Episode #1: A New Beginning

A major advantage of webcomics is short deadlines, and so The New Adventures of Queen Victoria is able to jump on this week's announcement by DC Comics that they are rebooting their line of comics and starting over, including numbering their next issues  as "#1."

Apparently, she are not amused, or impressed.

If you pursue that link to Daily Cartoonist and beyond to Alan Gardner's links, you may be able to figure this out. I'm not sure what exactly it really means. And I suspect that is part of a problem they may be too late in addressing.

Here I am, a guy who read a lot of #1 comics back when he was 10 and 11 and 12 years old -- #1 Spiderman, #1 Hulk, #1 Thor, #1 Daredevil are four I remember just off the top of my head. Those were Marvel titles, but, then, I'd have to be nearly Queen Victoria's age to have read #1 Superman or Batman when they first came out. Point is, I was a fan and, in fact, could rightfully put the initials "QNS" after my name if I so chose.

Now, a half century later, I get up at O-Dark-Thirty every morning to read and publicly ruminate upon comics. Obviously, I still have more than a passing interest in the art form. And yet I don't really know quite what DC is talking about because I'm not interested enough to dig in and find out.

Comic strips and comic books are not the same medium. But neither are novels and short stories, and there aren't all that many people who say, "Oh, yes, I read a lot of novels, but I can't be bothered with short stories."

People like me who really like comic strips ought to have some interest in comic books, too. Especially people like me who really like comic strips and also really like graphic novels like Maus and Mom's Cancer and American Splendor (that last of which is pretty much a comic book anyway.)

I've been hesitant to invest a lot in graphic novels, however, because I've bought a couple that left me feeling like I'd paid for a book but only got a pamphlet. This relates to both graphic novels and comic books. Comic books are no longer "the price of two candy bars" as they were in my youth. They cost real money these days; not a lot, but enough that they need to deliver.

I like stories. I may be impressed with people who show me impressive things, but I love people who tell me stories.

In graphic terms, it's the difference between Dali and Chagall. 

About 20 years ago, the Musée des beaux-arts in Montreal had the two artists in exhibition, and I came away feeling that Dali is like the exuberant guy who tugs at your elbow and says "Check this out! Check this out!" while Chagall is the grandfather who says, "Let me tell you a story" and draws you up onto his lap.

It's not a matter of my thinking Chagall is a better artist and that Dali is a hack. Dali is brilliant. But, after I've said, "Wow!" I just feel like there's nothing left to say about Dali. Yeah, I see all the things he's interwoven and the themes and the details and the colors, and it's all great stuff. I'm not ignorant; I've read "Ulysses." I get all that symbolism and metaphor and allusion. I even enjoy it. I'm not a bloody philistine.

But with Chagall, I feel more involved, more drawn in, more welcomed into his vision. And I don't think that his art is any less worthy of praise than Dali's. I guess, though, I feel as if Chagall wanted to share something with me, while Dali was painting largely to scratch some itch of his own and just wants me to approve.

Similarly, when I buy a comic book or graphic novel, I don't want some Sergio Leone thing where two guys stare at each other for panel after panel after panel. That doesn't mean I don't think the art is good. It doesn't even mean that I'm not impressed with how the eyes change and the glares deepen from panel to panel.

It's good art. I'm impressed.

But, eventually, Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach quit staring at each other and started shooting. There may have been half an hour in "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" that consisted of nothing but closeups of guys staring at each other, but the movie was two hours and 41 minutes long.

I promise you, if the movie had been 45 minutes long, and 30 minutes of it was staring, only cinematographers and opthamologists would have gone to it. And they'd have praised it to the skies, but Sergio Leone would be eating ramen in a two-room apartment, with a shelf full of trophies up there alongside the Kraft dinners, complaining about how nobody appreciates great film-making anymore and wondering why people don't support cinema the way they used to.

And, if he'd turned around and made another film about two guys staring at each other and larded it up with explanations of why Clint Eastwood had no name and where he got his poncho and what his horse was named, it wouldn't make any difference that he declared it a whole new film.

If he wanted people to come see his work in large enough numbers to support it, he'd need to quit "creating films" and go back to "making movies." It doesn't mean doing away with art. It might mean no longer adding that "e" to the title and being an "artist" instead of an "artiste."

So I'll be interested to see what DC has to show with this new start.

But if it doesn't make comc books appealling to 11-year-old kids with modest allowances again, it won't really matter what number appears in that little box on the cover.

Comments

[J. Kenneth Riviere]

I agree with you about the value of telling a story. After decades of comic collecting and then selling the heart of my collection, the only comic book I still buy regularly is Usagi Yojimbo, which continues to offer good stories and characters after 25 years. Even so, paying $4 for each issue which can usually be read in 10 minutes at most (I often have read the whole thing by the time I get home just picking it up at the traffic lights) is a bit daunting. I don't know that the current comic industry which caters to dedicated collectors who want quality printing and color will be able to package a product for kids on limited budgets. Of course, maybe there are lots of kids who are not on limited budgets.

[Mike]

That question of quality printing doesn't seem to have depressed the value of the old #1 comics. For a good story that also includes some really well-researched replicas of old comics, check out Brian Fies's graphic novel, "Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow," in which he reproduces the look of old-time comics. (Disclosure: Brian is a friend. A very, very talented friend.)

And another thing about quality production: They didn't sign Meryl Streep and Daniel Day-Lewis to do "King of Queens," but I wouldn't mind a share of the profits from that show. Meanwhile, having Streep and Day-Lewis on board would not have turned it into "Playhouse 90."