Infectious passion.

Lester Bangs had it.

A quick history lesson for the uninitiated: Lester Bangs was a rock writer, best known for his work on Rolling Stone and later Creem magazine. And for those of you who are still scratching your head, Phillip Seymour Hoffman played Lester Bangs in ALMOST FAMOUS. End history lesson.

Bangs, whose written works I sought out after the serendipitous combination of Hollywood's Cameron Crowe (ALMOST FAMOUS) and comics' Matt Fraction (Poplife at Comic Book Resources) each cited him as an influence. These two separate urgings prompted a kid well versed in the ways of the new school to give a shit about old school bands like the Yardbirds, Van Morrison and the like.

Then a realisation dawned upon me. I was reading PSYCHOTIC REACTIONS AND CARBURETTOR DUNG, a book that collected quite a few of Bangs' works. One chapter, entitled "Fragments", was a proverbial mixtape of things Bangs had written that just didn't seem to fit in anywhere else. In this chapter, I found myself completely and utterly engrossed by this man writing about going to a local deli and picking out a peach and pina colada yoghurt.

That is infectious passion. Making someone who doesn't care about your chosen fetish care by simply being passionate. And it's what comics need. A brutal, intense and brilliant passion. That, and a Rolling Stone-style magazine dedicated to covering comics culture.

Nice segue, no?

'The loudest voices in the industry all seem to be old men.' It's not a new idea, but it's the sort of idea that needs to be kept in currency if comics is ever going to earn a cultural reappraisal. Comics are more often than not viewed as a hobby, when they should be viewed as a culture. Music is a cultural experience; it's something that's prevalent in people's lives in some way, shape or form. Woodstock, Lollapalooza, Warped Tour, these things are also cultural experiences.

Imagine for one second a comic book convention that's the equivalent to the Warped Tour.

A giant indoor/outdoor summer celebration of comics; a massive stage set up both indoors and outdoors for stand-up comics/musicians/speakers that are all fans of comics; a mini-film festival; and, of course, the tried and true standby of the comics convention, the meet-and-greet with professionals.

This is something that would draw attention to the medium, something that we desperately need at this point, because the loudest voices coming from the industry at the moment all seem to be old men. A Rolling Stone for comics would go a long way toward forcing comics to become cool.

Now I realise that there is a voice out there that says "being uncool is the new cool." I vehemently disagree. Not giving two tugs about what anyone else thinks, that's what's cool. Wearing a Green Lantern T-shirt and glasses? Not so much. Nirvana still stands as a prime example of not trying to be cool and therefore becoming cool. I firmly believe that comics need to be presented in a way that's sleek, well designed and sexy, while at the same time saying, "We don't care what you think of us. We're nothing less than spectacular."

Making comics hip and fashionable isn't something that should be shied away from. I hear, ad nauseum, from many comic readers that they are tired of the oft stated and re-stated stereotype that people who read comics are often either over- or underweight, hygiene impaired, creepy nerds with little to no social skills. Not all fans reflect those stereotypes. In fact, some want to create a new stereotype - a heathen stereotype that doesn't hold true to the old gods. So one way to change that perception.

I'm not suggesting that we should start culling the herd, rounding up the unfashionable Dads of America and most of the current fanbase of comics and start pushing them out to make way for the all new, all-cool comics medium. There's plenty of room within the medium for fans of all shapes and sizes.

'Comics need people with a brutal, intense and brilliant passion.' Now, let's play a little game. I want you to imagine that one of these people that buys into the "comics are for kids and nerds" mentality picks up this fictional Rolling Stone for comics and flips through it while at Walgreens waiting for their medication. And they see this:

- Grant Morrison plastered across the well-designed cover. A blurb on the front cover let's the reader know that an extensive interview with Morrison awaits them inside.

- An interview with David Choe, painter and writer/artist of SLOW JAMS.

- A fashion spread featuring Paul Pope as the model.

- Talks with Joe Casey and James Kolchalka. A look into the lives of comics' very own actual rock performers.

- An in-depth look at the trade paperback movement in comics.

- A handful of rotating serialised comics. Why not one up Rolling Stone? After all, they can't include MP3s into their paper stock.

- A number of articles and essays each on various subjects tangentially related to the comics medium.

And that's just off the top of my head. Now I'm sure that it's painfully obvious that in my fictional version of this magazine's content I left out any and all references to superheroes. There's a specific reason for this; mainly that Wizard magazine is already doing a fine job of covering superheroes and their supposed dominance of the comics industry. You want to read about Spider-Man dry humping Electro or Elektra or whoever his arch-nemesis for the week is, then Wizards the place for you.

And while I'm on the subject, I'm not talking about this supposed new comics magazine not covering superheroes - that would be like Rolling Stone not covering hip-hop - but there is a reason I don't have a subscription to The Source anymore.

People that even glance in the general direction of this magazine should want to steal it. Teenagers should want to rip out pictures and stick them on their bedroom wall or their lockers at school.

But why bother with a magazine? Why should anyone pay for something that's accessible, for free, on the internet?

'Making comics hip and fashionable shouldn't be shied away from.' Two reasons: Physicality and Laziness.

People want to be able to hold something and read it. If they didn't, then the entire comics industry would already have been put out to pasture. Wizard still sells well for a magazine that carries a majority of comic-centric news that's completely outdated by the time it hits the stands.

And of course, people don't have to hunt around from five or six news sources to find out about the new issue of Optic Nerve. Or what John Pham is up to as of late. With all of this contained within two covers, you really don't have to bother looking around on the internet. Not to mention that a magazine seems like a 'legitimate' format, one that takes tall dollars to put together, as opposed to a website can be slapped together by anyone. (It's not an opinion that I harbour, but it's one that needs to be examined.)

Understand this; I'm not creating a paradigm for a better comics industry. If I were that smart, I wouldn't want to work in this industry. And I'm not deluded enough to believe a new magazine and a Warped Tour-style convention could, would, or should save comics. All I'm doing is throwing out the same old ideas that probably got missed the first time around. That, and hopefully infecting you with a little of my own passion.

Like I said before, infectious passion is akin to catching a rare disease or seeing that cute little blonde with the black rimmed glasses at the local diner. It infects you. Consumes you and kills you.

I can think of worse ways to die. Can't you?

Samuel Teer is an employee at Comics Universe and the author of BY ANONYMOUS, out next year.

This article is Ideological Freeware. The author grants permission for its reproduction and redistribution 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.