(Studies in American Popular History and Culture) Mila Bongco - Reading Comics - Language, Culture, and The Concept of The Superhero in Comic Books-Routledge (2000)
(Studies in American Popular History and Culture) Mila Bongco - Reading Comics - Language, Culture, and The Concept of The Superhero in Comic Books-Routledge (2000)
(Studies in American Popular History and Culture) Mila Bongco - Reading Comics - Language, Culture, and The Concept of The Superhero in Comic Books-Routledge (2000)
MILABONGCO
First published 2000 by
G arland Publishing Inc.
Acknowledgments Vll
Introduction IX
Index 231
v
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List of Figures
Figure 1
Influences of the underground comix.
Dirty Plotte #1 by Juliet Doucet (1990) 5
Figure 2
Rate #23 by Peter Bagge (1996) 7
Figure 3
Panel without text. Bane Val. One: Out [rom Boneville
by Jeff Smith (1996) 47
Figure 4
"La Sorpresa" from Luba #1
by Gilbert Hernandez (1998) 48
Figure 5
Definition of comics in Understanding Comics
by Scott McCloud (1993) 52
Figure 6
The central role of sequence in comics.
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud (1993) 53
Figure 7
Soulwind #3 by C. Scott Morse (1997) 55
Figure 8
Bleeding Heart #5 by Peter Kuper (1993) 56
Figure 9
Daisho by Patrick Debruin (1993) 57
Figure 10
The angle in relation to the reader. Daisho
by Patrick Debruin (1993) 60
vm List of Figures
Figure 11
Another angle, a different response.
Daisho by Patrick Debruin (1993) 60
Figure 12
The overlapping of frames signal speed of
action. The Tale of One Bad Rat by Bryan Talbot (1995) 61
Figure 13
Falling frames mimic action. The Maxx
by Sam Kieth (1993) 62
Figure 14
A visual dialogue between artists and readers exist.
Comics and Sequential Art by Will Eisner (1985) 64
Figure 15
Six kinds of transition in comics narrative. Understanding
Comics by Scott McCloud (1993) 66
Figure 16
Proportion of transition states. Understanding Comics
by Scott McCloud (1993) 67
Figure 17
Reading the "empty space."
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud (1993) 68
Figure 18
Playing with the gutter. . Comics and Sequential Art by Will
Eisner (1985) 69
Figure 19
Narrator space instead of balloons. Pallokaville #4 by Seth
(1993) 71
Figure 20
Images in thought balloons. Madman Comics, Yearbook '95
by Mike Allred (1995) 72
Figure 21
Images tell a story. Bleeding Hear #5 by Peter Kuper. 73
Figure 22
Texts used as images. Soulwind #4
by C. Scott Morse (1997) 74
List of Figures IX
Figure 23
Whoa, Nellie! #1 by Xaime Hernandez (1996) 76
Figure 24
Daisho by Patrick Debruin (1993) 77
Figure 25
Zotf Book One by Scott McCloud (1990) 80
Figure 26
Time and timing. Comics and Sequential Art
by Will Eisner (1985) 81
Figure 27
Good girl art. Lady Death: The Reckoning written
by Brian Pulido and illustrated by Steven Hughes (1995) 109
Figure 28
Naughty Bits #26 by Roberta Gregory (1998) 112
Figure 29
A page from Love and Rockets #50
by Xaime Hernandez (1996) 133
Figure 30
An aging Batman kills Joker in The Dark Knight Returns
by Frank Miller (1986) 159
Figure 31
Concrete #4 by Paul Chadwick (1987) 180
Figure 32
Eightball #2 by Dan Clowes (1990) 187
Figure 33
Humourous and entertaining scenes abound in Rate
by Peter Bagge (1993) 189
Figure 34
Peepshow #1 by Joe Matt (1993) 198
Figure 35
Palookaville #4 by Seth (1993) 199
Figure 36
Yummy Fur by Chester Brown (1992) 201
x List o{ Figures
Figure 37
Nowhere postcard by Debbie Drechsler (1997) 202
Figure 38
Cover of Optic Nerve #4 by Adrian Tomine (1997) 203
Figure 39
Optic Nerve #3 by Adrian Tomine (1997) 204
Figure 40
A page from Acme Novelty Library #1
by Chris Ware (1993) 206
Figure 41
An advertising page reminiscent of the 1950s. Acme Novelty
Library #1 by Chris Ware (1993) 207
Figure 42
Naughty Bits #26 by Roberta Gregory (1998) 208
Figure 43
Desert Peach #16 by Donna Barr (1991) 209
Figure 44
Cover page of Action Girl Comics #1
by Sarah Dyer (1994) 210
Figure 45
The Maxx #1 by Sam Kieth (1993) 212
Figure 46
Bone meets Thorn in Bone Val. One: Out [rom Boneville
by Jeff Smith (1996) 214
Figure 47
Astra City: Li{e in the Big City by Kurt Busiek (1999) 215
Figure 48
Madman Comics, Yearbook '95 by Mike Allred (1995) 218
Figure 49
Madman Comics, Yearbook '95 by Mike Allred (1995) 219
Figure 50
The Tale o{ One Bad Rat by Bryan Talbot (1995) 220
Acknowledgments
xi
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Introduction
xiii
xiv Introduction
Alan Moore, and Neil Gaiman, among others. The Batman, Black
Orchid, the Sandman and the heroes in Sin City and Watchmen, will
provide the main focus and examples for analysing the new breed of
superheroes.
Chapter Six is a close look at The Return of the Dark Knight
which is seminal in changing the direction of comicbooks, both
aesthetically and commercially. There have not been many detailed
interpretations of individual comicbooks to date, and there is a
need for more critical studies on topics like the developments in the
works of recent writers and illustrators, the handling of themes
and topics within a particular period, or evolution in the narrative
and graphie styles of a batch of artists. The last chapter provides
developments in the comics scene after 1986, focusing more on the
small-press and alternative publishers that sprouted in the rnid-
1980s. Works from various artists are mentioned, as weIl as spe-
cific elements that contributed to the innovations and different
directions in comics.
Despite the downward trend in sales, comic art seems to be
slowly shedding the cultural disdain normally attached to it and
making its mark as an expressive new artistic form. Recently,
comics have been attracting not only more serious critical atten-
tion but also more serious artists who are expanding the potentials
of comics as a narrative medium while addressing more profound
topics not usually associated with comicbooks. Respectable book
clubs, such as the Book-of-the-Month Club and the Quality
Paperback Book Club, now include selected comicbooks in their
offerings. This recent confluence of good artists and good critical
reviews in the area of comics may yet work to cast off decades of
critical scorn and cultural marginalization that have long arrested
the medium's development. As modern culture becomes less print
oriented and more visual, the comicbook may become more and
more attractive as a narrative form. Art Spiegelman, Pulitzer Prize
winner for his comicbook Maus, once commented: "All media are
as rich as the artists working inside them".l As comics comes of
age in America, its potential may now be limited only by the cre-
ativeness of the artists willing to risk working in it.
NOTES
Once upon a time there were the mass media and they
were wicked, of course, and there was a guilty party. Then
there were the virtuous voices that accused the criminals. And
Art (ah, what Iuckl) offered alternatives for those who were
not prisoners of the mass media. Weil, it's all over. We have to
start again from the beginning, asking one another what's
going on.
Umberto Eco
Travels in Hyperreality 1986
characterised its body of critical studies for the longest time. These
attacks may be characterised as the "effects and influence tradi-
tion" of mass media critique that concentrates on the possible
harmful effects of substandard and unchecked entertainment on
malleable minds.! Traditional criticism about comics reflects the
pattern of ambivalence and censorious attitude toward mass media
in general. Among the most famous and virulent attacks against
comics is Fredric Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent, published
in 1954. Wertharn criticised American comicbooks indiscriminate-
ly as inherently sensational, trivial and illiterate, depicting too
much sex, violence and anarchy. He asserted that the practice of
reading comics led to juvenile delinquency.-' The only other two
lengthy discussions about comicbooks published before 1960,
those of Gershon Legman and Geoffrey Wagner, echoed Wertham's
disapproving appraisal of comics:
"Legman, Wertham and Wagner compete in their merciless
castigation of the comics, heaping blazing coals upon them
for their excesses of violence and gare, their often unwhole-
some treatment of sex, and their frequently low level of writ-
ing and drawing.t'v
tions. All this resulted in the public forum of the Senate Hearings
under Senator Kefauver into possible links between the comics and
juvenile delinquency." The Senate Hearings on comics were apart
of a bigger investigation into crime and adolescence that lasted a
decade. Twitchell (1989) provides an explanation of why comics
took the brunt of the repercussions of these delinquency examina-
tions:
The large media were protected frorn criticism in two ways.
They were parts of American industry, important conduits for
the flow not so much of information but of advertising. The
sponsors of radio crime shows-cigarettes, toiletries, auto-
mobiles-were loath to give up their audiences. The movie
industry could always claim its audience was self-selective,
and in fact, the industry surveys of the audience of 1950
showed that only the people with sufficient disposable income
and time to go to rhe movies were those between twenty-two
and forty. Television was no menace-yet. Kids could not
watch wh at was not there. Saturday morning TV did not
carve out an audience until rhe late 1950s ... The other pro-
tection for mass media was that audiences were as unwilling
to give up their entertainment as advertisers were to give up
their audiences. The democratising effect of electronic media
meant that programming was done for the largest possible
audience, and that audience, by its very nature, was too big
to budge.
Figure 1. Just the title, Dirty plotte, calls attention to the lack of inhibition
in this series. A page from Dirty Plotte #1 showing influences of under-
ground comix. Art and script: Julie Doucet @ 1990 The creator.
6 Reading Comics
cally for adults have existed since the late 1960s. In the United
Stares, where comicbooks are mostly devised for teen-age diver-
sion, there have been notable changes in the comics scene in the
last two decades as evidenced br- the creations of, among others,
Will Eisner, Harvey Pekar, Frank Miller, Alan Moore, Jules Feiffer,
the Hernandez brothers, Art Spiegelman, Scott McCloud, Chester
Brown, Seth, Donna Barr, Roberta Gregory, Kurt Busiek, Peter
Bagge, Mike Allred, Jeff Smith, David Mazucchelli, Howard
Cruse, Daniel Clowes, and more recently, Adrian Tomine (refer to
Chapter Seuen, the section on "In the Shadow of the Speculation
Boom" in this book [or more information on these artists and their
works).
Artists, readers,and critics are developing an increasing confi-
dence towards the capacity of comic books as a legitimate artistic
form for expressing a wide range of ideas and emotions. As Witek
observes:
"the comic book, a widely accessible and commerciallyavail-
able medium, is now being chosen as a form by serious writ-
ers whose themes have traditionally been expressed in the
forms of verbal narratives, or in films and other visual narra-
tives ... such that a general reading public now exists in the
United States for narratives written in a medium historically
considered solely the domain of subliterate adolescent fan-
tasies and of the crassest commercial exploitation of rote
generic formulas. Comic art is thus a literary medium in tran-
sition from mass popularity and cultural disdain ro a new
respectability as a means of expression and communication,
and this new respect is evident first in the attitudes of the cre-
ators themselves. "22
The popular success of comics as a mass medium has long
obscured their pre-existence as an expressive form. Paying atten-
tion to the horde but ignoring individual examples, critics have
seized upon comics as a sociological subject for clinical study,
denying however from the onset that aesthetic qualities could be
attributed to this medium. That comics can function as an artistic
expression is proved by the presence of recently published comics
which dynamically deal with larger aesthetic and psychological
issues earlier unthinkable in the medium. As weil, there has been a
shift in critical attitude towards them to recognise that comics are
a legitimate contribution to the visual and narrative arts of the
Comics and Cultural Studies 13
the dilemmas which attend the study of other forms of popular cul-
ture: the attempts to smoothe the friction between refined aesthet-
ics and mass popularity and the struggle to legitimise its status
through critical academic approval-in short, preoccupations with
acceptance and hierarchies which have long plagued the field.
