Triple A: What-Else-Worlds?

In an industry dominated by superheroes, which other genres are making headway in comics form? Sci-fi and fantasy sell a lot of novels; can they do the same for comics?
02 November 2001

Once again the Ninth Art editors have found themselves gathered around a table to consume copious quantities of alcohol and wax lyrical about comics. This time they decided to talk (sometimes coherently) about genre, and the comic industry's apparent difficulties in moving beyond spandex and capes.

They spoke at some length. Presented here is the first part of their discussion, in which they talk (mostly) about science-fiction and fantasy, from Humanoids to THE INVISIBLES, from CrossGen to ARTESIA.

ANTONY JOHNSTON: Which genres are prominent now?

ANDREW WHEELER: Crime is big. The second biggest genre, I would have thought.

ANTONY: Yes, nobody seems to blink at a crime book these days. 100 BULLETS, FELON, a lot of Bendis' work.

ANDREW: David Lapham's work

ALASDAIR WATSON: Paul Grist.

ANTONY: And Frank Miller's stuff of course. He's been doing it for years.

ANDREW: Brubaker, Rucka.

ANTONY: I understand under Rucka, DETECTIVE COMICS is returning to crime and cop stories.

ANDREW: And Brubaker taking over on CATWOMAN is emphasising the criminal element. So yes, there is a resurgence, although it's really just a raising of the profile of crime books and crime writers. If you ask people to name five crime writers in comics, they could name them, even though many of them write superheroes as well, and you couldn't have done that a few years ago.

ANTONY: Certainly the profile to the general readership has been raised. Even your most died-in the wool superhero writer will know Rucka and Bendis,

ALASDAIR: Mostly because they're writing superheroes.

ANDREW: But they're writing crime superheroes.

ANTONY: And readers are at least aware that they write crime stories.

ALASDAIR: They Write Crime!

ANTONY: Is sci-fi having a resurgence?

ALASDAIR: I hope that's beginning. Humanoids, obviously...

ANTONY: Although a lot of the stuff they publish is reprinted. It's always been big in Europe.

ANDREW: But the European stuff has only started breaking through to an American audience recently, which means they have to encourage an audience for sci-fi

ANTONY: Sci-fi traditionally hasn't done very well in comics, outside of licensed properties, and in the American audience generally. Look at Helix, for example,

ALASDAIR: I think Helix failed less because it was science fiction and more, for the most part, because it wasn't very good.

ANTONY: But can you name a straight sci-fi story that isn't a license of a movie that has had mainstream commercial success in America? Because I honestly can't.

ANDREW: I don't think I could, but then I don't like sci-fi, so I wouldn't be reading it if it did exist.

ANTONY: We may be seeing, with the success of TRANSMETROPOLITAN especially, the increasing awareness of books like FINDER, a resurgence in hard sci-fi, rather than fantasy sci-fi like STAR WARS.

ANDREW: Isn't FINDER fantasy sci-fi?

ANTONY: There's a whole debate about what category it falls under. What I mean by fantasy sci-fi is space opera, the big huge space battles. FINDER doesn't have that at all, it's a lot more personal and society based.

ALASDAIR: I think Humanoids is doing a good job of bringing the space opera stuff back.

ANDREW: But why do Marvel and DC not want to do space opera? When they have done it, it's been stuff like LEGION, GUARDIANS, 2099. Superheroes. And even those usually fail.

ALASDAIR: But 2099 never felt like sci-fi, it felt like alternate superheroes.

ANDREW: There were holograms and spaceships! That's sci-fi!!

ANTONY: But you get those in most mainstream superhero stories anyway.

ANDREW: The only sci-fi book I can think of that's coming out of a major publisher at the moment besides TRANSMET is probably STEAMPUNK. And that doesn't fit the profile.

ANTONY: There have been a few things, like SKREEMER..

ANDREW: Which I love, but I don't think of it as sci-fi, I think of it as crime.

