Editorial: Camera Obscura - The Thinking Man

This month, Alasdair Watson's thoughts turn to thinking - and unthinking. Why aren't comics smarter? Why don't comics place more value on ideas? And why would anyone option THE GARGOYLE?
28 March 2003

FURTHER BACK AND FASTER

A couple of months back, I made a joke about how the flood of impending superhero movies would do the medium no favours, but simply re-enforce the perception of comics as a medium that really only does kids stories.

The other week, Paul O'Brien pointed out that the fact that these superhero movies sell suggests that maybe "for kids" is the wrong way to look at it. He noted that adults want dumb entertainment, too, and that there's nothing wrong with that. I think he's got a point, but I still think that maybe choking the market with superhero movies may not be the cleverest idea on earth.

Movies are great. They bring in money for comics companies, and to an extent, fund the less commercial comics that intellectual snobs like me enjoy. The problem comes when the public gets bored of superheroes, as they will, because the only way to keep dumb entertainment entertaining is to do new things with it, not more of the same, and the Hollywood money goes away.

So perhaps it'd be better to stop flogging any old superhero properties as fast as Hollywood will buy them, and slow down a bit, concentrate on selling only the good stuff that will keep the public entertained for years; keep the money coming in slowly and constantly, rather than perpetuating the on-again-off-again relationship comics have traditionally had with cinema.

I'm worrying about this, because I checked Script Sales (a site that tracks sales to Holywood) the other day, and discovered Columbia Pictures has bought the rights to THE GARGOYLE, a mini-series Marvel put out in the mid-eighties - a solo story featuring a character from THE DEFENDERS (I had to go and look this up, before anyone accuses me of knowing things that no sane man ought).

This does not strike me as a film that the world is crying out for, although I note with interest that the writer that's currently attached is the guy that wrote THE SCORPION KING and co-wrote ATTACK OF THE CLONES (and apparently, the next Star Wars film).

I fear I can see the backlash starting.

THINKING ALLOWED

After some hassle, I got Alan Moore's new CD the other day, and while it's pretty familiar ground for people who've listened to his other spoken word material, it's still brilliant. In the space of a little under an hour's spoken word performance, he talks about the life and works of Arthur Machen, the Welshman whose writing was an influence on several great names in horror, like HP Lovecraft and Peter Straub, bringing in Oliver Cromwell (who should need no introduction), kabbalistic myth, quantum and evolutionary theory, Pre-Raphaelite artists and the origins of life and death.

He brings all these things together and emerges with a coherent, moving work, that half you would probably file under, "He's talking about that weird magical bollocks again".

For some reason, in comics, we're not keen on people telling us what they think, or what they know about. When Warren Ellis writes MEK or GLOBAL FREQUENCY, people say he's wearing his research on his sleeve as if that's a bad thing (I know I've made that comment myself, but then, I never claimed to be clever or consistent). People call PROMETHEA an exposition of Moore's belief system, and only buy it "for the craft", as if that's not on. People ran away from THE INVISIBLES in droves when Morrison started talking about the Marquis De Sade and French history.

God forbid that anyone should be openly learned. God forbid that anyone should study the world around us, and then talk about it - unless they're doing slice of life stuff, and even then we want to it be small, and intellectually untaxing.

Eddie Campbell has "ceased publishing new work for the foreseeable future", despite the fact that EGOMANIA was one of the most interesting things on the shelves, precisely because it was unafraid to be erudite, and poke about in places that no one else was looking. Who else d'you think is going to attempt a complete history of humour? And why weren't you reading it?

Of course no one wants intellectually heavyweight stuff all the time, but it might be nice to see it somewhere out there from time to time. It's not like erudite means that it's got to be hard going, anyway - SNAKES AND LADDERS is more than proof of that.

For more on Alan Moore and SNAKES AND LADDERS, check out Ninth Art on Monday.

THE BLANK GENERATION

I was on a protest march today. I'm not happy about this war in Iraq. I'm pretty down on both the US and the UK at the moment, but every time I say what I think about the whole event, I put someone's nose out of joint, so I'll leave it at that.

So, instead a question: why, aside from works like SAFE AREA GORAZDE or PALESTINE, do real-world conflicts go unmarked in comics?

I appreciate that there's a lag time in comics. I appreciate that by the time a story about the war in Iraq comes out, it'll be over, or at least, I fervently hope it will. But you know, there's still operations going on in Afghanistan, and it's been a while since I've seen that mentioned. The re-building effort in Iraq is going to take months. There are issues about the weapons that are being used in these conflicts - the jury is still out on whether or not these shiny new thermobaric weapons, for example, are in line with the Geneva Conventions.

This isn't time-sensitive stuff. Hell, Wired was reporting the other week that there are plans to have soldiers carrying rifles firing thermobaric bullets in the next three to five years, so I think we can be pretty sure that lead time isn't a factor, here.

I'm not asking that Superman be shown swooping into Iraq, solving the problem in ten seconds and fucking off again. That's too simplistic, and it'd be offensive on many levels to pass it off in that way. But it seems that no one will go near a real world trouble spot with a fictional ten-foot pole.

The only comic (aside from the obvious benefit comics) I can think of with the guts to go anywhere near Afghanistan in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001 was QUEEN AND COUNTRY. Oh, Marvel acknowledged the disaster in a particularly risible issue of SPIDER-MAN, and for all I thought it was an appalling bit of work, I'm sure it helped someone, and I'll give it marks for that, but that's not that same as actually spending a bit of time looking at the forces that lead to this sort of thing, and making informed comment.

I don't expect to agree with every comment, but I'd like to see them being made. These are important events, and by god, shouldn't anyone who is informed about the world have something to say about them? And if you're not informed about the world, then what are you doing producing fiction? I appreciate that not everyone is going to want to get on the soapbox, but surely there are a few people working for mainstream publishers who feel they have something to say?

Or is it just that mainstream publishers haven't the stomach for it? Marvel, for example, has declined to publish the writings of Dr Helen Caldecott, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, in its forthcoming 411 book. On the one hand, I'm not surprised; the text she submitted looked like tripe to me, judging by the version that was published on the web. But to a certain extent, I don't care. This was someone who is (arguably) clever, giving what one would hope was an informed opinion. Just because they sound like they were dropped on their head a few times too often as a child is not reason to cut them out when they were interesting enough for you to invite to contribute in the first place. And like I say, I don't expect to agree with every comment that gets made.

Christ, I just read that back. I'm so fucking desperate for interesting and informed commentary on the state of the world around me from comics that I'll even put up with brainsick drivel masquerading as comment.

Yeah, I know - if you want clever comment, look elsewhere - comics don't have to do that sort of thing. No, of course they don't. But SAFE AREA GORAZDE and QUEEN AND COUNTRY say that they can, and can do it well. So why don't they?

Alasdair Watson is the author of the Eagle Award-nominated RUST.

Ninth Art endorses the principle of Ideological Freeware. The author permits distribution of this article by private individuals, on condition that the author and source of the article are clearly shown, no charge is made, and the whole article is reproduced intact, including this notice.