Much of the improved understanding and appreciation of popular
forms may be attributed to the shifts in ideological inclinations
used in analysing modern culture and society. Sanctioning and cat-
egorising are actions that have ideological implications, and para-
digms and criteria that were earlier presumed sacrosanct are now
being shown to be artificial, relative and subjective. Much of the
exposure and re-evaluation of implied ideology in the analysis of
popular culture is being undertaken within the framework of cul-
tural studies and it is in this field that the current breakthrough of
comics into mainstream scholarship must be contextualised.
NOTES
Responses to Comicbooks
and the Concept of the
"Popular"
19
20 Reading Comics
REPRESENTATIONS IN COMICBOOKS
CULTURAL COLLAPSE
VIOLENCE IN COMICBOOKS
fan does indeed become neurotic, i.e., the habit and characteristics
of comic reading gradually engulf his life and affect his entire behav-
iour patterns." Wolfe and Fiske also talk about fantasy as one of the
phases a child goes through but must overcome to reach a "correct
attitude" which is described as a "realistic interest in the world." For
them, fantasy is escapism, and escapism, being lawless, is potential-
ly dangerous. Anything "fantastic" that is read provides a link with
uncontrolled tendencies. They concluded that the sheer fact of read-
ing comics puts children at risk.
For the normal child, then, comics are a means of healthful
ego-strengthening and a source of amusement. Other children
do not seem to be so eager to fortify themselves for the expe-
rience of life. They do not seem to have emancipated them-
selves from their parents to any great degree... But their belief
in their parents seems nevertheless to have been shaken ... They
therefore search for a more perfect father-figure, a being who
is omnipotent but, at the same time, tangible and feasible. And
such a father-figure they find in Superman. These children
become fans... For normal children, then, the comics function
as an adaptation mechanism... For the maladjusted child, the
comics satisfy, just as efficiently, an equally intense emotional
need, but here the need itself is not so readily outgrown. The
religion of comics is not easily given up ...27
Wolfe and Fiske's research reveals the presumptuous argu-
ments whichcharacterise uses and gratifications research: timeless
needs which explain why people use the media, and naive classifi-
cations of media content and type. Here, we see yet another
approach to comics which does not seek to analyse comics them-
selves, and in addition, a method which already embodies pre-
judgements about that which it wishes to establish. Much like the
"effects" tradition it is reacting against, the framework of the
"uses and gratifications" method is problematic in that its very
framework tends to produce or confirm the results already
assumed in the initial theory. One such unexamined presumption
in a great deal of existing studies about texts and readers of comics
is the linking of violence and adolescent boys.
Critics who sought to establish a relation between exposure to
violent images in comicbooks and subsequent acts of violence have
tended to focus on adolescent boys, generally claiming to demon-
strate that "high exposure to comicbooks violence increases the
40 Reading Comics
RE-ASSESSING CATEGORIES
levels in which these forms operate in our culture, from the prag-
matics of production to issues of ideology and language. The func-
tions and dynamics in superhero comicbooks will be used as an
example to illustrate how a particular form of discourse, one
among the many discourses, competes to define its place and audi-
ence in the highly discourse-sensitive society we now live in.
NOTES
On the Language of
Comics and the Reading
Process
Terence Hawks
"General Introduction to
New Accent Books"
INTRODUCTION
The study of comics has a goal similar to the study of art and lit-
erature in general: to promote an understanding of the medium
that sharpens perception and awareness, leading ultimately to a
keener enjoyment of the form. Unfortunately, the lack of serious-
ness in the general attitude towards the medium as an art form has
been an enduring factor that has impeded the development of
comics. This situation may be summed up using the words of
Maurice Horn: "(Comics is) an original form whose intrinsic val-
45
46 Reading Comics
TEXT-IMAGE CONFLICT
Figure 3. Bone Vol. One: Out [rom Boneville. Art and Script: Jeff Smith
© 1996 The creator.
Figures 3 and 4). It is not surprising that comics are often dis-
cussed on the basis of their graphie aspects alone. For example,
individual panels of Milton Caniff's comic strips have been dis-
48 Reading Comics
La o6RPRESA
Figure 4. "La Sorpresa" teils a story without text. Back page of Luba #1
Art and script: Gilbert Hernandez © 1998 Fantagraphics Books.
Comics and the Reading Process 49
Until very recently, this was a difficult area to write about due
to inadequacies in the critical vocabulary for the medium. In earli-
er studies of comics, there was a tendency to rely on terms bor-
rowed from other areas and critical evaluation used the yardsticks
of other related art. In order to assess comics on their own terms,
definitions of the structural and stylistic principles behind success-
ful comics art must be formulated. In addition to constructing
evaluative terms, there is also the need to clarify terms without
turning them into constraints.
DEFINITIONS
comics are and to detach them from notions of the comical and
humorous is one of the critical concerns in re-assessing comics.
Stan Lee, renowned for the creation of Spider-Man and his other
achievements at Marvel Comics, makes the following statement:
"Consider the word "cornicbook." I've been fighting a losing
battle with the rest of the wor/d over that word for years. Most
everybody speils it "comic book" as if it's two separatewords.
Asis, "comic" isan adjective whichmodifies the ward "book,"
thus making it mean a comical book. Such an interpretation
would certainly give a casual reader the wrong impression...
Now, let's consider the single word "comicbook." Ah, what a
wor/d of difference! Suddenly, it is no longer an appellation
indicative of humorous reading matter, but rather a generic
term denoting a specific type of publication.t'-
In an interview for Time Magazine, Art Spiegelman had this to
say: "But I spell it c-o-m-i-x, so you are not confused by the fact that
comics have to be funny, as in comic. You think it is a co-mix of
words and pictures.t'f Perhaps the most revealing definition is
Martin Barker's assertion about the perception of comics: "a comic
is what has been produced under the definition of a 'comic'. One
cannot answer the question "What is a comic?" by formal qualities
alone; a comic is what has been produced under that controlling def-
inition.t? Barker's statements underIine the incessant efforts to cen-
sor and control what may or may not be produced under the name
"comics" which have become powerful determinants of the prod-
ucts. In these instances, the definition of comics became a constrain-
ing force, requiring publishers and artists to abide by it and, in turn,
sustain the limiting public concept of what comics are and can be.
In addition to associating comics with humour and "trivia ",
the usual definitions of comics in English also limit the stylistic of
the medium by constant connection with cartooning and carica-
ture. One dictionary meaning of comicbooks, for example, is "a
magazine consisting of narrative cartoon drawings.t'f This defini-
tion perpetuates the drawback of limiting the style that may be
employed in comic art. Comie strips, meanwhile, are defined as "a
narrative series of cartoons, usually arranged horizontally in a
newspaper, magazine or book" or "a form of cartooning in which
a cast of characters enacts a story in a sequence of closely related
drawings designed to educate and/or entertain readers."?
Cartooning should not be included in defining comics. As Scott
52 Reading Comics
Figure 8. The size of the small guy belies the sincerity of his response.
Bleeding Heart #5. Art and script: Peter Kuper © 1993 The creator.
Comics and the Reading Process 57
Figure 9. We know there will be some fighting in the next issue because of
the ending of this one. Daisho. Art and script: Patrick Debruin © 1993
The creator.
58 Reading Comics
among the recent ones, in fact, there are still inept or awkward
breakdowns which weaken the structure and projection of the
story. Although narrative breakdowns reduce all action to discrete
static moments, comicbooks can, nonetheless, be evaluated by the
extent to which a smooth sequential progression and narrative
coherence are achieved. This progression must be served by both
the visual impact and the nuances of the story, and its assessment
must embrace both the pictures and the texts used. The next sec-
tions will discuss the elements that are utilised in the creation and
process of "reading" comics. These are: 1) panels, which include
the concepts of gutter and closure; 2) the use of balloons and the
art of lettering in comicbooks, and 3) the use of panels and text
balloons in signalling the rhythm of the narrative, which also
addresses timing and duration in comics.
Figure 10. This man looks threatening because of the angle in relation to
the reader, as weil as the fact that he extends past the gutters. Daisho. Art
and script: Patrick Debruin © 1993 The creator.
Figure 11. The same man looks non-threatening at all because the frame
is smaller, and we see hirn from a bird's eyeview. Daisho. Art and script:
Patrick Debruin © 1993 The creator.
Figure 12. The overlapping of the frames and the shift from one small
frame to another signals the speed with which all of the actions happen.
The Tale of One Bad Rat. Art and script: Bryan Talbat © 1995 Thc cre-
ator,
62 Reading Comics
Figure 13. The layout of the smaller frames mimics the action of our hero.
The Maxx #1. Art and script: Sam Kieth © 1993 The creator.
Comics and the Reading Process 63
In a given series of panels wherein the frame encompasses only the head, a
'visual dialogue' oecurs between the reader and the artist which requires cer-
tain assumptions growing out of a common level of experience:
A B c
destruction that opens First Shot, the latter version lends an air of
rationality to the battle. Witek warns against hasty judgement of
the precision of one over the other, however. Instead, a better focus
is to investigate the varying ways in which these narratives deploy
the conventions of sequential art to make truth claims about an
event already weighted with cultural significance, previously estab-
lished readings, and individual associations.I?
A more common, though largely unnoticed privileging of an
ideological tone or truth claim is performed by presenting the nar-
rative through the perspective of the lead character. In most popu-
lar American comicbooks, this is usually the ubiquitous crime-
fighting superhero/ine. Specific narrative devices grant superheroes
narrative centrality and often cede to them narrative authority
through point-of-view frames, first person narration, and other
textual and graphic cues which foster reader identification with
them and their exploits. In the process, reader acceptance of the
superhero's hegemonic role and function is encouraged, notwith-
standing the fact that some superheroes resort to "illegal" means
of solving crimes or upholding justice, and that the presence of
superheroes attests to flaws and lacunas in society's legal and
policing systern.lf
Figure 15. McCloud identifies six kinds of transition most commonly used
in comics narrative, each one differing in the amount and range of leap in
bridging rhe sense from one panel to another. Understanding Comics. Art
and script: Scott McCloud © 1993 The creator.
Comics and the Reading Process 67
Figure 16. There are similarities in the proportion of the transition strate-
gies used in American and European comicbooks. Understanding Comics.
Art and script: Scott McCloud © 1993 The creator,
Figure 17. The reader makes the leap frorn one panel to another; here, one
assumes that the sound in the second panel is somehow connected to the
death threat in the first. Understanding Comics. Art and script: Scott
McCloud © 1993 The creator.
gutter more graphically into the narrative and total page lay-out.
The functions of this procedure are variable, but accentuating key
moments in the narrative or rendering panoramie images are two
of the most common (see Figure 18).
Comics and the Reading Process 69
Figure 18. The clothesline used to separate the first and second row of
panels also serves as an escape device for the fugitive. In the centre row,
Eisner also manages to depict succeeding moments without any change or
break in the brick wall. An illustration from Comics and Sequential Art
by Will Eisner © Poorhouse Press.
70 Reading Comics
Figure 20. The thought balloons here show a series of images instead of
text but just as clearly convey what our hero is thinking. Madman Comics,
Yearbook '95. Art and script: Mike Allred © 1995 The creator.
Figure 21. Images inside the balloons instead of texts tell a story just as
effectively in this example. Back page of Bleeding Heart # 5. Art and
script: Peter Kuper © 1993 The creator.
74 Reading Comics
Figure 22. The word "Shoorn" fills this page and mimics the reverber-
ation of the sound beneath the sea as the creatures get nearer and the
sound gets louder and louder. Sou/wind #4. Art and script: C. Scott
Morse © 1997 The creator
Comics and the Reading Process 75
artist and reader and accepted as typical story elements, but which
prove to be bewildering to foreigners.ö-
]apanese comics are highly susceptible to graphie manipula-
tion because of the ]apanese language. Depending whether one
lives in the western or eastern hemisphere, ]apanese comics are or
are not read "backwards," that is, a11 panels and pages move
sequentially from right to left. Usually, the writing in each dialogue
ba1100n is vertical and is read from top-to-bottom and right-to-left.
But in fact, the language can be written in any direction except
from bottom of the page to top. This flexibility can work as an aid
in creative lay-outs, setting of tone, signalling other things both
iconically and verbally, The dialogues and onomatopoeic words,
for example, can be directed to enhance and control the visual flow
of the page.
