Growing up Silver

            As an introduction to my monthly comics “pick,” I wanted to offer a few observations on my recent foray into the world of mainstream comics, the concept of the monthly or “floppy,” and the way the business of comics is conducted. I find it all, in a word, bewildering.

            I started acquiring and appreciating comic books at the tail end of the so-called “Silver Age” (because I’m old, okay?!). The Silver Age is considered to have run from 1956 to around 1970. If that’s the case, then I guess I was active for the last four or five years of that era, and then on into the 1970s up until about ’74/’75 when I entered high school and fell away from the comic book scene.

            I had a lot of comics. I mean we’re talking hundreds. Some kids had bigger collections, to be sure, but mine was still pretty decent by neighbourhood standards. Especially since the whole thing was put together with almost no money. My collection was amassed through the judicious use of my meager allowance, some savvy trading with other kids, and a whole lot of wheedling and begging my mom and grandparents.

             We were too young to access the nascent “underground” scene, so our comics world was dominated by superhero stuff. I probably had every Batman, Detective, Superman, and Fantastic Four for the period from about 1965 to 1973. I was also interested in some less mainstream things like Dr. Strange, The Phantom, and some “western” and “war” titles. There was some pretty cool and rare stuff in there.

            But comics weren’t seen as something to keep. They were considered a disposable item – ephemeral, pulp. A few people held on to things, but for the most part those books got read, reread (and reread again), traded, lost, thrown out, taken into tents for backyard “campouts,” stuffed in school desks, etc., etc. I’ll tell you what I did with mine (and this will drive the collectors crazy). One summer (’72? ’73?), under heavy parental pressure (“these things are taking up too much room!”), I decided to divest myself of my comics treasure trove. I set myself up at the edge of Ontario Street with a comics and lemonade stand. I had enough stock to do this once or twice a week for the better part of the summer. Ontario Street wasn’t a busy street by any measure, but there was some traffic, and besides, word got around. Lemonade sales were okay, but the comics business was off the charts. I was amazed at the number of adult customers. I’ll never forget that weird guy on the bike who totally cleaned me out of Tarzan and Turok, Son of Stone. I probably let a lot of classic stuff go for next-to-nothing prices, but there wasn’t any precious “collector” mentality like what seems to be prevalent nowadays. I just saw it as an opportunity to finance the purchase of large quantities of candy and, yup you guessed it, more comics.

            Which brings me to my monthly comics “pick.” I had a hell of a time finding it. I am completely lost in this new comics world. I don’t understand the distribution model. It seems focused on this “collectability” aspect, everything wrapped in plastic, everybody being careful not to get anything wrinkled. I’m not naïve. I know it’s all about the money, yet this still seems like conspicuously cynical marketing. The other aspect of the mainstream comics market is that so much of it seems to be crap. Everything is couched in terms of “classic” and “collectable,” every launch is touted as an “event,” but it’s obvious most of the stuff won’t accrue any sort of “value,” and in a few years won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on.

            The graphic novels section of the Leddy Library, which has been so expertly curated by Dr. Jacobs and his colleagues, is like a comics wonderland, a highlight-filled survey of comics history. The comics store of today? Not so much. When I was a kid, comics were everywhere. There were at least four places where you could buy comics within a ten-block radius of my house – variety stores, drugstores, grocery stores, etc. I think there was even a dusty rack over at Jack Harkin’s Esso Station. Now, you have to go to the “comics store” and search through reams of dreck to find something decent. And what about out in the hinterlands? I was up in the Goderich/Bayfield/Grand Bend area in the summer – no comics stores around there. Where do those people get comics? I think I would be more inclined to read them if they were ubiquitous, like regular magazines. Isn’t the comics industry shooting itself in the foot with this bizarre distribution model? And why is there such a huge disconnect between the type of stuff we studied in class, and the mainstream market? At the comics store, where is the Chris Ware stuff? Where is the Daniel Clowes department?

