The Lost and Found of Comics' Innocence

It’s been a fruitful few days that has thrown up so much to think about. Life is good. I attended my first comics talk at the British Council on the 12^th, Woodrow Phoenix and Sarnath Banerjee. I read a valuable essay by art historian EH Gombrich. And I acquired my own copy of the invaluable work on comics by Scott McCloud. I will discuss each of these and more in individual posts. And, oh, I got new copies of Nagraj comics that I thought was gone for good. Quite a jackpot!

But I wish to start with the most important of these, my meeting with two very important figures in the contemporary comics world – Woodrow Phoenix and Sarnath Banerjee. I was already familiar with Banerjee’s work and managed to get him to sign my copies of his books, Corridor and The Barn Owl’s Wondrous Capers. Phoenix was a revelation for me, I am sorry to say that I wasn’t aware of his work before that day.

I was late by half an hour, and yet enough was thrown up to make this a very productive event for me, indeed. The most important question thrown up was when Phoenix mentioned the tendency for today’s so called graphic novelists and (their readers) to disregard the culture of children’s comics. Why is there a tendency for writers-artists to move away from the children’s form towards more mature definitions? It is children’s comics that create the language and vocabulary in the minds of new readers and keep rejuvenating the medium for new generations of readers. That is true indeed. There is always a tendency to move away from childhood in all aspects of life. That is why comics have suffered versus the literature of written texts, and now even within this medium there seems the (unavoidable?) shift to more serious texts in order to be taken seriously. Is that really such a good thing?

I also liked Phoenix’s example of television to explain the meaning of comics as a medium. I reconstruct it for those of you who might want to know: Imagine if television only showed sports. Eventually people would think that all that a television is is a sports show, nothing more. And to take it further, eventually people would think television is something which is nothing but a sports show, while a magazine might be the way to know about books. The problem is that when we restrict the diversification of something, it comes to be known as whatever it is limited to. So comics is not just an Archie story, nor is it only meant for a certain demographic of readers, as was the general feeling. And nor is it a genre of entertainment but a medium, a form.

I just pray that more such events happen in Delhi soon. I promise to keep all of you informed of any such through this blog, and expect the same in return. An hour spent with figures actually working in the field is priceless.

No Funny Business, This – Spiegelman’s take on humour

Who’d have thought laughter had such scope for theorizing. “But theorize or perish”, as all foolhardy people say.

So that’s how it is with Art Spiegelman. When you reach his stage of penetration and possession of one’s art, then you try and add to the art’s longevity by adding to its understanding. When you’ve taught your dog all the tricks, then you are left with nothing but to sit and talk to it.

Before I go into the specific interest I have in something he has to say, let me first advise you to read a book of his called ‘Breakdowns’. It is now available in India, and surprisingly cheap at that (Rs 499, distributed by Penguin India) (believe me that’s cheap, and original, printed price is ₤20, or Rs 1600) (and it’s a large hardcover).

The book, trippy ride through S’s hammering, blasting, and piercing of the medium of comics, or ‘sequential art’. Reading this book is like watching a Bunuel movie, nothing is as we expect it to be. So the same frame is repeated with minor/major variations just to experience a range of reactions to essentially the same framework: different ways of seeing/saying the same thing.

But the section that is most enlightening is a graphic lecture “Cracking Jokes: A brief enquiry into various aspects of humour”. It is an enquiry into the definition and application of joke theory. And the most significant point he makes is that jokes, however refined, is a form of aggression. Do you agree?

I am swayed to, as jokes always have a punchline, do they not? Somebody gets punched. “Some buddy a gonna get-a hurt real bad.” What we have is a ‘skilful balance between aggression and affection” S slips into some Freudian sections, that are hard to accept and yet hard to accept, I will leave it at the “iski toh kat gayi” response to a joke at someone’s expense, and you fill in the blanks with Freud.

The other thing that he achieves, apart form the joke’s malignant nature, is the joke’s inherent technique that requires mastery which is invisible behind its delivery, and is yet a specialization. An art (pun not intended, but welcome). Jokes aren’t thoughtless words, casually spoken, but deliberate steps, paces, and a final jump that either crosses the bar or falls flat.

