the scarey world of the fanboy
The other day I was charging about in search of something, anything by Joe Sacco. For those who haven't encountered him yet, he is a comic writer, a cross between the style of Peckar and Crumb, but the subject matter of the war correspondent. His story "The Fixer"is an amazing look at Sarajevo post war, and his recent piece available from the Guardian website ( www.guardian.co.uk ) makes a better case for the impeachment of Bush in 8 pages, than thousands of worthy lines of column.
Anyway I was looking for other titles by this particular author, the quest began with a trip to international megabookandcoffeestore local branch 123, nothing. So then I got the bright idea of dropping by my local Comic Book Emporium. This is not something I have done for sometime and I have to say I had forgotten what an odd little world I was entering.
Comics in serried ranks, neatly grouped in racks, in no obvious order other than publisher. It was as I ploughed through the ranks that I began to become increasingly uneasy. Title after title slid by, with names like the Punisher, the Scruncher, the Muncher and the Puncher. Image after image of some muscle bound individual inflicting violence on some other muscle bound individual. That is except for the ones with the preposterously over developed female figure on the cover.
Or the one's with the naked woman on the cover, or the rows of porn mags with titles like Razzle, Dazzle or Jizzle.
Puzzling, a sort of cross between the childish (they had anthologies of Donald Duck for crying out loud!) and the seedy old man in the dirty rain coat.
I'm not really sure what all of this says, but the politics of some of the titles really began to worry me.
I guess you could say my politics are way out on the left, social progressive, democratic socialist, something like that. On the otherhand I felt as if I was being confronted with politics from the far end of the spectrum.
By and large we are dealing with notions like, strength as a means of solving problems, unilateral action, the vigilante, force as a means of shaping society.
Guess I'm not saying anything new, but there you go.
I think that what I am seeing is a continuation of a broader pattern, one that I don't see reversing anytime soon, turn on the television and find a music channel and see and watch some Hip-Hop videos with a growing queasy feeling in the pit of your stomach to see what I mean.
The messages going out are messages of gender and cultural domination, the male animal can expect to do as he wishes in any sphere. The woman/foreigner should expect to be subjugated.
I know we are not talking exclusives, I have slowly become quite fascinated with the ongoing narrative of Marshall Mathers, had high hopes for the Black Eyed Peas until they bought the poison chalice with "My Humps"(a song I hope to God is meant to be ironic!) but in general this whole individual exploiting others thing has gone too far. You know exactly what I mean, artists who have built a career on the whole Pimp mentality.
I found myself noticing similar things in the comic books, this whole notion of the individual operating outside the law. Batman as dispenser of summary justice, abusing the individuals he is supposedly ridding the world of. Sounds to me not unlike a couple of US Presidents I can think of, who believe that rule of law only applies to the other guy, or to them when it suits them.
Maybe I am reading to much in to this, perhaps it is all just harmless excapism, perhaps I am missing the subtle message, the post ironic commentary, or not.
Sure, some of the greatest works of literature in the Western Canon have themes of violence, are individuals acting etc, isn't the Iliad the story of one man's temper tantrum? Yes, but Homer spends a long time, both in Iliad and Odyssey dealing with motivation, with asking questions with forcing the reader (or listener) to confront their opinions. I didn't get a sense of this in Comicbookerama. Instead it felt like if my prejudices went that way, I would spend many a happy hour reinforcing them.
My growing unease mounted when I stepped up to the counter and asked the person there ensconced the following question.
"I was wondering if you had the book Palestine by Joe Sacco in stock?"
The immediate response of panicked silence made me wonder if what I had actually just said was,
"I have a large bomb attached to my person, my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!"
The manager was fetched.
I repeated the question.
His response?
To look at me as if I were something unpleasant attached to the bottom of his shoe, and to say.
"You are the first person to ask for that book in two years"
"I could get it for you in two weeks" This said as an afterthought.
By which time I was already out of the door.
Anyway I was looking for other titles by this particular author, the quest began with a trip to international megabookandcoffeestore local branch 123, nothing. So then I got the bright idea of dropping by my local Comic Book Emporium. This is not something I have done for sometime and I have to say I had forgotten what an odd little world I was entering.
Comics in serried ranks, neatly grouped in racks, in no obvious order other than publisher. It was as I ploughed through the ranks that I began to become increasingly uneasy. Title after title slid by, with names like the Punisher, the Scruncher, the Muncher and the Puncher. Image after image of some muscle bound individual inflicting violence on some other muscle bound individual. That is except for the ones with the preposterously over developed female figure on the cover.
Or the one's with the naked woman on the cover, or the rows of porn mags with titles like Razzle, Dazzle or Jizzle.
Puzzling, a sort of cross between the childish (they had anthologies of Donald Duck for crying out loud!) and the seedy old man in the dirty rain coat.
I'm not really sure what all of this says, but the politics of some of the titles really began to worry me.
I guess you could say my politics are way out on the left, social progressive, democratic socialist, something like that. On the otherhand I felt as if I was being confronted with politics from the far end of the spectrum.
By and large we are dealing with notions like, strength as a means of solving problems, unilateral action, the vigilante, force as a means of shaping society.
Guess I'm not saying anything new, but there you go.
I think that what I am seeing is a continuation of a broader pattern, one that I don't see reversing anytime soon, turn on the television and find a music channel and see and watch some Hip-Hop videos with a growing queasy feeling in the pit of your stomach to see what I mean.
The messages going out are messages of gender and cultural domination, the male animal can expect to do as he wishes in any sphere. The woman/foreigner should expect to be subjugated.
I know we are not talking exclusives, I have slowly become quite fascinated with the ongoing narrative of Marshall Mathers, had high hopes for the Black Eyed Peas until they bought the poison chalice with "My Humps"(a song I hope to God is meant to be ironic!) but in general this whole individual exploiting others thing has gone too far. You know exactly what I mean, artists who have built a career on the whole Pimp mentality.
I found myself noticing similar things in the comic books, this whole notion of the individual operating outside the law. Batman as dispenser of summary justice, abusing the individuals he is supposedly ridding the world of. Sounds to me not unlike a couple of US Presidents I can think of, who believe that rule of law only applies to the other guy, or to them when it suits them.
Maybe I am reading to much in to this, perhaps it is all just harmless excapism, perhaps I am missing the subtle message, the post ironic commentary, or not.
Sure, some of the greatest works of literature in the Western Canon have themes of violence, are individuals acting etc, isn't the Iliad the story of one man's temper tantrum? Yes, but Homer spends a long time, both in Iliad and Odyssey dealing with motivation, with asking questions with forcing the reader (or listener) to confront their opinions. I didn't get a sense of this in Comicbookerama. Instead it felt like if my prejudices went that way, I would spend many a happy hour reinforcing them.
My growing unease mounted when I stepped up to the counter and asked the person there ensconced the following question.
"I was wondering if you had the book Palestine by Joe Sacco in stock?"
The immediate response of panicked silence made me wonder if what I had actually just said was,
"I have a large bomb attached to my person, my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!"
The manager was fetched.
I repeated the question.
His response?
To look at me as if I were something unpleasant attached to the bottom of his shoe, and to say.
"You are the first person to ask for that book in two years"
"I could get it for you in two weeks" This said as an afterthought.
By which time I was already out of the door.
posted by caerdadh at 3:48 pm
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