Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by retailer Steve Bennett of Mary Alice Wilson's Dark Star Comics in
Going over last week's column a couple of things occurred to me:
(1) I started off writing about the lack of 'fun'' comics and without explanation segued into the disturbing lack of sitcoms on the broadcast networks fall schedules. 'Fun'' and 'funny' are certainly related but they're definitely not interchangeable.
(2) I 'humorously' chastised Mark Waid and Dan Didio for not defining what they meant by 'fun'' comics without even trying to come up with a provisional definition of my own. Here goes:
Comics as varied as Bone, Tintin, and the Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four have an important element in common; an atmosphere of (here's a great word you just don't hear often enough) kindliness. It permeates great children's literature like the Oz books where you know that while the heroes may face great challenges and sometimes things might look grim for them, the reader is always subtly reassured things will turn out just fine.
A 'fun'' comic almost always opens with the daily routine of our regular cast's convivial domestic arrangements disrupted by the call of adventure. They'll face a roller coaster of thrills and chills, unexpected twists, meet memorable characters and, yes, even have a few laughs along the way. In the end the good guys win, the bad guys lose and everyone ends up safe at home to await their next exciting adventure.
Unfortunately what I've outlined above has proven to be an unworkable paradigm for a post-9/11 world, which is why both the Marvel and DC Universes find themselves bogged down in frequently brutal fantasy allegories of what's going on in the world today. In the past I've snottily inquired 'whose idea of fun is this?' when of course it's a lot of people's; but it's also much more than that. As unpalatable as I find frequently find some of these stories it becomes increasingly clear for today's fans reading these kinds of stories is their way of dealing with a dangerous world.
I just wish they were done better. Last time I characterized the modern super-hero story as being 'sour and dour,' and it's this very lack of humor (even the perfunctory putdowns and media references that used to pass for comic relief in the past are considered too frivolous for a world in perpetual crisis) and hope (apocalyptic devastation is regarded as unpreventable) that is why so much of the output from Marvel and DC leaves me cold these days.
But the modern super-hero is still plenty grim and gritty as well; just today a customer passed the comic book racks and after seeing row upon row of snarling heroes commented 'That's why I could never be a super-hero; I don't have the teeth.'
Of course 'fun'' comics are still being produced. Marvel in particular excels at it, from Tom DeFalco's Amazing Spider-Girl (we used to mock his lengthy run on Thor but those comics now seem perfect for younger readers; why not collect them in digest form, Marvel?) to Jeff Parker's 'mainstream' Agents of Atlas to his outstanding work on Marvel Adventures the Avengers. And of course there's the ongoing series of Power Pack mini-series which look and read like episodes from a well done animated series to the place where fun and funny collide: Franklin Richards, Son of a Genius.
And now on to some old business...
A while ago while writing about the zombie trend in comics I mentioned it looked like CBS was going to pick up Babylon Fields, an hour drama about the living dead who hungered not for human brains but emotional closure, for its fall schedule. Sadly it wasn't to be but comedian Dana Gould is working on a zombie-centric sitcom for Comedy Central called The Last Larry.
After regaling all of you with the story of how several folks at Dark Star went to see the first midnight showing of Spider-Man 3 I knew I wanted to say something about it, but only if I could up with something original. Then while checking the cast list on the Internet Movie Database Website to see who played the pivotal role of the Osborn family butler 'Houseman,'* I found a listing for Joe Manganiello, who played Flash Thompson; supposedly he reprised his role in 3 but his part got cut.
As some of you know one of my dreams is just once to see Peter Parker beat the crap out of Flash Thompson so I'm hoping squirreled away on the upcoming DVD of Spider-Man 3 is a deleted scene where the laughably 'evil' (at one point during his big dance number it seems like Toby Maguire is channeling Jerry Lewis as Buddy Love from the original Nutty Professor) Peter does just that.
* I believe this may well be the single worst 'professional' performance in an English language film in over a decade.
The opinions expressed in this column is solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.
