At the request of Caleb Mozzocco, the Factual Opinion continues it's examination of the themes and values espoused in the recent DC Comics mini-series, DCU Decisions. Up for discussion this week is issue # 2, and in the rounded leather stool that serves as an interview chair is Nancy Stone, who graciously agreed to take time out the evening prior to her young son's wedding to take a look at what has been called "A Masterpiece Of The Written Word, Second Only To The Bible In It's Possible Impact On The Cultural Zeitgeist." The interview was conducted by TFO's own Virgin Reader, although our intrepid young intern stepped in for some follow up questions.
The Virgin Read: First question: have you ever read a comic book?
Nancy Stone: Oh yes.
TVR: What comic books?
NS: I read Archie & Veronica when I was a child. Some Superman. I don't remember too many other super-heroes.
TVR: We were talking the other day about where you would buy comic books--like the Archie & Veronicas.
NS: You could get them at the....well, they were everywhere. If you went to the drugstore or even...when I was a child, they started 7-11, convenience stores that were open from seven until eleven, instead of 24 hours, and you could go in there and they would have one of those little racks that had...I know Superman & Batman were there, but I remember Archie & Veronica, all the Disney things, the Donald Duck ones, those sorts of things. I don't think I ever subscribed, but there were definitely people who subscribed and got them--I don't know. Every week, or however often they came out.
TVR: How often would you get Archie & Veronica?
NS: I remember mostly getting them when I had a cold, or something like that. You'd get them as a treat. I remember reading a lot of them though, so hopefully I wasn't that sick.
TVR: You read DC Universe Decisions. Does it compare at all to Archie & Veronica?
NS: No--it was really...I kind of feel like this didn't even really compare that much to the comics that these super-hero comics were usually in. [DCU Decisions] seemed like it was a really specialized thing.
TVR: What did you think? Did you enjoy it, or dislike it? What was your experience of this comic?
NS: Ummmm. Well, I wouldn't say I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't say I disliked it either. It was almost preachy--you know, like it had some "messages" and it just kept knocking you in the head with it. The part I kind of liked, was when it seemed like [the writers] were saying--and I'm not sure this is what they were saying--that these people, these super-heroes, their opinions are getting too much play. I think that's certainly true in real life. Who cares what a movie star thinks? We shouldn't be basing our decisions on the endorsement of a celebrity. I kind of liked that, if that's what they were saying. But it didn't seem that it was trying to be particularly entertaining. I didn't get the whole "fighting and shooting" thing.
TVR: At the end?
NS: Well, there was a--see, I don't know who everybody is--these two green guys. There's a Green Arrow, and I figured that out later, but I don't really know which one it is. Anyway, these two green guys get in a big fight. It just seemed like a way to take up two or three pages of stuff--it didn't add anything to the story. Then the assassinations? [The story] made it sound like that's happening every fifteen minutes. They've already had two attempts? Is that something they do all the time, have people constantly trying to assassinate public figures?
TVR: When you found it confusing, did it have something to do with the art in particular, or the writing? Was there something where you reacted with a "I don't understand this."?
NS: In this case, it would have to be the lack of the writing. Well, I didn't know if it meant something that these things popped up? I didn't understand what those were.
TVR: Oh, when they weren't here in the top frame and then in the next two frames they are?
NS: Yes, he says "You're kidding right?" What is that about? Did he put that fish in some milk?
TVR: I love that observation.
NS: So I didn't get that. It just popped up. Then there's this [Green Lantern's ring], which I figured it was because I didn't know who this character is, so I don't know what the green ring means. It probably makes sense to anybody who read their other comics, it's just that I don't know who these people are. I still don't know if that explains that fish thing being there. Then there's this woman who breaks up the fight, and then it's just--I got confused on the next page because I don't know who any of these people are.
TVR: All these pictures of people.
NS: Yes, it says "Elsewhere at the same moment." Are those--I don't get that. I have no idea what that is about. But I wouldn't say that the writing was hard to understand.
TVR: Did you think it was weird that Batman's face was on the ceiling?
NS: No, I thought he was looking--oh wait, he's in both pictures!
TVR: That's me being biased. I thought that was confusing.
NS: I don't know who this is, whether he is a good guy, or a bad guy, or whatever. This red guy.
Intern: What did you think about Superman's face right there?
NS: Well, I didn't really notice it--he seems to have a very prominent jaw. Not prominent, but class 3. I thought Lois Lane was all over the place, the way she seems to be okay with everything, but then she acts all high and mighty and seems to think it's wrong. Of course, later she continues with that and it's made to sound like she was told to do it. I didn't think she was very consistent. That was the part where I thought it got kind of preachy, where the heroes kept saying "Don't do that." Then they do that. They keep doing it.