I leave you with this quote by another comics artist/theorist, Scott McCloud: "Comics is a powerful idea, but an idea that's been squandered, ignored and misunderstood for generations. No art form has lived in a smaller box than comics for the last hundred years. It's time for comics to finally grow up and find the art beneath the craft."

Battered Ol' Betty

I don’t think I can ever blame Indian stories (in movies, TV serials etc) of being overly dramatic and emotion-laden, any longer.

This reaction, or rather revelation, comes after I have read the latest of the Archie Marries Veronica series (Archie #601), which is part 2 of 6. And things are surely getting messy.

In ways this episode is taking Archie and his friends on an interesting adventure, something of an experiment where the Archie universe is being governed by rules of the real world. Time, as we know it, is actually progressing for them as it does for us.

So what we have is a group of batchmates graduating school, suitably anxious about life at work or in college, and again about life after graduating college. Jobs, career, responsibilities, shifting cities, shifting friends and the biggest whopper of all – marriage.

But with this paradigm shift is a shift towards real life dejection, pressure and bitter letdowns. So while marriage is everybody’s reason to celebrate we have obvious concern for Betty, and the whole marriage has a doomed to fail sense about it, which is not what the Archie universe usually deals with. Point to note is that Archie proposes to Veronica, not for a lifetime’s love or passion, but out of a sense of requited responsibility that he feels he must prove to himself as he gets older. And as days lead up to the big day, he is markedly blasé and almost funereal about the impending occasion.

Once the marriage is concluded he settles into life as the Lodge scion, working hard as VP of Lodge Enterprises and coming home to his palatial house and glamourous wife. Of course, before all this there is a single panel honeymoon scene, where we are outside closed doors with lots of pink hearts exploding. The most eerie Archie panel yet. After a year they are also pregnant.

Maybe everything else is just life and both the readers and characters are trying to get used to it. But where this comic has unnecessarily hit below the belt is with Betty. Betty is in New York City now, working, independent, everybody’s best friend. Yet she is demolished to a weak, withering lady in mourning who has been rejected by her white knight and is just trying her best to live up to her goody image. Please, Lord, give her some teeth and let her not pull her punches. I mean enough is enough with the receiving end of the most famous, exploitative love triangle in 20th century history. The icing on the cake is Archie’s sensitive walk with Betty where he is trying to explain her importance to him (emphasis all from the comic book):
“Betty…you were my first friend when I moved to Riverdale. We were kids.”
“I’ll never forget that day. I thought you were funny. And very cute.”
“And whenever we dated, I had the greatest time. But…but…”
“Veronica came along. I know, Archie…”
“No, Betty. When I finally grew up, I realized I loved you unlike any other girl! You were…are…to me, the sister I never had!”
““Sister”?”
And so on.

I haven’t seen a more poorly imaginative, unsatisfying, egocentric, androcentric line in a long, long time.

I hope that the rest of the 4 issues remaining in this sextet story will redeem the direction it is taking. The reason behind creating it eludes me. Is it a move to wrapping up the series, or is it a move to making it more mature for today’s more mature readers? Or is it just to boost sales? For the most contrived part of this whole exercise is that none of this is presented as actual events. The writers have worked all of this into the premise of a reading-the-future plot. These events are occurring as Archie takes a walk up (not down) memory lane. So maybe it will all end as one big joke.

Wink. Wink. Nudge. Nudge.

The Way to a Nation's Heart

Chicken With Plums is the newest work by Marjane Satrapi that I have read. She is best known for Persepolis which is in turn best known for being a movie, rather than a graphic autobiography.

If I were to try and put my finger on what aspect of Marjane Satrapi’s work is her greatest achievement, it is that she has made the most alien of cultures the most warm and inviting place. It is one of the greatest banes of our times that we are simultaneously expanding horizons while shrinking perceptions meaning we are probably as bad or worse than preceding generations when it comes to knowing neighbouring cultures.

