Broken Frontier

Why can’t we all just... Get along?

The title is my favorite line from "Mars Attacks", a movie that was much more clever than most people give it credit for. I mean, how can you not laugh at a scene where people are getting vaporized right and left by big headed aliens, while one of them carries around a universal translator saying "Don’t run away, we are your friends."

Heh, Tim Burton’s great.

But I’m not writing an article on Tim Burton, I’m writing about the title of the article. Why the hell can’t we all just get along? No, I’m not talking about the war, religion or any of the other hot topics that got the President foolishly re-elected (cough). I’m talking about us.

Comic book publishers.

We’re a peculiar little sub-culture, according to the rest of the world. We draw strange pictures, we write about weird things. But we’re just the same as everyone else. We have cliches, we have politicians, we have everything that society has, just smaller versions. There is also a hierarchy within us that is all too familiar, and it disturbs me greatly. If I were an anarchist, I would describe it in these terms:

The Ruling Class- Marvel and DC

The working class... everyone else.

There is also a middle ground, in which I would include Dark Horse and Image.

I know this is old news, so I apologize in advance if you’ve already heard the story one too many times. Do you remember when Marvel and DC ganged up against self proclaimed "guerrilla publishers" GeekPunk and their book "Super Hero Happy Hour"? They claimed to own the trademark for the phrase "Super Heroes" and therefore requested that it be removed from the title of the book. GeekPunk did comply and the book is now entitled "Hero Happy Hour". So Marvel and DC won, and legally, they do own the right to the phrase. But does that make what they did OK?

Not in my book, it doesn’t.

I was so annoyed by the whole situation, I wanted to immediately come out with a book entitled, "Uncanny Super Hero Meta Human Mutant League of Fantastic Avengers" and anxiously wait to see how many legal documents would be ‘FedExed’ to my front door. YEAH! Go ahead and sue me! I’m so broke, I can’t even afford to buy my monthly comics anymore...which also prevents me from actually publishing the book… sigh. I’m definitely part of the working class.

So, what would have been the proper thing to do? Nothing, absolutely nothing. WHY? Because comics are suffering.

The general public considers comics to be a low art form and the collectors of comic books to be a lower life form. Instead of fighting amongst ourselves, we should be forming an alliance in the name of educating the world about the true merit of comics.

And what would we tell them? That comics can be anything. Sure, everyone knows that there are super hero comics, and anyone who goes to the bigger book store chains can see that manga has its own section now, it’s become so popular.

But they DON’T know about the rest.

They’re not aware of the slice of life books like Strangers in Paradise, Blankets and Love & Rockets that would appeal to those who have no interest in super heroes or fantasy. Then there’s the all-ages stories that appeal to children and adults alike - Cynical Man, Amelia Rules, Dog & Pony Show. We constantly hear about parents trying to find books appropriate for their kids and they’re right here! Check out the classic fantasy or science fiction books like Finder, Mortal Coils, Runners, Wolff & Byrd and Elf Quest. And let’s not forget that horror and occult comics, one of my favorite genres. Here’s just a few titles that are NOT for the faint of heart: Killing Demons, Preacher, Hellblazer, and any of the EC horror comics from the 1950's. And finally, adult comics - self explanatory. Porn in comic book form. You may not agree with them, but there is an audience out there, that’s for sure. My favorite one, as it incorporates many different artists and writers, is Smut Peddler. It’s so naughty!

I could go on about all the books and genres out there that most people don’t even know about. There’s so many titles that are just fantastic and worthy of wider recognition. If we banded together, we could tell the rest of the world how vast and fantastic comics are.

Things have to change first. The balance of power that exists within our world prevents anything like this from ever occurring. Here’s the anarchist theory again. The ruling class pass laws and make deals with others within their class so their own interests will always be met. This also serves to keep the working class down and powerless. Keeping this theory in mind, just take a look through the Previews catalogue and tell me if any of this looks familiar.

So, do I have a solution? I have a lot of ideas about how to improve the situation, but I do not have one single, perfect solution. I think it’s very important for us to support companies like Cold Cut Distribution and the Small Press Association. They are each striving to bring attention to smaller publishers that just don’t have a chance against the big guys. Can you imagine what would happen if every single small press or Indy publisher decided NOT to advertise in Previews and instead chose Cold Cut?

I think you’d suddenly find the ruling class trying to get along better with the rest of us.