In a recent post I promised some better explanation about why one should read comic books. My argument for why to read comics at the time had been based on purely personal excitement and emotional response. Fine reasons, but there are many good reasons to read comics and I begin my blogs on the topic with a convoluted moth metaphor.
There is a sense I get from most people that art tells it like it is, or at least this is what they like about the art they expose themselves to. These people assume art can tell you the truth that the truth can’t tell you. I think what we are sensing is truth contrasted against a backdrop of unbelievable fiction until the relative truth seems bright and clear. Like dark and light colors, the truth and fiction can be thrown together providing nice contrast or chaotic juxtaposition to taste. A little truth can go a long way to help you accept a fictional premise, a little fiction can make the truth seem stark and beautiful. Enjoying the game, we can lose our ability to discern which is which; too much fiction slips under our radar at times, with marginal amounts of truth involved in the experience, the contrast fades. So choosing what art we expose ourselves to can be important.
Comics about flying heroes present clear cut contrasts. This distinction between truth and fiction is blurred by many courtroom dramas, psuedo-documentaries, and Fox News, to create a short list, while readers are more critical of what we perceive in comics. Fiction is implicit in the premise, no one should jump off the roof to fly, so we bring our critical acumen to bare instead of allowing ourselves to be deceived. Comics, or graphic novels if you prefer, usually have visual content so fantastic that they demand that you recognize them as fiction in an immediate sense, with the relative truth being mostly conceptual and secondary. This is true in obvious ways in superhero tales of good vanquishing evil, and while there are as many types of comics now as there are literature, heroes and villains are central to what I think of as a comic book. By numbers, superhero comics have been outselling other tales for some time, so most of the time I will concentrate on this dominant content.
The truth I find in fantasy comics are important moral values reiterated in serial form. Readers find this truth in comics contrasted against extreme fantasy so that even simple claims about justice and morality seem obvious and sincere. Being a good neighbor, a good citizen, lending help when you can, all of this is implicit in the larger story of aliens and vigilantes.
Comics are complex enough to confuse these relationships between moral truth and fantasy in some interesting ways. For example, it seems believable that a man commits adultery when the women involved are both mutants with incredible powers of telepathy. Adultery happens, the story implies, but truth conditions are strained in both directions by the juxtaposition. People may assume adultery is more common than it actually is, as it takes on a level of truth that the telepathy does not share. Inversely, telepathy seems more probable to the person who assumes the human drama is handled with a deft touch, or if that it reverberates with their personal experiences and memories. A statistical representation of adultery and a consequent analysis of statistical bias would satisfy more of my criteria for truth, but the notion that adultery is a “normal” behavior seems emphasized in the comic book because there is so little truth to be had anywhere else in this tale. But for the most part, the fun is in the forensics and comics are packed with potential for such quirky deconstruction.
Comics are a language unto themselves, and one that should be understood or read critically. It is particular to serial adventure that the characters seem human in their longevity, and some motifs have grown to take on a life of their own. To state the obvious: no one should train their ward of the state to fight crime with them. This is ridiculous. But more recent comics, like Kick Ass, have told the story of contemporary fictional realities that imitate the earlier motifs, like the notion of a child fighting crime at the side of an adult, borrowed from Batman. Kick Ass is a reality (actually a second fiction) where life imitates art. The real lesson is to identify that being a demanding parental figure can produce morally upstanding and morally damaged children, but the fiction is so outlandish that it becomes difficult to discern if they are even saying this much with any precision. Yes, there are families where police and military professions are passed on to the child, but thinking this is accessible or understandable through comic book parables seems confused at best, and a dangerous invitation to a conservative prejudice in favor of the servitors of the law, when in fact our very society is founded on the assumption that the individual should be protected from it’s own system of governance.
Interpreting and always responding with a theory, a deconstruction, a fact, a positon, this might be better than responding with another fiction, then another, until the conversation is so confusing that the fiction produced is impenetrable or transparent. Perhaps only the response retains any merit. But without the art, if we have unadulterated truth only to respond to, maybe we wouldn't learn as much.
I am hooked on comics because they seem a rich area for such discussion and conjecture. Add to this the pure excitement and emotional reaction kids and adults have towards comics and you have an art form that begs to be read while being deep enough to merit interpretation. I return to stories with a moral element in the foreground, drawn like a moth to the light of good in them, seen clearly in the shadows of their miasmic fantasy. I so want to see the morality play illustrated again and again I seek out distant planets, magic powers, dramatic explosive fictions, to watch heroism, sacrifice, truth, commitment, honor, responsibility, and teamwork in perfect clarity.
So yeah, the kids are alright, like moths they seek the light.
No comments:
Post a Comment