By Regie Rigby A few weeks ago, Channel 4 Television over here in the UK ran a programme in their Disinfonation series which featured Grant Morrison talking, amongst other things about The Invisibles. Disinfonation is a show concerned with conspiracy theory and weirdness, so Morrison’s appearance was surprising only in so far as any appearance of comics on TV is surprising these days. It took me a couple of minutes to figure it out. Whoever had written the listing had seen the word “comic” and written the blurb without reading any further. On one level, this is incredibly annoying. Comics get little enough exposure, without some faceless hack automatically assuming that the word “comic” can only ever mean “comedy”. On the other hand, I found it incredibly funny. Another reminder that the giants we all set such store by are in fact totally unknown in the outer darkness that lies beyond that small circle of firelight we call comics fandom. (Not that we really need reminding of that, but there you go.) Besides, there was a time when I would perhaps have made a similar mistake. When I was growing up my idea of a comic was the humorous hijinks (and I believe that might actually be the phrase they used) of The Beano and The Dandy. Mind you, I don’t recall either of those titles ever being laugh out loud funny, but then I was a pretty cheerless kid, so what do I know? Comics historically have their roots in the desire to make people laugh after all – the name we give to the medium simply reflects that. Comic stories were once precisely that – stories which were comic. On the big side of the Atlantic Ocean the association lingers on in the term “Sunday funnies”. Never mind the fact that “The Funnies” have featured the adventure strips of Spider-Man and Batman, and others who were not intentionally funny. They are, and will always be “ the funnies”. We should remember that humour is our comics’ heritage. Jokes, bathos and slapstick have their place even in the darkest comic noir. Indeed, those comics which take themselves too seriously usually suffer as a result – anyone who remembers CRISIS (and by that I mean the defunct and not much missed sister comic to 2000AD and not the continuity busting maxi series from DC) will know exactly what I mean. CRISIS was conceived as an adult comic, and was intended to have adult themes. It’s stories tackled environmental issues and attacked the multinational globalisation trend over a decade before riots in Seattle brought the issue to mass attention. As such it could be described as groundbreaking, and its heart was certainly in the right place but it was unfortunately very very dull. As British comics from the late eighties go, CRISIS lasted quite a long time. I gave up on it around nineteen ninety-one, but I remember seeing it in the comic shop I used to hang around it a year or so after that. Considering that other comics launched around the same time (the late lamented Revolver, the utterly execrable Toxic! and the lacklustre Marvel UK offering Strip spring to mind) CRISIS didn’t do too badly. But when you compare it to the real success stories in British comics at the time, 2000AD’s ugly sister looks pretty unimpressive. I don’t know anyone who was into the British comics scene at the end of the eighties who doesn’t have a soft spot for Deadline. Home to the outrageous antics of Tank Girl and her mutant kangaroo friends, as well as a host of other great strips (including one page “gags” that were actually funny) as well as style and music articles. I liked this comic so much I actually persuaded the three other members of the rock band I sang for back then to name the band after it! It never failed to amuse, and so it won an awful lot of friends. Without question though, the real success story of British comics in the late eighties was the toilet fuelled giggle fest Viz. Published by a couple of Geordies (initially from a desk in their bedroom, I believe) Viz was a phenomenon. Printed in two colours on fairly low quality paper, it was rude, it was crude, it was always in bad taste, full of bad language and it ought to have been offensive. But somehow it wasn’t. It was funny. Side splittingly, head achingly, trouser wettingly funny. Sid the Sexist. Finbarr Saunders (and his Double Entendres), Black Bag (an inspired spoof of the Lassie like “Black Bob” from the Dandy, but this time featuring the heroic exploits of a black bin liner), Student Grant, Johnny Fartpants and of course, the notorious Fat Slags. Unsophisticated toilet jokes and knob gags on every page. I for one loved it. Although Viz has fallen from the dizzy heights of popularity it once occupied, it is still the best selling comic in the UK. (In fact Rich Johnston informs me that with a circulation of a quarter of a million, it's one of the top twenty best selling magazines in the UK. Or it's over twice what X-Men sells in the US. Or it's ten times what 2000AD does. Which is pretty impressive.) It is the comic read by people who don't read comics, and it spawned a horde of imitators. Hell, it might be a mere shadow of its former self these days, but it is still in production – just about the only British comic launched in the last twenty years that can make such a claim. Indeed, with the exception of 2000AD it is just about the only British comic launched on the news stand since the second world war to have lasted more than a couple of years. Humour can be found in almost all of the long running “non-humour” books too. From Superman (or so I’m told – as I never read Superman I have no personal experience) to Batman (grim and gritty as he is meant to be) the laughs are there if you choose to look for them – I certainly don’t think that it is a coincidence that the most successful villain in the Bat’s rouges gallery is the Joker. Not that Batman himself isn’t capable of a bit of slapstick. Using the exhaust flames of the batplane to set fire to the Joker’s clothes at the end of the World’s Finest prestige format series a few years ago is a particular favourite of mine. The image of the clown prince of crime scurrying along in his underwear still reduces me to fits of the giggles. So does almost any mention of Quantum and Woody’s stock phrase “We are NOT a couple!”, and I know I keep going on about ‘Mazing Man – but he could reduce me to an incoherent guffawing mass. So what am I saying? Good question. I guess I’m just reminding myself not to take all of this stuff too seriously. After all, at the end of the day, it’s just comics! (Oh, and after all that, I forgot to set my video for the Grant Morrison programme and as it was on in the wee small hours of the morning, I missed it.) |