TVR: Every super-hero keeps endorsing a candidate.
NS: This whole passage about "I don't know how we got from this to..." I didn't understand the transition. There's an endorsement and it jumps to this presidential rally for one of the candidates. I had trouble with that, because I couldn't tell what happened. Who are these people? This guy--who is this? Good or bad? He's dead, but--I don't know what happened.
TVR: Yes, the art is confusing. There's the assassination story from the previous issue reintroduced towards the end. It's really confusing. After reading this, are you interested to read the next issue?
NS: Not on this topic.
TVR: Are you interested to read a comic book again?
NS: If I had one. I wouldn't go out and buy one. I still like regular books and regular things better. Especially for political news. Well, this isn't even political, because those aren't real candidates.
TVR: Do you find this whole political statement that they were trying to make valuable? Pertinent? Does it do the job of bringing something up?
NS: I don't think it's really making a real point, no. If it was going to be influential, something to do--if it was supposed to have a message, like "go vote" then it didn't work. I saw some public service announcement where they had twenty celebrities talking about registering to vote, and the whole time I was reading it I thought about that. I don't know if you've seen that, but it was a lot of big name people doing it--and I was thinking about that commercial while reading this. Is the comic trying to tell me that I need to go vote? That I shouldn't listen to celebrities? If [DCU Decisions] was supposed to have a point, I didn't really get it. That other thing, the commercial--the point was "go register to vote." And then vote. Otherwise you don't have a say in anything. It was a simple message. DCU Decisions was not. But I'm thinking that's not what they were trying to do.
TVR: Right.
NS: If they were trying to make a point, it didn't work.
TVR: Just to wrap up, what do you think about comics in general?
NS: Well, I really only know about them as a kid thing. They are very different, I think, now. I only know about them because my son has an interest in them. I don't know anything about the culture.
TVR: Any final thoughts?
NS: No final thoughts, but is this a special thing they did? This political thing?
TVR: Right, it's just a special thing. This is the second issue of four, and I think it's weekly.
NS: So what--they're doing it because of the presidential election?
TVR: Your guess is as good as mine. Is it like "hey, let's do something relevant and get readership this way?" I don't know.
Intern: It's written by two people. Judd Winick was on the Real World.
NS: Ah.
Intern: Bill Willingham is another popular writer who is supposedly very conservative. Judd Winick is supposedly very liberal. So the two of them teamed up to present...this.
NS: Well, that makes it sound like they did want to have a point.
After a break, Nancy Stone began speaking more about her thoughts about comics.
NS: If you haven't seen a comic in a while, or a little kid sees one and says "That's Batman! I saw that movie!" I don't think it would work for something like DCU Decisions--it's just too weird--I don't know why the companies don't make them more available. I'm sure that there's a reason for it, but I think the companies are wrong. What they've done is created a...when I was a child, all children read comic books. Now it's only people who "are into comic books" that even read them. I think there's all kinds of kids who would read comic books but can't.
The Intern: Because of the lack of availability.
NS: Yes! You have to go to a comic book store. To tell you the truth, some of those places--I don't want to go there.
Stephen Stone: That was his point exactly. They're goofy places.
NS: There are goofy people in there! I'm talking about the people that work there.
The Virgin Read: They feel seedy.
NS: Well, and you know, you two seem like regular people. But sometimes, these other people, they seem pretty...unsocialized. Like they don't have any friends, or they only have friends that are...professional gamers. That kind of...a lack of social skills. The reason why you might seem "okay" is because you have other interests. But when you go to some of those places, it seems like that's the only thing going on in their life.
The Intern: I don't know if you know this, but when you go see, as you mentioned, a Batman movie, like the one that they just made with Heath Ledger, and you say "I liked that movie. I want to read a Batman comic book." When you pick up the Batman comic book, there's no real connection other than the "Batman" character. The characters don't really look the same, they don't really behave the same--the style of storytelling, the style of writing--they don't have anything in common with the movie beyond the basic tropes. A better example is the Spider-Man movie, where you have Peter Parker, and he's young and he's coming out of school--and then you've got a Spider-Man comic book where, until just recently, he was married. Has been for years. Married to Mary Jane, who is a super-model. That's not what kids saw in the Spider-Man movie--what they saw was a young, gawky Tobey Maguire. But in the comic book, they've got some buff guy who is a grown man. There's no narrative connection between the two.
NS: Well, I don't think that matters. I still think that if you went to a regular store, and there was a rack with Batman comic books, and there hadn't been a movie out in a while--it's just a Batman comic book, presented like any other magazine, with a cover that's attractive for whatever reason--I think that I might want to read that. Not because of the movie--which I haven't seen.
