One thing you don't see much any more is how comic strips could influence American culture. Obviously the newspaper used to be a much more prominent part of shaping perceptions; before the advent of television, newspaper were really the only way to communicate anything visually to a mass audience. You'll occasionally run across stories about how Sadie Hawkins Day came out of Li'l Abner or how the Jeep was probably named after the character in the Popeye comics. One that I hadn't seen before is how Harry Hershfield's Abie the Agent was used to fight Jewish stereotypes.
In 1910, Hershfield started a strip called Desperate Desomnd, a parody of adventure melodramas in a similar vein as Milt Gross' He Done Her Wrong from two decades later. He incorporated a Yiddish character into the strip, which proved a positive move and Hershfield's editor encouraged him to start a new strip focusing on the Jewish experience in America. Thus, Abie the Agent was born.
Abraham Kabibble* was a car salesman and, while he and the other Jewish characters depicted used some strong elements of Jewish culture to emphasize their roots, Hershfield was careful to avoid using those elements as part of the humor itself. For example...
Abie is clearly speaking a forced dialect, and the two characters have decidedly Jewish-sounding names, but there's no demeaning of the characters because of that. Hershfield is relying on some stereotypes, but not as the focus of the humor itself. He's basically using the strip to showcase that Jewish Americans are pretty much just like other Americans and weren't deserving of the broad slander that was often cast against them at the time. This was further emphasized in 1917 when Abie enlisted in the US Army to fight during World War I.
Clearly, Abie the Agent didn't change the hearts and minds of everybody overnight, and there would still be anti-Jewish sentiment in some circles for years. But being popular enough to have several strip collections made, two animated cartoons, and a reference in the Marx Brothers classic Animal Crackers suggest that it did help many Americans begin to accept and understand Jews as people just like them.
Kind of a pity that newspapers don't have that same pull today; maybe we could get a new version called Abhed the Agent.
* As far as I can tell, this is the first instance of "Kabbible" being used as a Jewish name. Merwyn Bogue wouldn't adopt his "Ish Kabbible" stage name for several more years. There was a 1913 song titled "Isch ga-bibble" which Bogue later claimed to have gotten the name from. Whether Hershfield also got the name from the same song is unknown, but it would seem likely as "kabbible" is not a word itself and the song only debuted the year before Abie the Agent.
One of the neat things about people-watching is catching these small nuances of character that make every person unique. The particular way they walk or stand or just hold themselves. Sometimes their actions can be very telling, or at least interesting, even just as a contrast to how you might do those same things yourself. I've heard that a number of creators use people-watching as a way to help develop their own characters in much the same way actors do.
But we don't always have the time or ability to view a single person for a long enough period to pick up on their personal ticks. Maybe we're on the way somewhere, or they're passing through quickly themselves, or whatever. We might get a brief mental snapshot of the individual, and any character judgements we might make would have to be based on some broad generalities. Often, these are stereotypes. Often based on ideas that are socialized through our family, friends, and media at large.
So here's a little game I play. As I'm walking around, I see these people that I'm only able to do a quick read of. The ones that, in passing, I'm going to rely on those broad generalities. But the thought process I run through is, "Now this person is [superficial characteristic] so I'm supposed to think they're [stereotype]."
"This person is Black and wearing a hoodie, so I'm supposed to think they're a thug."
"This person is overweight and their hair isn't perfectly coiffed, so I'm supposed to think they're a lazy slob."
"This person seems to be homeless, so I'm supposed to think they're an irresponsible drug-addict."
I'm doing two things in those statements. First, I'm consciously identifying what trait(s) stand out. In identifying them, I have to compare the person against what society tells me is "normal." And while I don't think through a full list of "normal" traits every time I do this, the culmination of running through this game repeatedly highlights what we're taught to believe a "normal" person looks like. It brings the idea that we are taught this visual very much to the forefront of my mind.
Second, the phrase "so I'm supposed to think" emphasizes that, in the absence of actually knowing the person in question, I've been taught that they are being pigeonholed into a role by someone other than myself. I'm not making my own value judgement; I'm relying on others to tell me how to think about this person irrespective of any actual evidence to their character.
"This person deviates from 'normal' and that deviation is bad."
So here's my ask of comic creators, artists in particular. When you draw some characters into your stories -- not primary characters, but more the background characters that you're using to flesh out your world -- as you draw each one, try running through that same game. "This person I'm drawing is [superficial quality], so I'm supposed to think they're [stereotype]."
This will do two different things, I think. First, it'll force you to consciously think about why you might be using a stereotype for a character. It's possible that it's perfectly appropriate, but then again, maybe it's not. But it gives you at least a moment's pause to consider it. Second, if you find yourself repeatedly saying your characters never have superficial characteristics that suggest a particular stereotype, maybe that's because you cast of characters isn't very diverse and you're only drawing what society has taught is "normal." Again, worth some consideration.
I've been reading comics as long as I can remember, but it wasn't until 1979 that I read what might be considered my first graphic novel. It was actually a "video novel" that told the Hulk's origin story, as it was shown on the 1978 television show. (Well, technically, it tells the story from the two-hour pilot which aired in late 1977.)
