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SEQUENTIAL CULTURE #5 30 Oct 02 |
Mass Media Coverage of Comic Books:
The Case of 60 Minutes II |
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JULIAN DARIUS |
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The story focused on Marvel’s many movies in the wake of Spider-Man
yielding almost a billion dollars, making it the top-grossing film of the
year. |
Tonight (Wednesday 30 October 2002), I
watched 60 Minutes II because I read online that Marvel
Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada, popular hero for returning (or contributing to
the return of) Marvel Comics to greatness (or something closer), would be on
the show. The story focused on
Marvel’s many movies in the wake of Spider-Man yielding almost a
billion dollars, making it the top-grossing film of the year, surpassing Star
Wars Episode II. Shots were
featured of X-Men, a lesser success, and the many upcoming film
adaptations of Marvel Comics, including Daredevil, X-Men 2, Spider-Man
2, and The Incredible Hulk.
No mention was made of Blade and its sequel, which also had a
Marvel Comics origin. The emphasis
was very much on the money these films were generating, as well as the
apparent sudden popular love of such books. One of the best moments occurred when a
comic book convention was shown and the voice-over discusses how sales of
actual comic books are slipping, particularly of the mainstream comics
receiving the 100-million-dollar treatment.
I felt pain as I watched, among the idiots dressed as characters from Dragonball
Z, actual comic book readers shifting through unbagged comics, probably
in a discount bin, looking through the four-color dreams of the 1970s --
juxtaposed to the narration recounting how it once seemed every kid had his
face in a comic book. Of course, I
would point out that it seemed in the early 1940s as if every soldier
had his face in a comic book, and that not only are they not now, but that
comics weren’t always considered for kids.
But it was a poignant moment nonetheless, dramatizing the low sales of
comics -- underselling many local papers -- with the high sales of their film
adaptations. Though 60 Minutes II
didn’t point it out, this comes as those comic book originals have greater quality
than in the past, both in terms of technology and, in many cases, in terms of
narrative and artistic sophistication. |
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The 60 Minutes II segment focused heavily on Stan Lee, who
the program presented as revolutionizing comics. Later, 60 Minutes II pointed out that Stan Lee gets no
residuals on movies such as Spider-Man even though he created --
actually co-created -- the characters.
Lee is shown cringing, in what can only be carefully edited footage. |
The 60 Minutes II segment focused
heavily on Stan Lee, who the program presented as revolutionizing
comics. Of course, there is some
truth to this, particularly the idea that he gave super-heroes negative
attributes and personal problems. But
the emphasis on the importance of Spider-Man in this regard was greatly
exaggerated, and nothing Stan Lee brought to super-heroes (not to comics, per
se -- E.C., for only one example, certainly depicted characters with
personal problems, though not necessarily in continuing narratives) was
unique to him, although the particular combination of elements was, well,
particular. Later, 60 Minutes II pointed out
that Stan Lee gets no residuals on movies such as Spider-Man even
though he created -- actually co-created -- the characters. Lee is shown cringing, in what can only be
carefully edited footage, as he is asked why this is the case. He explains that his was work-for-hire,
then stresses that he likes Marvel and likes working for them. 60 Minutes II narration then says
that Lee doesn’t like to think about the matter because it makes him
sad. We’re, presumably, supposed to
pity him. And Marvel certainly would
have been considerate to have paid Lee, though Marvel’s own take on the
pictures released so far is not in evidence and rumored to have been much
smaller than one might imagine. But
equally certainly, there have been worse victims of the policy of
work-for-hire and its continuing legacies than Stan Lee, virtually canonized
as the patron saint of comic books.
Consider Jack Kirby, who cocreated most of the same characters (minus
Spider-Man, notably), and who did not go on to a cushy job at Marvel; Kirby’s
attempt to get back his original artwork became a celebrated cause of comics
creators in the late 1970s and early 1980s. |
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Perhaps worse than ignoring this is the implicit attack upon Joe
Quesada. |
Perhaps worse than ignoring this is the
implicit attack upon Joe Quesada that the report’s attack on Marvel’s
treatment of Lee represents. Although
that implication is entirely that, and is never stated, Quesada was seen on
the segment prior to Lee’s cringing, introduced as Editor-in-Chief. Absent is Bill Jemas or any other member
of the Marvel upper echelon. Though lovingly
filmed going to work, looking like an everyman, and at his drawing board,
Quesada is implicitly left to hang alone for the crime against Stan Lee,
depicted as sole creator of Spider-Man and other suddenly-lucrative
properties. Quesada was interviewed
for two hours, by his own report, only a minute or so got on screen, leaving
enough room for the dramatic story of the tragedy of poor Stan Lee. |
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Praise is due to the attention, little that it was, that was paid
to alternative -- i.e. non-super-hero -- comics. And so reporters are sent to interview Art Spiegelman, patron
saint of alternative comics. |
In a report that confusingly jumped from
one subject to another, mixing without commentary images from Spider-Man’s
original appearance with images from Ultimate Spider-Man #1 (arguably the
contemporary equivalent, the images of which, with their slick computerized
coloring, misrepresent Lee and the origin of Spider-Man), praise is due to
the attention, little that it was, that was paid to alternative -- i.e.
