There are many unfair things in life. One of them is that all the best tasting alcoholic drinks belong to women. Men (well, not gay men, of which there are a significant number, or straight men confident enough in their own sexuality to be unconcerned about appearing gay, of which there are not) have been consigned to a life where they never get to drink anything genuinely tasty. Sure, they might boast of the superior taste of Guinness, and doubtless it is a fine drink, but who are we kidding. We’d be happier with Bacardi.
(I write this fully expecting the wrath of a dozen or so anorak-y types who will try to correct the opinion. Please take a while to think about how insecure this makes you look, and then don’t bother. You know it’s true).
Another is that comic books and video games never got to be cool.
Music has always been cool. Sports have always been cool. Movies are mostly cool. Books, occasionally, get to be cool (see Catcher, On the Road, Fear and Loathing etc). Comics and video games have never been cool.
Well, that’s not quite right. They have nichecool. When you are five, they are very cool. When you go through your ‘nerd-chic’ phase trying to impress that alternative girl with the great arse, they are cool. Several standouts (Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns; Goldeneye, Mario Kart) have a certain nostalgic cool.
But they are not objectively cool. They are not cool by consensus. The majority do not deem them cool.
There have been times when they almost became cool. When video games were a novelty, and there was a Space Invaders machine in every pub and bar in the land, they looked poised to become cool. Then, every time a new major console was released, they nearly, nearly became cool. Meanwhile, comics had three big chances to become cool; the ‘Golden Age’ of the 50’s, the ‘Silver Age’ of the 60’s, and the ‘Grim ‘n’ Gritty’ age of the mid 80’s (look ‘em up). Every time, they’ve fallen at the final hurdle.
These days, painfully aware of their own lack of cool, they have both done the two things that uncool things do when they want to become cool. Either they take themselves incredibly seriously, or they pretend they are not that thing at all.
Let’s say you are the weird kid at school who eats dirt. You decide it’s time to climb the hell out of that social standing ladder and go for the cool. Either you try and give the impression eating dirt is an expression of the bitter anguish of the soul; the consumption of mother earth herself a reaction to the myriad cruelty and suffering that takes place upon her surface, or you pretend you don’t eat dirt at all; you hide it in your sandwiches, or persuade people you’ve taken up coffee. You try-hard or you deny-hard.
Comic books and video games are the dirt eaters of the media world. They are trying hard and denying hard.
COMICS
Comics are inherently a bit silly. Remember Batman and Superman? Right. How about Robin or Superboy? Just about. What about Ace the Bat-Hound or Krypto the Super-Dog? Umm...Or Bat-mite and Mr. Mxyzptlk?...Sorry, who?
All were at one time absolute staples of the storylines of the two big-hitters. Now they hardly appear at all. They’re just not cool enough, see.
Most superhero comics these days are try-hard. Back in the day, you might have had a scene like this;
BATMAN and ROBIN are chasing THE JOKER down a long corridor.
ROBIN: Batman! The Joker’s getting away!
BATMAN: Never fear Robin! He’s no match for our superior athletic ability!
Suddenly, a pit opens in front of them, revealing a pool of RAVENOUS SHARKS!
ROBIN: Holy Megladon Batman! A pool of ravenous sharks!
THE JOKER: HA! HA! Mind out! They like their food BATtered!
BATMAN: You won’t get away with this Joker!
Though today, you’re more likely to stumble across this;
BATMAN and ROBIN are chasing THE JOKER down a long corridor.
ROBIN: Batman, for fuck’s sake! The Joker’s getting away!
BATMAN: Shut the fuck up you little nancy-boy. I’ve got a noseful of coke inside me and he’s too much of a goddamn queer to outrun us.
Suddenly, a pit opens in front of them, revealing a pool of KNIFE-WIELDING PAEDOPHILES!
ROBIN: Holy Meatspin Batman! A fucking pool of bastard knife-wielding paedophiles!
THE JOKER: HA! HA! Mind out! They enjoy putting their penises inside small-children!
BATMAN: You won’t get away with this Joker, you dick-licking fudge-packer!
