I like superhero comics. I've liked superheroes since I was a little girl watching the Super Friends on TV. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with my enjoyment of superheroes today. I know adults who collect Smurfs, GI Joes, Children's Books, and any other number of odd things that aren't "age appropriate". I'm just lucky enough that my favorite superhero is still being produced and that his story is constantly growing. That means I'm constantly collecting, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
There's been a tendency among some comic book bloggers to distance themselves from superheroes. To make fun of them, to dismiss them as cultural garbage. To even imply that a superhero comic book is inherently crap.
They're wrong.
In Dead Poet's Society, Keating's most convincing argument about poetry is that judging it by the quality of the rhyme or meter is stupid, you judge it by how it works on an emotional level. If you've ever actually read "Oh Captain! My Captain!" by Whitman, it's a pretty lame poem... until you read it aloud and with a melodramatic flair. Then you begin to see what Whitman was saying about Lincoln's death.
I could easily argue that it's a bad poem because it's not easy to connect with. Because you almost have to be in a certain state of mind to understand the meaning and depth of the poem. I could argue that it's a pathetic poem, just another piece of crap in a genre (literature) filled with crap. Heck, despite being a published poet, I could probably come up with a good argument as to why poetry is an unworthy sub-genre of literature.
I would be wrong.
You can't dismiss an entire genre because of a few poor examples. Or even because a few examples are so wonderful that everything else in the genre pales around them. Superhero comic books are what they are, to borrow a turn of phrase from Popeye. Part of their appeal is that they don't have any pretentions to literary greatness. The same thing that makes them a despised sub-genre of literature is what attracts a portion of their current audience.
However.
We've gotten to a point where some bloggers are feeling the "us vs them" pressure. Some superhero fan bloggers have gotten into an automatic defensive position. Key words like "adolescent power fantasy" trigger reponses like "people trying to make themselves look smart and with-it by bashing superhero stories", even when that's not what the original person was saying.
I don't react like that much anymore. Even superhero fans make fun of Aquaman, so there's no point in me getting upset when someone bashes superheroes. I just shrug and say, "their loss" and move on (usually).
But the bashing and counter-bashing irritates me, especially since I don't see the demise of comic books in the publication of superheroes - any more than I see superheroes as likely to save the industry. There is room for lots of genres, and convincing superhero fans that their favorite genre is crap is not going to sell more non-superhero comic books. It's just going to annoy the hardcore superhero comic book fans and drive off the less serious ones.
What the industry needs, the comic book industry as a whole, is more genres. Comics need to expand into other markets. And non-superhero fans need to get over trying to convert superhero fans into fans of other genres. That's not where the money lies. We need to bring in non-comics readers. We need romance, spy, mystery, sports, horror and all those other genres... but we need to get people who aren't reading comic books to pick them up. There simply aren't enough comic book fans out there to support an industry with lots of genres, we need to get new readers.
There are plenty of non-superhero books out there right now. Some are good, many are not so good. As a fan, there isn't a whole lot I can do to promote comic books as a form beyond what I already do: loan my books out to everyone who I think might enjoy them. As an industry, something must be done to push comic books from all genres. And I haven't got a clue how the industry ought to go about doing that.
Manga is having some success in widening the genres. It's succeeding because it has a wide variety of genres and styles. Comic books are popular in Japan precisely because they aren't all full of self-referential superheroes with complicated continuity. Yeah, they've got that sort of book, too, but it isn't the only kind of book you can find on the shelf. As Jeff Parker said, "We're actually wondering why manga is doing so well now with kids? It's pretty obvious — they're writing to a young audience, using imagination and thinking about what would be fun."
While Parker was soundly criticized for his opinion, I wrote a similar thing, just a little more diplomatically, in 1999, so it was ignored: "Not only are comics out of Joe Public's eyes, they aren't the kind of story that would appeal to good ol' Joe if he read them. They are great stories, some of the best ever written! But Joe Public reads a few pages, stratches his head, and goes back to his Nintendo."
Jeff's complaint was that superhero comic books cater to the fans of the comic books, and do not appeal to kids. My complaint is that today's superhero comic books cater only to the fans, not even to a general adult audience. While there is a place for such books, if the industry wants to recover there needs to be some superhero books that are cheesy and fun and meant for everyone, just like there needs to be a lot of other genres. Bring back romance and horror. Bring back crime comics.
I had a brief moment of hope for comic books a couple years back when the Seattle Mariners announced a two-issue comic book based on the team that would be available as a special promotion at McDonalds. I thought to myself: Great! A comic book about baseball! It'll bring in more readers who would never have touched a comic book, and if they do it right, it'll show that comics can work for more than just superheroes! To my immense and lasting disgust, instead of it being a comic book about baseball, it was a comic about the Mariners players being turned into secret superheroes. It was pathetic. Cute, but pathetic.
I sometimes dream about writing a really good mini-series about a baseball player, but who would want to publish it? I know there are baseball fans who would be interested, but if it went to comic shops, few of them would see it. It sometimes seems like the weight of the industry is against any positive changes.
So how do I wrap up this long and rambling essay? I suppose the best way would be to simply ask you, the reader, what you would do. If you are a comic book reader, how would you try to solve the problem as an individual? If you aren't a comic book reader (and read this far, wow), what would it take to get you to buy a comic book? So, dear readers, what do you think?
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