Joining the World of Comics
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Super Hero Movies Caught Your Eye?
I cannot speak for everyone, but I can say that the increasingly popular comic book heroes gone movies have changed the movie going experience for me. Rather than saying good-bye to cartoons as I get older, I have been watching them more and more. I have started becoming a regular at a local comic book store, and even follow their special deals on Facebook. From the enjoyable but not true to the comic book storyline X-men movies to the Avengers road with Thor and Captain America, the silver screen has become home to a number of movies. Thor has even claimed the honored title of "Most Tweeted Movie of 2011" according to Comic Movie Trap. Now more than ever, people can recognize that these cartoon characters are more than just children's toys and tools for telling meaningful stories.
Watching the Watchmen
The best example of a meaningful comic has to be Watchmen, created by Alan Moore. Most people now know Watchmen the movie because it so recently came out, but the graphic novel is nothing to sneer at. In some parts, the novel is so wordy that even college students reading it for a literature class have to skip parts just to finish their page count by the deadline. Watchmen made it on the list of Top 100 Novels--though it was competing with everyday novels like The Notebook and Tuesdays With Morrie. The simple reason for this is that Watchmen is a well crafted story with layers upon layers upon layers of complex plot lines. One could easy skim its pages and pick out which chapters to read, still getting one full story without the whole plot intact.
Most importantly in Watchmen, the vast majority of these heroes are real. They are as much flesh and blood as the people flipping the pages. There are of course exceptions, like Dr. Manhattan and Ozymandias' cat Bubastis, but most of them are just people. You see aged masked-heroes living out their final days in different ways, you watch the next generation fighting their own temptations in various ways, and all of them suffer from their own poor judgment and humanity at times. Even the one character that is decidedly not human suffers from emotions that the people reading the comics can identify, like jealousy and hurt. The villains have redeeming qualities, and the heroes are just as messed up as everyone else they encounter. But above all, when they fight, they bleed. They are not perfect. In one tongue-in-cheek panel, the main couple of the series are attempting to be intimate for the first time while the world's most perfect acrobat performs gymnastics on the television. The comic is very obviously aimed at adult humor, since no child would understand why the man is so embarrassed as his resulting failure to launch while the gymnast Ozymandias is on in the background.
Though the Watchmen film may not have been as popular as other comic books and cartoons gone movie, it does reflect a trend. The same publishing company that made Watchmen was also responsible for 300, the comic that spawned the well known and very well quoted Gerard Butler film. Stylistically, its not hard to see where the inspiration for various cinematic tricks comes from. Watchmen, Sin City, 300 and even Spider-man or X-men all have very obvious elements that pay homage to their roots.
Understanding an Art Form
In order to best appreciate comics, I highly recommend Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics or his other graphic novels about comics. McCloud thoroughly examines what it takes to make comics an effective story-telling medium as well as a great work of art in each panel. Not only does he understand the nature of comics, he shows you just what he means by each narrative technique utilized.
My favorite example from McCloud's work is the way a comic can allow its reader to fit themselves into a character. To demonstrate this, McCloud shows us a classic icon: the smiley face. A smiley face has the basic elements of a face, we can recognize it as being essentially humanoid and we identify the emotion displayed easily. It is, after all, a smiley face. But what McCloud argues goes much deeper than that. McCloud says that we are in fact able to fit ourselves into the smiley face, and empathize with it because it lacks certain human details. We personify it as us because it is the easiest way to fit ourselves into the story. This also applies in real life situations, another one of McCloud's examples being a person driving a car. When two cars collide, a driver will typically yell "He hit me!" instead of "He hit my car!" because the car becomes an extension of ourselves.
Think about your favorite cartoon, or your favorite comic book hero. Which character was your favorite and why was that? If that hero was wearing a mask, did they seem more mysterious because of it, or were you still able to tell exactly what they were feeling the whole time? How often did you see the face of the character easiest to empathize with? McCloud's book will make you think of these big questions, and it makes reading comics that much more fascinating. Comics are not just for kids to read while looking at all the cool pictures. Adults can learn to love the brilliance they offer too.
Finding the Good Stuff
So do you want to give comics a try? It never hurts to get into a series while waiting for the movie to come out. As most comic readers will tell you, there are a dozen or so alternate universes for each series anyways, so just think of the coming movie as yet another one. Might as well get to know some wonderful characters when a movie preview catches your eye. Or, was the movie you saw a little disappointing but you loved the idea? Try the original. Sometimes the characters deserve another chance.
Quite simply, once you know what you want, finding your local comic book store is the best way to get connected. I have yet to set foot in a store that was not staffed with friendly, helpful employees eager to help me find what I wanted as well as anything related to my interests. As one of the employees put it, that's the beauty of going in person. You can even flip through the comics to be sure you're getting what you want and ask for advice.
For the beginner who likes a character and just wants to know more about them, this is a great resource. You can also find more fans and discuss your favorite arcs or characters in forums. My favorite feature is finding which comic series has a certain character in it. Just browse by character and use the links on the left hand side.
Though I always buy things from my local store because I love the owners that much, Amazon is great too. My favorite X-man, Gambit, first appears in an issue of Uncanny X-men that is about $40 at my local store. However, that issue is part of a full volume that can be found for less than $6 on Amazon and includes many other issues starring my favorite guy. So, once you know your stuff, Amazon is a great way to save money.
Local Library
Last but not least, never underestimate the power of a good library card. I only recently discovered the shelves of good trade copies at my local library. Some comics I never would have purchased or read otherwise were on the shelves, and I was able to look into them without losing any money this way.
