I love comic books. Always have, probably always will. I love comic books, manga, graphic novels, adaptations of classic books turned into graphic novels. Even cartoons. I love'em. Love'em all. Fundamentally, it's because I love a good story and while bad comic books can be very bad, good comic books have the chance at being excellent. Elsewhere, I've talked about the unbridled creativity of twentieth century and the shift of cultural reference points away from Classical Biblical, Greek, and Roman stories, to those of DC, Disney, Marvel, and Warner Brothers (even if these references have some of the latter embedded within them).
Sadly though, it's been awhile since I've read a comic book, simply because I do not have enough time to read everything I'd like. I'm in the middle of a moratorium on book buying due to the abundance of unread books in my house, and that includes comic books. One day perhaps, my love and I will be reunited...
I understand and pay attention to a lot of the various critiques of comic books, such as the feminist and anti-imperialist ones, though I'm willing to pass off most of these arguments as being related to the Comics Code Authority's warping influence on the kinds of stories comic books could tell and how they told them. I'd like to think that comic books, as a larger cultural group, have been a little more eager to deal with these stories since the 1990s and the collapse of the CCA. Marxist interpretations of comic books that strike at the industrial side of the business have a little more resonance however, since I view much of the recent "retconning" of character storylines as a cynical and un-creative attempt to generate more sales. The comic book industry has collapsed several times before, and will likely do so again.
Anyways, last Saturday, the first Saturday of May, was apparently Free Comic Book Day (again a sign that the comic book industry is in trouble) and CTOverdrive brought this series of pop art-inspired comic book posters to my attention. I think they're great, especially this Thor one, with it's big swath of yellow in the middle.
I have a birthday coming up, and it'd be awesome to hang this poster in my writing space...hint, hint. I won't hold my breath though, since Christmas came and went without my Ilie Nastase t-shirt appearing...
