Leaving The Penny Arcade

Comics and cinema are of a similar vintage, but while one thrives, the other is struggling. Filmmaker Travis Fickett looks at how film evolved as a medium, and suggests that there's lessons to be learned from the development of a critical and intellectual approach to cinema.
21 October 2002

Moving pictures began as cheap, disposable entertainment not worth a lingering thought. In their very earliest incarnation, movies were watched through penny machines where you would crank a handle and watch the fascinating antics of a boy and his dog. For thirty seconds.

Even when movies evolved into a longer form, they were silent, grainy and often unsophisticated in visual design. Slowly, though, there was a language developing; technology was evolving, and the craft was progressing. And still, nobody much cared. This was a "low art." It was where theatre actors went slumming for quick cash.

Although, in due course, motion pictures became big business, they were still not considered a serious form of art. Even the filmmakers themselves were sceptical about the idea. As John Ford famously declared, "I'm John Ford, I make Westerns". As far as Ford and most of his colleagues were concerned, that was the beginning and the end of it.

It was another group, far removed from Hollywood, that decided Ford's humble facade was hiding the great secrets of cinema. Critics like Jean-Luc Goddard, Francois Truffaut and Andre Bazin began asking questions.

Questions such as: Why was CITIZEN KANE so compelling? What did Orson Welles do in the telling of this story that less remarkable films were not doing? Why did John Ford's Westerns seem to carry the power of myth, while many similarly themed westerns by other filmmakers were mostly forgettable?

These Frenchmen spent lots of time smoking cigarettes and drinking tiny but powerful cups of coffee while discussing these questions. And then they published it, giving the film world an invaluable gift. Truffaut and Goddard also went on to put their ideas to use in their own films, each becoming influential artists in their own right. It was their awareness of the cinematic language that enabled them to break rules, tear down conventions and build new ones.

After this influx of critical information, the art and craft of motion pictures evolved. While there was always the natural evolution of filmmakers working and practising their craft, it's impossible to say what the world of cinema would be had the critics not looked at what made it work. After all, it was the writings of these French critics and others that provided the foundation for film classes and eventually film schools.

By providing a solid background in the craft, the trial and error process was removed for a good number of aspiring filmmakers. And what was once an obscure craft taught from master to apprentice was now institutionalised for all emerging artists willing to put in the effort and study. This trend led to the emergence of many of the most innovative and influential filmmakers of the second half of the twentieth century, such as Spielberg, Lucas, Coppola and Scorsese.

Comic books are nearly as old as film, but not nearly as mature. Their growth has been stunted by their perception as a children's medium, and the corresponding lack of quality in art, craft and production. I don't think it is necessary to debate comics' worth as a medium, as that's been done on this site and elsewhere. My interest lies in the development of that medium, and I believe that taking good, critical and analytical looks at comic books is essential to that development.

One key difference between comics and movies is the participation required from the audience. Film creates the illusion of movement. Film has sound and music, and unless you're watching a foreign film, no reading is required. Watching a film is like watching life - it's universal.

Comics require more work. The reader supplies the motion and the sound, and the reader also fills in the gutter with their own version of events that are left unseen. It is this unique participation which defines the singular experience of reading a comic book. It is also what justifies a greater understanding of the language that creates them.

With cinema, I believe there lies a cautionary tale in its recent history. I'd be the first to tell you that I think the ball was dropped. All of the theorists, the critics, the experimenting and the risk-taking died out within the mainstream relatively quickly. The vast majority of films today are insipidly awful or, if you're lucky, blandly average. Market forces have driven this downgrade in creativity within the mainstream motion picture industry and pushed the innovators to the fringes.

However, once there had been a canonised understanding of the film language, the fringes were not a bad place to be. Outside the mainstream industry, new film communities were born. Filmmakers of note started popping up everywhere; from New York to Austin to Philadelphia.

There was an independent movement in American cinema, and many international filmmakers remained steadfast in their creative experimentation. What made this movement successful was that so many of these filmmakers had learned the true nature of the craft, because the critics of the past were there to illuminate it for them.

Comic books don't have this luxury. This has become a fringe industry in its entirety. The mainstream has to take risks and further exploit its own confines in order to stay relevant and alive. It would surprise me if the number of young artists and writers entering college with the intention of eventually going on to make comic books hasn't dwindled, or at the very least stagnated. And most of those who do have aspirations to work in comics probably want to write new BATMAN and SPIDER-MAN stories, which will lead to their being absorbed into the mainstream fold where they will most likely not be innovating anything.

There needs to be a larger movement in comic books, but where could it start? Couldn't it start with people asking how WATCHMEN works? Or MAUS? Or TORSO? Not questions of social relevance, but questions of craft? We know MAUS to be important because it deals with the holocaust, but that's already been said. How is it effective as graphic storytelling?

What about the books that don't work? Why isn't ALPHA FLIGHT a seminal series? And the answers have to dig deeper than 'Because John Byrne sucks.' Why? What doesn't he do that others have accomplished? What parts of the language of comics defined the Marvel style? There are questions of time, space, the relationship between words and images - many concepts that were put forth by Will Eisner (COMICS AND SEQUENTIAL ART) and Scott McCloud (UNDERSTANDING COMICS). Those ideas need to be applied to the works we cherish and revile in order to discover the intricacies of the language.

Comic book criticism has almost completely remained on the surface, or preoccupied with wider issues of the industry itself. It seems as if nobody has found it constructive or worthwhile to talk about the means with which a great book is created. There are certainly more questions to ask. For example, put two comics side by side. Both are 22 pages long. One might tell a complete, engaging and thrilling story about two superheroes fighting, while the other is filled with splash pages of two questionably dressed idiots bashing each other for no apparent reason, spouting pro-wrestling nonsense at one another.

Similar stories, very different experiences. Beyond, 'he's a good writer' or 'he's a good artist' - ask how do these comics utilise the medium? And while we're at it, let's ask, "Why 22 pages?"

There's a passage in UNDERSTANDING COMICS that always comes to mind when I think over this issue. It's right in the beginning, when someone is laughing at cartoon Scott for liking comic books. And he says, "Sure I realized comic books were usually crude, poorly-drawn, semiliterate, cheap, disposable kiddie fare - but - they don't have to be!"

Well, I feel this same frustration when it comes to the analysis of comics. Why is there so little written about the seminal works, how they are achieved and the methods and techniques that could be absorbed, employed and adapted by future creators? Maybe if more is understood about the power of the graphic storytelling medium, more people will employ it for their own artistic visions. And consequently more people will pay to read them.

This kind of discourse could only be healthy for the industry. And certainly healthier then another article in Wizard about which actor could play which superhero. It's time for comics to start acting like a serious art form by recognising the elements of that form. There's work to be done here.

For comics, this isn't simply about gaining respect or understanding - it's about commercial viability. It's about survival. If motion pictures had remained in the penny arcade telling thirty second stories about little girls jumping rope, they would have died away too.

Travis Fickett is a former development executive and now works as a writer and filmmaker in Los Angeles.

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