ANTONY: In sci-fi novels, outside of space opera, there is a very loyal and large readership of social and technological sci-fi, which doesn't have spaceship battles or people shooting lasers. Sci-fi is much more a reflection of modern times, through allegory, and that doesn't seem to be...

ALASDAIR: The big reason Humanoids can get away with it is that they've got a culture raised on superheroes, and they're tapping into that vein of, ooh, wow, explosions.

ANTONY: And Humanoids stuff is not societal, it's real fantasy sci-fi

ANDREW: And it's marketed on pedigree, to an extent. It appeals to Americans because it's European

ANTONY: And because it's people like Bilal and Moebius who they have probably heard of. Could this be a fault of the writers?

ANDREW: What, are writers not writing good sci-fi?

ALASDAIR: It's so much easier to get superheroes published, and at the end of the day there's so much overlap between what you can do with superheroes and what you can do with sci-fi. Superheroes have always had a fairly strong sci-fi element in them

ANDREW: Also, what purpose does sci-fi necessarily serve? Have we not caught up on the future that people used to talk about, and have we not caught up to the point in comics where you have such diversity of what you can represent, sci-fi is kind of pointless? You might as well shove your holograms and your spaceships in the present day.

ALASDAIR: But this is what I mean about the traditional role of sci-fi. It doesn't need to have massively advanced technology and holograms.

ANDREW: But allegory is not restricted to sci-fi. Comics can put any kind of a mask on an allegory. It's one of the great strengths of the medium.

ALASDAIR: Whenever someone wants to do an allegory in comic they slap it in a pair of tights.

ANTONY: Because it's easier to get them off the ground.

ALASDAIR: Yes, I'm pretty sure that's it.

ANTONY: Which leads us to the increased prevalence of superhero hybrid genres. Even with Jay Faerber's NOBLE CAUSES, it's royal politics, social celebrity. Hello magazine with capes. Bendis did that with POWERS, actually.

ANDREW: Yeah. God, I wish he would get a copy editor in. The magazine issue was so badly written. The man cannot spell. Does he not own a copy of Word? Bendis, if you're reading this, I'll copy edit any of your future magazine pastiches for free, just so you don't inflict that stuff on the general population again.

ALASDAIR: I want to read that issue now.

ANTONY: Have you not read it? It's a very well intentioned parody, but it was appallingly copy edited. The grammar was quite dodgy and the spelling was atrocious. But anyway, social celebrity, what else?

ANDREW: Police procedural, in POWERS and TOP TEN.

ANTONY: EMPIRE. Dictator politics. I guess what I'm thinking is, where's the comic version of DIASPORA, Greg Egan's story of human development over the next six billion years?

ALASDAIR: Where is Banks' utopia, The Culture?

ANTONY: Is it because to do something of that depth you would need to do a 1000 page graphic novel? You'd have to do something twice the length of FROM HELL.

ALASDAIR: A lot of Egan's stuff, Banks' stuff, is about what we as a race could be. A lot of superhero stuff is about what we as individuals can be. They operate on very different levels.

ANTONY: It's a tough one, isn't it? I hope that we are on the cusp of something. There was an explosion of cyberpunk comics in the late 80s, and they were fucking awful, full of all the cyberpunk clichés and the role-playing clichés of people jacking in to computers.

ALASDAIR: Cyberpunk has two distinct modes - very good and very bad.

ANTONY: And only the bad stuff made it into comics. I hold out hope that there will be a sci-fi resurgence.

ANDREW: I suppose one person has to produce that work that leads others to follow. It needs to be done in the American market by people who work for the American market, or people don't take notice.

ANTONY: I think people are dismissing Humanoids as "those crazy Europeans".

ANDREW: It's the same way you wouldn't expect TINTIN to influence the American market.

ANTONY: Product of another country. Another culture.

ALASDAIR: The American market reflects the American national character a lot, and the American national character is strongly individualistic.

