Inks by Chris

Cross-Post of a 2007 Post By Me On Spiderman: The Cultural Meanings of Spider-Man: Critical Approaches to an American Icon

christopherconway — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 02:48:00 +0000

This piece is pretty old, and has been previously published elsewhere, but I thought it would fit on this page.

Now that Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3 is due in theaters in a few days, starring the inimitable Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker, we may want to pause to consider the power of this enduring American icon. For almost half a century, Spider-Man has been a quintessentially American hero full of rich moral and psychological complexity. Virginia Postrel, in an October 2006 issue of the Atlantic Monthly, argued that superheroes like Spider-Man capture the imagination of the masses because they are glamourous, meaning that film audiences emotionally bond with superheroes through “a sharp mixture of projection, longing, admiration, and aspiration.” Postrel notes that superheroes embody the mastery we desire over our bodies and our longing for solidarity with other people (Justice League anyone?). This is a very interesting “audience-response” model for thinking about the popularity of Spidey, but what about the symbolism of Spider-Man? What does he mean? How do we begin to talk about the cultural work that Spider-Man does? I looked to some academic scholarship for answers, or, at least, the beginnings of answers. I found several articles in the Journal of Popular Culture on the subject that I’d like to write about below. They provide contrasting views of how we can talk about Spider-Man.

I begin with an older article by the distinguished writer Salvatore Mondello, “Spider-Man: Superhero in the Liberal Tradition” (1976). Mondello offers a historical periodization of Spider-Man beginning in 1962 and ending in the mid-1970’s, after Watergate. According to Mondello, between 1962 and 1967, the comic The Amazing Spider Man must be seen as an extension of a conservative view of politics and public life. This is because Spidey’s heroics are placed at the service of Cold War politics (battling Communists) and, in one case, personal gain (helping out with Aunt May’s mortgage). Between 1967 and 1973, Spidey becomes a social crusader targeting problems such as drug use and other public causes. After this period, Spider-Man becomes more of an escapist entertainment disconnected from social problems (Mondello suggests that this is a result of the disenchantment sown by Vietnam and Watergate.) Based on a close reading of certain issues of The Amazing Spiderman, Mondello ultimately concludes that “During the late 60’s and early 70’s, Spider-Man had helped to keep alive American liberalism among the young, a tradition stressing cooperation among individuals and minorities rather than conflict, moderation in politics rather than extremism, and the right of each American to social recognition and economic opportunity.” I wonder what Mondello would say about the Raimi adaptations. Is Spider-Man still an icon of classical American liberalism?

Donald Palumbo’s 1983 article, The Marvel Comics Group’s Spider-Man is an Existentialist Super-Hero; or “Life Has no Meaning Without My Latest Marvels”, gives us a whole different take to consider. Palumbo reads Spider-Man through the lens of the history of philosophy, specifically Existentialism. Palumbo explains that existentialist figures like Spider-Man have a worldview in which an individual’s idealism and the ugly, absurd realities of the world clash. As a result, existential heroes tend to reject god, have troubled relationships with father-figures and live on the margins of society. Palumbo reminds us that although Peter Parker and Spidey never explicitly talk about existentialism, we do know that he reads books by Sartre, Camus and Jung. Regardless, a careful reading of many of the comics shows us that indeed, Spider-Man is an alienated figure who questions his place in the world and his ability to transform it, sometimes to the brink of madness. I haven’t seen Spider-Man 3 yet, but it would seem that the madness part (as expressed through Venom’s hold on Spidey) may be an important piece of the story.

Finally, we come to Niall Richardson’s The Gospel According to Spider-Man (2004), which analyzes the first Spider-Man movie. Richardson writes: “Spider-Man not only employs pastiches of famous scenes from the Bible but also examines the theology of Christian belief. The film’s narrative, like Christian ideology, centers on the hero’s shame for his flawed and lustful flesh and his attempt to transform shame into atonable guilt.” Richardson notes the negative cultural connotations of spiders and how these may be linked to sexuality as something dark and dangerous. He observes that Peter Parker’s camera functions as an expression of his lust toward Mary Jane, and that Parker’s vain attempts at self-aggrandizement ultimately lead to the death of Uncle Ben. Thus, Parker violates a principle that is essentially Christian in nature: use one’s power for the greater good, not for pleasure. As in the previous articles, there’s much to mull over in this article. I was struck by Richardson’s reading of Parker’s physique in relation to Christian images of “Saints crucified and tortured” and by his allegorical reading of the choice between saving Mary Jane and a bunch of kids at the end of the movie.