non-super-hero -- comics. And so
reporters are sent to interview Art Spiegelman, patron saint of alternative
comics and who holds a post at The New Yorker. Artie sits there, smoking, at least acting
the intellectual. And this portion
even shows images of Chris Ware and a brief interview with him, how he’s
received an award in Britain. And
images from Road to Perdition -- the movie, not the graphic novel,
though at least the graphic novel is accepted, and even called as much, all
of which is in stark contrast to the coverage in the popular press, outside
of an NPR report, which underplayed if not outright ignored the film’s
origins. 60 Minutes II
misidentified Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize as one for literature instead of a
special prize awarded that year only; so too was it not the first such prize
for a work of graphic literature, rather than more accurately saying it was
the only such prize awarded.
But at least the segment mentioned the Pulitzer Prize. At least it gave alternative or art comics
a voice. |
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Using Spiegelman as embodiment of artsy comics is just as
problematic as using Lee as embodiment of mainstream ones. |
But using Spiegelman as embodiment of
artsy comics is just as problematic as using Lee as embodiment of mainstream
ones. While I don’t agree with the
denunciation of him by Ted Rall -- who condemned Spiegelman’s failure to
bring more alternative comics creators to The New Yorker, which in
turn generated more backlash against Rall than anything -- I would have liked
to have seen at The New Yorker a representative of comics, or at least
art comics, and not just a representative of Art comics, or
comics as Art sees them. The deeper
problem is that Spiegelman is as much a false icon as Stan Lee, however both
serve their purposes. Ware deserves
the mass media attention, but Spiegelman’s gotten too much of it. Joe Sacco does a better job than
Spiegelman, who 60 Minutes II would have us believe was every bit as
“revolutionary” as Stan Lee -- which may be true, so long as one puts Stan
Lee in a more proper context. A
better hero of mature comics might be Will Eisner. Or even Alan Moore, whose From Hell or League of
Extraordinary Gentlemen film adaptations go unmentioned (as does that of Ghost
World) -- though Moore would no longer have provided such a luscious
quote affirming how uninteresting he finds super-heroes, if he would have
even granted the interview. But
Eisner and Moore didn’t receive the largess of a guilty Pulitzer committee
that had previously utterly ignored an entire medium, nor did they work on
something that, like Shindler’s List, virtually compelled its own
praise from the politically correct.
And, of course, there’s Gaiman, whose The Sandman -- followed
by bestselling novels -- would have made a great case. But the genius of these much more prolific
and influential artists is dwarfed by Pulitzer- and New Yorker-granted
credibility, so Spiegelman gets the nod.
Fine. Except that, at least as edited, they get
Spiegelman to affirm, with his credentials, that comics are tremendously
popular right now, as if this were unprecedented. As if the boom from 1989’s Batman to the commercial
crash of 1993 hadn’t happened. As if
the 1940s and 1960s hadn’t happened.
After all, unprecedented makes such a better story. |
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It could have been a lot worse. |
I’m being harsh, I know. It could have been a lot worse. A lot shorter. I’ve certainly seen a lot worse. Our newspapers are filled with articles praising Lee with
headlines that include “Pow!” and “Biff!” and “Bam!” -- headlines that often
point out things like “comics aren’t just for kids anymore,” as if no one
noticed what DC put in their bar code boxes on direct sales copies of their
books in the mid-1980s. Yes, I’ve
seen worse. But that’s no excuse. |
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Sequart.com! Read about the author on our About page. Julian Darius can be reached at julian@sequart.com. Discuss this column online on Sequart.com’s messageboards. |
And there are plenty who will say that any
attention is good attention, that critics should just shut up, lest they
discourage programs like 60 Minutes from covering an entire
medium. Of course, I’m not advocating
lack of coverage. Obviously, the 60
Minutes crew did their homework.
If they interviewed Quesada for two hours, and gave similar attention
to Lee and Spiegelman, plus the producer of the Marvel movies, plus an hour
to Chris Ware, not to mention any actual research, they must have known
better. But they chose to make a
story out of it, complete with dueling “revolutionaries” Lee and Spiegelman,
with Quesada as unindicted villain against Lee, with the present situation
depicted as unprecedented in general -- rather than in the number of films in
process, or the growing disparity between their financial yields and the
financial yields of the comics upon which they are based. Next time, let’s hope they have the
decency to give me a ring. |
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