American comics

[burntcopper]

I'm in a Warren Ellis -type mood. It probably doesn't help that I'm selling my original issues of many of his things, and have just started on the Transmet, to fund buying of the graphic novels. I re-read the first issue, and his rants on comics came rushing back.

American comics are fucking *weird*. Nowhere else in the world is 'mainstream' defined by twits going around dressed in lycra looking for a fight. Christ, even in Japan they have big fucking robots instead. Strange futuristic sci-fi and magic with an overly-developed sense of the dramatic, yes, but not fucking superheroes. In the UK we don't have superheroes, we have kids' comics and sci-fi/fantasy and war comics. Evil, nihilistic little weekly things, mostly compilation pieces where each story gets a few pages a week and can be as long or as short as it likes.

France and Belgium produce things like Asterix and Tintin, graphic novels of supreme coolness. I don't know much about the rest of Europe, but from what I've read, it appears to be along the same lines. Specialist comic shops wouldn't exist without the steaming great heaps of American superhero comics, and they don't tend to stock the normal British weekly stuff.

American comics are, seriously, crack in four-colour form. Weird fucking crack, with mountains of strangely screwed-up characters which provide fuel for scans_daily. 2000 AD has screwed up characters. But relatively normal ones. You could see how they got there, and the fully-fleshed out worlds they lived in explained it. There is no such thing as sex pollen or spank-bots. At least, in the case of the spank-bots, not unless you go into the whorehouses.

And as a side-note? I rather like the modern approach of the DCU, which points out that they don't have spandex superheroes in the UK. The only spandex superheroes from the UK have moved to America because you'd be expected to die of embarassment if you pranced around in spandex in public and didn't have the excuse of beng a fitness instructor or some sort of entertainer.

And now I'm off to read smallville porn.

Comments

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

2000AD used to be good. I remember it being good. But this was about a million years ago.

[mingmerciless.livejournal.com]

A couple of years ago, I interviewed Jason Kingsley (co-owner of Rebellion, the UK games developer that bought 2000AD to get access to the IP for games) for a games industry project and mentioned I used to be a 2000AD reader. I was supposed to pick up a few issues and give him my feedback - he said he was very interested in my view as a one-time regular reader. Alas, I never got round to it...

[snowballjane.livejournal.com]

I found a comics shop on Madeira - or at least a book shop with a huge comics section, which is impressive for an island pop. 250,000. My Portugese isn't up to much but I do sort of regret not buying any.

Tintin and Asterix did my French reading skills a world of good. And all those guns that go *pan* rather than *bang* amuse me.