by Benjamin Russell
In 1985 Marvel Comics put out an X-Men comic called Heroes for Hope, featuring a compendium of writers and artists each contributing a page or two of story and art as the X-Men each went through an experience viscerally demonstrating the effects of starvation and despair. Proceeds were donated to famine relief.
In 1986 DC Comics put out a fund-raiser comics called Heroes Against Hunger that famously had Batman, Superman, and Lex Luthor teaming up to combat famine in African nations. Proceeds from the sales of the book were donated to the Ethiopian Famine Relief Fund.
In 2002 Image, DC, Chaos!, and Dark Horse Comics put out a collaborative two-volume set of stories and artwork created in response to the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. All the work put in to the creation of the volumes was donated, and all proceeds from the sales are being donated to the New York State World Trade Center Relief Fund, Survivors Fund of the National Capital Region, and other organizations providing relief.
In 1990, Breakthrough was published simultaneously in thirteen different countries, an anthology commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989. In the UK, Breakthrough was published by Titan Books, but in the US it wasn't published by a mainstream comic book company. Catalan Communications is now defunct, but seemed to specialize in erotic Science Fiction volumes and translations of Spanish works, including what seems to be a gorgeous adaptation of Dracula. Featuring twenty-seven contributors including Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean, Moebius, Milo Manara, Daniel Torres, and Dave Gibbons, the only American contributor was Bill Sienkiewicz. The gorgeous cover is provided by Enki Bilal, who has also provided the world with The Black Order Brigade.
What's the old Sesame Street song? "Three of these things belong together..."
Comic books are not great for commentary on current events. It takes a long time to get a comic book from conception to distribution. Gary Trudeau, the writer and artist of Doonesbury is frequently relegated by persnickety editors to the Editorial Page, since readers complain that thought and awareness are not what they want when the read "the funnies". Trudeau may have a heavy political slant to his strip, but he's at a disadvantage on the editorial page. Editorial cartoons are conceived, edited, and finished in a single day, by-and-large, and the print time is virtually immediate. Jim Borgman of the Cincinnati Enquirer sees his work in the paper the next day. Trudeau sends out a week's worth of strips on a Friday, and they won't see print for another ten days.
The lead time in a monthly comic book is considerably longer. Those working on the 9 11 volumes must have worried slightly about the effectiveness of their works when they arrived in stores in late January, more than four months after the events depicted. Not that the work is no longer relevant, but that the bloom might have been off of the rose, and generosity of spirit may not have been in the forefront of the population's collective minds. Marvel hustled its Heroes poster book out in about a month, and the result is decidedly uneven. The BBC reports that Joe Quesada said "The goal [of HEROES] was to have the world's greatest superhero creators honouring the world's greatest heroes."
He said this to contradict the query that perhaps showing comic heroes alongside real-life heroes would in some manner diminish the efforts of emergency personnel. But, frankly, I think Joe missed the boat. He addressed the wrong issue, something he might have picked up if he had taken a look at Heroes for Hope or Heroes Against Hunger.
Such works cheapen "the world's greatest superhero[es]" and makes them look garish and largely unnecessary.
DC Comics has placed a selection of contributions to 9-11 : Volume 2 online. The initial story by Steven T. Seagle goes a long way in showing the clunky rationales that must be waded through in an attempt to make parallels between fictional and real heroism. Batman and Superman are generally characterized as fighting a "never-ending battle against crime" -- they're not supposed to win a decisive victory, as it would fly in the face of the commercial serial format. But in books like Heroes Against Hunger or Andrew Vachss' Batman: Night Cries, the futility and reality of the situation becomes all-too apparent. Of course, that was part of the point of Night Cries, but it is an unintentional weakness in the two famine benefit books. Our costumed heroes sly down from the sky bearing food and water and tools for irrigation and medical supplies and Save The Day... Before they turn around and see that they haven't made enough of a difference.
The tone is wrong. The obvious point is that you, the reader, are supposed to feel as if your monetary contribution in the purchase of the above comics will provide a little bit of vicarious super-heroism and allow some glorious moments of color and hope. This is then immediately undercut by the statement that it's not enough. Neither manpower nor Superman-power is sufficient.
Breakthrough is a pleasant aberration. Not raising money for anything, it still has a superficial resemblance to the other compilations: anthological in nature, multiple contributors, and commenting on a particular aspect of The Real. But there is a singular lack of heroes -- except for Gibbons' clunky satirical pastiche featuring Western Capitalism as Superman -- and the stories are more interested in artistic expression than they are in being a vehicle for content. The introduction speaks to this. Editor Pierre Christin notes that "while authors, musicians and intellectuals were eclipsing men in dark hats wholesale, few, if any, graphic artists were to be found" speaking out against the Wall, the Iron Curtain, and the oppression of East Germany. This volume allows that freedom. Some of these stories waited for decades to be available to Western audiences. How's that for production lag?
Benjamin Russell is the Columns Editor of PopImage
PopImage
Forum - Discuss this message at the PopImage forum.
UPFRONT: See Paul T. Riddell’s archived column on production time.
Upfront
Archive - Read past Upfront articles