Rather than re-work the story and get a house artist to draw, however, author Roy Thomas took about 150 still images from the show, cropped them vertically to fit a standard TPB format, and added dialogue balloons and caption boxes. Much of the text is lifted directly from Ken Johnson's screenplay. (At least, I believe it's lifted verbatim; I haven't done a line-by-line check of the entire book.)
Even though I was a kid at the time, and I was extremely excited to get the book, there were a few things that struck me as a bit odd, even back then. The actual still images chosen generally made sense and followed what was shown on screen, but some of the specific frames didn't quite work. The actors' expressions wouldn't quite match the dialogue in several cases, and others are blurred from the actors' movements. Looking back on the book now, it seems as if Thomas selected all the images himself. And while it's common to have video software on a computer now that can advance a single frame at a time that would allow you to select the perfect shot, I'm sure Thomas was considerably more limited in what technology he had available to him. I expect he would have had to have watched the show using an early VCR, jotted down the time-stamps of the frames he wanted, and requested those specific images from Universal Television, who produced the series.
Another thing that bugged me was that some of the images were re-used. There's one head-shot of Susan Sullivan, who played Dr. Marks, that's used three times. I get that it might be necessary to do that in some cases because a line of dialogue wasn't accompanied by a usable image, but it was noticeable even by my younger self.
One final thing of note that didn't really bother me back then, but kind of does now, is that all of the text is typeset in Helvetica inside perfectly rigid dialogue balloons that seem to have been created using only two ellipse templates. I'd guess that Thomas presented rough sketches laid out on Xerox copies, and one of Pocket Books' in-house typesetters did the actual work. It's very crude by lettering standards, and certainly was not the work of a professional comic book letterer.
In any event, it's an interesting approach to capitalize on the show's success, despite being a bit removed from the normal comic production process. It highlights, I think, the significance of having everyone involved with a comic being familiar with the creation process. Thomas certainly had more than enough experience crafting great comics by 1979, but he was probably the only one who touched this book that did.
Johanna Draper Carlson caught a quiet update comiXology rolled out last week: that you can now merge your Amazon and comiXology accounts. Amazon, you'll recall, bought comiXology in the first half of 2014, and soon thereafter removed the ability to purchase new comics through the comiXology iOS app; a user has to log into the website and make purchases there. This was clearly done to avoid the 30% purchase fee Apple was charging. Otherwise, however, Amazon has outwardly seemed to leave comiXology alone until now.
The merging of the two accounts, as Carlson notes, will save some money in terms of system maintenance and updates. But I strongly suspect that's an ancillary benefit for Amazon. In comiXology's FAQ, they note: "This is the first step toward using only Amazon accounts to sign in, which will allow us to use even more Amazon muscle to the benefit of comiXology customers." I think that "Amazon muscle" is the key piece here.
See, even though Amazon is generally thought of as a massive online retailer, that's not their game. For as many books (and other items) as they sell, they don't make very much money. That's how/why they can offer comparatively low prices on just about everything, and free shipping under many circumstances. They simply are not in the business of making money through retailing. As Rob Salkowitz noted when Amazon began testing a brick-and-mortar presence last month, "the profits are in cloud services, the massive data centers that run industrial-strength infrastructure for businesses and provide the processing power to connect mobile apps with back-end customer data."
So what Amazon is doing with comiXology is not so much a consolidation of IT resrouces, but a consolidation of data systems. They're looking to connect which comics you purchase through comiXology with everything you've ever ordered through Amazon. If you've ever ordered from Amazon, they've already got a consumer profile of you. But now, by tying that to your comiXology purchases, they'll have a more robust picture. How do you purchasing habits on comiXology compare with those on Amazon? Do you always buy the digital version of comics first, and then purchase a hardcover edition later? Do you read only Marvel comics online, and purchase manga through Amazon? Do the action figures you buy come from the same comics you typically read? When do you do your comics shopping relative to when you do other online shopping?
Amazon isn't in competition with Best Buy or Walmart or your local mom-and-pop bookstore. They're in competition with Google and Apple and Facebook. And I don't say that as a value judgement, just so you're aware as a consumer what the implications are. As mentioned on comiXology's site, every account will eventually have to get merged so it's not something you can avoid as a comiXology customer; you're option, as it is with Amazon currently, would be to opt out of their business entirely. But doing so would essentially eliminate many, if not most, of the comics you've "purchased" through them. (You can download some comics, certainly, but the majority -- notably Marvel's and DC's titles -- are not available in such a fashion.)
Keep all this in mind the next time you see Amazon make a major purchase like that. Being a better retailer isn't the goal itself, it's just a means to an end.
Last month, King Features celebrated a century of their comics by offering a special supplement section to newspapers. There were a few variations, and it looks as if papers ran them at various times during the back half of the month. I picked up the Plain Dealer edition which came out on Thanksgiving and Black Friday.