What gives the page even more flexibility is the fact that the
]apanese language employs not one, but four entirely separate
writing systems: ideograms imported from China, two differ-
ent syllabic scripts, hiragana which is cursive and katakana
which is more angular, and the Roman alphabet... ]apanese
people normally write ablend of all four systems, but by
being selective an artist can create different moods. 23
Figure 24. This fight scene seems to take longer because of the pres-
ence of texts which retard the readers eye movement from panel to
panel. Daisho. Art and script: Patrick Debruin © 1993 The creator.
78 Reading Comics
Figure 25. Each segment comes alive only as the reader moves from
one speech balloon to another yet there is the illusion of perceiving
the whole panel as one unified scene. Zot! Book One. Art and script:
Scott McCloud © 1990 The creator.
eye movement and the pace of the story are both controlled. In this
case, the text both creates and controls the illusion of running
time, the "duration" of the scene.
The instantaneous effect of image-perception, meanwhile,
allows for the maintenance of the illusion of perceiving a whole.
Both the reading of texts and the viewing of cinema involve con-
trol over the revelation of the next scene. In the case of comics,
readers may take in the whole graphics first which may influence
the interpretation of the texts, and may even stimulate them to
read faster than their usual rate in anticipation of the next panel in
the page. Thus the role of the text in ordering visual perception is
not merely one of influencing eye movement but also of control-
ling the temporal aspect of perception.
In comics, time is a function of space, and panels may serve as
divisions of time. The succession of panels in comics is the mecha-
nism by which timing is achieved, and carefully controlled timing
enhances the drama of every event (see Figure 26). The narrative
flow (how the author conceives of the passing of time in a partic-
ular sequence) and time flow (how it is perceived by the reader) are
seldom coincidental. Both must be weighed against actual reading
Comics and the Reading Process 81
TIMING
TIME
NOTES
Superhero Comicbooks
jane Radway
Reading the Romance 1984
Since their inauspicious debut in the newsstands of New York in
the 1930s, comicbooks in America have been published in billions
of copies for audiences of countless millions. It would be fair to say
that most who grew up since the introduction of comicbooks to
popular culturehave come under its pervasive speIl at one time or
another. Not until the arrival of television was there a sharp
decline in comicbook sales. On the other hand, television enabled
the instant transmission of comicbook-inspired material on
Saturday mornings and prime time. Eventually, television would
help propel the sales of comicbooks and also extend the produc-
tion and manipulation of comicbook products into an increasing-
ly multimedia base. Today, the comicbook continues to manifest
85
86 Reading Comics
(if at all) with disdain by the literary establishment, and yet has
built up its own heuristic critical discourse through what is still
rather misleadingly know as the "fan press;" d) it consists of a body
of contemporary mythology from which television and Hollywood
have plundered and distributed material; and finally, e) critical per-
ception of the formal and narrative patterns and meanings of
comicbooks is often based on an appeal to a common culture
although the culture of comicbooks is not necessarily shared by
students and scholars of literature. The culture of comicbooks
seems to be in apower relationship with dominant literary norms,
exposing notions of contradictory norms and power. Looking at
how superhero comicbooks have survived and developed in the last
fifty years will reveal some of the reasons and purposes for the
paradoxes outlined above. Once we think of comics as an example
of a genre, we can no longer approach it as only an artefact to be
analysed in some contextless critical purity. We need to ask who
reads such books, why and in which way, seeing them as "texts-in-
use" that are accompanied by the pragmatics of production as well
as issues of ideology and language.
imply that the forces of law and order were always good and
unproblematic. Nevertheless, it is possible to make a convincing
argument that the outcome of the fights is often only secondary to
the unfolding of the disruption and its effects, the ensuing con-
frontation with the villains, and the development and expansion of
the superhero character in each issue. Even in a "classic plot"
involving rather uncomplicated protagonists, there are at least two
problematic elements: a) the depicted society is always in danger
and its institutions for law enforcement are deficient, otherwise it
would not need a superhero; and b) the restoration of peace and
order is only temporary since recurring threats to a superhero's
domain are intrinsic to the genre. In some cases, popular prota go-
nists are even deliberately left to escape and their probable return
is implied. In addition, many superheroes operate outside the
law-the Submariner, the Hulk, Plastic Man, the Spirit, and count-
less others-helping powerless and worthy people to defend thern-
selves against criminal and evil forces in areas where the official
system of law and order has proven ineffective. The ending is
moreover usually perfunctory, a necessary ending, but hardly
equivalent to the complex fight scenes, the elaborate illustrations
and interactions which preceded it, as well as to the flamboyant
and memorable villains and rogues who litter superhero narra-
tives. In reaching the end, all sorts of unexpected things can hap-
pen just as all sorts of unexpected things are introduced. After all,
crime involves the disruption of normalities (superheroes them-
selves are already a disruption of normalities), and superhero nar-
ratives are often the consequences of this disorder. While the plots
are naturally geared towards the restoration of law, they are also
about the breaking of the law, about the transgression of normal
rules. Viewed from this perspective, the narratives become more
interesting and take on more dimensions especially in relation to
power and control. It is possible to perceive the genre as actually
dealing with the transgression of the law, portraying the play
between breaking and restoring law, or at the very least, showing
an ambivalence about law and order.? After all, if the police were
efficient and sufficient in maintaining law and order, superheroes
would be unneccessary. The presence of superheroes to augment
the establishment's capacity to uphold the law lends a distance
between the hero figure and aspects of establishment. Moreover,
the superheroes of today have evolved a great deal from the
94 Reading Comics
unabashed patriots of the 1940s and 1950s. Since the early 1970s,
they have been shown routing out scientists, politicians, priests,
and other establishment figures who turn out to be in league with
criminal elements. With the sophistication of the more recent
graphie novels, the once reassuring form of traditional binary
oppositions and simple disputes in the older texts have given way
to a multitudinous and pluralistic range of images that fit ourcon-
temporary existence. Newer texts like The Dark Knight Returns,
Watchmen, Astro City, and Madman tackle complex moral dilem-
mas and diverse political shifts where changes and contradictions
cannot so easily be labelled and appraised. Often, the superheroes
themselves question their role in upholding the law in a world
where those in powerful and institutionalised positions have
debatable intentions and morality. The world is very different from
that of thirty years ago: the bases of power have shifted, and so
have ways of understanding them. Old certainties have gone,
though new and perhaps equally repressive authoritarianisms have
emerged. These, in their turn, must be challenged. This present
world of uncertain directions and kaleidoscopic and contradictory
images is increasingly reflected both textually and visually in
comicbooks.
There is one other essential feature of usual adventure or hero
stories that is used quite differently in superhero tales: these are the
trials designed to test if the hero should really be a hero, if he is a
march for the tasks set before hirn, if, for example, he can cheat
and triumph over death. But superheroes were conceived to be
intrinsically indestructible. That a superhero never dies is a tacit
agreement between artists and readers for otherwise, there would
be no subsequent issues of that comicbook. The superhero's
immortality, however, is directly proportion to its popularity
which then dictates which comicbooks will be further published.
Such narratives are not really geared towards an innovative ending
other than the hero's triumph. The innovation and variability of
each text is actually in presenting a variety of villains and in cook-
ing up the "distortion" of the law. The originality and creativity of
the artists lie in making up and developing transgressions that pro-
vide the plot in each issue. In a way, it is actually crime and the
supervillains that keep the superhero in business. The proliferation
of crooks and chaos is allowed as long as core ideas of the origins
and identity of the hero are maintained. Committed comicbook
Superhero Comicbooks 95
readers have come to expect this, and letters to the editor often
applaud or rebuke these "innovative repetitions," implying that
the readers accept some rules governing story-construction and
superhero definitions.f
COSTUMES
Figure 27. Good girl art continues today as lead female characters
are still illustrated in scanty outfits and provocative poses. Lady
Death: The Reckoning. Writer: Brian Pulido, art: Steven Hughes. ©
1995 Chaos! Comics.
110 Reading Comics
EXSCRIPTION OF WOMEN
Figure 28. Naughty Bits #26. Unlikc the weak portrayal of female
characters in superhero comicbooks, curre nt comicbooks written
by wom en present both female prot agonists and antag onists in a
more realistic mann er. Art and script: Rober ra Grcgory © 1998
The creator, Her web page is www.robertagregory.com
Superhero Comicbooks 113
]on E. Hecthman
Mt. Laurel, N]4~
Together with other fan mail in reaction to this series, these two
share an underlying presumption: a superhero is entitled to a fair
fight and not simply to be defeated by circumstances over which he
has neither power nor control. With the annihilation of the sup-
posedly invincible Man of Steel, death, success and triumph for
superheroes were portrayed and perceived as neither easy nor
always guaranteed. But in relishing Doomsday, no matter how
reluctantly, the readers demanded at least that virtue should still
pay off, that cause and effect be given their due, and the levelling of
a legend not come from some divine intervention or magical force.
Even after Superman's burial, there was still general shock and
disbelief about his death, and very shortly thereafter, the hero was
sighted simultaneously in different parts of Metropolis. The people
who testified seeing hirn varied in their descriptions and agreed
only an one point: a "Superman" helped them out of a critical sit-
uation and prevented a life-threatening crime or accident from
happening. Indeed, there were about four or five costumed char-
acters claiming to be the real Superman, and as each one is
revealed to be an impostor, what constitutes the identity of a super-
hero may be seen. The first one is "The Man of Steel" (introduced
in Superman 22: late May 1993) who was easily discredited
because he wo re a very different costume from the real Superman.
It was metallic and covered his entire body, including his face.
"The Man of Steel" had to don this suit of armour because he was
Black and had to hide his face. Accosted by Lois Lane, he also did
not know anything about Superman's personal life, and his pre-
tence could not last long, because there was not much with which
118 Reading Comics
ideology and position in the narrative. There are many factors that
contributed in revolutionizing this figure which came hand in hand
with changes to the conventions and form of the medium itself.
The next chapter will discuss the factors that changed the super-
hero comicbook seen against the backdrop of changes in the indus-
try itself, especially in the production, distribution and reception of
comicbooks.
NOTES
the comics as a friend." The implication of this is that they have a com-
plicated social relationship to it. There is a kind of dialogue between
comicbooks and readers in which the cornic is seen as having a person-
ality. See Comics: Ideology, Power and the Critics (Manchester and
New York: 1989): 55-60.
9 Mike Benton, The Comic Book in America (Texas: Taylor Publishing,
1993): 14.
10 Ron Goulart, Ron Goulart's Great History of Comic Books (Chicago:
Contemporary, 1986): 34.
11 Mike Benton, op cit., 23.
12 Russell Nye, The Unembarrassed Muse: The Popular Arts in America
(New York: The Dial Press, 1970): 56.
13 Les Daniels, ed. Marvel Book of Superheroes (New York: Marvel
Comics, 1992): 112.
14 Judith Duke, Children's Books and Magazines: A Market Study (New
York: Knowledge Industry Publications, 1979): 116.
15 Jeff Rovin, The Encyclopedia ofSuperheroes (New York: Facts on File,
1985): 38-9.
16 Bernard Rosenberg and David Manning, eds. Mass Culture: The
Popular Arts in America (Illinois: The Free Press, 1957): 187. The
Armed Forces, in fact, used the comic format in training material dis-
tributed to the troops. One comic artist who worked within this edu-
cational medium for a long time was Will Eisner, creator of the Spirit.
17 The first story is reproduced in Jules Feiffer, The Great Comic Book
Heroes (New York: Dial Press, 1965).
18 Les Daniels, A History of Comic Books in America (New York: Crown
Publishers, 1971): 56.
19 Later, other female heroes entered the arena like Black Cat (Harvey:
June 1946), Doll Man (Quality Comics: December 1951), Supergirl
(Action Comics: May 1959), Spider-Woman (Marvel: April 1978),
She-Hulk (Marvel: February 1980). However, the superhero field was
about ninety-percent male, which seemed to be about the same demo-
graphics as the readership of most superhero comics. (Benton, op cit.,
176).
20 The so-called Silver Age of superhero comics is agreed as having begun
in 1956; there is no agreed terminal date but most would accept that
it lasted until around 1967-70.
21 Patrick Parsons, "Batman and His Audience," in Roberta E. Pearson
and William Uricchio (eds). The Many Lives of Batman: Critical
Approaches to a Superhero and His Media (New York and London:
Routledge: 1991): 66-89.
