{"id":1324,"date":"2009-02-12T11:05:19","date_gmt":"2009-02-12T15:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/?p=1324"},"modified":"2011-02-08T12:18:26","modified_gmt":"2011-02-08T16:18:26","slug":"parallel-universes-in-comics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/?p=1324","title":{"rendered":"Parallel Universes in Comics*"},"content":{"rendered":"

(* No<\/em>, not the dopey “DC multiverse” kind.)<\/p>\n

So, here’s another bookmark I found in my recent organizing: Evidence of a Parallel Universe<\/a>.\u00a0 This is from waaaay back, but the reason I bookmarked it wasn’t necessarily for its scientific import: like most comics folk, my brain has pretty much one track–and it’s comics<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

When I saw this article, and a flurry of others around the same time on this topic, what I thought of was not the stunning scientific and philosophic implications of possible evidence in favor of the multiverse theory of reality<\/a>, but rather, I began ruminating on what sorts of parallel universes there might theoretically be in which the history of comics is almost<\/em>–but not quite–the same as it is in our world.\u00a0 Here’re some parallel “comics universes” I’d like to see:<\/p>\n

World of Less-Cutesy Manga<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Nowadays Manga is ubiquitous, but it wasn’t always so.\u00a0 American and Japanese comics developed in parallel, but in near-total isolation.\u00a0 Much of early Manga, though–and particularly that of Osamu Tezuka, the “father of Manga”–was heavily influenced by the work of Walt Disney.\u00a0\u00a0 The Disney studio was of course the dominant animation house when this crossover was occuring post-WWII… but it didn’t have<\/em> to be.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0the\u00a0early days\u00a0of American animation, Disney\u00a0was\u00a0in\u00a0close\u00a0competition with another animation house, Fleischer Studios<\/a>, for\u00a0dominance of the\u00a0market. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The latter procuced the Popeye<\/em> shorts, the early Superman<\/em> cartoons and many others including Betty Boop<\/em>. \u00a0The Fleischer Studios\u00a0\u00a0had a very different aesthetic than Disney; their character designs were\u00a0rarely “cutesy” and\u00a0some\u00a0of\u00a0their cartoons\u00a0were downright bizarre.\u00a0\u00a0For example, check\u00a0out\u00a0this 1933 version\u00a0of Snow White<\/a> starring Betty boop and featuring everything from a rotoscoped Cab Calloway to a team of dancing skeletons.<\/p>\n

So,\u00a0here’s\u00a0the first parallel universe I’d like to explore: a world where the Fleisher Studios–not Disney–was\u00a0the dominant American animation house and was the big influence on Manga<\/strong>. \u00a0I wonder if there\u00a0was more of\u00a0this<\/em> in\u00a0the mix in the ’30s:<\/p>\n

\"betty_boop_in_snow_white\"<\/p>\n

… and\u00a0less<\/em> of\u00a0this:<\/p>\n

\"1_snow_white_with_little_bird\"<\/p>\n

… whether we might\u00a0have\u00a0a\u00a0whole lot less\u00a0of\u00a0this<\/em> these days:<\/p>\n

\"manga4-791212\"<\/p>\n

World of Less-Whiny Indy Comics<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Todays non-superhero\u00a0comics are (thankfully) bursting\u00a0at the seams\u00a0with stories of\u00a0all stripes, but\u00a0it arrived at this\u00a0state via a path\u00a0originiating\u00a0with the underground\u00a0cartoonists\u00a0of\u00a0the ’60s and then moving from there through an unfortunate developmental stage\u00a0in\u00a0the ’90s that\u00a0was\u00a0populated with more than its share of sissified\u00a0self-confessional autobio\u00a0comics.<\/p>\n

Yeah, sure\u00a0there\u00a0are deniers<\/a>, but the intertwining between indy comics and autobio seems pretty obvious to me and its modern roots seem to pretty obviously be in the ’90s. \u00a0Just as a test, try naming the most successful GNs you can think of off the top of your head. \u00a0I’d go with maybe Blankets<\/em>, Jimmy Corrigan<\/em>, Cancer Vixen<\/em>, Persepolis<\/em>, Maus<\/em> and Fun Home<\/em>. \u00a0The only one of these that isn’t<\/em> autobio\/memoir is Jimmy Corrigan<\/em>. \u00a0And, yeah, I guess I’ll wimp out and not “name names,” but I’ll let Heidi MacDonald<\/a> and Katherine Farmar<\/a> do it for me, since I’m a cartoonist myself and pissing off my peers is kind of a bad idea.<\/p>\n

How did we get here, though?\u00a0 My one word answer is this: Crumb.\u00a0 Of all the ’60s underground guys, Robert (now just “R.” apparently) Crumb is the one who’s had the most lasting influence on the non-superhero comics that followed him.\u00a0 He’s the one who established the template of the whiny, nerdy, no luck with the gals, lost in nostalgia, 78rpm record-listening, self-confessional cartoonist.\u00a0 But what if he hadn’t<\/em> been the one with the lasting influence?<\/p>\n

