Outside our small safe place flies Mystery... A snake beneath the forest floor, a whisper: Melusine

Every time there's a new movie out based on a comic book that isn't about superheroes or the latest Japanimation craze, there's yet another attack made on it by critics who just can't accept a comic book as a legitimate art form.  What gives?  Comic books are as American as apple pie.  Can you not think of any other art medium being more accessible to the average person?  We're not talking about just cute cartoons here, people, I'm talking about the epic stories of heroes, and not just the superhuman kind.

 

For some reason many Americans reject comics as geeky kid's stuff, but let me tell you something -- those geeks some of you spit on grew up to be really cool people telling really great entertaining stories, some of those geeks are even self-made millionaires rolling in the dough they've earned after creating endearing characters and images we all can't get enough of.  See, there's a little bit of a geek in every one of us who can't wait for the next installment or episode of their favorite show.  Some of us like to experience arm chair adventure like that -- for just a few bucks we can rent a movie, or switch on the television, some of us even prefer the old fashioned way of being entertained by either reading a good novel or, better yet, reading a good comic book that lets us escape from the mundane. 

 

It's amazing with just a few simple drawn lines and inked letters how easy it is for an artist to put on a one person show -- the comic book artist is director, actor, writer, magician, you-name-it, and it's a tough job, too.  Yet a comic book is so easily digested by the masses, published on such flimsy paper that can be so easily discarded like an out-of-date newspaper, it can be taken for granted, crushed up that it becomes toilet paper...  no wonder critics love to use it to wipe their asses.

 

Yet, as they say (whoever "they" are) one man's garbage is another man's treasure.  For every person who trashes the comic book medium, there's always gonna be another person available to sing its praises.

Take, for instance, the latest comic book to make it to the big screen: 300.  Some people love it, some hate it, most just don't understand it.  It's okay if you don't understand, just don't assume that the creators of this book and movie are dumb asses. 

 

I've long been a fan of Frank Miller. His genius inspired me to pick up pen and ink in the first place. I can't say his work made me want to be a cartoonist, but it sure did open my eyes to the potential of the graphic novel medium. I loved comics as a kid and was often forbidden to read them because my conservative Christian mother considered them more appropriate for boys. Later she would tell me that she took comics away from me because the comics I loved were about pagan gods and goddesses -- she wanted me to focus on the Bible, not on the wonderful and highly engrossing Homeric epics. I had to hide my comics from her until I discovered that I could just as easily read the same kind of myths in other forms of literature. For some reason, however, it was comic books that frightened and disgusted my mother. I could sneak by with reading the Iliad and the Odyssey, but couldn't get away with reading the latest issue of the Uncanny X-Men!  Much less Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns with its dark stylized image of Batman.

 

Putting Frank Miller aside, I have to say that it's the comic book medium that really made me want to rebel against the stifling atmosphere I found myself in in the early '90s when I entered college.  I liked my instructors, but hated the way I was ordered around, that to be considered a "real" artist meant I could only paint or draw in a classical or modern abstract way.  I am a product of North American pop culture.  I was still very much a wide-eyed geek girl in love with dragons and unicorns and swords and sorcery.  I played Dungeons and Dragons well into my late 20's.  I still am a lover of epic heroes and myths.  I am seduced by all things truly mystical and archaic and, above all, I have an over active imagination that keeps me, at the very least, entertained.  I believe much of my talent comes out of a passion for storytelling -- I may never be a Picasso and I never entered an art school to become yet another art gallery whore -- I want to make books!

 

Rediscovering the comic book medium as an adult really got my head swimming with ideas, but I never have had the persistance some of my old college buddies had with the medium.  It is tedious work for little to no gain, but once you get a publisher or another creator to back you, you can make a good living in the comic book business.  Yet once you're in the business, it's very hard to do anything innovative because, as Frank Miller himself has said, "If ever there was a theme song for the business end of the [comics] industry, it's: "We can't do that; we didn't do that yesterday." I've often thought that, in order to get anywhere in this business, you have to be a real tenacious asshole, maybe even draw some blood even -- that is, even if it's drawn with ink. When 300 was published in 1998, I was so filled with passion for that Homeric epic, that not only did I devour the graphic novel, I once again read the entire Iliad and Odyssey. It was like Frank Miller took all the parts that fired my imagination and splattered them on the naked page with such a lust for Spartan glory, I couldn't help but be seduced.