22 Benton, op cit., 177.
23 Daniels, op cit., 95.
24 Stan Lee, The Amazing Spider-Man #4 (September 1963): n. p.
Superhero Comicbooks 121
25 This labelling drew criticism from some artists, such as Frank Miller,
who believed that c1assifications drew an artificial and unnecessary
lines within comic readership.
26 In the Fall of 1998, a comics magazine and price guide, Wizard, under-
took an on-line survey: Who is the greatest superhero of all time? Of
the 500 e-mails they got, Batman was first with 25%; Superman and
Spider-man tied at second place with 24% each.
27 In fact, the comics spawned the term "yellow journalism." The Yellow
Kid (1896) by Richard Outcault is generally acknowledged to have
been the first newspaper comic strip. Ir also marked a breakthrough in
printing techniques because of its use of the colour yellow which made
full-colour reproductions possible in newspapers for the first time. This
strip became a major success, boosted the circulation figures of the
New York Journal, and started a highly competitive campaign between
two legendary magnates of the New York Press-Hearst and
Pulitzer-for the ownership of the "Yellow Kid," as weil as other
comic strips which were regularly being featured in the comic supple-
ment pages. The unscrupulous piracy of comic artists between New
York's leading newspapers during this time, in particular for the
Yellow Kid, is generally acknowledged as giving rise to the term "yel-
low journalism. "
28 Alan Aldridge and George Perry, The Penguin Book of Comics
(Baltimore: Penguin, 1971): 27. There were also some artists who
played with the convention of portraying costumed superheroes, fore-
most of which is Jim Steranko who hails from the Underground comix
movement.
29 Interview with Marvel editor, Stan Lee in Les Daniels, ed. Marvel: Five
Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics. (London: Virgin,
1991): 112.
30 One of the more interesting of the 1940s comicbook characters was
The Spirit by Will Eisner, created exclusively for a newspaper syndicate
that wanted a superhero for its Sunday comic pages. The Spirit had a
mask and dual identity but no superpowers. Ir is generally hailed in the
comics scene (although not so popularly known among the general
public) as one of the best written and illustrated comicbooks, known
for its atmospheric stories, grotesque characters, gentle sense of
humour, as weil as satire and parody. The Spirit made its debut as a
weekly Sunday comic book that was distributed for twelve years. Ir
bridged the gap between comic strips and comic books by appearing in
a coverless 16-page comic book that circulated with the Sunday fun-
nies in newspapers.
31 Interview with Joe Simon in Les Daniels, op cit., 72.
32 In Chapter Two of Richard Reynolds, Superheroes: A Modern
Mythology (London: Batsford, 1992), Reynolds provides a prime
122 Reading Comics
44 The first letter is frorn Superman No. 12, and the next is from No. 15.
Both letters won a Baldy and a Platinum edition of Superman # 75,
prizes for the best fan letter in an issue as decided by the Editors.
This page intentionally left blank
CHAPTER FIVE
I am, I am Superman
And I know what's happening
I am, I am Superman
And I can't do anything.
R.E.M.
"Superman"
Life's Rich Pageant
Jim Collins
"Batman: The Movie,
Narrative and the
Hyperconscious"
125
126 Reading Comics
bai kids. And then our marketing information shows that our
average reader is twenty-four and male and very literate, so it
is not surprising that we get a pretty high percentage of artic-
ulate, literary letters. That is one of the changes that has come
about. I no longer feel very much need to write down to any-
body when I am doing a comic book. I fee! a very large per-
sistent need to honour the tradition out of which I am work-
ing, but I don't have to worry about using big words anymore
or even big conceprs.t'"
Fan culture grew to parallel the commercial success of super-
hero comicbooks. What began as columns in the latter pages of the
magazines, regular swapping or sharing of comicbooks, and some
sporadic membership to clubs advertised within its pages, devel-
oped into a sense of fellowship later fostered through "fanzines"
(fan magazines) and gatherings where stories, personalities, and
ideas are discussed and debated. The fans cultivated a sense of
community where shared and cumulative special knowledge about
comicbooks is acknowledged and esteemed. At present, specialist
comicbook stores, comic marts, and full-scale comics conventions
are the outward signs of a certain cohesion among highly loyal and
knowledgeable comic fans. In addition, there are price guides,
comic forums and chat rooms, magazines and journals-, and a
highly organised market-place including internet auctions, for buy-
ing, selling, and collecting old comics.
In the 1960s, the fan movement was gene rally acknowledged
as having shaped part of the resurgence of superhero comicbooks
after the Comics Code of 1954 halted the production of horror
and crime comics, and subsequently damaged the industry as a
whole by stigmatising comicbooks. After this, the comics industry
would never totally regain the same amount of consumer demand
it enjoyed until 1954 because of television which lured readers
away from comics. As sales dwindled, the comics industry started
experiencing difficulties with its normal distribution system which
made it pay more attention to fans. In the 1970s, news-stand dis-
tributors did not give comics much priority and thus hampered
sales and expansion. Until then, the industry's sales strategies were
not favourable to promotion and advertising which was becoming
more necessary to attract new readers. The strong competition
from television, the loss of convenient sales outlets, and the very
limited approach to advertising reduced the industry to depend on
128 Reading Comics
hard-core fans and collectors. The comics industry was then forced
to pay more attention to their fans, and initiated and encouraged
more interaction with followers who were getting to be increas-
ingly knowledgeable about their comicbooks and were somewhat
older than the general comics readers.f By the late 1960s, a small
network of clubs and correspondences already began to develop,
such that by the mid-1970s, a strong and vibrant collector's mar-
ket had begun. The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide observes
that while fans were not a dominant segment in absolute numbers,
they represented a powerful one due to the intensity of their inter-
est and their large per-person purchases. These readers were more
serious about comics, were privileged with more disposable
income, and some would buy several copies of one issue for invest-
ment purposes alone.?
Many of these committed readers ended up as artists and writ-
ers who later worked for DC and Marvel, as weIl as for the inde-
pendent comics publishing houses in the 1980s. This tendency well
attests to the impact this generation of superhero fans had on the
industry. In fact, most of the weIl-known leading artists connected
with the medium at present admit to having been fans themselves,
to having grown up with their favourite superheroes and to having
"been there," allowing them to develop a shrewd grasp of super-
hero fans' wishes and expectations. In addition, these artists regard
themselves as, in some measure, still being very much apart of the
field and the community: Alan Moore, Ed Hannigan, Stan Lee,
jack Kirby, David MazzuccheIli, Len Wein, lohn Byrne, Gene
Colan, Al Williamson, lohn Severin, Steve Englehart, Mark
Gruenwald, are some of these central figures. 8
Two major assumptions are supported by the existence of a
cultivated fan community. First, most people reading and writing
commercial superhero comicbooks belong to that community; and
second, they are not only broadly acquainted with, but have par-
ticipated in the development of at least a sizeable proportion of
what has been done and what is being done to the form and con-
tents of superhero comicbooks throughout the fifty years of the
genre's existence. In this sense, comic fans are not passive con-
sumers of a cultural product. Indeed, they are in many ways active
in its creation, more active with respect to audience interaction
than with most mass-media situations such as television, the
movies, music videos, or romantic fiction.? In addition, given the
Changed Superhero Comicbooks 129
relatively dose nature of the comics community, and the fact that
many people now involved in the industry of producing comics
came from the fandom culture, it is quite likely that the comics
audience constitutes one of several direct and significant influences
on the creative process and development of the genre. In his study
of Batman readership, Patrick Parsons suggests an interesting
point; that "contrary to the assumptions of some in both the pop-
ular and academic community, the impact of readers on the con-
tents may be greater than the impact of the contents on the read-
ers. "10 Concerned with the occasional neglect of the audience in
the studies of cultural commodities, Patrick Parsons shows the
many points of interaction between the producers and consumers
of comicbooks, in particular the Batman. He sees the comics fan
community as a specialised sub-culture-"a modern media-bound
specialised community"-and shows how the various demograph-
ic, psychographic and ideological peculiarities of that community
must be taken into consideration when critically analysing, for
example, the current Batman which, for hirn, is "a product of a
variety of cultural and industrial factors.t' l!
The comicbook fans/creators themselves are the real movers
behind the story of the development of comicbooks. This is as true
today as it was in the earlier phases of the genre. The youngsters
who grew up with comicbooks have grown up to be those most
involved now in publishing houses and/or media centres. This
demographic factor has greatly affected the conception of comic-
book characters and narratives and, accordingly, has also changed
the production and distribution of comicbooks.
Figure 29. A page frorn Love and Rackets #50. Art and script:
Xaime Hernandez © 1996 The creator.
graphic novels, compiled series and albums, were being sold than
ever before. Since 1986, comicbooks also have begun to receive
popular and critical attention and extraordinarily wide coverage in
the mainstream press, in the style magazines, in the music papers,
even in some business magazines. The renaissance in comicbooks
and their new high media profile have altered the medium: all in
all, the new releases are distinguished from their pre-" direct sales"
predecessors by access to bigger budget (and consequently high-
priced) status in all aspects of production, format, artwork, and
above all, aggressive multi-media advertising.
HEROIC TRANSFORMATIONS
Good and Evil based on the rules of superhero comics while plac-
ing his characters and narratives in increasingly realistic situations.
By calling attention to the seeming contradictions between super-
beings and his realistic illustrations and situations, Miller showed
that there were still many facets and possibilities not yet fully
utilised within the superhero genre.
While Miller wasopening up a road to the future of superhero
comicbooks, Marvel realised that, in the context of growing
manipulation in the direct market sales, Chris Claremont and
Frank Miller were "winners." Artists used to be unknown and
were previously perceived to be interchangeable, but the direct
market made it possible for authors and illustrators to be the point
of interest. Fans had stopped buying blindly, for example, simply
asking for the newest Batman comics at the newsstands. Instead,
fans started choosing by 'names' among the hundreds of Batman
comics in a specialised comic shop. If a fan really liked an issue, he
or she could and would ask next time for the numbers (naming the
issues numbers from specific authors or illustrators). In 1982, most
of the comics buyers asked for Frank Miller and/or Chris
Claremont. What would make more sense then, than to let the two
work together in one comics? A four-issue series of Wolverine 20
written by Claremont and illustrated by Frank Miller came out at
the end of 1982. Wolverine is one of the most hardened or brutish
members of the X-Men, the first one most apt to the gloomy
atmosphere and dismal tone with which Frank Miller made his
mark in Daredevil. Although, qualitatively, the work by
Miller/Claremont fell short of Miller's Daredevil, the strategy to
appeal to both X-Men and Daredevil fans succeeded tremendous-
ly: Wolverine was a huge hit. In addition to the Claremont-Miller
combination, this series also had the lure of the then new format
of the Mini-Series-t which would later be copied and proliferate in
the following years.
DC reacted to Marvel's success with the start of a counter con-
cept that would radically affect the entire comics market in the fol-
lowing years. DC began to focus resolutelyon an adult or older
public that was outside the scope of Marvel's hardcore superhero
locus. At the end of 1982, DC successfully produced Camelot
3000 which transported the medieval legends surrounding King
Arthur into the future by a very original rendition of fantasy by
Mike Barr, illustrated with beautiful details by Brian Bolland.V
140. Reading Comics
was hardly anyone buying in comic shops that had not previously
liked comics, or at least was already exposed to it. The media
interest in comics dwindled in the mid-1980s. Marvel continued to
cater to the expectations of its proven youngreaders (known in the
industry as the "Marvel-zombies"), and the gap between Marvel
and DC remained wide like before. Marvel's market share was
approx. 50% while DC's share was around 30%.
But the credit for the renaissance of superheroes rightly belong
to the initiative and boldness of the creators themselves rather than
to the corporate decisions undertaken by the big publishing hous-
es. It is impossible to think of the re-making of superheroes with-
out thinking of two names: Frank Miller who did The Dark Knight
Returns (1986), and Alan Moore who wrote Watchmen (1986).
