This guy is the way forward.

I recently read Maps and Legends by Michael Chabon. The book is a series of essays on genre fiction, and how that’s not a dirty thing. A couple of the essays (“Kids’ Stuff” and “The Killer Hook: Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg!”) deal specifically with comics, and Chabon—a geek if I’ve ever read one—has a whole hell of a lot to say about comics as entertainment as literature. More said from more experience than I have. So, what I’m going to do is something slightly different.

I don’t think there’s a single person I know who takes comics as seriously as the clichéd comic book nerd. Even my most comic-ridden friend can take the piss out of the institution. (Usually directed at Marvel’s Stan Lee, fist in the air, shouting, “Gamma rays!” “Radioactive spiders!” and “Excelsior!” in a saliva-ridden voice.) That said, those friends of mine who have read graphic novels or comic books will tell you that there is vast potential for the genre to be just as literary as, say, 1984—largely thanks to that crazy man, Alan Moore. With the growing amount of films adapted from graphic novels and long-running comic series, the art form is entering the mainstream, but there are still plenty of things that scare off the normal folk from going into a comic book store and picking up an issue of a major title. So, in a roundabout way that’ll eventually lead us to what the title of this thing is talking about, I’m going to give my thoughts on why this is.

Continue reading →