The Intern: Here's another question--the most recent issue of Batman, which came out the same day as this, has a sequence in it where the Joker takes a straight razor and cuts his own tongue--he forks his own tongue. What's the age range for that? Is it okay for a kid to read that?
NS: That's a whole other thing. The reason why it appealed for Batman before, on that television show, was because it was all "Kapow," with that comic book violence. It wasn't trying to be real. I think that "realistic" violence can hurt your availability to other people, because the whole "realistic violence" thing is something I just don't like.
Intern: Well, you like Dennis Lehane. The violence in Dennis Lehane is worse than a guy cutting his own tongue.
NS: Yes, but the violence in Dennis Lehane does not come across that way because it's a novel. It has fully developed characters that are presented for more then just twenty pages. You've got a chance to develop it--but when you don't have that time, just like the fight that opens this Decisions comic, it seems gratuitous. "We want to have a fight here." You can't lay the groundwork for something like Lehane in just a few pages. So when they do something, like cut the tongue, or execute someone, and they haven't worked up to it--it just seems like someone put it in there for...whatever. I think it reinforces that idea that "people who like this sort of thing" or "people who write this sort of thing" are not "normal." They're weird. They're creepy.
Intern: You're saying it might reinforce that belief. It's a stereotype of a comic book fan. Not necessarily accurate, but still possible.
NS: Right, like when I say that going to a comic book store I'll find a guy that's "creepy." What you just described reinforces that stereotype.
Intern: Well, in defense of that one example--I'm using that because it was the most immediate, it's the most recent issue of Batman, it's an act of violence. That comic is actually written extremely well by one of the better writers of these sorts of stories. All that aside--it is an image of the Joker cutting his tongue with a straight razor.
NS: Well. No one seems to want to do stuff for children. Either they think they won't buy it, or they're...to me, it makes me think about that attitude "I want to direct." No one is ever happy to just do stuff that people like. They all want to be "special." That's what it seems like is going on here. Anybody can write a comic book that's merely entertainment, that a kid could read, but that's not "sophisticated" or "edgy" enough.
Intern: In the Batman writer's defense, I'd say he did just write a Superman comic that is, in my opinion, the single best Superman story I've read. Something that any child can read.
NS: No, look. I'm not saying that. If you're asking me how to get more people interested in it, and have it be less of a private club then forking tongues isn't the way to do it. If you say "I don't care" and "I want to be true to my whatever," and that you'd rather have 10,000 readers that understand and appreciate what it is that you're doing then the masses--then okay. That's fine. But that is the difference!
And, yes I do think there is too much violence. Movies, television--books, to some extent. You can go through the best-seller section of the bookstore and think that 10% of the population is a serial killer. That's why, if you're writing a mystery--no one cares about somebody being a bank robber. They can't just kill one person, they have to...ugh, just be more convoluted. I wonder if you're not going to get to a point where people just look and say "So what?" How many different ways can you be a serial killer? After a while, who cares? Figure out a way to be believable, without being boring. Nobody is going to write a book about my life, because it's not that interesting to anybody but me. I'm happy with my life, but it's not the stuff of great literature. When is the last time you read a book about a happy person who met their soulmate and went on to have three wonderful children who became Supreme Court Justices?
Intern: I think I read something like that when I read manga.
-Nancy Stone, 2008
I had no idea she'd be so fiery! She is really creeped out by those comic book store employees...makes me want to go to a comic book store and see what all the hype is about.
Posted by: Amy L. | 2008.10.10 at 11:01
Amy,
NO! Don't do it! Save yourself!
I'm freaked out by comic store employees even though I was going there every week! *shudder* A comic store is not somewhere a normal, well adjusted person should ever go.
Posted by: Kenny | 2008.10.10 at 16:56
Amy won't be going to a comic store anytime soon, unless it's one full of clothing made of hemp and stinking of patchouli. She's a lovely, wonderful lady, but she's also a dirty hippie.
Posted by: Tucker Stone | 2008.10.10 at 23:35
This interview's a tonic, but also sobering: USA Monthly comics cater to an ever more introspectve community. The old 'sale or return' system necesitated broad writing styles, low cost, and high risk. Current trends for wider readership tend toward larger works sold in book stores, and stocked in libraries. But still, wider readership needs broad writing styles. Direct sales, alone, will not allow that. A combination of netcomics and print books widly dustribed on old 'sale or reuturn' high risk would create a stir. It would just take a fortune and a lot of hard work.
Posted by: Matt | 2008.10.11 at 16:09