While both of these seminal works may be seen against the gener-
al upheaval and excitement in the field of comics around that time
(Maus by Art Spiegelman came out in book format the same year,
and Love and Rockets by the Hernandez Brothers in 1982), the
superhero stories captured the imagination of comics audience
because the new comics dealt simultaneously with something very
familiar and very strange: heroes who have ceased to be superhu-
man, who sometimes have problems with drugs, alcohol and sex,
and above all, who grapple with notions of authority, power, and
evil that are not always clear and against which they do not always
win. The Dark Knight in particular was so successful that it is
recognised not only as responsible for making Batman the most
popular comic book hero but as playing no small role in the
incredible burgeoning of the comics industry in the 1980s. 25 After
this, more and more superhero comicbooks came out which
addressed political, social, and moral issues, and participated in a
boom to re-define comicbook heroes and narratives. In gestures
reminiscent of Frank MiIler's preoccupation with transforming the
heroes of comicbooks, many weIl-known artists participated in the
rejuvenation of the genre. Citing intentions and views similar to
Miller's, they acknowledged the enjoyment in both reading and
creating new heroes while attesting to the increased possibilities
available in transforming comicbook heroes in the context of a
more mature, more serious narrative form. Interviews with those
involved with the comics industry usually reveal an earnest inter-
est and expansive awareness in what is going on with the industry
and the genre, as weIl as in the narratives and artworks of other
142 Reading Comics
"Even with the nuclear backdrop and the conternpt for super-
heroes expressed by the world at large in Dark Knight, 1 don't
think Dark Knight is pessimistic ... it has a hopeful ending.
The book starts with Bruce Wayne contemplating suicide; at
the end he's found a reason to live. He's adjusted to the times .
. . . The key transition is his recognition he's no longer part of
the authority. That's really the transition at the end of Dark
Knight, this knowledge that he's no longer on the side of the
powers that be anymore, because the powers that be are
wrong.,,27
NOTES
1 Much of what is now known about the audience during the early peri-
od of comics developed out of scholarly and public debate about the
impact of this burgeoning media on children; See, for example, Alexis
Tan and Kermit Scuggs, "Does Exposure to Comic Book Violence Lead
to Aggression in Children?" Journalism Quarterly 57.4
(1980):579-583, Judith Duke, Children's Books and Magazines: A
Market Study (New York: Knowledge Industry Publication, 1979);
Willam Marston, "Why 100,000,000 Americans Read Comics," The
American Scholar 13 (1944): 35-44; Paul Lyess, "The Place of the
Changed Superhero Comicbooks 147
Mass Media in rhe Lives of Boys and Girls," [ournalism Quarterly 29.1
(1952):43-54.
2 Since the 1970s, superhero comicbooks have ranked third among the
most popular comics according to sales figures; second is the category
of Sci-filHorror, and the first is the somewhat broad category called
Adult Humour which is made up of such works as "Peanuts" and
"Calvin and Hobbes." See jack Lyle and Heidi Hoffman, "Children's
Use of Television and Other Media," in Television and Social
Behaviour, Vol. 4 (Washington, DC: National Institute of Mental
Health, 1979): 121-256).
3 Even the attempt to attract more female readership by creating super-
heroines resulted in characters more memorable as examples of Good
Girl Art in comics rather than characters whose adventures girls would
enjoy following (see the section on "Masculinity and Identity" in the
preceding chapter).
4 Pearson and Uricchio, "Notes from the Batcave: An Interview with
Dennis O'Neil," in idem, The Many Lives of Batman (London and
New York: Routledge, 1993): 19-20.
5 Roger Sabin provides an extensive list of current comic fanzines and
journals. See Roger Sabin, Adult Comics: An Introduction (London:
Routledge, 1993): 305-306.
6 The science fiction fandom started earlier and is more established than
the superhero followers. The science fiction community also has more
cross-overs to other science fiction venues like novels, short stories, tel-
evision shows and movies. However, superhero comicbooks in general
are more sought after and are more collectible in terms of price and
nostalgia value in the comics collector's market.
7 Robert Overstreet, The Official Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide
(Tennessee: Overstreet Publications/House of Collectibles, annually).
8 See various interviews in David Anthony Kraft, ed. Comics Interview
(New York: Fictioneer Books, published monthly since 1984); Comics
Scene (New York: O'Quinn Studios, published quarterly since 1985);
and Comics Journal (Seattle, Washington: Fantagraphies Books, pub-
lished monthly, n.d.).
9 An ideal example to show how influential the opinion of comicbooks
fans can be is the infamous telephone poll which decided the death of
Robin in 1988. For more details on the editors' decision about Robin's
death, see Pearson and Uricchio, "Notes from the Batcave: An
Interview with Dennis O'Neil," in idem, The Many Lives of Batman
(London: Routledge, 1991): 20-23.
10 Patrick Parsons, "Batman and His Audience," in Pearson and
Uricchio, The Many Lives of Batman (London: Routledge, 1991): 67.
11 P. Parsons, ibid., 65-89.
12 The next ten pages are translated from a non-published essay written
148 Reading Comics
151
152 Reading Comics
All of our best and oldest legends recognise that time passes
and that people grow old and die... With Dark Knight, time
has eome to the Batman and the capstone that makes legends
what they are has finally been fitted.5
This chapter provides an analysis of how the elements of time
affects, and concretely manifests itself in, the narrative structure of
Dark Knight Returns.
BATMAN RETIRED
In the beginning of the graphie novel, a much older Bruce Wayne
alias Batman lives in a world safeguarded by his money "in a mil-
lion-dollar mansion miles away" (Issue 1, p. 5). While the city suf-
fers under a heatwave and a spate of horrible crimes, Bruce
Wayne is in a car race, whereby a newscaster comments 'Tm sur-
prised anyone can even think of sports in this weather" (I, 2). In
The Dark Knight Returns (1986) 153
Two pages later, it is clear not only tu fans but also to novice
Batman readers that there is only one way out für Bruce Wayne: he
must concede to his Batman identity which had been suppressed
until then. At one point, Bruce dieks glasses with Commissioner
Gordon, who says: "You've certainly learned to drink" (1,4). The
retraction of his Batman identity unsettles Bruce, drives hirn to
drink, gives hirn suicidal tendencies and feelings of torment not
154 Reading Comics
BATMAN RETURNS
From the start, it is very clear that Wayne's inability to have a ful-
filling life without a Batman identity necessitates the latter's return.
The return itself probably represents the artistic culmination sum-
mit of the story, and Miller shows it in three phases: The Murder
of His Parents, The Fall into a Cave, and The Bat Breaks Through.
In the world of the bats, Bruce feels secure from the questions
of adults that must be answered outside the cave, safe from having
to confront the purpose of his games. He perceives the bat as a
warrior, hardened in vast emptiness, and unafraid of anything new
or unknown. In aseries of eight frames, the bats approaches the
frightened yet fascinated child, until the bat's shadow initially cov-
ers Bruce, but eventually fills up the whole panel (I, 11). For Miller,
assuming a Batman identity is also an expression of a defensive
and parrying stance against the unknown-this will have a sexual
connotation for Bruce years later. Bruce Wayne transforms this
same cave into a secret Batcave where he takes on the traits of bats
and becomes Batman. The cave also acts as a mother's womb
where he comes back after his nightly patrol for justice. The cave
is the base of Batman's operations: " ... huge, empty, silent as a
church... " (I, 11) empty and still, diametrically opposed to actu-
al relationships or attachments.
In the lower half of the same page, a graying and half-clothed
Bruce Wayne stands in the Batcave, compelled by the Batman
inside hirn: "Brings me down here when the night is long and my
will is weak. He struggles relentlessly, hatefully, to be free... " (I,
11) The costume of the bat allows Bruce a retreat from a world full
of human relationships in constant motion which he cannot con-
trol. Bruce never learned to live in this world. His costume func-
tions as a fetish, a substitute for real, live relationships. The role of
the costume and mask in the divided Bruce Wayne/Batman per-
sonality becomes even clearer when Bruce gets out from his car
after his visit to Gordon. He bristles against conceding to his
Batman identity: "I cari't stand to be inside anything right now,"
(I, 4)-not inside a car, nor in a costume, much less "inside a
wornan." Alan Moore elucidates on this psychological disposition
of masked superheroes and their stilted relationships with women
in his maxi-series, Watchmen (see also Chapter Four of this book),
Miller's Bruce Wayne tries to resist the need to find personal
fulfillment in the identity of the Dark Knight, but only the Batman
outfit and identity offer arelief from the creature's nightly chal-
lenges. The death of his former sidekick Robin made Bruce
Wayne form aresolution to cease the nightly activities that
would give hirn peace: "I gave my word. For jason. Never. Never
The Dark Knight Returns (1986) 157
again. (I, 11). But as the action progresses, Batman's vow to Jason
would find a different expression in the selection and development
of his follower, and no longer in the Dark Knight's renunciation of
its nightly combats. The creature of the night stirs and the retire-
ment that never really applied to Batman, ends.
In the third assault, Batman saves a young girl, Carrie, who willlater
fight by his side as the new Robin and lead the aging vigilante into
the modern times.
BATMAN'S FOES
I. TheJoker
On page 6, a row of four frames shows the first phase of the return
of the Dark Knight. This is mirrored on the other side of the spread
by another series of four pictures: in a psychiatrie dinic, known to
Batman fans as the Arkham Asylum, the blinds roll up to reveal
the face of the oldest and most well-known of Batman's adver-
saries, the Joker. Batrnan's renaissance is attended with the simul-
taneous revival of his main protagonist who, during Batman's
absence, was tucked away in Arkham Asylum. In one interview,
Miller describes the Joker as Batman's "antithesis,7 a force of
chaos", which is directly opposite to Batman's being a "control
freak." 8
The dose link between Batman and Joker is shown again
when the television reports on the return of the Dark Knight, Eight
frames (I, 33) demonstrate the gradual transformation of the pre-
viously soporific and lifeless facial expressions .of the Joker. His
reawakening can be seen in his mouth, as it spreads into a broad
grin, a distinctive trait of this popular Batman-enemy, that Jack
Nicholson made even more popular to millions of people later in
a Batman movie. The grin gets wider and wider that it breaks
through one frame and becomes two frames wide. A similarity of
comics with film is shown in this instance: the series of pictures
just mentioned simulates the zooming in for a dose-up shot. At the
same time, Miller shows a feature distinct to comics-the film or
movie cannot go beyond the frarnes of the screen.
Within the series of these pictures, the parasitic dependency
between Batman and Joker becomes evident. The Joker awakes
while watehing areport that the Batman is back, and the first words
that break out of the Joker are "BB...BBBat...Batman. Darling."
(I, 38) as he "naturally" falls back into being the Batman's antago-
nist. From this time on, one can see a vitality and life in the Joker,
making the Batman also responsible for the existence of his most
The Dark Knight Returns (1986) 159
Figure 30. The Dark Knight Returns shows a grim Batman who breaks
a promise he made 30 years aga never to kill anyone. The Dark Knight
Returns. Art and script: Frank Miller © 1986 DC Comics
160 Reading Comics
• The Joker, who thickly applies his own red lipstick before
coming out on stage is shown as an embodiment of the
homophobe's fear
II. Two-Face
Another Batman foe, Two-Face, is deemed ready to rejoin to soci-
ety after a 12-year stay in Arkham Asylum. He underwent psychi-
atrie treatments and plastic surgery to restore his disfigured face,
after which the same psychiatrist who treated Joker, Dr. Wolper,
says: "You're fit to return to society... "(I, 7). Frank Miller's
The Dark Knight Returns (1986) 161
playing cards, money, and guns. From this page on, Two-Face is
only shown with a fully-bandaged head covering the plastic sur-
gery and the face he cannot live with.U' When Batman later finds
a coin scratched on both sides in the scene of a crime (I, 32), his
hopes for Dent's recovery evaporates. It is dear from the fully
marked coin that the external success of the plastic surgery was
totally subjugated by an inner malice. Whereas before, Two-Face's
split face mirrored the divided urges within hirn, now, his perfect-
ly pretty face only hides completely damaging intentions. The age
of television demands superficial perfection, but the results are
horrible.
