Go grab a comic book.
Go ahead, go.
I'll wait right here.
Perfect. What did you grab? I'm holding a copy of The Man of Steel #4 that I picked up yesterday, along with the long anticipated Shanghai Red by Christopher Sebela and Josh Hixson. While I'll soon be writing a review (of sorts) of the former, I'd like to focus on the aesthetics of the latter, if only because of what it is: A comic book.
Taking a look at this site, at my Twitter feed, even my Instagram, one gets the impression that I like #makingcomics. I do. I love it, actually. But I wanted to take a moment to focus on the impetus of that love. Take that comic book out of its protective bag and backboard, if you haven't already. If you grabbed your CGC 7.5 copy of The Incredible Hulk #181, I'll understand if you leave it in its sealed container. Go grab a different book, one that doesn't have its own life insurance policy and come back.
Okay, hold that puppy up to your face and take a good whiff. That's it. Pretend its cocaine and that you're Rick James and its 1984, and, and---Just sniff it, alright? I promise, I'm going somewhere with this.
So, if you grabbed an older comic, what you're probably smelling is the fading aroma of ink on newsprint. That vaguely newspapery smell, however, is likely playing second fiddle to a dustier, antique kind of smell, that of the acids yellowing away at the newsprint, shifting and fading the colors subtly as the comic almost imperceptibly decomposes. Lovely, innit? Now, if you happened to grab a newer one like I did, that fresh ink on paper smell is going to smell a bit like wet paint.
Now feel the weight of the book in your hands. Feel the tightness in the stable binding, how cool and smooth the covers feel between your fingers. Open it up and riffle the pages. Are they loose and free flowing? Or has time, or a little bit of errant raspberry jam made them stick together?
This is why I love making comic books: Because they are comic books. Every week, every month, whatever, a new collection of amazing (or, not so amazing, lets face it, not all of them are designed to knock your socks off) art, itself unifying a written story, told in whole or in part, then saddle stapled is made available for you to purchase, protect and collect. If its any good--and The Man of Steel actually is pretty good even for a Superman yarn--it might even invite you back for a re-reading. Maybe the story was just that good, or maybe the artist rendered that character or that environment in such a way you felt for a second that you knew them, or that place, that perhaps you were them and you were there. Comics accomplish at once what prose narrative and film try to capture separately in their own unique ways. Comics have all the visual appeal of a blockbuster film--more, even, given theres no need for a special effects budget--and all of the cerebral gravity of an epic novel. And yet, they have something uniquely their own. Comics can play with time in a way that a novel could never show us, and that a film would piss us off if it tried. Comics pack flat, and in single issue form, do not make huge demands of our time. They give, and they give again. And sometimes they even become valuable, are sold on eBay for money that is turned around and used to purchase still more comic books.
My love letter to the comic book at large is still far from done, though I prefer to compose it as a comic. I compose it with every panel I draw, every dialog bubble I fill, every PSD file I airdrop to my computer for finished flatting and lettering. I love comic books, friend, and I'm assuming if you're here and you've read this far, that probably you do, too.
Now, one last thing. Before you put that comic away, turn it to page one and read it. Because that's the intended fate of every comic as prescribed by its creator.