Among Crumb’s contemporaries were folks who were 180 degrees from him both in their personalities and in the comics they produced–people like S. Clay Wilson, Robert Williams and Spain Rodriguez. \u00a0 Spain’s comics, for example, drew on the artist’s experiences on the road as a member of the biker gang, the Road Vultures.\u00a0 His main character, Trashman, didn’t spend his time moping about women or reminising about ragtime music; he was too busy blastin’ on fools!<\/p>\n

So, here’s the second of the comics parallel universes I’d like to see: a world where the lineage of the modern indy comics scene was rooted in a ’60s underground dominated by bad-ass psychedelic shit-kickers, not self-confessional autobio<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\n

\"autobio_chart\"<\/a><\/p>\n

World of Skinnier, Sweatier Superheroes<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This one’s pretty obvious, but…<\/p>\n

Open pretty much any superhero comic book today and there’s a good chance you’ll encounter at least one character created by Jack Kirby–and, more important, the basic “visual language” of superhero comics you’ll be looking at has its origins in Kirby’s work for Marvel in the ’60s.\u00a0\u00a0 Almost the entire stable of Marvel’s key characters originate in the fertile brain of Jack “King” Kirby: Iron Man, The X-Men, The Hulk, The Fantastic Four.\u00a0 Only two of Marvel’s top tier characters, Spider-Man and Dr. Strange, were penned by a different artist: Steve Ditko.<\/p>\n

Ditko was a man of strong–albeit unusual–convictions, and something (no one really agrees on exactly what) ruffled his feathers at Marvel and he left, just 38 issues into the Spider-Man<\/em> series.\u00a0 Kirby, though, continued at Marvel and pretty much everything that came after in the superhero genre would wind up owing a heavy debt of influence to Kirby’s aesthetic.<\/p>\n

What, though, if things had been reversed?\u00a0 What if Kirby left early and Ditko remained?\u00a0 That’s the third parallel comics universe I’d like to explore: a world where the work of Steve Ditko, not Jack Kirby, establishes the basic “template” for modern superhero genre comics<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I think you’d see three main differences between this world an ours.<\/p>\n

First, most obviously, an aesthetic difference.\u00a0 Kirby’s characters look huge<\/em>, even when they’re printed in a 2 x 3 inch panel.\u00a0 They’re big, they’ve got mass, they’re impossibly burly.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

They’re also drawn in an incredibly dynamic way, seeming to almost leap off the page:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

You can’t blame<\/em> Kirby for it any more than blame Led Zeppelin for Whitesnake, but clearly all paths to this<\/em> kind of depiction of the male form go through Kirby:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ditko’s characters, on the other hand, tend to look a little underfed by today’s standards.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Second, I think we’d see a de-emphasis on physicallity and a bit more emphasis on the psychological.\u00a0 As much as I love Kirby’s characters from a design standpoint, I find it difficult to really ascribe to them much of an “inner life,” no matter the quantity of Stan Lee-penned thought balloons.\u00a0 On the other hand, Ditko–possibly because of his background in horror and SF comics–seems intensely interested in his characters psychological states.\u00a0 I find it relatively easy to see a character like Peter Parker, as drawn by Ditko, as someone with actual inner mental states.\u00a0 (I suppose it helps that a lot of Ditko’s characters are kind of bug-eyed crazy and sweaty looking as well!)<\/p>\n

Third–and finally–I’d bet comics in this “universe” would make a lot more use of the diagramatic\/iconographic properties of the art form.\u00a0 As much as I love a lot of Kirby stuff, I find Ditko’s work more interesting, partially because of his tendency to draw non-literally and mix realistic drawing with symbology.\u00a0 Probably the best-known example is the famous Spider-Man “half-masked face.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My favorite example of this, though, is the (in)famous scene from Witzend<\/em> #3 in which Mr. A allows a criminal to fall to his doom.\u00a0\u00a0 Note how in the first panel Mr. A is knocking “Angel” off the roof onto a flag pole below… yet, in all of the following panels, Ditko manages to place the pole in our view, often directly between the two protagonists.\u00a0 Literally, this is obviously not where the flag pole is spacially in the scene depicted, but in a daigramatic way that’s where the needs to be, with the criminal’s life visually hanging in the balance.<\/p>\n

\n

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(* No, not the dopey “DC multiverse” kind.) So, here’s another bookmark I found in my recent organizing: Evidence of a Parallel Universe.\u00a0 This is from waaaay back, but the reason I bookmarked it wasn’t necessarily for its scientific import: like most comics folk, my brain has pretty much one track–and it’s comics. When I … <\/p>\n

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