![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
A man can dream, damnit
Mar. 15th, 2004 06:10 pmFrom an interview in Newsarama:
[NEWSARAMA]: Won’t even pretend I understood what that last part meant, so…while everyone seems to be screaming for more diversity in comics, there are, by ratio, very few strictly “funny” comics on the shelves compared to action, horror, and super-hero books. Why do you guys think this may be the case? Everyone likes to laugh… so what’s the problem?
[Wayne Chinsang]: Well, that’s a really good question. Obviously, heroes are the comic industry’s bread and butter, and it always will be. So you just can’t compete with that stuff. I think comics, as a medium, is already something that is associated with the world of kids, and, when you’re a kid, that doesn’t really bother you. But when you’re in your thirties, there is a stigma attached to it, so I think people tend to try and read stuff that is “adult” or “serious”, so as to not feel completely weird about reading comics, you know? Like, “Comics aren’t for kids! Look! This character says, ‘Fuck!’ And they’re drawing tits and sex and stuff! It’s not for children.” I think, and I could be wrong here, so don’t send me hate mail, but I think that people really don’t want to feel like they’re reading Archie books. But I think something that is lost on the comics world is that humor can dip into all genres. You can have a humorous superhero book. A humorous underground, emo-comic. Humor can be peppered in everything. But people are so scared about someone fucking with a character that they’ve grown to love, or a storyline that is decades old, that there is no room to breathe.
Here’s an example. If someone handed me a superhero book, I’d totally fuck with it. Like, give me Aquaman, for instance. Boom! Instantly, a drunk, retarded shark that can’t “communicate” with Aquaman comes up and swallows him whole. Dead. Gone. Replace him with a new character: a gay Hispanic sailor named Aguaman. Real Aquaman fans are probably having a heart attack now.
My point is this: Do more! Have fun! They’re only fake characters, for Christ’s sake! Kill ‘em. Bring ‘em back. Make ‘em Republican. Whatever. There won’t be more “funny” books until the fans and the industry quit taking it all so seriously. I think comics can be a great medium. It’s got visuals and text, so it’s unlike almost anything else out there… but I don’t think it’s being used to its full potential. There is so much more cool and funny shit that could be done with them. Damn. I said a lot. Sorry.
[Jim Mahfood]: Dude, we should pitch that Aquaman idea to Bob Schreck at DC. It would get approved immediately and I'd finally be able to draw something for them. Prestige format mini-series here we come!
[Dave Crosland]: Man… that totally beats my Solomon Grundy vs. Jabberjaw and The Herculoids/Ultimate Hanna-Barbera crossover idea. Shit!
I'm only really familiar with Jim Mahfood's stuff--I may as well admit here, since there's nowhere really appropriate to do so, that I have a Diablo II character (an Assassin) named GrrlScout--but I'll look up the works of the other two the next time I'm in a town with a real comic book store, which is to say, Chicago. This book sounds so much better than 90% of the stuff that's on the shelf right now, it's not even funny. I've never really understood why anyone would buy an Aquaman solo book, but Aguaman--that's another story entirely.
[NEWSARAMA]: Won’t even pretend I understood what that last part meant, so…while everyone seems to be screaming for more diversity in comics, there are, by ratio, very few strictly “funny” comics on the shelves compared to action, horror, and super-hero books. Why do you guys think this may be the case? Everyone likes to laugh… so what’s the problem?
[Wayne Chinsang]: Well, that’s a really good question. Obviously, heroes are the comic industry’s bread and butter, and it always will be. So you just can’t compete with that stuff. I think comics, as a medium, is already something that is associated with the world of kids, and, when you’re a kid, that doesn’t really bother you. But when you’re in your thirties, there is a stigma attached to it, so I think people tend to try and read stuff that is “adult” or “serious”, so as to not feel completely weird about reading comics, you know? Like, “Comics aren’t for kids! Look! This character says, ‘Fuck!’ And they’re drawing tits and sex and stuff! It’s not for children.” I think, and I could be wrong here, so don’t send me hate mail, but I think that people really don’t want to feel like they’re reading Archie books. But I think something that is lost on the comics world is that humor can dip into all genres. You can have a humorous superhero book. A humorous underground, emo-comic. Humor can be peppered in everything. But people are so scared about someone fucking with a character that they’ve grown to love, or a storyline that is decades old, that there is no room to breathe.
Here’s an example. If someone handed me a superhero book, I’d totally fuck with it. Like, give me Aquaman, for instance. Boom! Instantly, a drunk, retarded shark that can’t “communicate” with Aquaman comes up and swallows him whole. Dead. Gone. Replace him with a new character: a gay Hispanic sailor named Aguaman. Real Aquaman fans are probably having a heart attack now.
My point is this: Do more! Have fun! They’re only fake characters, for Christ’s sake! Kill ‘em. Bring ‘em back. Make ‘em Republican. Whatever. There won’t be more “funny” books until the fans and the industry quit taking it all so seriously. I think comics can be a great medium. It’s got visuals and text, so it’s unlike almost anything else out there… but I don’t think it’s being used to its full potential. There is so much more cool and funny shit that could be done with them. Damn. I said a lot. Sorry.
[Jim Mahfood]: Dude, we should pitch that Aquaman idea to Bob Schreck at DC. It would get approved immediately and I'd finally be able to draw something for them. Prestige format mini-series here we come!
[Dave Crosland]: Man… that totally beats my Solomon Grundy vs. Jabberjaw and The Herculoids/Ultimate Hanna-Barbera crossover idea. Shit!
I'm only really familiar with Jim Mahfood's stuff--I may as well admit here, since there's nowhere really appropriate to do so, that I have a Diablo II character (an Assassin) named GrrlScout--but I'll look up the works of the other two the next time I'm in a town with a real comic book store, which is to say, Chicago. This book sounds so much better than 90% of the stuff that's on the shelf right now, it's not even funny. I've never really understood why anyone would buy an Aquaman solo book, but Aguaman--that's another story entirely.
