Comics, seriously.

Comics and comic books have the reputation of being silly, hyper-masculine, juvenile junk lit.  Spandex superheroes and women with enormous bosoms (what is wrong with that?).  When people ask if there are any serious comics out there, what to people say?  "Maus.  Art Spiegelman's Maus.  It's about the Holocaust.  have you heard about Maus and how it's about the Holocaust?"  Art Spiegelman's Maus is an extremely important example of the graphic novel genre, and it deserves to be mentioned and included in school syllabi, but it seems to be the beginning and end of the discussion.  We now discuss Satrapi's Persepolis as a work that discusses a large historical event within a very personal context (the Iranian cultural revolution), but no one knows how to continue the discussion about graphic novels and serialized comics that deal with serious topics.

In my opinion, because WWII and the Holocaust combine to be the most important even of the 20th century, it kind of overshadows everything else.  The evil of Hitler, genocide--these are huge topics.  So, yes, huge historical events are important but what about personal experiences?  They have to count for something, too.  I have mentioned Art Spiegelman before in my posts, and I have also mentioned Harvey Pekar. When Harvey Pekar was diagnosed with cancer, he and his wife decided to document their experience in Our Cancer Year.  It is worth checking out.  You also have works like Mom's Cancer (2006).  And you even have works like I Kill Giants, which deals with how children deal with adult situations.  There are plenty of other graphic novels that deal with childhood trauma, medical conditions, divorce, death, and they are all serious topics being discussed through text, dialog, and art through the sophisticated yet accessible medium of sequential art.  I encourage you to Google the subject, find a second-hand copy of one the works mentioned, and see what you think.

The piece below I did for my grandfather (now deceased).  He spent many, many days and weeks and months in hospitals.  He survived the Depression, WWII, multiple forms of cancer and medical mistakes, he had part of his lung taken out, and he had a fake hip, femur, and knee.  He complained all the time, but he was tough and quick with a joke, too.  At a family event, he was looking at my arms, and commenting on how hairy they are (and remembering the fact that I was over 2 weeks late being born), he said, "You know, if you would have stayed in the womb any longer, you would have come out a dog." And of course he said this while holding my arm and flashing a grin to the rest of the family.  He was a ham.  And he was also a born storyteller.  So, as a tribute to him, and to get him to laugh, I gave my grandfather this comic.  It is filled with many inside family jokes and it is a retelling/exaggeration of story he told the family about getting a shower at the nursing home, which of course was an exaggerated story to begin with, so there is some great double-exaggeration going on here.  Things to keep in mind: my grandfather was famous for saying "Jesus Christ!" and the phrase "Do you think I just fell off the back of the turnip truck?", which he would embellish with more colorful language.  And one of his family nicknames was "Germy Joe," due to the fact that he would instill germaphobia in his family by telling horrific stories of diseases and disasters caused by things like not washing your fruit.

The piece below is different.  I am the king of beginning projects and letting them languish and then remain unfinished.  I love to come up with good ideas and then let them linger as undeveloped ideas that go nowhere.  When I actually complete a project, from start to finish, you know that I was very powerfully motivated.  So, this piece has no dialog, no captions, it was meant for one purpose: for my dad to get better.  That didn't happen, but this blog, and the art projects that I have completed would not have happened if not for the piece pictured below.

This piece is not without its faults.  But I considered it done, complete, exactly as I wanted it.  It was drawn in pencil, inked in with marker, and colored with marker.  The yellow I believe was done in highlighter.  It was supposed to be part scientific illustration (the inset depicting white blood cells attacking and eliminating cancerous cells), and part fable, good vs. evil.  It hung on my dad's hospital room wall as a visual image to focus on and keep his mind on recovery.

So, focusing on the big historical events is very good.  We have to remember the horrible things that happen on the global scale, but for every huge world-altering event, there are a million smaller events affecting people of all ages and backgrounds across the world.  And heartbreak, or divorce, or the loss of a loved one is just as serious as international historical events, and serious comics cannot be summed up with Art Spiegelman's Maus just as comics as a genre of art and publishing cannot be summed up with X-Men or Spider-Man.  Personal pain and trauma can be expressed through image, text, song, and countless other forms, and no genre or artform should be kept from being considered as a valid outlet of those emotions and experiences.