The text portion was written by comic strip writer and historian Brian Walker, son of cartoonist Mort Walker. Not surprisingly, the piece focuses on King's specific role in comic strip history with an again not surprisingly heavy focus on William Randolph Hearst. It's a solid enough piece for what it is, although people not very well versed in how comics work might express a little consternation at the absence of mentioning favorite strips like Peanuts or Calvin and Hobbes. If your local paper did not carry this, it can be read online at King's site.
Personally, I was a bit confused by the choices of comics they choose to run with the piece. The title selections were, by and large, obvious. The Yellow Kid, Krazy Kat, The Little King, Flash Gordon, Steve Canyon, etc. What struck me, though, was that most of the specific selections weren't particularly good. I mean, I'm far less knowledgeable about newspaper strips than I'd like (one of the reasons I started this "On Strips" column) but I've seen much better examples of all these strips. I was sitting here thinking, "Well, this joke could've been done better if he'd changed the dialogue a little" or "That's not a very good angle for that shot" or whatever. And I know these creators have done better. I fully get that they're going to have off days and not every strip is going to be a gem, but it seems odd to select ones that clearly weren't gems when you're putting together a special 100th anniversary package. If that was all that was available because they were limiting themselves to pieces that had good reproductions or even original art for, I'd understand, but...
The other part that didn't work well, I though, was that except for the very most recent strips, they were all scanned from old newspapers. Which in some cases, particularly with the older strips, is all that is available any more, but they weren't really cleaned up for printing again. So we not only see the original mis-registrations and printing errors, but the yellowing of the old newsprint and some odd moire patterns from the original line-screens being reprinted at something other than their original size. (Presumably for space reasons, all of those old full-page strips were run at about half size.) Consequently, most of the strips looked a bit fuzzy and muddied. I know the paper quality has improved somewhat over the years, but trying to emulate the look of old newsprint on new newsprint seems like an inherently bad idea from the start. I think they would've done well to try cleaning up the art more if they wanted to showcase their old strips.
It was a decent enough supplement if you happened to be getting the paper anyway. I'd have been a little annoyed if I went out of my way to get a paper specifically to see this. I'd have been pissed if I had to hunt to find a paper that carried it. (Offhand, I don't know how many/which papers may have run this.) But I happened to be in the Cleveland area visiting my parents for Thanksgiving and they already subscribe to The Plain Dealer, so it was effectively zero effort on my part. But if you missed it, just check out the online version -- the content is the same and the strip reproductions look better to boot!
One of the webcomics I regularly read is David Willis' Dumbing of Age. Willis describes it as "a webcomic about college freshmen in the girls wing within a co-ed dorm at Indiana University, learning everything about life and themselves usually in the most difficult ways." Willis does an excellent job blending drama and comedy and, despite being basically set up like a newspaper comic, he's generally able to move the plot along fairly briskly AND end nearly every installment on a solid story beat, often in the form of a joke. His illustrations are good, but it's really his storytelling chops that make the strip as impressive as it is.
And that's all the more impressive when you consider the large cast he's dealing with. Depending on how you count, he's got maybe twelve primary characters and another six really solid secondary characters. They all have distinct personalities and different interpersonal relationships with one another. And, frankly, that's why I was able to keep reading past my first few weeks.
See, the "main" protagonist is a student named Joyce. She is a devout, Bible-quoting Christian that's out to save everyone she meets. And it's that type of self-righteous, sanctimonious, hypocritical, small-minded asshole that I hate more than just about anyone. And while I'm sure there are plenty of Christians out there who are perfectly nice people, the ones I always seem to meet are the assholes who claim to know better than I do because they believe God. I can't tell you how much I hate that.
And so I came to hate Joyce pretty quickly. I mean, really, really, REALLY hate Joyce. Not in a "love to hate" way, but in a "as talented as Willis is, and as much I enjoy everything else about the strip, I might stop reading it entirely because her very appearance pisses me off" way.
Interestingly, though, Willis' cast includes several other characters who are more likeable and he has several of them exploring their sexuality in various ways. Including an old friend of Joyce's who's recently come out of the closet, much to the rage of her insane, gun-toting step-father. And with several other characters questioning their sexuality, the strip does a good job of showing a range of issues people face when confronted with the possibility that they may not be heterosexual.
Including the reactions of others, like Joyce...
(This is my favorite strip Willis has done. Primarily because I thought -- however briefly and vainly -- that Joyce broke. I was initially disappointed to see she recovered, but Willis has since shown Joyce to grow somewhat as a person. While she's still a Bible-thumping evangelical who can't accept dinosaurs exist because it denies the concept of original sin, she has grown to accept that not everything done in the name of her God is indeed righteous. I still hate her though.)
That the strip is set in college gives Willis something of an excuse to play with sexuality identity. And with his larger cast, he almost guarantees that none of the characters will be mistaken as representative of everyone along the LGBTQ rainbow. It's easy (and common) to call out creators who aren't doing anything to diversify their cast, but it's worth taking a moment from time to time to celebrate those who are doing something positive.
