COMMENT: Modern Days
Thoughts on comics inspired by events in daily life. By Alasdair Watson.

I thought about writing this on the train again, but I’ve sworn that the days of doing all my writing on the train are behind me. Besides, I can’t honestly think of anything more I can say to relate comics and train journeys. So I’m writing this sitting in a friend’s lounge in Edinburgh. I’m here for the next week or so, on holiday, something I badly need. This promises to be an interesting holiday, if for no other reason than because the flat I’m staying in also double as the offices of Strange Company, an Edinburgh based charity, dedicated to promoting digital film-making in general and machinima in particular.

Machinima, for those not aware of it, is the art of making a film using the graphics engine that powers one of any number of first-person shooter style computer games. Quake is probably the best-known example, although there are plenty of other games that use similar technology, and get used to make these films.

I have a similar relationship with machinima to that which I have with comics. The medium fascinates me. As Hugh (the mate I’m staying with, and chairman of Strange Company) is wont to evangelise, you can do anything with machinima that you can with conventional cinema, but you can do it without leaving the room (unless, of course, you want to). It’s just as easy to make a Talking Heads style monologue as it is to make Independence Day, using machinima. Granted, the quality of the visuals is not yet up to photo- realism, or even to films like A Bug’s Life, but it’s improving in leaps and bounds. Anyone needing the similarities between that sort of thing and comics pointed out to them is clearly too stupid to live, and should hurl themselves out of a window at the first possible opportunity.

Now, despite my fascination with the medium, I am endlessly frustrated by the shit it churns out. A great many of the works that are put out by creators are either shitty action works, with paper-thin plot and astonishingly poor characterisation, or not very funny comedies. As a percentage of total output, the number of credible adult works is tiny. Which industry am I talking about again?

It’s hardly a new point, but I think it bears repeating. Most of the stuff that the comics industry produces is shite. And, like the machinima community, there’s not really much excuse for it. Actually, there’s even less. At least the machinima community (with a few very rare exceptions) can claim to be producing their work “in their spare time”. We’ve got no such excuse. There are plenty of people that are employed full- time to produce this shit. Paid, even.

But when there are works out there like The Tale of One Bad Rat, V for Vendetta and The Invisbles, genuinely adult works, what excuse do we have for the fact that more people read Superman than any of the above? It’s us as consumers that dictate what is published. If we stop buying a one particular kind of book, and start buying another, you can bet that within a very short space of time, the first book will be cancelled, and there’ll be two of the second.

And yet we seem to be content to support an industry that produces most of its work for the 14-16 year old male market. And doesn’t even do it very well. Month after month, the people who put out drivel involving characters (and I use the term in the loosest possible sense) like Red Monika continue to receive paycheques. And the only reason they do is that we’re buying this crap. Hell, I know people that buy comics that they don’t even like, because they want to “support the industry”. Many of these people don’t actually show any other signs of serious brain damage, and can otherwise fit into normal human society, with some coaching, but have become frightened buy the constant scaremongering within comics. For as long as I’ve read comics, they’ve been verging on collapse, and they haven’t died yet. This is probably due, at least in part, to the large number of people that keep buying half of these books in the fear that if they don’t, the company that publishes them will go bust.

One of my friends is a huge fan of Vertigo books, which is all well and good. But he also buys Superman and Batman comics, comics that he will openly admit that he’s ashamed to be seen with in public, because he wants to support DC, to make sure they don’t go bust, and thus cause him to lose the Vertigo books that he actually likes. I should probably point out that he does like the Batman and Superman books, but they’re a guilty pleasure he could happily live without.

I can see a certain twisted sense in this. Yeah, his one purchase probably doesn’t make much difference, but if everyone made a point of supporting companies whose output they liked buy buying a book or two that they thought was just alright, maybe the industry would be healthier. It would also be utterly fucking dreadful, since the companies would get an artificial message about the popularity of their titles, as otherwise intelligent adults kept on buying books aimed squarely at children. And I have to wonder how much this happens now. How many of you keeping buying some superhero drivel that’s clearly pitched at kids out of sheer inertia?

No, the kind of artificial life support that this industry gets in the name of “loyalty” is doing none of us any favours. While I’m thinking of it, how many of you are “loyal” to the book or film industries? Then why the fuck do I keep hearing people going on about “loyalty” to comics?

The more I think about it, the more I’m forced to conclude that the best thing that could happen to the comics industry is total collapse. People keep on wailing about the death of comics, but it never seems to happen. Perhaps it should. At least if everything died, whatever it is that gets re-built might actually be credible. On the other hand, we should be so fucking lucky. A total collapse right now might give Stan Lee a way back in. Still, it’s almost reaching the point where even Stan Lee is starting to look like a good option.

Somebody please shoot me.

In closing, as a spot of utterly gratutious pluggery, I recommend a visit to http://www.machinima.com where you can find my column Train of Thought published bi-weekly, as well as a fascinating fledgling artform that deserves your support.

Now I’m off down the pub.

Alasdair Watson, Edinburgh, June ‘00

Alasdair Watson is the co-creator of RUST here at PopImage. He's currently working on launching a new site, The Ninth Art.

http://www.popimage.com/rust - RUST, live at PopImage.
http://www.ninthart.com - Alasdair's new site, The Ninth Art
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