A Cool Medium

March 2001

By Robert K. Elder

More than super-powered guys in pajamas pummeling one another, comic books are tackling serious subjects, and being taken seriously for it.

Complex, novel-length works like Joe Sacco's journalism on the Bosnian War, "Safe Area Gorazde," and Chris Ware's generation-spanning "Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth" are sharing review space alongside Don DeLillo and Margaret Atwood in major publications such as The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, Rolling Stone and the Chicago Tribune.

Long after being accepted as an art form abroad, comic books are reaching respectability in American culture. Non-superhero books aimed at mature readers are receiving rave reviews -- but while the medium is stronger than ever artistically speaking, the comic book industry is still recovering from an economic recession. Having long ago lost
mass readership, creators are producing books for aging readers with more sophisticated tastes.

Where do comics go from here? Media guru Marshall McLuhan has suggested that when media are not long considered mass media, they either need to define themselves or become obsolete.

"Comics now either will probably become an art form or disappear," says comics icon Art Spiegelman. "It's trying to find itself the same way theater is trying to find a place for itself in the world of movies and television."

Perhaps the recent rush of new books and media exposure echoes Spiegelman's theory of "critical mass": Before comic books can reach a place of respect and influence in American culture, there must be a critical mass of good material being published at the same time. Or, more simply put: "People will start attending to comics when there are more comics worth attending to," Spiegelman says.

With his 1986 Pulitzer Prize-winning "Maus," Spiegelman became the single most influential artist/writer in the industry. An illustrated biography of his father's journey through Nazi concentration camps to his life as a U.S. immigrant, "Maus" and its sequel "Maus II" went a long way in proving that comics can tackle serious subjects with taste and dimension. It hasn't been until recently, however, that attention paid to comics has reached a fever pitch.

Celebrating the 15th anniversary of Spiegelman's seminal work this year, Random House subsidiary Pantheon Books also garnered success this past year with Ware's "Jimmy Corrigan" book, Daniel Clowes' slacker crime fiction in "David Boring" (both published in serial form by Fantagraphics Books) and "Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer:
The Beauty Supply District " by Ben Katchor.

"To one degree, critical mass has already happened, although this is all based on individual achievement," Spiegelman says. "We were lucky last year, there was a number of very interesting projects that came out. It's not obvious that that'll keep exponentially growing."

Whether it's luck or an incredible sense of timing, there seems to be no lack of comic influence and references in modern America. Sacco, who also won the American Book Award for his journalistic comic "Palestine," is now covering world affairs in comics form for Time magazine. Work by Chicago's Ware has adorned covers of The New Yorker and WBEZ's "This American Life" CD.

Brian Azzarello's noir morality play "100 Bullets" is being taught at Northwestern University, while the Chicago Humanities Festival is celebrating the graphic arts in with its theme of "Words & Pictures" in November. Guests thus far include Will Eisner ("The Spirit"), Neil Gaiman ("The Sandman") and Jules Feiffer ("The Phantom Toll Booth").

But in a time when comics are attracting more mainstream attention than anytime in history, the comic book industry is still recuperating from a recent sharp decline in readership. Since the 1950s, readership has fallen due to competition with other entertainment outlets. Comics have enjoyed spikes of popularity along the way, but readership fell again after a boom collector's market in the 1992. But earning $400 million in 2000, the comics industry seems to be pulling out of its recession, according to figures from Diamond Comics Distributors Inc. Although that's still half the $800 million comics earned at their peak in 1993, last year's figure is still up $75 million from 1998.

"We're in the middle of a resurgence now, but it's a slow and steady growth," says Mark Herr, director of purchasing for Diamond.

Success in the burgeoning mainstream book market hasn't hurt either. Ware's "Jimmy Corrigan" book has just gone into a third printing, totaling a respectable 53,000 hardcover books in print.

At the same time, comic book metaphors seem to permeate pop culture, from M. Night Shyamalan's dark, comic-inspired film "Unbreakable" to Michael Chabon's novel "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay."

"Comics were the last popular American art form to attain respectability, long, long after all the other popular art forms did, including rock 'n' roll, jazz, and movies," says Chabon, perhaps best known for his novel "Wonder Boys."

He continues: "Comic books, in large part because of `Maus,' have elbowed their way to some sort of semi-accepted status in the minds of those who legislate what is acceptable art and what is not." 

Book industry trade magazine Publisher's Weekly carried a ban on comic book reviews before "Maus," but just last December began a quarterly section exclusively for comic books.

"PW was probably the only publication in the Western Hemisphere that didn't review `Maus,'" says Calvin Reid, news editor at PW. "It was a bit of an embarrassment around here when the book got so much attention and won the Pulitzer...

"It seemed to me it was just the right time for us to really start covering the medium, also because I think we're seeing some of the best work that's been done -- ever."

He continues: "I'd even include superhero comics in that. I think the writing, the artwork, the production is at an all-time high."

Not only that, but publishers are seeing comics as a viable market and are looking for new talent to package in hardcover.

"It has become clear to us in the years since `Maus' that the comic book market is comprised of people who are very serious about comic books and treat them both as engaging narratives, but also as pieces of art," says Dan Frank, editorial director for Pantheon Books.