India and Persia (or Iran, which is where she comes from and where she writes about) are joined at the hip in many ways, more than just playing Prince of Persia. Yet I feel I know so little of the country, and am guilty of holding the same stereotyped images of countries in the middle-East as anyone else. This is where Marjane Satrapi comes through with a metaphoric serving of chicken with plums for her readers.

What do I mean by that?

Have you ever eaten chicken with plums? I haven’t. But now I know that somewhere in the world there exists such a dish and that is loved by many. I also know that just as there is a chance it will not appeal to my taste buds, there is a chance that it might. The important thing is to know that some people like it, just as they like cigarettes and music, low cut dresses and celebrities, and teenage crushes and, well, you get the picture.

The idea of literature is to share. Simple. We don’t write to conceal but to reveal. And the idea of reading is to understand. We don’t read to just not let what is being said enter our brain and mind and soul. This is why it is important to read a book like this. Learn about Naseer Ali Khan and his wife and children. About Iran’s cultural revolution. And about Marjane Satrapi who is the greatest myth-busting, a-stereotypical comic book creator that I have come across.

And try chicken with plums someday. If I try it before you I will tell you how it is.

Will he? Won't he?

600 issues doesn’t really sound like a lot. I mean it’s been around since the 1940’s, so that makes it quite meager. Though actually these 600 are just the big, A4 size, thin ones, and doesn’t include the digests, double digests, spin-offs etc.

Confused? Don’t be. I’m talking again about the newest Archie comics.

Actually I am writing this just fresh off reading a new issue and didn’t waste any time around it. It has gotten me a little excited because it is issue # 600. The number isn’t the significant part. The fact that this is part 1 of 6 of ‘The Proposal – Archie Marries Veronica’, is.

It is funny, but it goes to prove what I wrote in my last post. That one cannot get these comics out of sight or out of mind. I hadn’t bought one for years and years, only indulging on mangy used copies that I got for a much lower price. But the hype around this latest twist has found me as I found this in a book store today and had to pick it up (thankfully it isn’t very expensive).

I would say it was somewhere in the 1990’s that Archie sent tumbling downhill with the illustration and story both suffering, and prices skyrocketing. But despite all of this, I can’t imagine any other comic books making it to Indian daily newspapers, as these did when recently one read about the comic book news of the decade – Archie gets engaged to Veronica.

I read how this has caused outpouring of consent and dissent from readers and ho this marks the biggest step (forward or backward, I do not know) in the comics that have seen generations of readers. The moot point is that it hides the question “What next” within this occurrence. In one panel Mrs. Andrews does herself say, “Archie, my very own Peter Pan! Even a boy who doesn’t want to grow up has to face reality!” Could we be any more fatalistic?

The creators have not kept all their eggs in one basket and this is a clever 6 part series, which no doubt will keep space for change according to reader responses. Moreover the entire story is unfolding as a dream-like sequence and maybe we will all just wake up to a money-spinner.

But, whatever it is, I know that though I wasn’t looking out for this (probably because we still don’t get movie/book releases in India as soon as the international release) but when I spotted it I knew there was no two ways about buying it. The problem is that now I am caught up, I am part of this unfolding saga-to-be, but the next part will only be out on stands on September 28, meaning there will not be a quick release. I am trapped once again (the other instance being with Bone, more on which on a later post).

Who do I choose between Betty and Veronica? Hard to say. Betty’s the natural choice, but now Veronica’s the underdog. Either way, it ain’t over till it’s over.

Archie...Archie Andrews, where are you?

It has been a source of surprise to me to see how little this comics magazine is ever discussed along with other high art comics. It is as popular among Indian readers as readers in its native land. So many of us have grown up with it and it has influenced our thinking in so many ways.

Archie Comics Digest Magazines.

Why have Archie comics been overlooked as one of the colossus of the comics medium? Like Agatha Christie is to novels, I am almost certain that these magazines sold more than any of the more famous of the medium. And particularly for us in India, I feel that they have been crucial to moulding us into receptacles of the language of comics.