The first chapter ends with Two-Face falling from a tower in
the city, until his doppelganger Batman comes and catches hirn and
observes. "We tumble like lovers." (1,46). Two-Face confirms their
reciprocality with his words: "I've been asport... You have to
admit that-I played along." (1,47). In the middle of page 47, two
rows of four panels each divided by the middle of the spread, give
the impression of a mirror reflection: the first row shows Two-
Face's head, the second shows Batman's face. The third frame in
the first row shows Batman's vision of Two-Face " ... As he is."
Right below the third picture of the second row, we see a sinister-
looking dose-up of a bat. Their demons are reflections of each
other, as ordered by the pictures. Batman hirnself is aware of the
parallel: " ... I see ... arefleetion, Harvey. Arefleetion." (I, 47).
together with the other material possessions of the rich and pow-
erful, were exactly what Batman protected between the years 1939
and 1986. In The Dark Knight, Bruce Wayne realizes (as the story
progresses) that with such a perspective, he only upholds status
quo and does not really get to the roots of crime. Gordon, howev-
er, is not able to learn nor accept the changes wrought by modern
times.
Another example is when Gordon finds out that the next
Police Commissioner, his successor, is a woman. His reaction: "A
woman. Christ almighty... " (11,16) Gordon proves to be extreme-
ly conservative, intolerant of progressive ideas, almost a fossil of
the war years as he and Batman were originally conceived. In The
Dark Knight, Gordon represents the ideology of the traditional
Batman figure of the last four decades. At the beginning of this
mini-series, we still see this traditional Batman figure right after he
came out of retirement, before he is directed inta modern reality by
the new Robin. In the first two books, Miller shows some parallels
between Gordon and Batman to clearly illustrate the relationship
or similarities between the two. Both men are incapable of a ful-
filled life outside the pursuit of criminals (11, 12); because of their
ultra-conservative views, both are held responsible (in television)
for the present crimes (11, 5), their old styles of fighting crimes go
against the changed consciousness of the people. Critical voices
descry the superhero of Gotham City as a fascist: "The only thing
he signifies ... is an aberrant psychotic force-morally bankrupt,
politically hazardous, reactionary, paranoid-a danger to every
citizen of Gotham." (I, 33).
The next pages bear out these charges as we see a brutal and
churlish Batman throwing one of Two-Face's cohorts through a
window pane: "You've got rights. Lots of rights. Sometimes I
count them just to make myself feel crazy. But right now you've
got a piece of glass shoved into a major artery in your arm." (1,37)
Even as Batman's principles still prevail during this time and he
refuses to kill, his methods of interrogation and detention are not
in accord with basic human rights. One cannot just dismiss the
arguments of his adversaries: "Makes me sick. We must treat the
socially misoriented with rehabilitative methods." (I, 37) The
observation of the parents of the new Robin, Carrie, runs:
"Obviously a fascist. Never heard of civil rights." (1,37) Batman's
attitude and procedures that have been familiar and accepted by
The Dark Knight Returns (1986) 165
readers for many years now begin to grate against modern reali-
ties. Even the new generation of policemen does not accept
Batman's previously tolerated vigilante-style of justice and wants
to arrest hirn (I, 28). The traditional superhero totally lost his pos-
itive image in Miller's rendition of Batman as he initially sides with
the dominant power and refers to the petty gang criminals or
thieves as "punks." Only much later does Batman realize that the
present is much too complex for a clear delineation between good
and evil.
The first chapter ends with a interim climax-the confronta-
tion between Batman and Two-Face. The Dark Knight fights with
a US Military-issued weapon, but he starts distancing hirnself from
what has been his ideology until then: "It was developed by the
military during one of our more contemptible wars." (I, 41) But at
this point, Bruce Wayne alias Batman is still searching for his own
point of view. His momentary bewilderment gives rise aga in to a
wish for death, cut short by Batman's feelings of responsibilities to
the citizens of Gotham City: " ... a fine death. But there are thou-
sands to think of." (1,43)
The second chapter shows Batman reaching a turning point in
comprehending the new situation, as he maneuvers a confronta-
tion with the "Mutants" in the slums of Gotham City. Batman first
appears in the dump within the protection of an impenetrable tank
(a modified Batmobile) and gets the chance to shoot the Ieader,
but, at this point, Batman still refuses to kill. Eventually, and
against his better judgement, he gets out to fight a hand-to-hand
combat with the mutant gang leader (11, 19), his old body betrays
hirn, and he loses to the Mutant gang leader. In leaving the tank,
Batman starts to move away from the ideologies that kept hirn sid-
ing with the dominant powers in the past. Doubting the certainty
of the morals that had previously guided hirn, Batman becomes
vulnerable and loses to the gang leader. Significantly, Batman is
saved from death by Carrie, alias Robin. In Miller's narrative, this
is the turning point for Batman where we see that his traditional
ways of thinking and fighting do not guarantee his victory over the
new breed of scoundrels, and he has to depend on Carrie. From
this point on, we see Batman starting to leave his antiquated beliefs
and being ushered into the modern realities from a child of the
media generation. Batman begins to understand the decisive role
that Carrie can play for his own development: "She's more than a
166 Reading Comics
Carrie is a young girl who is in touch with the trends and devel-
opments of her time. For example, she is particularly interested in
computer studies (I, 22), and wears green-tinted eyeglasses, which,
at first glance, are not unlike the glasses that identify members of
the mutant gang. Although Carrie, in direct contrast to
Commissioner Gordon, is up-to-date with the times, she has not
mutated into or been reduced an uncritical consumer of her peri-
od but has retained her individuality. While the many-colored
glasses of the mutant gang are mere slits, which hide their eyes and
simultaneously narrow their capacity to see, Carrie's eyewear have
big lenses through which clearly show her alert eyes. While she
belongs to a generation bombarded with images from computer
and television, her opinions are not limited to the ideology relayed
by the media. When TV reporters are interviewing people about
Batman's reappearance, Carrie is the only one who did not stare
wide-eyed at the camera and give sensational reports about hirn,
like: " ... Wild animal. Growls. Snarls. Werewolf surely." or
"Monster! Like with fangs and wings and it can fly ..." Carrie
says: "Reality check ... he's a man." (I, 26) Carrie is capable of
being critical of the TV as a mass medium, without shutting off the
developments of her time. Even Batman's authority is something
she does not blindly obey. Instead, through her ability to decide for
herself, she manages to effectively help hirn in his battles, and to
even save his life (III, 24 and 25).
The Dark Knight Returns (1986) 167
Dark Knight and form "The Sons of Batman" gang. A mutant, hav-
ing replaced his slit-like glasses with the Batman insignia, declares
on TV: "The mutants are dead. The mutants are history. This is the
mark of the future. Gotham City belongs to the Batman" (11,46).
The change does not go smoothly. As "Sons of Batrnan," some
Mutants start dispensing "order" brutally, in a way even more
extreme than the old Batman which was publicly perceived as
oppressive and despotie. To stop the "Sons of Batman" from using
excessive violence, Batman once again makes an appearance in the
dump, this time sitting atop a horse while he smashes a rifle into
pieces, saying: "This is the weapon of the enemy. We do not need
it. We will not use it." (IV, 21). The declaration does not lose its
desired effect, since Batman has learned to work within the medi-
um appropriate to his TV-saturated audience. He is perceived as an
authentie legend: "You know-like in a Western." (IV, 23)
Although, and partly because, he succeeds in winning the
Mutants over to his side, Batman finally realises: "I've become a
politicalliability ... (IV, 24) as the television and police force more
than ever detest hirn andperceives hirn an anomaly in the present
times. Batman decides to end his unwanted Batman-existence, and
turn over his fight to Carrie: "Right there-in that saddle-is all
the reason I need. She has decades-decades, left to her... " (IV,
34). Batman then stages a fight with Superman, the prime sup-
porter of the dominant power, stages his own pseudo-death (IV,
43), and sanctions the media to announce his demise (IV, 45). After
the official wake and funeral, Batman is dug up from his grave by
Carrie-and Batman's new existence is closely linked to the young
generation.
Bruce Wayne's new reality is portrayed in the last page of the
fourth and final chapter: he lays aside his Batman garb because he
cannot deny the present: "here, in the endless cave, far past the
remains of a crimefighter whose time has passed ... Ir begins here-
an army-to bring sense to a world plagued by worse than thieves
and murderers ... This will be a good life good enough." (IV, 47) .
.Wayne does not consider it his task anymore to protect the
"Haves" (moneyed or propertied class) from petty thieves which
he, in the meantime, considers as victims of the reigning power
structure and relations. He aims for a bigger plan. Wayne had
always gone back alone to his "Batcave" to plan his next moves
away from any company and influence, now he shares this
The Dark Knight Returns (1986) 169
"Batcave" with Carrie and the former Mutants who were his ene-
mies at the start of the book. The retreat to the Batcave no longer
means a withdrawal from or denial of the ever-changing world and
points of view-close alliance with the young generation assists
hirn in finding a position to counter past hierarchies and traditions
that make up the ruling political conditions. With this shift, Bruce
Wayne heeds Carrie's ideas and principles. From the beginning,
Carrie was the only figure who was simultaneously engaged in the
present and in a position to critically reflect on this present.
The strength of Frank Miller's works, before and after The Dark
Knight, does not lie in the incisiveness and entirety of the ideelog-
ical concepts he presents. Although The Dark Knight questions
supremacy and explores the need to come to terms with the young
generation, for example, Miller still ends with Bruce Wayne as an
authority figure that is male, imperious, and patriarchal (II, 38; III,
11; III, 32; IV, 47). Miller also shows a female influence necessary
to lead Batman into his new position in the modern world, but
Batman remains a figure devoid of any intimate relations with
women. In fact, references to sexuality are mostly negative (I, 4,
21; II, 39; III, 23, 27, 32, 37). One weakness in The Dark Knight
is the treatment of the relations between authority and power that
comes across as unresolved and not thoroughly thought out.
Despite these weaknesses, Miller manages to enthrall readers with
themes that address the current times. By exploring the power of
media and the fear of political renovation in The Dark Knight,
Miller shows how actual sociological and political phenomena
may be intertwined into a critique of the superhero genre.
the variety of languages and points of view that are textually and
visually built into Arkham Asylum, it is difficult to determine
whose story is being told, to whom, and why. In the expectations
and myths which superhero comics tend to create and reinforce, a
privileged mode of expression usually emerges as the narrative
unfolded. There can be languages that take prominent places in
turns, but eventually, there is only one that is chosen to speak the
truth and advance the narrative to its accepted conclusion. A very
common, though largely unnoticed, privileging in superhero
comicbooks presents the narrative through the perspective of the
ubiquitous crimefighter. In this way, specific narrative devices
grant the superheroes narrative centrality and, in addition, often
cede to them narrative authority through point-of-view frames,
first person narration and other textual and graphic cues which
foster reader identification with hirn and his exploits. This process
emphasises the hero's hegemonic role and function and fosters the
reader's acceptance of the hero's hegemonic traits and ideas.
But in Arkham Asylum, a systematic privileging of the
Batman, either textually or visually, is not conspicuous in the tale.
The Joker, for example, who leads the rebellion of the inmates
against the asylum's authorities, comes across just as imposing as
the Batman, and is even described by a psychotherapist as:
(The Joker is) a special case. Some of us fee! he may be
beyond treatment. In fact, we're not even sure if he can be
properly defined as insane.
NOTES
Todd MacFarlane,
founder of Image
Comics Comics Journal #152,
p. 52 and 63
177
178 Reading Comics
Figure 31. Concrete #4. Art and script: Paul Chadwick © 1987 Dark
Horse Comics, Inc.
ently. A disparity in their outlook regarding the future of comics
became noticeable between the two mainstream publishers. Marvel
held on to superheroes as the measure of all things, and focused all
the more on young readers with each issue. Marvel had neither an
intellectual interest for deconstructing the superhero genre nor a
Glimpse at the Comics Scene 181
While only some older readers were interested at the start of the
British influences in American comics, two major events stirred up
the comics industry. On May 1989, after an extravagant publicity
campaign, Tim Burton's Batman film played in moviehouses and
became one of the rnost commercially successful hits at that time.