 

And how can I not be excited about 300 the movie?  Literally ripped from the book, the images are there moving around like living paintings, becoming even more fantastic than I think even Homer imagined, but then again, we live in a world that would be so alien to the ancient Spartans that they would have a hard time accepting our reality!  Sure, 300 is a stylized version of history, and is more heroic fantasy than reality, but that's the point.  I'm glad there's a movie with good looking, athletic, hot and sweaty men with just bits of cloth barely covering their genitals, at the very least, giving me a reason to take a break from reality  (most hot and sweaty men aren't that good looking anyway).  I don't think Homer would roll over in his grave at this re-imagining of his epic work.  I think it would give him an erection, but perhaps that's just my opinion...

 

garykent on the Mindsay 300 wiki page had the nerve to tell me "Battle? You want to see battle noble and bloody and full of heroism? Or read about it. Spend some time away from Starbucks and your computer games. Read "The Red Badge of Courage" or "The Battle of the Wilderness" by Gordon C. Rhea....Civil War, United States, more killed, more casualties, than all other wars combined. Or how about "Battle of the Tin Can Sailors", by Jim Hornfischer? Or "Flags of Our Fathers?" See the film Eastwood did from the Japanese point of view as well as ours.... Comic books...I don't think so. Courage...battle for freedom of ideals and human dignity, yes...to the max."

 

Movies, books, stories... no matter the medium, they can all be used to artfully and beautifully entertain and enlighten us. To limit an artist to just one medium would be a dis-service to the freedom we have to express ourselves.  Courage, battles for freedom, expression of ideals, human dignity, social commentary -- all of these can be as easily found in comics as they can be found in any other art form.   

 

garykent also failed in his assumption that most of us online are ignorant kids who hang out at Starbucks and play video games and type at our laptops while sipping our lattes in some kind of cultural oblivion where we ignore the true casualities of war.  This is simply not true.  Not to pick too much on garykent, but he also makes this rude assumption: "Did you ever see so many men in leather speedos? I thought I was at Wrestle Mania, or a gay rights parade in Santa Monica. Wasn't this really just soft core porn for adolescents? To be honest, the repetition of the impalements and peircings sickened me after viewing it upmteen million times. And who is doing all that yelling about "Tonight we die in Hell!" This plethora of, this smorgasboard of beefcake, spears, swords, causing great splurts of blood make it a travesty for veteran's of real war...under real conditions. As a veteran myself, I ask you to visit the Veteran's hospital, and talk to the casualties from Iraque...or for that matter, read up on Darfur and the Janjanweed Killer Horsemen, or the sadness of Kosovo. Real battle is terrifying, sad, fequently brave, but always brutal and in the end, a multitude of suffering and a de-testament to the nobility of humankind."  Perhaps there are too many scenes of bloodshed in the movie, however it's movie gore, not real gore.  We already see too much real gore on the news.  Viewing and being subsequently entertained by 300 will not make one less compassionate for those who have fought in wars.  Besides, my father is a WWII and Korean War vet.  I've visited him numerous times at the vet's home, talked with his old war buddies, and listened to their scary stories (some of which would make for great novel writing material, but most of which are really their personal stories, intimate and horrific, best suited for a one-on-one chat).

 

Just becaue I love to indulge in a gory horror or war story does not mean I'm disrespecting our veterans.  My father also loves to watch gory movies, too.  So what gives?

 

I'm not saying everyone out there should be a fan of comic books and the movies that are based on them, I'm just saying that just because one artistic medium isn't your cup of tea doesn't mean it shouldn't be anyone else's. 

 

There are many ways to tell a story well, that's the beauty of artistic freedom.