We will have to wait for the scholars to get around to Spiderman 3 to see what new insights are gleaned from the latest chapter in the story of this American icon. No folk hero or symbol can remain current and socially relevant (or popular) without changing over time and taking on the problems of the day. I haven’t had a chance to think too much about it, but I suspect that Spider-Man today encapsulates some of the themes that made him popular in the past while also speaking to our post 9/11 anxieties. I’m going to think about that and if any reader of this blog has any insights into the same subject, we’d like to hear about it in the comments section.

Batman in Russia: What’s Good About Batman Confidential 31-33

christopherconway — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:49:58 +0000

I’m glad I stumbled onto The Bat and the Beast arc in Batman Confidential (so far, as of this inking, numbers 31-33). Batman can get kind of old and solipsistic sometimes. The psychological, dystopian vision of The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller has basically been done to death. And Hush-like mashups of multiple villains and melodrama make for histrionic and campy effects. That’s how I feel about it, basically.

I’m not sure you can really reinvent Batman at this point and make him truly original, but some stories succeed in maintaining my interest by humanizing the character (Batman: Year One, for example, and the Loeb/Sale books). So, what about the Batman Confidential story-line, The Bat and the Beast? It’s not a revisionist tale, or one to really tinker with the mythology in anyway. Instead, it’s just an “adventure”, a lost tale of the Batman. What’s fresh about it is the fact that Batman is decontextualized by travelling to Moscow. This change in setting makes the story topical (Russian kingpins, Chechens) and introduces interesting cultural and historical elements (Faberge eggs, the end of the Soviet Union, the mythology of the Red Army). With regards to linguistics and Russian, having Bruce Wayne actually speak of fricatives may actually be a first in comic book history. The word pops up twice in #32 and that’s really cool. This comic is interested in linguistic difference, in signalling that there are different languages out there.

Kudos to writer Peter Milligan. Brandon at Are You a Serious Comic Book Reader, who knows a lot more about comics than I do, sums up Milligan like this: “The plot is Milligan in a nutshell: A quiet interaction with real history and comics history, some hint of political and social commentary, and a super-simple comic book story.” Yep, that’s precisely what I like about it.

The creation of sympathetic monster in the Bear also adds some heart and pathos to the story. It’s all very familiar, but in ways that don’t necessarily echo the Batman mythologies that are popular today. It’s something like a gothic fable, with a monster, and underground tunnels, but it’s also different, because it’s all set in Moscow. I don’t know how Bruce Wayne knows Russian, or how he safely keeps house and hides his identity in Moscow. More on that would have been great. Another criticism is that Moscow comes across a bit empty, like an exotic movie set. Still, it all works somehow, it satisfies.

The art and coloring by Andy Clarke and David Baron respectively, is very nice. I like their clean, spare style a lot. It’s a bit static but in a rich, interesting way. There something alternative looking about it, and that is much appreciated, as opposed to a more generic, American comic book art kind of style. I’ve run out of adjective and context to properly describe what it is I like about their work.

Too Much Cheese? Thoughts on Justice League of America: A Cry for Justice (1-3)

christopherconway — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 14:26:38 +0000

I will continue trying to post to this blog, even if it means talking a little about titles from a few weeks ago. I have several posts brewing that I need to get out before I talk about anything super current.

Let me cut straight to the chase. I have a problem with Super Hero committees, leagues, organizations and clubs. There’s something about getting a bunch of peeps in suits together that just heightens the cheese factor. I can suspend my disbelief fine, but it’s always a bit harder with JLA type story lines. So I go into these kinds of comics with a bit more skepticism than most. To make matters worse, since I am relatively new to comics, I don’t command all the back stories and don’t know and love all the characters as others do. The Infinity Crisis story line, for example, gave me a headache, as does Blackest Night. This newbie gets overloaded too easy, I guess. Give me some more time.

The new JLA arc, written by Robinson and with art by Cascioli, has garnered some negative reviews (one here, another here, and this one too). But I like Cascioli’s art a lot– it’s very painterly and rich, and there’s something old-fashioned about it in the best sense of the word, I think. I can’t follow the story too well because I don’t know these characters, but whereas some may object to the punchy, over the top dialogue, I really like it. The banter between Green Lantern and Green Arrow made me laugh, and I appreciate that.

