 |
| Click image for larger size |
Time goes by quickly. You do not remember the moments that made you who you become. Your mind remembers moments like they are photographs, that is, they are a small portion or moments of an enormous life story. It doesn't make part of your existence less important, it means your existence has an effect where you begin knowing nothing, and as you become aware time around you flies by faster and faster. Moments that you remember end up as treasured, cherished, but it would also be, moments you remember starkly are the worse moments that have imprinted. I possess both of those sorts of memories. But one of the moments in my life I treasure/cherish most were when I would escape by reading comic books. In the summers of growing up my brother and I would spend hours reading, not just comics, but, we'd nearly memorize the events found in each comic, not because we had to, because we wanted to do so. How many times do you know of, watching a kid plunk down his money to read? Comics were a way to learn how to fly, how to escape fears and sorrows, how to stand up to the bullies, and how to be fantastic.
Most of the comics I read growing up were based upon super heroes. It was most of what was offered at the time. But I also loved Turok Son of Stone, I loved the Haunted Tank of GI Combat, and almost anything good, regardless of genre. It doesn't need to be said, but, I love comics. As I grew into an adult with more adult tastes my comic book love remained, but my world was no longer limited to super heroes and adventure. I still loved super heroes, but I wanted know about the world I lived in with concepts about power, hope, spirituality, consciousness, fear, and love, without capes, without super powers, without the limits of imagination. Comic books influenced my choices in life. While I acquired a Master's degree in History with a minor field of Political Science, I was set to be a serious minded person, but I never lost the love of comics. And frankly, when I mentioned using some works about the Japanese economy that were in comic form, a professor suggested that I needed to leave the field or forget about the silly children's books. But they were never silly, nor only for children. That professor was limited in his mind. The same happened when I suggested using some concepts from RPGing, to cause people to think outside of themselves and understand the contact between indigenous people and a invader or visiting people. The result was the same, being told I needed to think more seriously. But life doesn't honestly play by the rules, so neither should we limit ourselves mentally to being within the rules.
When I began writing on the internet in 2000, I realized that I could write reviews that would get the attention of others. (It turned out poorly, as my 30 reviews per month for 2 years, written under a pseudonym, were the subject of ownership of another person. When I wrote a review that was honest but uncomplimentary it led a retailer to complain to the site. When I refused to change my words, I said to the owner of the site that I am not revising what I said, you can remove all of my reviews if you remove this one. The owner of the site said ok, and deleted everything I'd written in those two years.) Writing about comics and books under my own name led me to be able to interview talents in the world of comics, and getting review material expanded the sort of works in my personal world of comics. Comic book professionals as a whole were magnificent. Some were all about the ego stroke, but most were artists who sought to create. They tended to appreciate my inquiry, my desire to understand better the medium, and appreciated my desire to expand their readership. Some went out of the their way to thank me, some did so in ways that moved me deeply. For me I was expressing my gratitude towards the medium and the creatives within it, by doing reviews. I love comics.
One of comic books I read that changed me was THE PUMA BLUES. When 1995 saw the President of the US kidnapped, and nuclear explosions wiped out portions of New York City, the world changed permanently. While the space shuttle makes regular trips to space, and robotic servants perform menial tasks for their human masters, our children are forced to wear gas masks, adults are forced to deal with new life forms rising from the wreckage of the environment following disasters of nuclear bombs, acid rains, unrelenting abuse of nature by humans. There is a mix of the ultimate question, are humans wise enough to use the technological madness they possess? Are we higher than all other life forms upon the earth, and if so, why does violence, hate, fear dominate our lives? What does it mean then, to rise above our evolutionary path?
Artist Michael Zulli and the writer Steven Murphy mixed a load of ideas and genres, in a way some couldn't understand, enjoy, or feel moved by. But the world they saw being an apocalyptic near future, 2000, threatened by an arch conservative president in the US, riots, and environmental disaster wrought by human hubris, failure, and greed doesn't sound so far from fact. In the pages of THE PUMA BLUES were sequences of illustrated poetry, prose, and sequential story telling. And the overall story allowed perspectives from humans and non humans, heroes and common person. The world it presented was one of beauty, danger, fear, and was to me, a relatively unrevolutionary sort of poet, a call to action.
It is available in whole form at Amazon, and is a work that moved me.
No comments:
Post a Comment