Writing Samples

Comic Book Revival
By Kevin Dowler Times Herald Staff Writer

“Holy Ink Smears Batman look what they’ve done to your tights,” yells the new Robin.

The quote had to be taken before his death.

Yes, Robin is dead. Not by an over bearing publisher but by his fans according to a readership poll by DC Comics.

Have no fear fans, it was Robin number two that was killed, the real Robin is still alive. Robin number one has taken flight to his own comic series fighting crime as Nightwing.

The screening of the Batman movie was the first time most comic book fans have seen their one time comic book hero since their youth.

“My, he certainly has changed,” they say.

If curiosity got the best of them, they picked up a recent Batman comic.

And by the look of things, in today’s comics, steroid use has found its way out of the gyms and into the comics.

Batman is no longer a big guy in a bat suit. He is a hulking monster with muscles on his muscles.

In fact, the top selling Batman illustrated novel, the new word for a long comic book, is selling for $14.95 in paperback and $108 in hardcover. In the story, a 40 year old Batman comes out of retirement, which the government forced him into, to clean up Gotham City.

Standing at the comic stand, hundreds of new titles will also confront readers.

Comics are not what they used to be.

They still haven’t the credibility of a Penguin novel but more and more adult readers are showing up in comic shops.

“We are getting more adult readers coming in here,” says Fred Taylor of the Moose Jaw Book Exchange and Prairie Leisure Emporium, one of the city’s comic book dealers.

And reading comics isn’t done in the closet anymore.

“When I was in high school no one talked about reading comics,” says Curt Lorge the owner of another Moose Jaw comic shop, Reader’s Book Shop.

“Today, I get guys bringing in their girl friends while they look around. That never happened before.“

A major factor in the upswing of comic book popularity is the turn around in the industry.

Once dominated by the two United States comic companies, Marvel and DC, the market is now being flooded by more experimental and adult orientated independent comic companies.

Comic book heroes have moved away from dealing with adolescent power fantasies and moved into more complex stories illustrated with innovative art styles, Lorge says.

Pages of figures outlined in heavy black lines filled with single colors have been replaced with everything from water and ink paintings to photographic collages to create story illustrations.

“Some of the comic books being created today are of high enough quality to be put on the coffee table,” Lorge says.

But they are still comics in most reader’s eyes.

A cartoonist for such magazines as Heavy Metal, Dope Comix and Galaxy, Dan Steffan, labelled comics as the “television of the literary scene.”

The ease of reading, short reading time and exciting illustrations makes comics attractive to comic readers.

“They help amplify everyday aspects by just altering the vantage point of the reader which is what art is supposed to do,” Taylor says.

The level of story telling is also much improved compared to the stories offered in earlier comic books.

“The stories are more complex and often have reflections of normal day life and politics in them,” Lorge says.

A comic can be picked up giving an illustrated history of El Salvador or Mexico.

Today’s change in comic book stories was started by Stan Lee of Marvel Comics. Lee introduced “soap opera” to comics by giving his characters human problems.

Spiderman couldn’t get a date, the Fantastic Four constantly bickered and Iron Man lost his battle with alcoholism. Don’t worry fans, a new Iron Man has stepped in to fill the iron shoes of the rusting hulk of the first Iron Man, who is now on skid row.

Picking up comics today often gives readers a shocking surreal glimpse of today’s world seen by characters sometimes with nothing but dire circumstances as the basis for their stories.
The development of today’s vast comic selection has come as a result of the major comic dealers trying to expand their markets.

Marvel started things off by reaching for an adult market, Taylor says. DC soon followed suit and has surpassed, by far, Marvel’s attempt at the adult market.

Most of the adult market comics are printed on high quality paper and better bound than the youth orientated comics.

Some of the stronger adult comics available from the major comic manufacturers include revamped versions of the Swamp Thing, Green Arrow, Hawkman and the Wolverine.

Part of the majors turn around was due to the influx of the independent comics manufacturers in the early eighties, Lorge says.

“There are now hundreds of new comics coming out, a lot of them are self published by artists and writers,” he says.
What used to be called the underground comic has found its niche on the corner store comic book racks with the development of the independents.

Comics on drugstore racks can include everything from mutated soldiers throwing a revolution, a milkman detective to the traditional kids comics that we are more used to.

Because the major manufactures keep the rights to their characters many of the better artists and writers have left to work for the independents because of the freedom they are allowed, Lorge says. Most independent firms allow artists and writers to own the rights to characters and don’t force them to keep with in the lines of what publishers want.

Even Canada has its own flourishing independent market.

Cerebus the Aardvark, published in Kitchener, Ont., has become a major cult hero with his exciting adventures in a highly detailed illustrated world of barbarians and wizards.

If you’re looking for a view into what’s happening in pop art and short story telling for the young at heart, try taking a comic book to lunch for a change.