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Manolatos' Journal: February 8th, 2009, 1:00PM EST:
Man in cat costume at the entranceway of New York Comic Con. Tried to give me a pen hawking an upcoming cat comic book about talking felines. Not amused. He's only the first. Just one algae in the sea of smug picturebook pushers sitting behind their tables. There'll be others, and they will all look up and plead "Buy this!"...

...and I'll look down and whisper "no."

My games editorship required me to check out the unusually massive amount of video games featured at this year's comics convention. I found myself face-to-cowl with throngs of New Yorkers dressed up in homemade foam costumes, which only augmented my dislike of everything related to comic books. By the time I walked out later that night, however, I had a comic book tucked away in my hands, waiting to be read on the train ride home. And yes, I paid for it.

I've only been privy to two illustrated stories: the issue Superman died and Maus, assigned as required reading in a college class. (The Superman stint was due to my belief that purchasing the "last" issue of the world's spandex-clad savior was as much a civic duty as paying taxes. I was merely being a good American citizen.) So what persuaded me to cross over to the dark side? Two veterans, Darth Alex Irvine and Emperor Tom DeFalco, used their powers of hypnosis and articulation to explain the mishmash of 80 years of comic books and what lies ahead for graphic novels in other media.

I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT COMIC BOOKS. Give me ITS HISTORY in 100 words or less...
Alex Irvine: I can give it to you in three: "Immigrants make good."
Tom DeFalco: Comics were originally created to be an adult medium. They appeared in newspapers. Comic books originally reprinted comics strips, again, an adult medium. Somewhere along the lines people thought that comic books were aimed at kids and instituted things like the Comics Code Authority to make sure they were appropriate for kids. Comic book sales plummeted. So they retooled and started reaching for more adult audiences with stories like Watchmen.

How did you GET INVOLVED IN COMICs?
AI: When I was a kid, I read comics like crazy. Then high school came along, girls came along, and I lost track of them for a while. When I was in college, that was when books like Love and Rockets and Watchmen started to appear and I started to get back into them.

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TOM DEFALCO

TD: As a child, I loved the Sunday funnies. I used to save comic strips from the papers and kind of made my own books. When I was ten or so, one of my cousins had a Batman comic book—I had never seen one before. He showed it to me and I was fascinated by the concept with the full-color adventures of the creature of the night. It scared me a lot when I was a kid. I thought, Man, this stuff is cool and I want more. From them on, I got hooked onto the hobby. When I was growing up, I kind of always knew I was going to be a writer because I liked telling stories. After I graduated college, I rediscovered comics and sent out some resumés. Archie comics answered one of my applications and offered me a job.

There are 4,573,497,359 kinds of comics out there right now. How IS ONE SUPPOSED TO make sense of it all?
AI: Hah! Even I don't really know. I can't even keep track of it. It's like book publishing, maybe even more so—they can publish them faster than you can read them. You have to do the word of mouth thing, you see what people are talking about. There are a lot of interesting comics reviews sites online and stuff like that, so if you're looking for a way in, that's one way to do it. There are writers who have really intense followings, so you might take a look at one of their books and, if you like it, you go look for something else that person has written. But, there's really no way to get a sense of what's happening in comics without reading a whole lot of comics. There's no key to understanding, but I kind of wish there was, because I'd like to have one.

TD: You make sense of comics the same way you make sense of walking around a food store. You go into a supermarket and you're surrounded by all kinds of foods. You walk around and you see what looks like what may be appealing to you and you pick it up and try it. If you like smoked maccarels, you buy more. If you don't, you don't buy anymore. Comics are the same thing. You walk around convention halls and there must be a thousand different kinds of comics. You look and see if anything appeals to you. Have you ever been in a supermarket?

Yeah, worked in one even!
TD: Then you understand the situation. I think it's silly. A lot of people say, Can't you make it easy for me here? It's not easy for you anywhere else! You go to a clothing store and there are thousands of pieces of clothing for you to choose from. You have to decide what looks appealing to you.

Is there a trend in the industry that you like?

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ALEX IRVINE

AI: By in large, art in comics is better than its ever been because it has essentially professionalized and developed as a style of art, to the point that there are comics books hanging in the Louvre right now. Comics art has been around long enough that there is a new generation of writers that is going back and rediscovering people. Their influences start to percolate through secondhand because there is now a lineage. There's been a big comics industry in this country for 80 years and that's plenty long enough for there to be traditions evolving and fads coming and going. Comics art has really come into its own as a really interesting artform that's worthy of investigation on its own terms.

TD: I look at it in terms of the craft. I see certain refinements in graf and storytelling that is really interesting. Companies are doing more with digital content. Comics in digital content needs to evolve a bit though, just like radio had to with the arrival of television. Content via the Web, we are just scratching the surface.

Is there a trend in the industry that you don't like?
AI: The flip side of telling stories to grownups is that kids dont' pick up comics anymore. Everyone talks all the time about how nobody reads. Obviously, judging from the amount of people that go to ComicCons and such, some people do. But there are real questions in the industry about how to get books into the hands of seven and eight year olds who will be your lifelong fans. If you're telling stories that scare them and that they don't understand and that don't resonate with them, then how do you hook the kid? That's something the publishers are grappling with. It's been talked about for a long time because the demographic of the comic readership has been changing. Some have been experimenting with things like manga-style versions of these grownup stories, which my kids read. There must be a way to get back to the "gee-whiz, what's gonna happen next?" kind of storytelling without also telling stories that are so naive as those old 40s and 50s comics.

