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From: hsut@pur-ee.UUCP (Bill Hsu)
Newsgroups: net.comics
Subject: Comics as a Creative Medium
Message-ID: <3554@pur-ee.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 5-Dec-85 18:07:31 EST
Article-I.D.: pur-ee.3554
Posted: Thu Dec  5 18:07:31 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 6-Dec-85 07:48:56 EST
Reply-To: hsut@pur-ee.UUCP (Bill Hsu)
Distribution: na
Organization: Department of Eccentric Esoterica, Purdue U.
Lines: 51


	Kathy Li brought up some interesting points which I've been
wanting to discuss for awhile, but was afraid no one was interested.
Well, here goes...

	It's too bad not many people realise the potential of comic
books as a creative medium. Like science fiction/fantasy a few decades
ago (and to a slightly lesser extent today), many people see comics
as a lower class product whose major targets are small children. Many
creators working in comics also have this "ghetto" mentality that
their work will not be respected anyway, so there is no need to
aspire to high standards of story-telling, art and general creative
innovation. There are of course exceptions, even within Marvel,
the company we love to hate :-) :-).

	It is perhaps because of this "comics are for kids" stigma
that comics as a creative medium are seen to be far inferior to
books and movies. I see comics as an excellent middle ground between
books and movies, with the potential to benefit from the strengths
of either medium while avoiding the weaknesses. Comics can provide
the visual impact approximating the film medium that is difficult to
achieve with pure text. It also allows dramatic soliloquys and subtle
psychological discourses which do not come off well in the cinema
(see Dune for an example of a novel that should not be adapted as a 
movie... save flames and discussions for net.movies, please! :-))
It is a good compromise between the static quality of another visual
medium, painting/sculpture, while it also has the ability to depict
movement, one of the strengths of the cinema. Good comics utilize
some (or all) of the strengths of literature/cinema/painting. Cerebus
is almost cinematic in its panel sequencing, while there is room
for Sim to fill us in on the background by inserting page-size panels
with lots of text. This will not work well in a movie. Swamp Thing
is another good example of an almost perfect marriage of the subtleties
of text and the visual impact of the cinema. 

	It is obviously difficult for creators in comics to escape
their status as second class citizens because of their medium. It is
also difficult for comics to escape being almost exclusively 
superhero funnybooks. My hope is that eventually the market will change
sufficiently that comic books will have to change, that more adults
will become interested in good comics or enough comic buyers will
grow up and demand better comics (unfortunately, there will also be more
kids demanding more trashy Secret Wars IIIIIIIIIIII...) A big effort
has to be made to "sell" comics to adults (I've seen isolated attempts).
I certainly hope the more adventurous Independents will survive long
enough to help change things.

	Comments?

					Bill Hsu
					pur-ee!hsut