The visual medium came to me before I could understand the words and stories. I didn’t read them, but yet I read them through their unique visual language. These old tattered issues, probably bought second hand, worth their weight in gold to a pip like me, were addictive. Stories upon stories about absolutely lovable characters, with names that were alien (for the longest time I called Reggie with a ‘g’ as in ‘guy’ and not a ‘g’ as in ‘rage’) but with lives that we understood every part of and dilemmas we could foresee and yet waited for.

I was lucky enough, recently, to find some issues of the Archie Americana series, that I’d always seen advertised in the mags, but since I didn’t live in the US or Canada, was barred from ordering. These are collections of vintage stories that have been collected decade-wise as, as the name implies, cultural memorabilia of the American 20th century.

These are great collections since, for one, each story is like a history lesson in the development of the Archie family, and secondly, they are journeys in culture. Each decade is distinct, each have different illustrators and different outfits and different languages and different hairstyles and different pop phenomena and on and on.

And what I realized is that like everything else America does, these comics have influenced us. Do not ask me to justify such a statement, but when I watch a movie (American) about two people (Americans) speaking, and understand why one finds it funny when the other uses the slang “Neat” to describe someone attractive (“It went out at the turn of the century I think”). It isn’t important, but it’s there.

So hula hoops, and beatniks and pencil skirts and puffy hair, these are all collected as representative iconography of the decade as depicted in that decade’s volume. Archie comics, being a regular publication magazine, had enough inspiration from the times and incorporated them all into the teenage lives of the characters. But they also adapted these more so than the daily comic strips, which remained isolated from the outside world, and whose clothes or furniture never changed. And if you think that this is just philandering to foreign cultures, please look at Indian movies of the same eras and see the closeness of cultural influences in the cinema and the comics. People doing the twist to music played on LP’s can be a page from one story. Stories of our parents’ times of hippies in cities can be from another. Archie comics were just my portal to understanding this.

The whole jingbang of cultural melees has a lot to do with their popular depictions that travel across the globe, easily palatable. It is a testament to the power of the comics medium that a trade magazine, with no pretensions of being cultural markers, is one of the greatest ambassadors of the American Dream/Way to those who have little, if ever, actually otherwise thought about it.

Peachy keen, I say.

Tonight's Feature Presentation is ...

What is it that makes for poor screen adaptations of books, in general, and comic books, in particular?

I have watched bits and pieces of some comic book based movies over the last few days, and though this sentiment arose in me, yet the answer wasn’t as immediate. The films that formed a part of this survey were ‘Watchmen’, ‘The Spirit’, ‘The Hulk II’ and ‘The Fantastic Four II’.

The first was good, but missing something. The second was just an aberration of the original into the director’s schema. The third and forth were simply Hollywood money-spinners. But none of them appealed to me and I was left with a feeling that somewhere the original cartoons were several notches higher. Another two such cases are ‘Transformers’ and the soon to arrive ‘GI Joe’. Let me admit, that I am keeping a very flexible line between comics and cartoons, it’s like how movies have a director of photography.

Apart from the plain fact that most movie directors cannot share the writer’s vision of the comic/cartoon (and honestly, book adaptations of movies are as weak) there was another realization that was more critical.

Adaptations of characters that are too ‘unreal’ or ‘cartoony’ are doomed to fail. Ta dah!

Compare what works and what doesn’t – Batman, and the Hulk. Batman has always been rooted in the human world, and the recent movies have gone all out to promote that fact, and have the audiences hooked. But the Hulk is now a total CGI disaster, and that just doesn’t click. Even the Bat’s nemesis the Joker has been given a reality check, with runny makeup instead of para-natural pallor and verdant hues. He’s like some manic-depressive John Dillinger. But the Silver Surfer looks like a shop window mannequin and Galactus seems a joke. And it is not that the CGI was bad, or the make up was poor. Like idioms of one language are often untranslatable into another, such is with the comics/cartoons medium and films.

Another obvious reason, and one that is linked with this, is that the differing reality concepts of the two worlds means that even actors often cannot convincingly portray their roles. So within the first ten minutes of the Watchmen movie you have the Comedian being pound to a pulp, pausing to utter: “It’s a joke. It’s all just a joke.” And in those circumstances, I couldn’t agree more.