TD: I think all entertainment and information is moving at a much more rapid pace. Teachers have a lot of trouble teaching because of things like Sesame Street which taught kids that information is learned in three minute segments with a lot of song and dance. Things are speeding up because our ability to absorb digital content is getting better. Yet, comic books, for some reason are slowing down. In the old days, a comic book would be a complete unit of entertainment. Now, there is something called decompressed storytelling where stories are stretched out and there are some series that last a year to a year and a half. It doesn't do justice to you as a comic book reader because within that time span, you'll have a lot of other things to worry about than your monthly comic book. Comic books should be slamming in their stories a lot faster. I'm an old fart, and that proves it.

preacher.jpgWE JUST WITNESSED WATCHMEN BECOME A MOVIE. WHAT OTHER COMIC SERIES DESERVES A FILM?
AI: There are so many, I don't know how to answer that. There's a Wonder Woman movie that's been on and off again for a long time. There's a comic called The Goon that I think would make a hilarious movie. Some of the old Marvel horror comics could be done—Hellboy paved the way for that. I think someone, somewhere is scheming his way toward another Constantine movie.

Oh no.
AI: You would hope it'd be a little bit different than the first one. Fables would be a really cool movie. There's a Preacher movie that's been kicking around for a long time that's maybe on now as Sam Mendez has said he's going to make it happen. Hollywood is really tuned in to what's happening—there's a joke that every comic that hits the shelves is optioned the next day. I think there is a grain of truth in that.

There are a lot of spinoffs and reimaginations of COMIC BOOK CHARACTERS. What are the creators/writers/artists trying to accomplish by doing so?
AI: As the culture of the comics fan has evolved, there's been a real premium placed on continuity and people tend to rant and rave when that's violated. The flip side to that is that there's always been a space for out-of-continuity versions of stories. SOme people like them, some people don't. When you have a character that's been around for 75 years, there's nothing much new to do. That's why you have things like the death of Superman and big events that are ways to shake up and reboot things and integrate them into the story.

TD: I sometimes question if changing the character is any good, but it depends on the person in question. What if you liked the Batman three Batmans ago. I also think that you should be moving forward—take the characters that exist today and don't go back and redo their origins. I get very frustrated with movies because so many of them take up so much time telling the origin story. By the time the hero gets their powers, I've lost interest. The first Hulk movie, by the time he got his powers, I didn't care anymore. I wanted to see Don't get me angry. You won't like it when I'm angry! That was the last line of the first movie—I felt like I was ripped off!

Who is the most diabolical supervillain?
AI: I can only pick one? Give me a second here, I'm thinking through some...I think it has to be Lex Luthor. He's the most powerful embodiment of the guy who could have done the world so much good, but decided not to. That makes him villainous in a way that's different than someone like The Joker, who'd also be in the top five, who is screwed up and nutso that he's not even really responsible for what he does. Although that depends on what version of the story you're reading; some stories have him cackling with malice, but others depict him as someone who's brain is out of tune. Luthor is so hyper-rational and makes decisions to take over, subvert, and destroy.

TD: No question about it: Dr. Doom. He wants to make the world a paradise: He wants to end war and poverty and all he asks is one little thing in return: total blind obedience.
ALEX IRVINE'S STARTER PACK
You've watched the Watchmen, now read these ten comic books.
> Maus by Art Spiegelman
> David Boring by Daniel Clowes
> The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
> Bone by Jeff Smith
> Jimmy Corrigan by Chris Ware
> A Contract with God by Will Eisner
> Watchmen by Alan Moore
> The Golem's Mighty Swing by James Sturm
> Laika by Nick Abadzis
> Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
That's bad, right?
TD: In his own mind, he's the hero and that's the most diabolical part of it all. He's willing to wipe out entire civilizations because they wouldn't listen to him. They should've obeyed.

Who is the most annoying superhero?
TD: Probably Reed Richards because he knows the answers to every question before you ask him.

AI: For DC, I'll go with Aquaman. It always seems that he's poised to have the first really, really good story told with him at its center and it never quite happens. I'm still waiting for the story that really does him justice.

His movie in Entourage seems to have hit the right note. It's the best-selling movie ever!
AI: Well, I guess he's come into his own then! For Marvel, Dr. Strange. I love him, those were some of the comics I was absolutely passionate about when I was a kid. But, also annoying is that the Dr. Strange story has yet to come along. The nature of his magic is often a get-out-of-jail-free card. When you're the sorcerer supreme, it's hard to tell a compelling story about a guy who, in a pinch, could do anything.

Do big superhero movies bring people into comics?
AI: The tropes of some of the great superheroes—Batman, Spider-Man, Superman—have spread through the culture in a way that they probably haven't before. When I was a kid, there was a Spider-Man cartoon and I watched it. There are still all sorts of cartoons and animes revolving around superheroes. But, the effect of having a Spider-Man movie that 200 million people go to see is that there are a whole bunch of people, even those who have never even opened a comic book, with this idea of the character's mythos in their head. It shows that the characters from stories that comics people have been telling each other for a long time are powerful enough to get out into culture.

TD: I think most people would be surprised how much they like comic books. A lot of people buy Patrick McDonnell's Mutts books. These are comics. In books. Comic books. People buy Jim Davis' Garfield books. Comic in books. Comic books. These people don't realize it, but they are closet comic book fans. They should come out of the closet and embrace their true family!

ALEX IRVINE is the author of novels (The Narrows, The Life of Riley), comic books (Hellstorm, Son of Satan: Equinox), and The Vertigo Encyclopedia. His newest book, Buyout, hits stores March 31.

TOM DEFALCO has been in the comic book industry for 37 years. Notable work includes stints on The Amazing Spider-Man, Thor, and the Fantastic Four. He also helped introduce GI Joe and Transformers (and, by proxy, Megan Fox) to the American public. Thank the man, dammit!