Big box came yesterday. Straight from Fantagraphics, the great publisher of the Pacific Northwest. Lotta’ good looking books in there, including Ultrasound by Conor Stechschulte, The Complete Eightball by Daniel Clowes, and Metax by Antoine Cosse. This morning, another package. This one from Uncivilized Books, the Minneapolis gem, with their latest, including The Sickness by Jenna Cha and Lonnie Nadler, Maple Terrace by Noah Van Sciver, and West by John Grund. Why am I listing all of this out for you? I think it’s just for the sake of noting. But also, I’m excited. I have a BIG pile of books at my bedside. And it doesn’t account for the stack of monthly superhero comics and zines that I have purchased. I’m a sucker. There’s too much to check out. For this reason, art kind of feels like a commodity, like any other. It feels like I’m consuming instead of engaging with it. Maybe that’s on me … Yet, art is different from a commodity because it is entirely its own universe. It has principles that guide and direct it, and there’s room within for people to take and reinterpret what they see in highly personalized ways. It’s open and free and welcome. Or it can be, at least. In this way, art feels a bit like an economy where humanity is allowed, where emotion and perspective are valuable and given space. But, creative expression still has its ties to that cold hard dollar. It’s forced to. Everything is (in these conditions). And some art seems to persist just to spite these circumstances. The books I’ve already mentioned … Their publishers are, to me, projects with ambitious goals of expanding the thought potential and intellectual scope of comic books. They are businesses, yes. And they are out to make all the money. But the primary concerns motivating these enterprises seems more altruistic, meaningful. They’re about participating in an art form that’s much larger than any one entity or person and giving something back to it. The other side of the coin … BANG! SHIT! WHOO! BOOM! The superheroes. I love them. But they are a bottomless pit, engineered to suck up all your money and keep you caught inside a tight narrative groove. The same repetitive plots. You get it … A complicated subject, for sure. As you can tell by my years blogging, I’ve thought way too much about it. But ultimately, superhero comic books are products meant to support brands and turn profits for mega corporations. They are the responsibilities of departments within global media organizations, and they are positioned and marketed to make that cash. They can almost seem to be the antithesis of art, but this isn’t actually so. Are there rules that say art is inherently aligned with one ideology over another? One political system over another? Not that I know of. It’s a tool developed by humans, and humans can use it in a variety of ways. So, superheroes are art, just another kind … But anyway, the point is … I have a lot to read. A lot of comic books to read. That’s really all I’m trying to say. Did you see that pile? Do you think I have a problem? I don’t know. Yeah, it’s probably just rampant consumption feeding the devil, but I see it as enthusiasm, curiosity. A way to be entertained and connected. A portal into a shared imagination, a convoluted, continued human work-in-progress.
alec reads comics 