, not at all convinced that I might like reading stories about a blind superhero, or a group of weird-looking teenagers dressed in yellow and blue, or covered in ice. I had an international reporter, a funny looking ancestor, and a living catastrophe! There was no need for superheroes in my comic books.

In 1984, we moved to the United States. The translated anthologies stayed in storage in France, but we took the European graphic novels with us. It was in America that I discovered floppies. I still have the first thirty issues of TRANSFORMERS in my possession. I can't read them anymore… damaged, dirty, and downright uninteresting… but they're still gathering dust in my bedroom, oddly enough.

Coming back to France, I discovered the hidden treasure waiting for me at home: the Marvel anthologies… the ones that translated the initial runs of the Marvel line. What a revelation! I was fifteen and going through the books that my father had read over and over again in the seventies. These were the stories that people nowadays read in reprints, flashbacks, and retellings.

Put this into perspective: I was a teenager, the year was 1988, and it was summer. Comic books weren't popular in France. They weren't trendy, and publishers weren't making efforts. Music was popular, role-playing was hot. But comics? You know the saying. "Comics are for kids."

Nonetheless, I would spend hours reading the tabloid-sized editions of Lee and Kirby's most inspired Fantastic Four stories. I was intrigued by the concept of mutants. I discovered a whole new world through the art of Kirby, Ditko, Buscema, and Kane. I was thrilled, amazed.

There was certainly passion in what they did, in the way they wrote and drew their books. There was a sheer insanity that I could relate to. The exaggeration of each character's qualities and faults made me identify with a few such as Peter Parker or Scott Summers. It was at this point that the world of superheroes sucked me in completely.

Now, I'm left wondering… would I have found the same appeal in the superhero comics that were being newly released back when I discovered my father's books? After all, I grew up on European comics - some of which I still enjoy reading today. What made me read superhero stories?

And more to the point, what appeal do superheroes have nowadays, and would I have gotten in to them if I hadn't read any before, if I hadn't found my dad's anthologies? The originality of concepts was what got me in back then. What you read today, what new readers are being offered, are merely leftovers from the sixties.

It makes sense when you think about it. There's only so much you can put one character through over forty or sixty years. Fake death? Yes. Disease? Yes. Real death and resurrection? Yes! Enemy of the state? Yes, yes, and yes! Doomed-future-that-we-have-to-prevent? GOOD GOD, YE… all right, you get the point.

Imagine the same being applied to music. Imagine listening to your favorite band's latest album, titled "Part Five," containing melodies and words that are so close to what they did on the previous four albums that only an enthusiast could even tell them apart. Would you be as thrilled as your were when you got their first CD?

The majority of stories out there, whether films, books, or even television shows have an ending. Only a few exceptions can be tagged as "never ending." We've been witnessing the opposite trend in comics for over half a century now.

Instead of finite stories, you get characters that never age (thanks to "Pick-Your-Universe" time,) don't die, and revert to what they were before writer X came on board, just because writer Y and editor Z felt like it. All in all… rather boring, isn't it?

Smaller publishers, as well as creators, have understood that finite stories are more poignant than an ongoing series; that they have more impact. Why won't the superhero genre make the leap? It's time to move on, time to kill those tired, paralyzed characters and make room for new ones. And you know what? They don't necessarily have to be superheroes. Try giving originality and creativity a chance. A real chance. This goes for readers as well as publishers, the former being as resilient to change as the latter.

Surprise us for a change. Entertain us. Give us something new.