New Comics In facebook
No, that headline is not grammatically incorrect. Well, not if you define “comics” the way I do. I subscribe to Scott McCloud’s definition, which he so masterfully laid out in his 1993 opus Understanding Comics:
When Anthony, Mike and I were formulating this blog, we had a heck of a time settling on a name and a tagline. Anthony and I mostly suggested tongue-in-cheek names, but “We Read Comics …and you should too” was Mike’s idea (and a brilliant one, in my opinion). When we submitted it to the Times Union for approval, it was met with a brief hangfire: shouldn’t we call it “We Read Comic Books“? The implication being that people might confuse the word “comics” for “comic strips.” Since this is a newspaper website, that’s certainly understandable. However, we stood by the original name based on the fact that we want this blog to be more than just rants and raves about tights and fights. We want to explore comics as an artform and a storytelling medium, rather than as just entertainment and collectibles . And, if you define “comics” the way Mr. McCloud and I do, you realize the best way to define comics isn’t by what the definition says, but by what the definition doesn’t say. Scott explains it here:
In other words, there’s a lot more to comics than superheroes.
Good question.
But getting back to the question at hand: Just what is this artform we call comics? What can it do that other artforms can’t? Why is comics the most pigeonholed and stereotyped artform? The stories told in comics can be just as serious, complex, entertaining, and philosophical as those told in novels and film, but it doesn’t seem like most people know this. I plan to spend a good deal of my tenure on this blog attempting to stand up for the artform of comics. One of the reasons I like comics so much is because it’s the best of two worlds. Comics takes takes the visual element of film and combines it with the intricate and intimate storytelling of prose. If you’ve never read a comic that really blew your mind, then you haven’t been reading the right ones. And that’s where I come in: to discuss and analyze some of the great works of the medium. Even though I don’t buy new comic books (not DC superhero ones, anyway), there’s still a lot to be said about some of the hallmarks of the past (and there are plenty of great ones happening now, too).
But before we get into reviews of the greatest comics of all time, we should keep pontificating about the mechanics of comics. A great way to do that would be to analyze Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics a chapter at a time. If you’ve never read this book, I can’t recommend it enough. In my opinion, it’s the best book ever written about comics, because it’s all about the artform of comics. It’ll make you think about comics in a way you never have before. I first read it back in 1994 and it’s still as relevant and awe-inspiring today as it was back then. If you call yourself a comic book enthusiast, this book is a must-own. You can likely find it at any comic book store, or pick up a cheap used copy on Amazon or eBay, etc. The next few weeks will be a lot of fun for those of us with an appreciation of comics as art and literature.
