Four-Color Thursday
Man has this been an odd time for comics. I’m seeing more and more regular media coverage of comics and for completely different reasons. First we had Batwoman being announced as a lesbian. Then Superman… who may or may not be portrayed by a homosexual actor… has a history of documentary that seemed to almost ignore the comics that spawned the character all together… and finally, there’s coverage of Spider-Man revealing his identity to the world.
I have three very different reactions to each of these. I stated before that I think mainstream media coverage is great, but most of the time it’s done when the person seeing the coverage wouldn’t be able to get the book in question. Here is all this great publicity for Batwoman, yet she hasn’t appeared in any comic yet, she won’t appear in costume for two months and when she does, it will be in 52, not her own series. So if the person who was interested in reading about the adventures of Batwoman still remembers that interest two months later, they still have to find a comic shop and remember 52 or hope there is a helpful sales person at the store… not always guaranteed.
The Superman documentary was fun to watch and I have to admit I didn’t think anything bad about it until I was reading Steve Grants column. He’s the one that points out the lack of comic book coverage. The show basically talks about Siegel and Shuster creating the character in Action Comics, then getting it’s own series. They jump to it getting picked up as a newspaper funny and a radio program and finally a movie serial. Supposedly a lot of the comic concepts came from the radio program and movie serial. They basically don’t talk about the comics again until Superman shows Lois who he is, dies, comes back and gets married. 60 Years of comics and they basically only show 4 or 5 highlights and quickly at that.
The follow up on this is now there is a debate of whether Superman is the story of a immigrant or of Jesus… I’m thinking since Siegel and Shuster were Jewish, probably the immigrant story.
The Spider-Man coverage I find extremely interesting… there really wasn’t anything “real-world” controversial about it. It doesn’t strike me as news for any place but comic related web-sites. Yet it made the cover of newspapers and top stories on news broadcasts around the country… some coming out prior to the book creating a spoiler for fans. This is the first mainstream attention I’ve seen that actually coincides with the release of the book. Hopefully that means an increase in sales and some new fans coming in through the door… but my fear is that the new people may just be the same speculators that came in when Image started over 10 years ago.
All of this is good from a creator standpoint… more publicity for comics is good for everyone involved. But from a reader standpoint… I sometimes miss the days when I could pick up a comic and just be entertained for a half hour by Batman solving a mystery or Superman saving the world… I miss when comics were fun and exciting.
Man has this been an odd time for comics. I’m seeing more and more regular media coverage of comics and for completely different reasons. First we had Batwoman being announced as a lesbian. Then Superman… who may or may not be portrayed by a homosexual actor… has a history of documentary that seemed to almost ignore the comics that spawned the character all together… and finally, there’s coverage of Spider-Man revealing his identity to the world.
I have three very different reactions to each of these. I stated before that I think mainstream media coverage is great, but most of the time it’s done when the person seeing the coverage wouldn’t be able to get the book in question. Here is all this great publicity for Batwoman, yet she hasn’t appeared in any comic yet, she won’t appear in costume for two months and when she does, it will be in 52, not her own series. So if the person who was interested in reading about the adventures of Batwoman still remembers that interest two months later, they still have to find a comic shop and remember 52 or hope there is a helpful sales person at the store… not always guaranteed.
The Superman documentary was fun to watch and I have to admit I didn’t think anything bad about it until I was reading Steve Grants column. He’s the one that points out the lack of comic book coverage. The show basically talks about Siegel and Shuster creating the character in Action Comics, then getting it’s own series. They jump to it getting picked up as a newspaper funny and a radio program and finally a movie serial. Supposedly a lot of the comic concepts came from the radio program and movie serial. They basically don’t talk about the comics again until Superman shows Lois who he is, dies, comes back and gets married. 60 Years of comics and they basically only show 4 or 5 highlights and quickly at that.
The follow up on this is now there is a debate of whether Superman is the story of a immigrant or of Jesus… I’m thinking since Siegel and Shuster were Jewish, probably the immigrant story.
The Spider-Man coverage I find extremely interesting… there really wasn’t anything “real-world” controversial about it. It doesn’t strike me as news for any place but comic related web-sites. Yet it made the cover of newspapers and top stories on news broadcasts around the country… some coming out prior to the book creating a spoiler for fans. This is the first mainstream attention I’ve seen that actually coincides with the release of the book. Hopefully that means an increase in sales and some new fans coming in through the door… but my fear is that the new people may just be the same speculators that came in when Image started over 10 years ago.
All of this is good from a creator standpoint… more publicity for comics is good for everyone involved. But from a reader standpoint… I sometimes miss the days when I could pick up a comic and just be entertained for a half hour by Batman solving a mystery or Superman saving the world… I miss when comics were fun and exciting.
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