ANTONY: But there are so many European writers working in the American market.

ANDREW: Many of them being the defining forces in the American market.

ALASDAIR: I think things are shifting.

ANTONY: I don't think they are.

ALASDAIR: I don't think the American market is the same as it was ten years ago.

ANTONY: No. I hope that in two years we can have the same conversation about sci-fi that we've just had about crime.

ANDREW: The strongest sci-fi book of recent years would probably be INVISIBLES, which is set in a contemporary setting, but adopts the same principles and the same strengths that sci-fi has, but doesn't need to be sci-fi to do it.

ALASDAIR: I think the INVISIBLES is sci-fi, in the same way that the ILLUMINATUS trilogy is sci-fi.

ANTONY: True, sci-fi doesn't have to be set in the future.

ANDREW: I realise that.

ANTONY: But it's not blatantly sci-fi because it is set in a very contemporary world.

ANDREW: And if you don't need to be blatantly sci-fi, then what's the need of a genre that is blatantly sci-fi?

ANTONY: That's a good point,

ALASDAIR: Mostly to give booksellers somewhere to shove your books. This is what it comes down to. Sci-fi is a way to say if you like Greg Egan's stuff, there's a good chance you'll like Iain M Banks.

ANTONY: We should probably make a nod to Larry Young at this point as well.

ALASDAIR: Hello Larry!

ANTONY: Larry is definitely writing space opera.

ALASDAIR: How did we get this far without mentioning Larry?

ANTONY: Because Larry's stuff is not blatantly sci-fi. It's adventure fiction with sci-fi tropes.

ANDREW: I would call MINISTRY OF SPACE sci-fi, although it's set in the past, albeit an alternate past.

ALASDAIR: If you look at the shelves in the sci-fi section you will find alternate reality stuff.

ANDREW: Does sci-fi sell that well outside of comics?

ALASDAIR: Oh yes.

ANDREW: But it's very much a niche, isn't it?

ANTONY: It is a niche, but it's the largest niche.

ANDREW: Are the biggest selling sci-fi books franchise books? The DR WHO books? STAR TREK/STAR WARS?

ANTONY: No. They don't sell better than your average Gibson novel.

ALASDAIR: It's all the authors selling. It's Banks, it's Pratchett.

ANTONY: Gibson, Sterling, Vonnegut. It's very much a franchise of writer. People rely on the brand of their name, so they don't always have to write books set in the same world, they don't have to be serials. Pratchett has made a living from it, but plenty of authors don't.

ANDREW: I don't think Pratchett is sci-fi anyway. I don't think of fantasy and sci-fi as the same thing.

ANTONY: Fantasy and sci-fi get lumped together in bookstores.

ANDREW: Now, fantasy does have a niche in comics.

ANTONY: That does seem to be on the rise, simply because CrossGen isn't going to stop...

ANDREW: ...until we're all drinking their Kool-Aid.

ALASDAIR: More fucking elves!

ANTONY: Does CrossGen have elves?

ANDREW: I think it has pointy ears.

ALASDAIR: I have an aversion to fantasy. I read an awful lot of fantasy in my teens.

ANTONY: The thing with fantasy is when it's bad, it's worse than any other genre. When fantasy is bad it's very very bad.

ANDREW: And when it's good, it's horrid. I don't like fantasy much more than sci-fi, I have to say. I do like Pratchett's books, but that's in spite of it rather than because.

ANTONY: Pratchett's books are comedy books. It doesn't matter what they are.

ALASDAIR: They should be in the humour section of the bookstore, if that weren't taken up by fucking GARFIELD cartoons.

ANTONY: They're fantasy books simply because he sets them in a fantasy world.

ALASDAIR: They have elves!

ANDREW: Your nervous tick does not show up on tape.

ALASDAIR: I shall tick louder.

ANTONY: What do we have other than CrossGen, which is probably the largest fantasy publisher?

ALASDAIR: BATTLECHASERS..

