There are certain types of storytelling that are only possible in the comic medium. I can guarantee that a full-grown man striking a Narcissistic pose — tie turned bandanna, staring into an invisible yet distant horizon — would not stir any sort of excitement in prose or on the silver screen. The sequential art makes even the smallest of events scream off the page. The drawings are simplistic enough to enable the reader to project herself into the inky landscape and live out adventures in a simpler world.  This is only a single capillary in the beating heart that is my love for comics.

Alas, mine is a secret love.  Being a comic artist/writer is nothing to brag about (with an expense that puts the racetrack to shame and social acceptance on par with collecting pogs, forget being a reader, as well). Dropping “comic creator” at champagne-spritzed parties does not elicit the same kind of seductive eyebrows that, say, “director,” “producer” or even “laundry-mat owner” might. They’re more pitying eyebrows, as though you have chosen to live the rest of your life as an eleven year-old. Sadly (or wonderfully), they’re kinda right.

Maybe that’s why the industry feels so pure.  No one gets into comics for money, fame, or women.  The joy has to come from the art itself. And, barring the cave-like lifestyle necessary to mention the monumental effort involved to create an acceptable single panel of palatable work, there is plenty of joy to be had. Those who choose comics to perform their magic find untapped universes of possibility, unrestricted. The movie business is slave to schedules, finicky clouds, and grumbling background noise, film-costs, power sources, and a hundred tempers all trying to get along in order to get a shot finished. Without a huge budget, a fantastic world becomes limited to backyards or tin-foil covered basements. With a huge budget, the artist is limited to the mind of a producer.  Even great writing is restrained to the MLA, tangled dialogue and description, the reaches of the reader’s imagination.  The comic artist is set free.  The fame is in between the heavy, black lines.  It is only the pen, a blank page, and the color of quiet, like Ouija, ready to be filled with mere scribbles, lunacies, unsettling truths.

I hate the notion that words and pictures together are thought to be juvenile.  Literature is about communication.  Sometimes the best way to tell a story or convey a concept is through a visual art.  The Egyptians knew this.  I’ve made it my life’s mission to put comics into the hands of the people who are convinced they’re for kids or nerds or violent people, and then watch their knees melt underneath them.  For that, you have to dig deep.  The spinning 7-11 rack no longer does the trick.

My tastes have evolved into a sort of anti-climax over the years.  As a child, worlds had to end, heroes birthed from the bowels of humanity to keep my attention.   As an adult, I seek subtler reflections. I like to see people broken down into their simplest parts. Maybe that’s why Mark and I, infinity before us, write about jobs, wives, girlfriends, and the monotonous hum of computers. It’s become less of an escape and more of a mirror, though I’m not that shiny in real life.

So, to the point.  Starting now, I’m going to recommend a different comic every week. Why do I think I’m qualified?  The truth is, I’m probably not.  I’m sure there are people with degrees in this field that could dig into depths on the three-colored page completely unknown to me.  But Mark and I have devoured thousands of comics between the two of us (graphic novels that is, though I hesitate to use the term), and we’ve carved a nice burrow of reference.  I won’t recommend many “tights and fights”;  I’m more interested in comics that challenge.  I’ll stretch from historical to bizarre, autobiographical to experimental, and though I’ll try to make them locatable, I may have to digress into lost gems like Miracle Man.  If you want to contribute, I’d love to hear your suggestions. There’s plenty out there I don’t know about.

I’ve spoken enough, so I’m not going to write a review, but I want to start this week with David Hellman (the creator of Braid) and Dale Beran’s comic: A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible.  I’ve added it to our links list. I’m excited to have this conversation in the coming weeks, if only with myself, in perpetual limboed notoriety.

I’ll be in good company.

-C

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under All Comics, Rez Sick. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.