"I Need Attention" 

by Matt Singer





A window into utopia:



You turn the corner and head down the block, passing the store where you bought 
your shoes on sale for $34.99.  After a pizza dive, a Greek restaurant, a barbershop, 
you find your destination.  You open the unmarked doorway quickly, hit by the cool 
breeze of the air conditioning.  The door leads to a narrow stairway.  You take it 
quickly up to the café.



The large flat-become-coffee shop is quiet this afternoon.  A few people are sitting 
reading and drinking, few conversations, the small stage empty.  Plenty of available 
seats, that's good.  You make your way to the counter and look over the menu.  The face 
smiles as she asks if you need assistance.  She's too pretty to say no to, so you make up 
your mind fast.  You order a small latte and today's special.  She smiles back, nods, and 
goes to make your latte.  A few moments later she hands it over and a copy of today's 
special, the newest issue of Powers.  She gives you the grand total; you fork it over, 
smiling back.  



You find an empty couch next to someone reading the same issue as you.  You smile 
politely and exchange pleasantries as you sit down.  Ten minutes later you finish the book 
and strike up a conversation.  You agree to meet the next time the book's out and discuss 
again.  Getting up to leave, you toss the issue on to the coffee table.  You're done with 
it, might as well let the next person have a read.  Checking your watch you rush back down 
the staircase and out onto the street.  You're late for class.





All right I'm shutting the blinds now.  Did you enjoy our little peek?  Does my 
writing in the second person terrify you?  Are you just plain confused?  



That little comics-and-coffee café up there is a little bit of my idea of where comics 
should go.  No more hiding in the corner of the shopping plaza where angels and people 
with less than five zits on their face fear to tread.  No more hiding your comics in boxes 
in a closet.  Comic books need to be displayed, discussed, savored, and analyzed.  They 
should be sitting on tables in coffee shops or bookstores, where intelligent people 
congregate.  It's time to take the medium to the streets, to shove it in people's faces 
and make them realize what they are missing out on.



Comic books are a stigmatized medium if ever there was one.  To the majority of the 
American public they are nothing more than a piece of their childhood they like to revisit 
every once in a while.  The uninformed masses known as society, think of comic books as a 
HOBBY, not a MEDIUM FOR STORYTELLING.  Comic books are lumped somewhere in between baseball 
cards and collecting stamps.  All things I was supposed to have outgrown about five years 
ago.  Your average Joe takes comic books as seriously as the Sunday Family Circus.  One 
glance one week is more than enough to tell you everything you ever needed to know. 



It's sad because comic books, when done well, are literature; hell, works of art.  And 
what do parents say when you buy them?  "Why are you wasting your money on that crap?"  
These kids are getting it engrained in their heads; these things aren't worth the paper 
they are printed on.  Who among you thinks if someone bought a stack of regular books each 
week parents would be telling their kids, "What are you doing reading this junk?  You're 
throwing your money away!"  Comic books and sequential art are the homo superior to books' 
homo sapien.  When used properly they tell and say things books could never dream of.  
Books wish they had the ability to utilize visual language the way that comic books do.  



We need to pound into people's skulls that comic books are a not a hobby, not a fad, 
but a medium of entertainment, just likes movies, television, or books.  And just like any 
medium, they are only as good as the talent that works in them.  Yes, comics have given us 
Ambush Bug.  But movies gave us Plan 9 From Outer Space; television, Joanie Loves Chachi.  
Does that mean we give up on the medium as "fluff" and "kids' stuff?"  No, because those 
same mediums gave us Citizen Kane, The Simpsons, and countless other works of unbelievable 
quality.



If the industry continues to diversify and put out books separate from the standard 
capes and tights, then eventually they are going to attract attention.  First, creators 
from other media will see the potential so many of us already do.  Then, comics will start 
telling important stories.  If that happens, comics could be the stuff intellectuals 
discuss in coffee shops, instead of on message boards on the Internet.  



Comic books can become cool to the mainstream.  But it's going to take a lot of work.  
Enough procrastination and talk about the problems.  Let's get started.




Back To Matt's Page O' Stuff!