7-25-22<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is almost impossible lately, during at least one week in July or August, not be aware of costumed heroes, red-carpet interviews, breathless announcements of new video games, and outrageous prices being paid for ancient, fragile comic books. It is the week of \u201cComiCon,\u201d the San Diego International Comic Convention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even if you are not (in order) a fan of superheroes, celebrities, new movies and games, or collectible comic books\u2026 it is difficult to avoid cable-TV coverage, entertainment-show stories, news packages, and internet views of scholars and nerds, 135,000 of them, crowding the aisles of the Convention Center in otherwise placid San Diego.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It holds my interest for several reasons. I was in that world \u2013 and of that world \u2013 for much of my life. Actually more than one career, for I have been a political cartoonist, scenarist of strips and graphic novels, syndicate comics editor, editor of Marvel Comics magazines, writer for Disney, comics anthologist and historian, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More, I have attended many of the comics festivals around the world, usually as a speaker or guest. Many are larger, and at one time more scholarly, than San Diego. But my first ComiCon was in 1976, and in those days they were small affairs, held in old halls or hotel basements. In fact ComiCon basically was a collectors\u2019 swap meet with celebrity panels. As Editor at Marvel, I arranged for us to be the first major publisher to rent space and display new releases there. (I humbly confess that a strong motivation was to have Stan Lee sign off on 10 fun days with my staff in sunny California\u2026)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before the Con was largely subsumed by films and games I was kind of tight with board members of SDCC, so I was in its orbit. But these days it takes the James Webb Telescope of the Comics Universe to spot me. My interest in the art form has not waned at all \u2013 I am deep in a couple projects about comics history \u2013 but, as I said, SDCC is more about movies, games, and toys than strips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But superheroes still stalk the halls, the representatives of comic books and their Hollywood spin-offs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have never fully understood America\u2019s fascination with superheroes \u2013 before, during, and after my tenure at Marvel. We are too deep in the forest to see the trees; if the world survives, it will take analysts of the future to explain America\u2019s obsession with violence and sex; protagonists who rely on muscles, weapons, and absurd powers to pursue justice. Other civilizations built the heroes of their myths (commonly agreed standards and values) on integrity, courage, and wisdom. Many of their heroes failed, the source of literal \u201ctragedy,\u201d a term that is, significantly, misused these days. But in contemporary America, every \u201chero,\u201d every sketch drawn for fans at ComiCon, employs grimaces, knotted brows, bleeding scratches, clenched teeth, and, usually, a ravished buxom woman at his feet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why has America developed this conception of a hero, and why has an audience demanded or welcomed such characters, for surely they are synergistic factors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Having worked in the \u201cforest,\u201d as I said, all my career, I can discern the trees but cannot identify them, nor explain their sustenance. Even my cherished Disney characters, whom I cast in countless scripts as I wrote premises and stories, have been transformed. I no longer recognize the denizens of the Magic Kingdom; No: I do recognize them, and I don\u2019t like them. They don\u2019t like me. Walt must be turning his grave like a rotisserie chicken. (I recently wrote about this for a national magazine<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are signs of hope, reasons for optimism, evidence of some redemption. Not only for desperately needed diversity of content, but as push-backs against the troubling vortex of thematic rot. Villains, and even heroes, I knew as a kid and during my time at Marvel, have now engaged in serial excess \u2013 demonology, satanism, perversion (\u201coh, we must give the good guys something to oppose\u201d), rougher violence, and bloodier graphic representations of it all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But subcultures of Christian cartoonists are creating stories and inventing heroes with positive virtues; self-publishing, when necessary, and with\u2026 happy endings. Or, for discerning readers, pointing to the Truth. Among these creators are very talented artists and writers. Many of them are at the ComiCon, and many are exhibiting, offering their work to the public, and\u2026 well, evangelizing. Missionaries in a hostile world \u2013 America, not only fan conventions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I was young I knew Al Hartley, who was permitted to draw a line of Archie<\/em> comics for the Christian market; Hank Ketcham did the same with a line of Dennis the Menace<\/em> comic books. Today’s new breed has taken the fight as St Paul did: \u201call things to all people\u201d — there are series of heroes; fantasy themes; humor; adventure. The creators do not hide their faith, hoping to lure unsuspecting pagans\u2026 but rather, they share their witness boldly and cleverly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once there was Jack Chick, who published controversial comics as tracts. There was political cartoonist Wayne Stayskal, who also drew for religious publications. There is the Australian pastor Ian Jones, for whose anthology of Christian strips Pearly Gates <\/em>I wrote an Introduction. I had many conversations with Charles Schulz who, early in his career, evangelized on street corners; he grew weary and wary of organized religions but always discussed Christian faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of the \u201crising generation\u201d there are many. And many of them are at ComiCon, individually and as members of the Christian Comics Society. This activity might surprise some Christians; but if the work was more widely read and discussed, the whole world might \u2013 and should \u2013 know of it. In the next blog message I will highlight some of the cartoonists and their work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the meantime, I will note that it is inspiring that some cartoonists are working not to impress each other or attract fans by whatever means they can use\u2026 but are conscious of the One Reader they seek to please.<\/p>\n\n\n\n + + +<\/p>\n\n\n\n