Who's Who in the CBU 2008

Name: Regie Rigby

Regie is a strange, almost ethereal creature. Who can plumb the hidden mysteries of his dark and murky past - a past which contains a terrible secret. A secret that taught him that with great power comes great responsibility, that criminals are a cowardly superstitious lot and just who exactly knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men.

By day, he assumes the appearance of a mild mannered teacher, bringing the joy of literature and the English Language to classes of enthralled and enthusiastic students. But by night?

By night he goes home and writes lesson plans. Sorry. That's as interesting as he gets. Really.

The rumours about rooftop struggles with underworld uberfiends, the gossip about the hidden cave filled with hi-tec equipment and the suggestion that his car might be fitted with turbo lasers are all nonsense.

When he's not teaching he reads comics. Sometimes he combines the two activities. When he's not doing that he's either playing computer games or asleep.

Third Time Luckier?

By Regie Rigby

Yes, late again.

Sorry.

And no, still no more to tell you about Sunset. I haven’t even had a chance to talk to the artist since the last column, so I’ll be keeping it all under wraps until Bristol now. Still, that’s next weekend, so I promise, all will be revealed soon.

It’s been a weird week. It’s probably my fault for ranting about the mediocrity of available technology last week, because absolutely nothing has worked properly since – hence lateness.

The upshot of this is that I’ve spent so much time this week dealing with hardware problems, software problems, and, very possibly wetware problems that I haven’t had time to see Spider-Man 3 either. This is a shame – because when I realized that the column was going to be late anyway, that’s one of the things I wanted to talk about. I’ve seen the trailers of course – but then so have you, and let’s be honest, most of you have probably seen the damn movie by now too.

Is it any good?

For myself I’m remaining skeptical. Since I saw the first trailers on the ‘net I’ve been a little concerned that they were falling into the “Batman” trap, and forcing too many villains into one movie. On the other hand, it wasn’t the presence of Poison Ivy, Mr Freeze and Bane that ruined Batman and Robin. It was the piss poor script, and total lack of respect for the characters. Maybe Spider-Man 3 will be good enough to get away with three major adversaries in one movie. Who can say?

The question that is always raised by such major releases remains unchanged. Are big budget blockbuster movies based on comic books a good thing for the comics that spawned them?

And as ever, there’s no easy answer.

There is, of course, the school of thought that argues “there’s no such thing as bad publicity”. As the great Oscar Wilde once said, “The only thing worse than being talked about, is not being talked about”. Even if people are saying that something’s absolute rubbish, at least they’re saying something. If such people are right, we have nothing to worry about – indeed we should be celebrating everything from Spider-Man 3 to Dolph Lungren as The Punisher. Whether the movies are good or bad, at least people will be talking about the characters. Maybe some of them will take the trouble to pick up the original comics and from the tens of thousands who will see the movies we may pick up at least a few thousand new readers.

Everybody wins.

Well, far be it from me to disagree with Uncle Oscar, but I’m not totally convinced by that line of reasoning. Frankly, life is just never that easy.

For a start, it only ever seems to be the spandex based characters who get movies everyone knows came from comics.

Sure, everyone knows that Batman, or Spider-Man or Spawn got their start in the pages of the comics before they burst onto the screen. But what about A History of Violence? What about The Road to Perdition? Hell, what about Ghostworld? Who knows that they were based on comics?

I’ll tell you.

We do.

The regular movie-goer has no idea whatsoever, and I really do think that that matters.

Because when the non-reading public looks at comics, all it ever sees is the Spandex Brigade. That’s all they think there is. We live in a world where perception is everything – it doesn’t matter that they’re wrong. If that’s all they see, that’s all there is do far as they’re concerned. And that keeps people away in droves because when you get right down to it Superheroes are downright silly. Regular folks might watch one for a couple of hours to while away an evening, but they’re not going to make the sort of commitment that a monthly comic demands. Anyone who was going to do that is already reading the comics, so the Spandex Movies don’t hook any new readers.

Which of course isn’t really a problem. I mean, it might be a wasted opportunity, but it doesn’t actually hurt us, does it? So Spandex comics don’t pick up any new readers. It’s not actually costing us anything, is it?

Um. Well, yes.

Because it limits people’s expectations. It encourages the view that spandex is all that comics can do. This makes the people who don’t like Spandex less likely to pick up any comics. It reinforces the already unhealthy dominance of one genre in Western comics and closes minds to the possibilities which graphic narrative can offer. Most people I talk to about such things simply cannot comprehend the concept of something like Bryan Talbot’s Alice in Sunderland, or even straightforward non-spandex thrillers like Road to Perdition. Basically, they can’t get over the idea that “if it’s comics, it must have capes”.

And that’s a problem.

But is it our problem?

I mean, if people want to ignore a whole medium because they’re making lazy assumptions that’s their loss, right? Stuff ‘em – we’ve got our comics, why should we care that they’re missing out?

Well, partly because we’re all good human beings who want our fellow citizens of the world to experience the joy and fulfillment that comes when words and pictures meet. But mostly because of plain old economics. We can dismiss the non-reading public if we like, but until we have circulation figures for comics in the millions, we’re idiots if we do.

Like all other entertainment or artistic media, comics must be commercially successful to survive. The more readers, the more comics. Simple as that. Personally I think that more comics would be a good thing. So anything that makes non-readers less likely to become readers is a bad thing.

Will Spider-Man 3 help or hinder?

I dunno. If it’s good, it won’t hurt. It probably won’t help all that much, but it won’t hurt. And of course we get to see a good movie, which is of course an excellent thing. If it’s bad? Well, if it’s bad a bunch of people get their prejudices confirmed, and that’s a bad thing.

So, no pressure then.

If you’ve seen it, tell me the worst – the boards are open. Is Spider-Man 3 a hit, or has it fallen victim to the curse of the sequel?