Like independent film, creator-owned and published comics allow for more freedom and a greater influx of different viewpoints and voices.

"A comic strip is a singular vision for the artist, and a singular experience for the reader. It's also a solid thing that doesn't have to be downloaded or plugged in, which I personally like," Ware says.

The medium itself offers an experience that no other can, he argues.

"The most wonderful thing about comics is that they're not drawing or writing, or even simply a synthesis of the two; comics are a pictorial language intended to be read," Ware says. "A comic drawing is, more or less, the visual equivalent of the printed word."

Even superhero titles are enjoying a creative renaissance with a surge of talented new artists and writers such as Garth Ennis ("The Punisher"), Joe Casey ("Superman") and Warren Ellis ("The Authority" and "Transmetropolitan").

While superhero books still out-sell the alternative creator-owned books like Jessica Abel's "Artbabe," it is the work by the independent artists getting most of the media attention. This is mostly fine for artists like Spiegelman, who still has affection for superhero books but thinks they complicate the issue of comics' being taken seriously.

"Some of the superhero books being done now are wonderful, but it's all ground we've covered before," says Spiegelman.

Still, more than a few Hollywood personalities are getting into the game. "Chasing Amy" director Kevin Smith is currently writing "Green Arrow" for DC Comics, after his successful run last year on Marvel Comics' "Daredevil."

Similarly, "Babylon 5" creator J. Michael Straczynski earned praise for "Rising Stars," a neo-superhero book that integrates a sense of realism and humanity into the costumed drama. Marvel Comics editors are hoping Straczynski will be able to work his magic on "The Amazing Spider-Man" when he takes over in April. This summer, "Buffy the  Vampire Slayer" producer Joss Whedon starts writing "Fray" for Dark Horse Comics, a futuristic vampire hunter storyline.

"All this wonderful work that can be created is going to only a handful of people that are willing to go into a comics store," says Chicago artist Alex Ross, best known for his "Kingdom Come" series. "And there are increasingly less and less of those across the nation. You need the same accessibility as any other magazine."

Almost all of the comics distributed in the U.S. are sold only in specialty comic book stores. The number of these stores has shrunk from 8,500 in 1994 to just half that today. But the distribution pattern is changing. The major comic publishers, DC and Marvel Comics, and smaller houses like Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly are collecting more anthologies for the lucrative bookstore market, the promised land forcomics. Major bookstores mean a mass audience, which could help boost sales as well as exposure.

"The bookstore side of the business is three times what it was five years ago," says Paul Levitz, executive vice president and publisher of DC Comics. "We're in an evolutionary process, not a revolutionary process."

With the recent success of "X-Men" and "Blade," more films based on comic characters are currently on their way to the screen--and not all of them superhero fare.

"Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" director Ang Lee is tackling a movie version of "The Incredible Hulk," and Sam Raimi is directing Tobey Maguire as your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. But non-costumed comic-based movies are on the way. Alan Moore's macabre fictional account of the Jack the Ripper murders, "From Hell," starring Johnny 
Depp and Heather Graham, was recently wrapped by the Hughes brothers. "David Boring" creator Clowes will see another of his books, the slice-of-life "Ghost World," hit screens later this year with "Crumb" documentarian Terry Zwigoff at the helm.

Still, some remain skeptical whether comics themselves will ever be accepted by American culture.

"I think the prejudice that comics are for kids is far too ingrained. It's also far too prominent to ignore or get past," says director Smith. "I don't think you're ever going to see the acceptance for it that you see in other countries. If you go over to Europe, and Japan as well, it's a valid form of literature and art."

Smith, who also owns a comic book store in Red Bank, N.J., says he's not being pessimistic about comics' place in culture, just realistic.

"This is a very short attention span generation and country -- and the youth we're raising, they are not inclined to sit down and read a comic book," Smith says. "Who buys comic books? People who are 18-50, that's who I see in our comic book stores."

"I would tend to agree with that. We do get kids, but it's a small percentage," says Eric Kirsammer, who owned Chicago Comics in Lakeview for the past 10 years. "We still do well with straight superhero stuff, `X-Men' does really well, but so do artists Dan Clowes and Chris Ware. We've been cultivating the alternative market pretty heavily since I've owned this store."

Pantheon editor Frank is enjoying the success of the creators under his publishing house, although he's not entirely sure why comics are enjoying so much attention of late. You won't catch him complaining, however.

"Part of it is purely accidental that you have all this coming together now," Frank says. "But ultimately, we are a culture in love with the movie screen and with the image. What comics do so well is bring the word and image together. What we're hoping to do is bring them more to mainstream attention."

Fame and recognition come with a price, however.

"Respectability is a strange thing. Is respectability congruent with being part of the mainstream?" Frank says. "Once you're part of the mainstream it's going to be so homogenized and something you want to push away from. If comics are ever going to be a part of the mainstream, it's going to be as infiltration, as it should be. That's when you've done your work well."

Originally appeared in the Chicago Tribune, March 2001 

Special thanks to Sean Kleefeld for this article.
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