But this is fatalistic, is it not. Does this mean that no comic/cartoon can ever be made into a movie? Are the twain never to meet? No, not at all. There are so many examples of movies that have done exceedingly well, not just at the box office but also as faithful adaptations. ‘Spiderman’. ‘Sin City’. ‘300’. ‘X-Men’. But, what makes these click? Honestly, if I knew, I’d be a rich man. But to the best of my knowledge these are movies that reconcile themselves with some notions of reality as we know it, and this in turn makes the portrayal more convincing and acceptable. Somewhere the directors have understood the original, with respect, and have spun a story that uses the powers of both media. Some changes have been made for the better, like the story of Spiderman’s origin in the movie, and of his web slinging ability (the former is made more plausible and the latter less so). But somehow the changes lock into place with little clicking sounds and the machine rolls.

But, one thing’s for damn sure, directors and producers, please go easy on the unnecessary CGI.

Enter Sandman

Speaking of brothers and sisters (on today’s day), I though it would be nice to take a look at a recent family of brothers and sisters that has permeated into the collective comics consciousness like a tour de force. Although they aren’t very widely known here yet, but many might still have heard of the series in which they appear.

Sandman.

I was introduced to this comic by friends who were lucky enough to study a short course on comics, and the unanimously accepted importance of this series was enough reason to plunge in. And I saw its face, and I am a believer.

Written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by many excellent artists, it is a series that has won more awards than any other, and has elevated the potential of the medium several notches. It mixes mythology with horror, thrills with philosophy, and innocent belief with the greatest questions about life and death. And it’s a page-turner.

The central character is, of course, Morpheus, the Lord of the Dreaming, or the Sandman in popular legend. He is one of the seven Endless ones (mythology) who are beyond time, beyond fate, greater even than Gods. And I love the alliterative names – Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair, Delirium (in reducing order of age), and they are represented as brothers and sisters, each with a beautiful personality.

That this is a series that needs to be carefully peeled, patiently uncovered and thoughtfully understood is a given. Its total length far exceeds any novel and its scope in vast. It originally begun as a monthly magazine running from 1989 to 1996, and has been compiled into a 10 volume set by Vertigo. It is available in India, but at great cost. Initially it was more of a horror generic, like the Tales from the Crypt. But in the writer’s mind it started to grow into an epic. Individual stories started to interlink, characters started to repeat, stories began to be revisited. In a way it is fortunate to find the compiled editions, because it would otherwise not have been possible for one to follow through all of it.

One wonders how to tackle such a vast story as the Sandman’s. It is bigger than even 10 posts, surely. But as and when I discover something I must share, I will. But until then suggestions on what to write about are invited.

A Funny Thing Happened To Me On The Way Here ...

Humour and absurdity, both leading to laughter, are often used by writers to disrobe many of the human race’s inmost prejudices and zones of discomfort. It happens all around us, where even in our conversations we resort to a joke or witticism to covertly refer to something that either we are uncomfortable with, or that we feel the other will take offence to. Usually it is more the latter.

So it is in writing that writers like Johnathan Swift (or John Dryden, or Samuel Beckett or G.V. Desani) use humour to outline man’s tendency to often take light things too seriously, or conversely, serious things too lightly. Some writers eventually hit upon the comics medium as one of the most potent forms of expression for non-mainstream views and expressions.

Over the past half-century, comic books have become more mature and more hard-hitting than anything we’ve ever seen. The medium has picked up issues like the Holocaust and Iran’s cultural revolution, teenage drug-abuse and military occupation. In India, extremism and unrest in Kashmir has become a 'hot' topic.

There seems to be something about a medium, that is visually piercing and stereotypically perceived as juvenile, that plays a double whammy of sorts for writer-artists with a vision to express something atypical. It seems to find a middle ground between taking something seriously or lightly, that is just to see it as a personal vision.