See? What I’m hoping you’ll notice being the inch-thick layer of satire is that it’s the same old hokum dressed up in it’s edgy elder brother’s clothing. What it’s failed to notice is that it’s elder brother is a posturing dick, and it’s impressing no one.
(The majority of this impulse toward ridiculous ‘edge’ in comic-book storytelling comes from the Watchmen/Dark Knight Returns school of realism. Both these series brought a much needed level of sophistication to the genre, but what made them work was good storytelling, not relentless grit. Alan Moore in particular has spoken out against this tide of pretention, and his own back-catalogue reveals a deep affection for the more whimsical traditions; one of my favourite lines of his, from his Superman story ‘Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow', reads ‘Shortly, another old friend joined us. Krypto had been roaming the stars for years, but now he’d returned.’ This is the super-dog we’re talking about. I love him for that. Frank Miller however has gone so far the other way he’s disappeared up his own arse. See his atrocious film version of The Spirit, or his Robin-reboot, All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder, which introduced the now-infamous catchphrase, ‘I’m the goddamn Batman!’ If you didn’t know it, you’d swear he was trying to piss on his own reputation.)
Then there is the deny-hard route, typified in the popularisation of the term ‘graphic novel’. Oh yes, it may look like a comic, feel like a comic, smell like a comic, but no; this is a piece of serious fucking literature, guys, and all you real critics better sit down and take notice. Christ. All this does is attract the kind of polo-neck wearing, Guardian quoting wazzock whose influence is currently ruining everything good about every other form of art. We don’t need him.
There have been changes to form and content too; a move away from childish to more serious subject matter, a widening of writing and art styles, shifts in influence and tone, etc. All this can be, and in certain circumstances has been, a good thing (Transmetropolitan, Black Hole, I’m looking at you). If it’s a smarmy dive for a more ‘intellectual’ audience (Tamara Drewe) it’s worth bobbins.
VIDEO GAMES
You’ve all seen try-hard video games. You can’t avoid them. If you have a little brother, its odds-on 50% he’ll be in the next room kicking a prostitute to death for her last $10. It would almost be less depressing if it were happening for real.
Console video games are now so grimy you’ll spend the first half hour trying to wipe the screen with a rag. The language is grimy, the characters are grimy, even the palette is grimy. Everything is grey. Games taking place in the real world are grey. Games taking place on an alien world are grey. Games taking place in a Jackson Pollock exhibition during a paintball match are grey (the idea’s copyrighted, so don’t even think about it). You know what else is grey? My life. You can bet if I’m spending my time inside playing video games what I don’t want is more of my life. If it aids the atmosphere in the game, fine; if it’s a desperate attempt to come across as deep and important, it doesn’t belong. It’s a sodding game.
(There was a campaign launched a couple of years back called ‘Blue Sky in Games!’ which tried to inspire a return to the good old days where, you guessed it, you had solid blue skies in games. And ‘bright yellow suns!’ Amen to that. It deserves a comeback).
And deny-hard? Witness the rise of the ‘casual game’. Casual gaming, which began around the release of the Nintendo Wii but really kicked off with the ubiquity of the iPhone, are all those games which are so easy and docile they hardly seem like games at all. Most of the apps on your phone are little video games; Angry Birds, Doodle Jump, that sort of thing. Trouble is, they’re hardly games at all. Games should be properly challenging; more importantly, they should have scope. Otherwise they’re not really satisfying; a quick hand-job, rather than a long satisfying bit of DP, to provide a comparison.
SO WHAT ARE WE MISSING?
Well, the love.
I won’t lie to you. The majority of comic books and video games are utter, utter cack. That’s just the nature of art. The majority of music is utter cack, as are the majority of sports matches, or books, or pieces of art, or whatever. But at their best, they are amazing. They have the love. They accomplish things that can’t be accomplished in any other medium, and they can, genuinely, enrich and change your life.
As the late Harvey Pekar said, ‘Comics are just words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures’. So if you want to try out some decent comics, start with some Harvey Pekar. Then some Robert Crumb. Then maybe some early Steve Ditko. Then some Osamu Tezuka (you’ll like him). Then just go nuts.
And what about decent video games? Well, as it turns out I have quite a bit more to say on this, so you’ll have to tune in again for the next instalment.
See what I did there? Oh, stop whining.
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