DC's conventional and mainstream series hardly profited from the
widespread Batmania that resulted-many fans of the film were
not comic buffs and only asked for products matehing Burton's
production of Batman, with its contemporary irony and detached
attitude. DC had expected this reaction, however, and had already
engaged Grant Morrison for his concepts in Arkham Asylum. If
Morrison had taken away realism in the world of superheroes in
Animal Man (and later in Doom Patrol), he offered the opposite in
Arkham: " ... my vision was of it being ultra-real to the point of
being painful."8 What he rendered realistic was not the characters
but each psychological realm that each character represented.
Dave McKean's abstract illustrations contrasted with the realistic
elements of the story, and the resulting product visually impressed
many who were already fans of the Batman film. Upon reading the
book, however, it turned out the story was not easily accessible to
people who were not real Batman fans because the narrative
depended a great deal on prior knowledge of the Batman mythos
and his cohorts. In addition, the symbolisms of Morrison did not
completely harmonize with the visual symbolisms of McKean.
Nevertheless, the book sold excellently and inspired many series of
Batman "graphic-novels." On the other hand, this trend also start-
ed the critique against the overuse of symbolisms in comicbooks,
an impression that critics predicted would eventually hurt the tar-
geted readership.
In November 1989, DC began a new Batman-series that took
advantage of the tide of Miller's revolutionary comicbook, as well
as the popularity of the film: Legends of the Dark Knight. This
was a succession of mini-series where various comic artists had a
great deal of freedom to present their individual interpretations,
Glimpse at the Comics Scene 185
Figure 32. Eightball #2. Art and script: Dan Clowes © 1990
Fanrag raphies.
188 Reading Comics
Figure 33. Hate #12. Art and script: Peter Bagge © 1993 The creator.
but could not live in within the superhero genre. Sin City
begins where Dark Knight ends, in direct confrontation of
authority.
In almost all series, Marvel extended the use of the "West Coast
Style" popularized by Todd McFarlane and jim Lee. This new
style was based on the techniques used for fight scenes and action
sequences in earlier, well-known Marvel series, without the old
irony and playfulness. Instead, it showed a new standard in the
glorification of violence. Subtle reflections of the genre, like Ann
Nocenti formulated in Daredevil #254-291, were not in demand.
In demand were muscles which would shame the most serious
bodybuilder, and breasts that even the Baywatch-babes would
envy. Taking full advantage of the speculators who were led to
think that comics with Issue #1 marked on the covers would be
good investments, Marvel followed the manipulated success of
McFarlane's Spider-Man #1 with Jim Lee and Chris Claremont's
X-Men #1. As if following a proven formula, this issue came out
in different covers and was toted as a new series to run parallel to
the established X-Men series. By this time, the list of Marvel Hits
was pre-programmed.
The buying frenzy was hyped up even more by magazines like
Wizard which contained nothing but price lists, increase in value
of specific issues, blatant investment suggestions. Wizard told their
very young readers exactly what they wanted to hear: the new
Marvel Comics must be bought as fast as possible, for within a
short time these would be sold out but could be re-sold with an
impossibly high profit. However, if one really paid attention to
how many numbers of copies were printed for X-Men #1, one
knew at once that this issue will never be rare or in demand. The
comics shops played along with the speculation game, keeping
boxes of eopies in their backrooms. All those involved in the ruse
profited for a time. Perceived as investments, the time when comics
were part of a subculture seemed to be over.
By the early 1990s, Marvel celebrated its biggest and most sue-
cessful artists-the creators of the West Coast style, all from South
California: Todd MacFarlane, Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, Mare Silvestri,
and Erik Larsen. Full of confidence from their suceess, these creators
192 Reading Comics
In 1993, Image comics sales figures, though still very good, had
just started to slide past its peak. Marvel began to withdraw some
of its 150 monthly titles. The speculation fever had been abused
heedlessly and the fans were catching on.l 8 Neither Legends of the
Dark Knight #1 nor Spider-Man #1 nor X-Men #1 nor Superman
#75 or any other issue #1 from Image increased in value. What
were encouraged in price guides hardly interested anyone any-
more, especially those issues that were lobbed to be good invest-
ments. Increasingly, first issues found themselves marked down or
in rummage sales because the shops had to get rid of them some-
how. Just as the speculation boom drove away older comic fans
who did not like the cynical commercial approach to comics, the
younger fans now started turning away. The manipulated specula-
tion market had not yet totally burst by 1993, but the symptoms
for its collapse increased.
Amidst the comic covers full of bulging muscles, older fans
started longing for the time when comics still had stories. The sto-
ries of 30 years aga may not have been too complex, but there was
nevertheless the effort to have a story. Looking around in a comic
shop in the early 1990s, it was clear that the comics industry had
molded itself to the consumer culture of the young. The cool West-
coast style magazines were only a succession of fight scenes. The
contents of the issues aimed no further than to look like invest-
ments and to participate in the competition for consumer dollars.
By the end of the speculation boom, older comic fans longed for
more innocent superheroes without the brutality that was becom-
ing increasingly popular among the younger readers. In addition,
Glimpse at the Comics Scene 195
Neil Gaiman
Comics Journal #169, p. 58
Paul Tobin
Comics Journal #188, p. 118
Fortunately for the American comics, there were activities in the
industry of the 1990s other than the musele-beund heroes and the
increasingly insipid fight scenes that dominated thc market. In the
late 1980s and early 1990s, there were some notable Canadian
cartoonists who came into the North American comics scene. Joe
Matt produced noteworthy contributions to the underground
anthology Snarf (Kitchen Sink, 1987-1990) before he successfully
started his own series, Peep Show (Drawn and Quarterly) in 1992.
In Peep Show #4, Matt portrays hirnself in his everyday life beset
198 Reading Comics
Figure 34. Peepshow #1. Art and script: ]oe Matt © 1993 The creator.
Figure 35. Palookaville #4. Art and script: Seth © 1993 The creator.
Figure 36. Yummy Fur #29. Art and script: Chester Brown ©
1992 The creator.
Figure 38. Cover of Optic Nerve #4. Art and script: Adrian
Tomine © 1997 Drawn and Quar terly,
204 Reading Comics
Figure 39. A page from Optic Nerve #3. Art and script: Adrian
Tomine © 1996 Drawn and Quarterly
Glimpse at the Comics Scene 205
13, and started Optic Nerve the summer between his sophomore
and junior year.23 Quite remarkable for a very young man, he pro-
vides perceptive vignettes of relationships and tantalising glimpses
into lives, told with a unique detachment (see Figure 39). With an
exceptional roster of talents, Drawn and Quarterly proved that
money can be made with high-quality comics. Co-publisher Chris
Oliveros proudly states in the summer of 1998: "We've never had
a finer time financially in our existence these last eight years. "24
In addition to Peter Bagge, Dan Clowes, and the Hernandez
brothers, Fantagraphics succeeded in adding more first-dass comic
artists to its list. Some examples are: Bob Fingerman (Minimum
Wage, since 1995), Chris Ware (Acme Novelty Liberty, since
1993), and Roberta Gregory (Naughty Bits and Artistic
Licentiousness). Chris Ware's Acme Novelty Library (see Figure
40) is "an astounding publication, presenting comics that engage
the intellect, and managing from the first issue to do so in a acces-
sible manner, thus succeeding where Raw failed."25 Ware's artistry
is impressive: his illustrations are dear and simple but convey a
wide range of emotions, his colors are striking, and he has a total
concept for each book, complete with fake ads and cut-out paper
toys reminiscent of another era (see Figure 41).
Pioneering cartoonist Roberta Gregory takes on pornography,
shopping, yuppies, dating, and office life with a central character
that is "permanently PMS'd and PO'd embodiment of the female
id" .26 Gregory sex comic about human-looking, normal people
with imperfect bodies and are as fucked-up as the rest of us;
Naughty Bits is a scathing and hilarious dissection of the relations
and frustrations of the thirty-something woman in the 1990s (see
Figure 42). Gregory gives us a cast of human-looking, normal peo-
ple with imperfect bodies, irritating manners and yearnings and
failures that are familiar to uso The aggressive character of Bitchy
Bitch often engenders accusations of being man-hating but this
assertion is absurd. Gregory's sarcasm spares no one, and female
characters are portrayed no less flattering than their male counter-
parts.
Beyond the list of Fantagraphics and Drawn and Quarterly,
there were other cartoonists contributing considerably to the
changing face of the comics industry. Another dynamic female car-
toonist is Donna Barr with her Desert Peach (published by MD
Press/Aeon). The series centres on Pfirsich Rommel, the gay,
206 Reading Comics
Figure 40. A page from Acme N ovelty Library #1, val. 5. Art and
script: Chris Ware © 1993 Fantagraphics Books.
younger brother of WWII Field Marshal Rommel (see Figure 43).
Pfirsich Rommel commands a battalion of diverse and trouble-
some ch aracters who make up the cast of a politically astute and
gleefully politically incorrect series. Barr's work is characterised by
Glimpse at the Comics Scene 207
Figure 42. Naught y Bits #26. Art and script: Roberta Gregory ©
1998 Th e creator. Her web page is www.robertagregory.com
rary lesbian life. Through ehe anger and anxieties of her characeers,
Bechdel disp atches quick-wicced and incisive social cornmentary in
a light-hearted approach , but ehe difficulties and politics of gay life
ar e never far from ehe surface. Since 1994, Slave Labor has pub-
lished an anchology, Action Girl, wich a very diver sified roster of
Glimpse at the Comics Scene 209
Figure 43. The Desert Peach #16. Art and script: Donna Barr ©
1991 The creator.
Figure 44. Cover of Action Girl Comics #1. Created and edited by
Sarah Dyer © 1994 Sarah Dyer
Glimpse at the Comics Scene 211
What about the market leaders? Image had come to realize that it
is unwise to simply depend on spectacular but shallow action and
the illusory speculative value of comics. The sales figure for Image
titles, which had soared from nothing to the second most com-
mercially successful comic publisher, had fallen from 700,000 in
1992 to 200,000 in 1994. Image knew it must raise the standard
of its publications so as not to disappear just as quickly as it
appeared on the comics scene. Alan Moore's 1963 was followed in
the same year with Sam Kieth's The Maxx (since 1993, dialogue by
Figure 45. The Maxx #1. Art and script: Sam Kieth © 1993 The cre-
ator.
Glimpse at the Comics Scene 213
Figure 46. Bane Val. One: Out [rom Baneville. Art and script: Jeff
Smith © 1996 The creator.
In Astro City, readers can identify not only with the super-
heroes, but more so with the ordinary citizens whose perspectives
provide the insight into the superheroes. Busiek takes the whole
superhero genre as a tapestry of the familiar and the unknown. He
Glimpse at th e Com ics Scene 215
Figure 4 7. Astro City: Lire in the Big City. Art and script: Kurt
Busiek. Astro CityTM © 1999 juke Box Productions, All rights
reservcd.
citizens like us, One example which won an industry award: the
portrayal of human conflict arising from a city full of superheroes
is very well depicted in issue #4 where Busiek explores the identi-
ty crisis of a wo man belonging to an immigrant family. When her
office suddenly turns into a battlefield for the superbeings, this ini-
tiates an evaluation in the woman about the big city, the values in
her "old" world, and where her she wants to take her future (see
Figure 47). Starting 1996, a new publisher founded by Jim Lee,
Homage, released a second series of Astro City with the same high
level of art and entertainment as the previous one.
Another feather to Image's cap was the start of the series
Soulwind by C. Scott Morse in 1997. Issues 1-4 were stories about
a young boy transported to a far-away planet he was supposed to
save. There are traces of aspects from McCloud's Zot, Jeff Smith's
Bane and the Star Wars films all mixed towards a fantastic, varied
and expressive adventure. Morse's blend of art styles is refreshing:
japanese drybrush art opens the book, then he shifts to a more
western style for the main story. He narrates the stories well with
shifts in subject matters, some vagueness in characters, and unex-
pected turns of events that keep readers wanting more.
In 1994, as the superhero-dominated comics market was
coming apart, another publisher had been leaning towards the
alternative scene-Dark Horse became the fourth most success-
ful comics publisher in terms of sales behind Marvel, DC and
Image. One of their smartest moves was ta king over Mike
Allred's Madman which until then was published by Tundra,35
Although Allred had previously produced Madman for another
publisher, it was not until Madman Comics (published by Dark
Horse Comics) that he wielded the graphic style that would
include him within the group of acclaimed comic illustrators.