ANTONY: Oh God, yes. ELFQUEST, which has been going for years and continues to sell.

ALASDAIR: CEREBUS.

ANTONY: CEREBUS is so far past fantasy now

ALASDAIR: And we're not sure where it's going, but I'm slightly scared.

ANDREW: I think it's going up a certain Canadian writer's orifice.

ANTONY: CEREBUS may as well be alternate world fiction, because there are no fantasy tropes left in it at all. There were when it started, and it was a CONAN pisstake.

ANDREW: So what's your basis for saying fantasy's on the rise?

ANTONY: Mainly CrossGen.

ANDREW: That's not so much on the rise as...

ALASDAIR: ... on the march.

ANTONY: But there is direct evidence that CrossGen is bringing in new readers, people who have never read comics, because people like fantasy. If other people can exploit that, and point these people to other fantasy books, then they will read them. The irony being, because there aren't an awful lot of fantasy comics, these people are then being turned on to manga.

ANDREW: I suppose you could call Avatar books fantasy. Just the wrong kind of fantasy. There are elves and stuff. Brereton's stuff skirts the territory between fantasy and horror. ARIA, by Holguin and Anacleto.

ANTONY: I never actually read ARIA.

ANDREW: I read the first series, and I liked it. It was quite pretty, and a solid story.

ANTONY: There's LADY PENDRAGON, or is that more of a superhero book? There's ARTESIA, that's the book that was suggested to me when I was specifically looking for good epic fantasy stories along the lines of BONE.

ANDREW: Are these books that emerged from the bad girl craze, and are sort of the sole survivors?

ANTONY: You can't put ARTESIA in that, but ARIA and LADY PENDRAGON, certainly.

ALASDAIR: I'm trying to mentally imagine BONE as a bad girl book.

ANDREW: BONE is a bad girl book. Grandma is a bad girl.

ANTONY: She don't take no shit. ARTESIA is a less insane version of CEREBUS. Mark Smylie has committed himself to doing twenty-six series of six issues each. And it is epic fantasy, with no pretensions to be anything else. It doesn't have elves or dwarfs, it's just straight fantasy. Medieval fantasy with magic, witches and knights in armour.

ALASDAIR: It reminds me of SLAINE, in many ways. Without the lunacy.

ANTONY: Yeah. But ARTESIA, until there are three or four collections out, which won't be for a few years yet, is destined to be a niche book. Smylie's just finishing off the second series. But it is extremely intelligent and very well thought out. He's obviously committed to doing it as his life's work, and it'll be a very worthy one if he can maintain the standard. Fantasy as a genre does seem to be growing. CrossGen books, most of them, are growing month on month.

ANDREW: Did CrossGen strike on a genius plan, in that they adopted an entire niche to pump stuff out for?

ALASDAIR: I think [publisher] Mark Alessi is smart enough to have done something like that, yeah. To pick a genre and say, hang on a second, there's no mainstream publisher doing fantasy, and if you look at bookselling, fantasy does really well. Right, let's go and kick their arses, boys.

ANDREW: Wouldn't it be nice if other people did that. If someone were to emerge to be the crime comics publisher.

ANTONY: It happens in the book world all the time, where imprints become associated with genres. Other than the big two being associated with superhero comics, it doesn't really happen in comics. It would be nice to see someone with Alessi's business sense and money come along and grab another niche, like crime, or sci-fi.

ALASDAIR: It occurs to me, SANDMAN is fantasy.

ANDREW: It has elves.

ALASDAIR: Don't get me started.

ANTONY: And it skips through all time periods. And genres.

ANDREW: It never did sci-fi.

ALASDAIR: There's a brief panel of machines dreaming!

ANDREW: Hmm.

ALASDAIR: I'm clutching at my straws here...

ANDREW: Just do it quietly.

Next month the conversation continues, with a look at the most neglected genres in comics.

Wheeler, Johnston and Watson are the Ninth Art editorial board.

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