Thinking Too Much About Comics
by Michael C. McClelland

I've been thinking a lot about what I want from comics. I think that mostly it's something I just can't have.

Comics.

What are they?

Stories on paper? Art and words combined? A certain way of telling a story? A certain kind of story to tell?

I remember my earliest comics were treated as "how to draw books." I went over each cover with a ball point pen or a magic marker tracing the images. I went inside and drew over characters I didn't like and cut out ones I did like and pasted them on paper to make my own stories. I never thought about collecting them or worrying about what they were all about or the "industry" or the "integrity" of the characters. They were disposable entertainment for a 3 or 4 year old who would have just-as-soon of had a coloring book.

I liked Hotstuff.

He was bright red and had devil horns. He was way cooler than Casper and that little priss, Richie Rich. I also had a preference for Reggie over Archie. I liked Betty. I liked Jughead best though. I had a hat like Jughead's.

Then one day, I was 7 and I was waiting in the hospital for my brother to be born. I was alone. I was god-awful bored. They wouldn't let kids go upstairs. I just had to sit. And sit. It was hell. I thought I'd never get to go home. Dad brought me three comic books -- probably from the gift shop and probably without even thinking.

1) BATMAN. It had a disembodied brain on the cover. I knew Batman from the TV show and was horrified at the darkness and creepiness of this comic. It wasn't like Batman at all. And I couldn't understand a damned thing that was going on. I did learn how to draw a brain in a jar though.

2) SPOOF. A short-lived humor comic that Marvel produced that featured parodies of Night Gallery and the musical 1776. The cover featured Woody Allen. I have often wondered if this comic led me to my long-time intrest in Woody Allen, Rod Serling and Thomas Jefferson. Probably. I read the damn thing enough times.

3) Fantastic Four 132. My first Marvel comic.

Superhero comics.

The Thing was inspiring. This orange rocky man fighting a giant Alpha Primitive. Talking like a regular guy. Then there was the Human Torch and this fascinating silvery guy -- Quicksilver fighting over the love of Crystal. Johnny Storm cries a long Buscema tear drop at the end.

I was hooked.

Comics were suddenly a whole new ballgame. For some reason, it became important to keep up with all my MARVEL comics. Keep them separate. Keep them nice. I wasn't so much into getting more FF as I was getting new and different Marvels. HULK, WEREWOLF BY NIGHT, TOMB OF DRACULA, MAN-THING (I loved horror!), SPIDER-MAN, etc etc. I used to pull them all out and look at them all lined up on the bed. All these different colorful characters. What else was out there? What else would I discover?

When I talk about comics, if I am honest, I'm not talking about stories told in print with words and pictures. No, I am talking about MARVEL superhero comics of the kind I read as a kid.

Superhero comics.

I'm talking about the FEELING I got from reading them. The FULLFILLMENT. I'm talking about something that I really can't explain in any logical or adult way.

I saw AVENGERS 141 on the RACK AT 7-11 and I was scared of it. Frightened. Who were all the characters running at each other? How could so many characters be in one book? What would happen? I HAD to have it. I couldn't resist. I plopped my lemonade stand money on the counter and bought it and went back to my lemonade stand to read it repeatedly and spill lemonade all over it.

Captain America was so cool! And that Beast guy! I had to get more Captain America comics and more Avengers and before I knew it a pattern of reading comics regularly month by month developed. Soon I was trading for back issues with my friend.

My friend.

Chad was his name. He was my first best friend. We found out the other read comics and quickly developed our own little 2 man world of comic fandom. We read each others comics. We drew our own comics -- we acted them out in the back yard. The Vision/Wonderman fight was a particular favorite to steal from ...er be inspired by. We started more comics than we finished, but we always had fun. Every comic I could get my hands on that he couldn't find was suddenly a treasure. Comic distribution wasn't too good in small North Carolina towns and since my father traveled back then and took the family with him, I got to score some great treasures from other parts of the country.

Things really culminated with the Korvac saga. Each issue was more intriguing than the next. We spent long days speculating on what was happening and why and what would happen next. We talked about it all the time. We thought about it all the time. We missed an issue and went insane! Biking over half the town (our mom's would've killed us) to find issue 172! I mean ... how could we read 173 until we read 172???

And then 177 came out and it was over. I moved to Oklahoma not long after that and with that move I really wasn't able to be the same anymore. Suddenly I was a teenager in a strange place where comics were far to frivilous to spend money on. And though I clung to Avengers and Cap and Hulk and the Micronauts through subscriptions -- things were never the same.

I eventually found cool indies in college to read and developed a group of interested friends in titles like Sandman and Watchmen and Swampthing and Badger and so on.

But that feeling never really returned.

Oh it did, on some occasions. I'd read an issue and find myself suddenly 9 years old, sitting under a tree reading a book and being totally enchanted by it. I'd find myself thinking about a comic during the day at work and wondering how things would turn out. I walk through the opening elevator doors and think, "is this how Vision feels walking through walls?"

And that's why I keep reading. Because no matter how fleeting and far between that feeling may be, it's worth it. Oh sure, I get to see some great art and read some great stories. Sometimes I am given cause to think or feel or gape in awe. But I wonder if I hadn't felt such pleasure in reading comics when I was young what I would think of them now ... if I would think of them now. If what I want and demand from comics would be what a 33 year old man would demand from an entertainment as opposed to what a dreamy little nine year old lusts after in his afternoon summer reading.

My wants and needs in comics are shaped utterly by my childhood reading experiences. They've been tempered by other reading I've done and by having gone to college and having my brain warped by certain individuals pretensions perhaps. But ultimately I want to have the years stripped off my brain like old paint. I want the wonder and the thrill. But I don't want a dopey comic pandering to the kid in me. I want that wonder and thrill that makes me 9 years old fed to me in a dish that suits a 33 year olds tastes.

A tall order.

A near impossible command. And yet it is met more often than one might expect by the fine people who produce quality comics today. Sometimes I forget how picky and demanding I am. I don't forget often, but sometimes.

And I often forget how empty the comics reading habit can be when done alone. Having others to discuss and speculate and swoon and argie with about the comics makes it so much deeper and richer and frankly less insane.

There may have been a point to this when I started, but I have long since rambled away from it. I think I originally wanted to point out that there was some kind of magic that occurred when I read the Korvac saga and those early Marvel's and magic that too rarely occurs now. Because comics are different; because I am different. When it occurs I suppose it should be looked as as some sort of minor miracle. I suppose I should be grateful that something can still make me feel that way. I'm sure others don't have a passage back there.

I do.

I like it.

Goodnight.

Michael C McClelland