Finally, the essays at the end of each comic are pretty interesting. I appreciate the history lessons about different characters.

In Praise of J.H. Williams III and Dave Stewart (Detective Comics: Batwoman)

christopherconway — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 13:37:25 +0000

As I start this blog, there are several posts I want to write. I begin with one of my favorite comics: the “Elegy” story-line in Detective Comics: Batwoman, written by Greg Rucka, with art by J.H. Williams III an colors by Dave Stewart. There’s a lot to say about this new Batwoman, and about Rucka’s writing, but in this post I want to dwell on the main reason I discovered and love this comic: it’s look. Like Matt Price over at Nerdage, I believe that “…the obvious selling point of the book is the art.”

Williams and Stewart have created an astonishing look to the story-line “Elegy”, which begins in Detective Comics 854. The organization of panels, which overlap, and the different textures in the colors (for example the contrast between the lush soft red of Batwoman’s hair and the ink and shade lines in the same hair) give the design of the comic a three-dimensionality that is unusual in comics nowadays. The comic also favors painterly, two page spreads overlaid with smaller panels or shards of other panels. This kind of breaking up of your standard paneling is not brand new to comics but in my experience, no team has done this kind of thing with such elegance. There are so many outstanding examples of this technique in Detective Comics 854-856, that I am hesitant to single one out for praise, but I will anyway. In 855, Batwoman whisks away her villain across an eerie, nocturnal, fall cityscape. The smaller panels that intercut this canvas, which combines the look of watercolor brush-strokes with line drawing, are irregularly shaped and overlaid with falling leaves that swirl in the background and the foreground, creating a three dimensional effect.

The color scheme of the comic is also a bit different–the night scenes are colored glowingly, and the day scenes have a yellow or pale yellow luminiscence to them. I really like how another blogger, Baldwin, expressed his enthusiasm over the coloring: “the reds are blood red; the blacks are silky black; the blues are like Billie Holiday; and the whites are tinged with a hint of menace.” Yeah, Billie Holiday indeed! There’s something haunting about the coloring, it’s like jazz. The drawing by Williams, especially in the quiet moments of the story line that begins in #854, is crisp and realistic, clean, simply put: beautiful.

The team of J.H. Williams III and Dave Stewart may very well be my favorite pencilling/coloring team in comics right now. The only thing that comes close in my limited experience, is Simone Bianchi’s work for The Astonishing X-Men. I wish I could find more examples. Does this style have a name? Someone let me know. In sum, the look of Detective Comics: Batwoman is just so lush and popping, it really is in a class apart. That’s it for now. I’ll comment on Rucka’s writing soon.

Inks by Chris begins…

christopherconway — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 21:47:39 +0000

Hi, my name is Chris. I am a 40 year-old professor of literature who did not have the luxury of growing up with American comics when I was a kid. That’s because I grew up outside of the United States and comics were hard to come by. Once in a while, my brother would send me comics, which I devoured, but I could not get them on my own. Later, as a teen-ager, further travels and disruptions stopped me from buying comics on my own. So I begin now, better late then never, I guess.

In this blog I plan to share some of my newbie impressions about the comics I am reading now. If no one reads this, OK, at least I get to work out some of my ideas. But hopefully I’ll make a few online friends whose comments and guidance can help me along this new path.

What do I look for in a comic? Unlike many readers of Marvel and DC, I know little or nothing about the complex back stories of key characters. The splashy, vast multiple character story-lines like Blackest Night and Dark Reign can turn me off because I don’t have much context to what is going on or a familiarity with the key characters. For example: Batman has had more than one Robin? These kinds of realizations have popped up over the past few months more than once. What I primarily look for in comics is art that I like (for example Frank Quitely for Batman and Robin, Michael Lark for Daredevil; Simone Bianchi for Astonishing X-Men; J.H. Williams III for Batwoman, Ben Stenbeck for Mignola’s Witchfinder, Sean Phillips for Incognito, Mauro Cascioli for JLA: A Cry for Justice and a few others). I’m pretty much open to anything, but I really do enjoy Steampunk, and nineteenth-century stuff (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Witchfinder anybody?)

I think I have a different point of view because of my limited experience with comics. I look forward to learning more, and hopefully dialoguing with others about comics.