Unlike Frank Miller and Alan Moore who deconstructed the
superhero-genre through realism in the hero's situations and
problems, Allred revealed the shortcomings of the genre by using
an imperfect hero who was continuously confronted with the
absurdities of pop culture and who dealt with reality only on an
abstract level (see Figure 48 and 49). Madman was infused with
the spirit of 1950s science-fiction films, with bespectacled seien-
tists and robots and eccentric inventors that heightened the pop-
ularity and visual appeal of the comics. Allred reflected on the
state of superhero comics by making his everything else but hero-
Glimpse at the Comics Scene 217
of the biggest hits of 1998. By this time, Dark Horse offered a wide
spectrum of topics and styles in quality comicbooks. In addition,
this publisher also took advantage of the popularity of media
cross-overs and the profit to be made from it-Dark Horse aug-
mented its income through the self-production of films like The
Mask (starring Jim Carrey).
In DC Comics, meanwhile, the Sandman series was nearing its
last issues in 1996. However, DC's Vertigo line managed to extend
its success with the Preacher series that started in 1995. Its Irish
author, Garth Ennis, injects the road-movie style stories with
moments of extreme physical violence. In its postmodernist han-
dling of violent elements, the Preacher is suggestive of Quentin
Tarantino's films. Like the films, Ennis' simultaneously shocking
and entertaining use of violence comes from an astute reflection of
modern popculture. The violent elements, like all other parts of
Glimpse at the Comi cs Scene 21 9
to earn a buck when the author plays with tradition (as long as the
changes are not so revolutionary!). An author like Alan Moore, for
example, takes advantage of this situation and from time to time,
creates superhero-based comicbooks without much intensive
work. With the profit, he finances more ambitious or more per-
sonal projects like From u-u» Since 1990, Fantagraphics has had
another line-"Eros," that had been coming out with porno-
graphic comics. Apart from very few exceptions, the issues have
low standard which nevertheless enabled Fantagraphics to finance
other, more excellent magazines wh ich otherwise would have been
withdrawn due to insufficient commercial or mass populariry.I?
The one who suffered most from the recent apathy to main-
stream comics is the publisher who depended only on superheroes:
Marvel. In 1997, Wizard published a status that considered the total
money made for comics publishers, Marvel was behind DC for the
first time since it was founded: Marvel had 24.81 % and DC had
25.78%. Number three was Image with 14.58% and next was Dark
Horse with 6.50%. Marvel's "fall" seems to show that, in the long-
term, comics' chances lie in being freed from its "ghetto" of readers.
The collapse of the speculation market supports this: modern comics
cannot live off its superhero fans alone, hence, there is a need to
attract wider readership.
In many areas, especially in the future-oriented domain of elec-
tronic media, entertainment products are increasingly tailored
towards younger audience at the same time that this crowd's buy-
ing power is increasing. Electronic distractions like video games,
for example, have superior ways of delivering that form of enter-
tainment that appease pubescent appetites. In view of this compe-
tition, comics will find it increasingly hard to attract new readers
and gain acceptance among very young customers. Since 1995, the
average age of comics readers had gone up to 18-20 years old
instead of the previous 11-12. The speculation disaster turned off
many young comics readers, and 1995 saw a big decrease in sales
and turnover for superhero products. Overall, there have been
some radical changes to the comicbook readers: in the 1940s, the
readers of comics was estimated at a couple of million, and in
1992-92, there was about 200,000 real readers (not counting spec-
ulators buying multiple copies). In 1996, there was only about
100,000. 1995 saw a big decrease in sales for superhero products,
while alternative publishers like Fantagraphics showed some small
224 Reading Comics
growth. DC's Vertigo line also profited from its shift in readership
focus. But, while older readership and general dissatisfaction with
the mainstream may be a boon to alternative publishers, the loss
of young readers who later might pick up alternative comics, will
affect the total number of readers.
As the readership changed, the end of the speculation boom
also changed and improved the contents and the format of comic-
books: trade paperbacks became increasingly popular as well as
bound comic books (collected series published after the original
forrnat). During the speculation boom, trade paperbacks never
became an object of financial speculation (these were not "frag-
ile," had no nostalgie element, and were usually reprinted). Trade
paperbacks were actually bought for the narratives as the format
allowed for longer storyliness. The end of the speculation boom
gave rise to a surprising number of high quality, excellent comics.
The current offering of the medium is more multi-faceted, with a
bigger range in styles and topics compared to the start of the direct
market 20 years ago. 40 The number of comics publishers has also
increased, breaking the single dominance of Marvel. In addition,
comicbooks are now being sold in bookstores like Virgin
Megastores and Tower Books.f! But notwithstanding the
improved quality, decades-long of cultural prejudices about comics
cannot be removed overnight. There is still a lack of female read-
ers, whether children or adult, although there has been an increas-
ing number of comics of potential interest to them. As a medium,
there are still many preconceptions that rule the perception of
comics and unfortunately, the industry does not have a history of
sufficiently addressing these misconceptions.
Scott McCloud, a comicbook "theoretician," believes that
comics can survive the collapsing reader market by a crossover to
new media like the internet. He believes in the potential of digital
comics in 10 tolS years. However, computer-native comics would
allow comics to grow in a new shape, as long as it is not just a mat-
ter of slapping an old form onto new media. In addition, this new
form can allow the expansion of comics appreciation into the ever-
expanding computer market. There is still a big need to explore
this venue because so far, "digital" comics are merely comics in
their old forms archived into a CD-ROM.42
In the coming years, however, the future of comics is still in
being a pr inted material. However, there will be a pronounced rise
Glimpse at the Comics Scene 225
NOTES
This chapter translated [rom a non-published essay written by [an
Pbilipzig.
(#27, together with Dave McKean). All three issues were highly suc-
cessful artistically.
4 Frank Plowright, ed. The Slings and Arrows Comic Guide (London:
Aurum Press, 1997): 266. After Ennis, Scot Eddie Campbell did a short
4-issue stint with Hellblazer, and was replaced by Paul ]enkins, writer
and Sean Philips, illustrator. The series is currendy not as popular as it
was before.
5 In Violent Cases, (also later in Mr. Punch), Neil Gaiman tackles the
topic of childhood memo ries and traumas, he intertwines these in
myths, parables, and rhe gangster stories (for Mr, Punch he uses a pup-
pet play). In Sandman, and Books of Magie, Gaiman places mythology
in the centre of his comicbooks more than in his previous narratives.
6 Comics Journal #169, p. 100.
7 Morrison interview in Comics Journal #176, p. 56.
8 Comics Journal #176, p. 64-5.
9 The first story that was sufficiently convincing was Matt Wagner's
Faces (#28-30). It is also noteworthy to mention the contributions in
this series from: ]ames Robinson and Tim Sale (#32-34), Bryan Talbot
(#39, 40), Mike Mignola (#54), Ted McKeever (#74, 75) and Garth
Ennis (#91-93).
10 In reading most of the Marvel comicbooks in the 1980s, it was clear
that there were no pretenses to tell any stories but nobody had admit-
ted to it yet,
11 That comics have to be sealed and in mint condition to fetch a hand-
some price meant that the buyers could never open or read the issue at
all. In some ways, this contributed to the decline of rhe need for good
narratives in comics at that time.
12 Dan Clowes explained his tide: "I'd had the name Lloyd Llewellyn
ever since I was a little kid, because in the old Superman comics, ...
they had this weird obsession with the double Ls. They were always
making a big issue out of the idea, 'Isn't it strange that Superman's girl-
friend is Lois Lane, and his arch enemy is Lex Luthor and then there's
Lucy Lane,' ... and they would underline the two Ls. Things like that.
I found that really strange and fetishistic as a kid, and I thought, 'What
if someone was named Lloyd Llwellyn? He would be the greatest
Superman character of all!" (Comics Journal #154, p. 64).
13 In Hard Boiled (1990-1992), Miller did not succeed in putting the
extremely detailed and violent graphics into any kind of perspective to
aid the readers' understanding. The attempt to position the spectacu-
lar but superficial issue as black comedy did not work either.
14 The first Sin City stories started in Dark Horse Presents Fifth
Anniversary Special and continued in Dark Horse Presents #50-62.
15 The solitude of the figures who inhabit Sin City find direct expression
in the depiction of their surroundings: no building or backdrop appear
Glimpse at the Comics Scene 227
1997): 3.
26 12th Annual Fantagraphics Ultimate Catalogue, p. 11.
27 Howard Stangroom in a write-up about Desert Peach in The Slings and
Arrows Comic Guide, ed. Frank Plowright (London: Aurum Press,
1997): 157-8.
28 The character, Too Much Coffee Man also appeared in #92-95 of the
Dark Horse Presents series.
29 Frank Plowright in a write-up about Tao Much Coffee Man in The
Slings and Arrows Comic Guide, ed. Frank Plowright (London: Aurum
Press, 1997): 596.
30 David Roach in a write-up about Stray Bullets in The Slings and
Arrows Comic Guide, ed. Frank Plowright (London: Aurum Press,
1997): 548-9.
31 Jeff Smith self-published the first issues. Issue #1 came out exactly the
same time that Spider-Man #1 came out, and was lost in the hype gen-
erated by the latter. Ir took six months before Bone's merits were final-
ly recognized by comics readers.
32 As of the writing of this book, a movie has been planned for Bane
which will take its commercial success to another dimension.
Nickelodeon Movies have already obtained the rights to the film, and
Jeff Smith himself will illustrate and direct.
33 Page 89. Kurt Busiek interview.
34 Introduction to Astro City: Life in the Big City, p. 8.
35 Tundra published Madman in three parts in 1992, and a three-part
Madman Adventures in 1992 to 1993. Before this, Mike Allred had
already used the main character, Frank Einstein, in Creatures of the ID
(Caliber, 1990), Graphique Musique #1-3 (Slave Labour, 1990) and
Grafik Muzik (Caliber, 1990-91).
36 Fiona Clements in a write-up about Hellboy in The Slings and Arrows
Comic Guide, ed. Frank Plowright (London: Aurum Press, 1997): 267-8.
37 Greg Stump, "The State of the Industry 1996" in The Comics Journal
#188, p. 33.
38 Moore earns fast-money when he uses the popularity of series like
Spawn and Wild C.A. T.S. Sometimes, he publishes his own mini-series
of an established character, like he did for rhe evil Viola tor from
Spawn.
39 Eros still shows profit although the pornographie comics market had
had to take losses since 1995. Penthouse and Hustler shelved their
comics series in 1998. In the same year, Fantagraphies had ro withdraw
some of the less profitable regular series as Eros' profit shrunk.
40 Comicbooks have also started winning non-industry recognition
awards. In addition to Spiegelman's Maus winning the Pulli tzer Prize,
joe Sacco won the American Book Award 1996 for Palestine, a piece
of journalism in comicbook form where he records his experiences in
Glimpse at the Comics Scene 229
travelling through the West Bank and Gaza Strip while the conflict
raged over there.
41 Being sold in bookstores allow more exposure for comicbooks than
being sold in specialty comics shops. More people regularly wander
into bookstores while only those already exposed to comics would go
inside the comic shops.
42 The Spirit by Will Eisner is published in a CD-ROM format and dis-
tributed by mass market companies like Time Warner. Copies of old
issues of The Spirit are archived into this electronic format which allow
readers on-line viewing. While the attempt is laudable for archiving
old, hard-to-get issues, putting comics into this form will not advance
the medium as a whole-this CD-ROM is a classic case of a new medi-
um simply imitating the old, ta king the form of the old one as its con-
tents.
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Index
231
232 Index
adolescent boys, 40
women,110
virility, 107
war shortages, 96
Ware, Chris, 205
Watchmen, 94, 100, 107,
141,142,143
Wayne, Bruce: see Batman
Wertharn, Fredric, 98
attack on comicbooks, 3-4,
20,32
Seduction of the Innocent, 2,
32
west-coast style, 191,194,196
western comics study, 9
Wheeler, Shannon, 211
Williams, Raymond, 30
Witek, joseph, 11, 12,64-65
Wizard price guide, 223
women, 91,108-111
excription, 111-115
Wolverine, 105, 139
Wonder Woman, 97, 98, 102, 105
costumes, 107
X-men, 138,139