So I go out to Landmark with a friend of mine. It’s all great. I find a copy of the Return of Superman series and get all excited ‘cos it’s the definitive resurrection myth of our time and rates high in my things-to-buy-and-keep scroll. But some people find it hard to see any value at all in a ‘picture book’.
Typical, I guess.
After all, Archies is a comic book too. And Chacha Chaudhary. And all the Amar Chitra Katha retellings of history and mythology. And one picture book is the same as the other, no? Sabu and the Hulk, same. Kalia and Batman, same. Doob-doob and Harvey Dent, again, same. You tell them of the betrayal of the JLA in the Tower of Babel and they’ll roll their eyes at ya. You tell them of the Pariah’s curse or Kara-El’s sacrifice or Barry Allen-Flash’s desperation and they’ll snicker. You tell them of the destruction of Coast City, of the destruction of Oa, the despair of Hal Jordan and they’ll turn away. After all, it’s just a comic book, no? Not serious art, it ain’t. It don’t matter how fine a coat you put on it. It don’t matter how intricate a Sandman or a Ripper is made. It’s just a picture book.
I should give my 8 year-old cousin a copy of ‘From Hell’ and his sister a copy of ‘Lost Girls’. (She almost started reading it when she was here last time. Saw her trying to get it out of the box set and yelled at her, I did. Close shave, that one.) Broaden their horizons a bit. Be better than the fundie crap their mom feeds them, I’m sure.