The only way to understand why a children’s medium suddenly takes on the terrifying aspect of the ‘graphic novel’ is that somehow the child-like way of telling a story is intense and cuts out all the subtexts, notes, strings, orientation, and left-right and gets to the heart of the matter which is surprising and informative, like stories of ghosts whispered into each others ears when we were five.

The first ‘graphic novel’ that plunged me into a world of such abnormalities was a terrific work by Art Speigelman, ‘Maus’. It is a memoir of the Second World War as told by the author’s father and is made fantastical by the use of animal imagery, like if it were an epic fairy tale. A must read. Another discovery was the enchanting ‘Persepolis’ by Marjane Satrapi who’s blunt and bare tale of growing up during a great cultural shift in her native Iran is something no one may have bothered to read in word form, for it is the story of a million anonymous others, but here told differently and glaringly.

The trend has such momentum that a giant comics publishing house like DC has it’s own imprint called Vertigo that encourages what would formerly have been underground comics, to make a mark in the mainstream, because the mainstream in comics is much more inclusive that any other medium right now.

That last point alone should be reason enough for the comics blitzkrieg to be given due notice as a medium that has come-of-age. And it is also for readers to note, that while they may never have noticed it, but even familiar comics like Tintin are actually formed by contemporary events from around the world as much as by the need to entertain children.

For, children are smarter than they may seem.

That was bound to happen …

There is something from one of my two previous posts that raised some skepticism. Can there be a sacred bond between the reader of a comic book and the comic book hero? Isn’t that carrying it just a little bit into the “Yeah, right” zone?

I completely agree.

But then again we aren’t dealing with a regular Joe kind of life here are we? We are talking about life-and-death situations around every corner, about choosing between which loved one will live and which has to die, between which girl to date and which girl to be best friends with. These are choices that we’d normally have to make once in our life, at the most.

So when you get transported into the comic book world (and you do, you see it all happening in motion, not as single panels) you become part of an adrenalin-rushing, deciding-on-the-spot kind of world where your hero is getting into kinds of trouble you would never want to on your own. But by being in this world, reading this comic book, you are in a way right alongside him/her as all the adventure unfolds. You are an invisible presence in their world. Taking one of my favourite action heroes, Spiderman, let me explain how it works, at least in my mind.

In the books, or in the 2nd movie, he is reviled by many, including his own aunt, as a menace. Many people hate him, don’t know who he is or why he indulges in such wanton, paranormal activity. Peter Parker (the boy behind the mask) is limp with helplessness faced with detractors who he cannot defy, loved ones he cannot confide in and an identity that he cannot bear to keep or afford to disown.

But guess what?

I know that. I have been there with him through his every trouble, when the spider bit him, when his uncle died, when his aunt maligned him and so on. And each time I have suffered for him for I see his pain and understand it. I am privy to it all, something that his aunt, best friend, girlfriend are not. And I want to catch him each time he falls or to reassure him each time he fights alone.

I know that that sounds unbelievably corny, but that’s how I feel when I am reading the books. Of course I am spelling it out here, where it may just take a second to go through all these feelings. But that’s just the way the bond works. For when I am a reader, I am in their world and not the other way around.

It is a similar situation with all other comics, and that certainly is the purpose of all good art as well. You must be able, if you allow yourself, to get lost in it. There is a sense of sharing a great outdoors scene with Vincent van Gogh when you see his ‘Starry Night’ just as there is a sigh of relief when you see Archie choose to spend an evening with Betty rather than Veronica.

What is of the essence is that you believe, in your mind, that it’s you and him/her against the world. And that is a special bond.

The Back of Beyond, or, What’s a Hero Without a Past?

The beginning-middle-end structure has often been disregarded in fiction to explore events in a more unfettered and unpredictable manner. Like life, fiction has developed 20-20 hindsight, where events can be understood clearly only once they have occurred.

I’m not making myself clear am I? Let’s go to the beginning (note the point I just made).