            My first visit to a local shop was disheartening, to say the least. I had many questions, but the guy on duty was more interested in his nachos, and the comic he was reading. For the life of me, I couldn’t get him to come out from behind the counter and explain some stuff to me. At the next stop, the guy was marginally more helpful, but he had a bewilderingly huge selection. I don’t do well with “too many options.” It’s hard to find what you’re looking for when you don’t know what that is, and you’re trying to choose from  . . . well, everything ever. The third time was the charm. I found my mentor in Scott St. Amour over at Paper Heroes on Howard Avenue. He patiently answered every one of my stupid questions, and showed me the lay of the land as far as how comics retailing works today.

            I chose several titles, based mostly on artwork and paratextual elements, to take home and consider writing about. The first one was a retro “noir” crime thriller called The Fadeout (Image Comics; Ed Brubaker, story; Sean Phillips, art; Elizabeth Breitweiser, colours).

The hype for this book was huge and it sold out quickly. I had to wait a month and a half for it to go to a second printing. (Again, from a distribution standpoint, this makes no sense to me. If you’re printing many thousands of something, it’s fairly inexpensive to print a few thousand more.) The artwork in this book was fantastic, but I thought the story left a lot to be desired ­– clichéd from start to finish. It was also crammed with narration boxes. There is a lot of “telling,” and the “showing” seems superfluous. In other words, this didn’t work for me as a comic in the way I understand comics are supposed to work. Making this (weak) story into a comic didn’t materially add to my ability to create meaning.  This is the problem I am running into again and again with mainstream comics. There is a lot of fantastic, accomplished artwork out there, but the narratives are sorely lacking.

            The next title was The Shaolin Cowboy (Dark Horse Comics; Geof Darrow, story and art; Dave Stewart, colours).

Again, awesome art, great colour, poor story. This four-book series featured a fight scene which began on page twenty-five of Issue #1 and ran all the way through to page 26 of Issue #4.

The same scene (Shaolin Cowboy fighting zombies) from every conceivable angle! No dialogue! Apparently, this caused quite a scandal out in comics land. People took it as some sort of personal insult by the artist. I have to admit I thought it was sort of a weird, lame move, but I’m not going to be writing any letters or anything. It's too bad, because the paratextual elements of this book were funny, well-executed, and held out much promise for the series.

            Then things went from bad to worse. I delved into a new eight book story arc of a crime series that had apparently been wildly popular in the 1990s: Stray Bullets (Image Comics; David Lapham, story and art).

Frankly, this thing disgusted me. It seems to be a perfect reflection of the current zeitgeist in the United States: all crazy gun culture and gratuitous ultra-violence. The story is a complete mish-mosh, with characters popping in and out for no apparent reason, and then it just . . .  ends, with all sorts of unresolved questions. Maybe it’s because of everything that’s been going on lately (I think I’ve seen that poor soul in New York get killed by those cops about thirty times), but this seemed especially vile and lacking in any sort of . . . well, anything. Oh, and as an added bonus? No colour on the inside pages. That’s right, just very unfinished-looking black and white line art. This can’t have been an economic decision, because Image throws colour ink around like there’s no tomorrow. It has to be an aesthetic decision (which fails miserably). This title also pointed up the frustration I have with the whole serialization/"floppy" model. I read all eight of these things in just over half an hour. If I hadn't had them all there at once, I never would have gone on to Issue #2. In a lot of cases there's just not enough in thirty pages to make me want to continue on with the series.

            On my fourth try, I finally had better luck with a science fiction title called Roche Limit (Image Comics; Michael Moreci, story; Vic Malhotra, art).

The (refreshing) difference with this book is that it actually has a compelling story, and it contains some thought-provoking ideas. There is enough content there, and it is skillfully arranged in a way that makes me want to find out what is going on, and what is going to happen. I’m going to deal with some of the details of this book in my next post, but in general I think this comic “works” in the sense that it uses the medium to express something which couldn’t be expressed in words alone.