I Love Comics

I collected comic books a lot when I was a kid, still do in graphic novel form.  I was my introduction and I’m sure most people's to the world of illustration the artists of these books would use their skills to tell the stories the comic book writers wanted to tell, talented artists would take the words and concepts and flesh out the story telling the narrative in brightly coloured frames and create fun and interesting characters to inhabit worlds of their creation.  I bought or borrowed many from the Commando war comics, 2000AD and Judge Dredd, Spiderman, X-men and The Transformers, my earliest recollection of browsing and choosing my own comic was getting Transformers issue 22 in 1985 from a little newsagent close to where we lived in Northampton. Comic books are not solely produced for kids, they just happen to buy them with their pocket money.  

Transformers issue 22 (it was only 27 pence!)  Though it was nearly a third of my weekly pocket  money.

The themes explored by the writers and artists are weighty and relevant to not just life growing up and trying fit in but issues of alienation, being different and acceptance of otherness, stories about overcoming difficulties in the face of adversity and dealing with loss or abuse all infiltrate and help inform an impressionable mind.  They can be very literate too, I was introduced to classic literature by the stories they told inspired by Greek myths, Shakespeare and other older mythologies including the bible and the epic of Gilgamesh, all laid out in the pages of Superhero comics.

Comics are also heavy influenced by the times they were written and illustrated by, the creative’s involved in their construction would enrich their narratives with moral messages with world events and politics in a way that would assist in the storytelling.  By putting themselves the comic characters shoes they could tell stories inspired by real world events things complicated or horrid could be made sense of in the small dramatic frames.  The horror of World wars, The Korean War, Vietnam and the Watergate scandal, Capitalism and Communism all filtered through and grounded the story to create a more textured environment for the Superhero’s, giant robots or aliens to inhabit.

Judge Dredd created by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra was another favourite of mine, Dredd inhabited the authoritarian police state of MegaCity 1, as one of the judges of that city he was had the powers of the police, jury and executioner.  It was violent and heavily laced with issues of Democracy, corruption, and tyranny as Dredd himself was an instrument of a dictatorial regime that enforced a cruel form of justice on the criminal ilk and on democracy activists alike.

Judge Joesph Dredd.

Today my bookshelves have graphic novels from Alan Moore, His excellent Watchmen (please read the book and don’t judge it by the film) V for Vendetta (again don’t judge by the film) From Hell, Frank Miller’s Batman The Dark Knight Returns and Sin City and other works from Neil Gaiman, Garth Ennis and Mike Mignola.  

Its seems that most have been made into films, with varying degrees of success and its very understandable why the stories are being retold on the big screen.  They have to do with the big themes, tragedies and larger than life characters and environments peppered with real world concerns and issues of being human and all that means that have been so lavishly created.  These modern day myths and struggles are continuing the traditions of storytelling that have been with us since people learned to communicate with one another, to write and tell stories to spin tales of powerful Gods and mythical creatures and the consequences that their actions had on humankind while also speaking of personal dramas. 

Like all good stories and Science Fiction is also a very good example of this: Create a world and people live in it, far into the future or on another world, fill it with vengeful Gods, monsters, mythical creatures, superheroes or mechanical beings. Make it different enough from our world while still making the characters believable and you can write moral tales about genocides, teen pregnancies, ideologies, bigotry, sexism, sexuality and get these issues across to an audience and either inform or change perceptions. 

A few recommendations rightly deserved to be called classics.  Though part of the fun is the discovery of having a look and finding your own favorites.

Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (1987)

V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller and Klaus Janson

Hellboy: The Seeds of Destruction by Mike Mignola and John Byrne


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