I was watching a movie recently that showed the origin of one of the most famous comic book heroes of all time. This got me thinking about the crucial comic book trope of the back-story, or the story of how it all began, how our man became how he is today, what drives him, what makes him so different? It may sound like it is driven by an irrestible curiosity, but in my experience as a long-time reader of comic books I feel it is more about familiarity, an emotional bond between the reader and the character that makes us want to know more and more about him/her (more on this bond in a later post).

Few of us have taken to comic books at a late stage in our lives, and most of us have grown up with our comic book heroes. As children we have read the slim, periodical magazines with rapt attention, devouring with our eyes all the stories about Batman, Donald Duck, Superman and Archie. This bond is almost sacred, though we may not realize it as such, and such must have been the reaction in audiences even half a century ago when the ‘golden era’ of comic books introduced audiences to crimefighters whose entire identity was wrapped in mystery. There was an eagerness to get closer to the hero they worshipped, meaning that writers had to take readers back to the very origins of the men behind the masks like a peepshow.

Oh, and did we love it when they did.

It was lapped hungrily. The back story brought us closer to our heroes than ever before. We became like childhood friends and nothing beats that feeling. These origins became crucial to the point that they have been rehashed many times over, ad infinitum, often ad nauseum. Yet it is those characters that managed a strong back-story, thanks to some unabashedly genius writer, that have sustained themselves in public memory more than others. In a sense they have grown into a life of their own and writers-illustrators just feed the growing ego of the character.

So you have Spiderman, whose quandary of wanting a normal teenage life versus fighting his holy crusade against crime keeps taking us back to the story of Uncle Ben and his dictum that “With great power must come great responsibility”.
Superman is the last son of Krypton, both the unshakable force and immovable power and he too is a man compelled by his childhood as the last remaining survivor of one race who will always fight to defend the other that adopted him.
Wolverine too has his origin, something that is slightly different in the latest movie, as compared the version that I knew. In the world of mutants, Wolverine was actually not a mutant by birth, but a scientific military experiment. A soldier he was, not a mutant and cannot also find himself at ease with the mutants whom he has to now familiarize himself with. This conflict brands him as the unknown soldier, mysterious at the best of times and always haunted by nightmares even he cannot understand.

A task well begun is half done they say, and one can add that it is never too late to be ‘well begun’. The origins of Wolverine, Spiderman, Superman and scores of others are like the first day of the rest of their lives as one keeps revisiting those to understand motivations better, and allows for endless combinations of dilemmas and conflicts.

The Pleasures of a Mature ‘Juvenile’ Art Form

It is very often that I find myself a perpetrator of a curious habit; once a month, to be precise. You see, every month I visit a magazine stall and buy the new issue of Tinkle magazine, a comic magazine that all of us are familiar with but that’s relegated to recycle bins once we cross the age of 16. My dilemma is that I’m 24, and I still buy and immediately devour my Tinkle magazine.
I always fear condemnation by my peers, but at the same time I am proud of being honest about my love for comic books, something that I feel is natural to people of all ages.

Born out of this is a love for comic books of all shapes and sizes, genres and periods, a greater understanding of the medium and a thirst for more works that that will blow my mind. After all, all comic books, as indeed also all cartoons, have been the creations of mature, healthy and otherwise mentally balanced adults. Why not?

All too often the final result is brushed aside as a frivolous run at something entertaining, sometimes wholesome and sometimes vulgar. No self-respecting, evolved individual should waste time on such pursuits. Absolutely juvenile.

But then this is the same criticism that has come to plague all art forms for decades. It is something that seems to me to be a plight of our modern times that we question everything that is without obvious benefits even as we try to evaluate our result-driven lives. It was the twentieth century that elicited the proclamation that art could, and should, be just for art’s sake. In a qualified manner I tend to agree with this.

We question such things as unbeneficial and overlook the tremendous developments made in this form over the last century and the immense level of maturity it has achieved. It is necessary therefore to open one’s eyes to the finer details of the comic book medium without prejudice. I do not say that all must read comic books, just as all needn’t own artworks. But a visit to the museum once in a while is nice to see what greatness lies even on two dimensional canvases on walls, though they don’t cure cancer or make glossier lip colour.

All those interested may follow me, and to all others a good day.