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Comics
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to this Commentary!
Noah Nelson
 As
Hollywood does some serious soul searching over what should be considered "entertainment"
since September 11th, other facets of the culture industry are coming to terms
with their own content issues. Youth Radio's Noah Nelson reports on what's happening
in the relatively small, but influential comic book industry.
Somewhere in Southeast Asia, the Engineer, mistress of machines, is carpet bombing
a dictator's headquarters. Just another day in the life for the world's most
powerful comic book superhero group, The Authority, as written by Scotland's
Mark Millar.
Like their bigger siblings in the movie business, comic book publishers, part
of a 300 million dollar industry, are taking a closer look at the kind of action
depicted in their scripts.
Over the past few years, to hold on to a mostly male, 18 to 30-year-old customer
base, superohero storylines have come to mimic Hollywood blockbusters, 22 saddle
stapled pages of action with a special effects budget limited only by the creators'
imagination. This is a style nicknamed "widescreen comics."
Comics reader Ian Yarbourough explains.
IAN: Widescreen comic books are actually even more widescreen than movies are,
they're using movie terminology. It's just over the top basically.
But with the entertainment industry uncertain of what the public will find palatable,
since Sep. 11th, one of the biggest publishers, DC Comics, has postponed some
of its publications indefinitely.
Brian Hibbs is the owner of Comix Experience, one of the top comics retailers
in San Francisco.
BRIAN HIBBS: There's already been some, what you might call reactionary moves
pulled by the publishers where they've taken books on the schedules or books
that were to be printed in a week or two and yanked them.
This includes DC Comics' postponement of writer Mark Millar's final issues of
The Authority.
Yet not every publisher is shying away from tragedy. Marvel Comics, DC's chief
rival and the publisher of Spider-Man and the X-Men, is taking the attacks on
the 11th head on. Joe Quesada, Editor In Chief of Marvel Comics in New York,
says that he doesn't really have a choice.
JOEY Q: The thing about the Marvel universe is that, you know, we don't have
a Gotham City or a Metropolis. Our heroes live and breathe in NYC. And they
live and breathe in our lives continually. So basically, you know, the mayor
of New York City in a Marvel book is really Guiliani. So, you know, we walk
this fine line, but at the same time, it isn't a line that I necessarily, you
know, want to jump back from and say, oh, wait, wait-we have to change everything
we're doing here.
For Quesada the attack on New York took on a personal dimension. A family friend
was amongst the firefighters who died when the Trade Towers collapsed. Marvel's
offices are in Manhattan, just a few miles from the trade center.
JOE: I had people running down to the hospitals trying to donate blood. At that
same time I was getting e-mails from fans saying that Marvel should do something-
a tribute book- something to raise money because money's going to be needed.
Three tribute books will be coming out from Marvel this year, the first, Heroes
produced in record time, a magazine sized poster book featuring images of New
York's finest, police and firefighters. Priced at $3.50, three dollars is guaranteed
to go directly to New York charities and the Red Cross.
Other comic book companies are following suit with their own, currently unscheduled,
tribute books.
Retailers don't know if the books will sell, but as Brian Hibbs back at Comix
Experience would point out, no one gets into comics to be rich.
BRIAN: I think that's a really positive thing. I have no problems if we order
50 copies of this thing and it only sells ten. The money's going to charity
so.. so I as a retailer don't care.
With the entertainment industry still finding its legs, playing a delicate balancing
act between profit and propriety in the new marketplace, Quesada is adamant
about continuing his publishing mission. Telling heroic stories, even when they
hit close to home.
QUESADA: Over here in comic book land, we tell stories of extraordinary people
in the face of extraordinary odds. And most of the time they're facing extraordinary
evil. And when you see those rescue workers downtown lifting brick and mortar,
that mission gets reinvigorated, and that message becomes one that you want
to communicate that much stronger.
Marvel's comic book tribute, Heroes, goes on sale today.
In San Francisco, I'm Noah Nelson for Marketplace.
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