Comic books and graphic novels and manga oh my...

I love comic books. I have a collection of over 300 in a trunk in my bedroom, and had an even larger collection when I was in dotus. Some of my favourite memories are of me and Short Stuff biking around Colombo looking for comic books. Unik Creations, Vijitha Yapa, Lake House Book Shop, they all fell to our hunt for the latest ones that we could find.

To many people comics books are "kid stuff". They don't think that a comic book can be equal to "literature". My parents were no different. They felt that comics would ruin me. But when we were in dotengee, they did buy me quite a bit. I remember there was usually a supply of Beano, Wizzer & Chips, Magic Roundabout, and other British comics always around. That was one of the things I always asked my dad for. And sometimes I got them.

My introduction to the idea of the "graphic novel" came with Tintin and Asterix. I had a few Lucky Lukes lying around too, but Herge and the team of Goscinny & Uderzo were the ones who really shaped me in those first years. It was the first time I realised that a comic book could not only be a set of running gags, or a short 2-3 page storyline, but could actually carry a story along for more than a short period. It also provided me with my first swearwords. I still remember saying "blistering barnacles" when they wanted to give me an injection in hospital.

Beyond that initial contact when I was young, I really didn't get a chance to read comics until I was in my early teens. In the Colombo Public Library i found a few 2000AD. These were my introduction to the world of Judge Dredd, the uber-law-enforcement-officer. But it was also my introduction to a whole new genre. The closest I had come to "action" comics was in the old war story comics. In most cases the action was "implied", they rarely showed the punch connecting, usually it was the aftermath of the punch, the arm well in the follow through, and the other guy falling. All this changed with Judge Dredd.. One of my most vivid memories is of one panel, where he is battling a "Dark Judge" called Judge Fear. He yells "gaze into the fist of Dredd" and smashes his fist into and out the back of the Judge's helmet. He also provided me an upgrade to my "socially acceptable swearwords" with "drokk"

While I was reading 2000AD, my friends were reading Superman and Spiderman. The American "superhero" genre (BTW, "superhero" is apparently a copyrighted term which can only be used by Marvel and DC comics as a marketing term) was a bit of a late introdction to me. I remember having a copy of "ROM: Space Knight" lying around somewhere, and a couple of others, but I never really read superhero comics until I was about 15 or 16. It was, to say the least, a revelation.

I discovered Superman, Batman and Spiderman. And I was lucky enough to catch them at their most interesting. This was the period when the companies were looking more at the "man" than the "super". Clark Kent and Peter Parker were no longer simply alter egos, shells that allowed them to walk the world without being mobbed. Their "real" lives became as complicated as their "caped" lives. In fact more so. Clark Kent faced issues he couldn't solve with his fists, Peter Parker had problems that couldn't be met with a blast of web juice and a flip one-liner. Batman battled addiction and the loss of two proteges, one to adulthood and one to the Joker. Things became a little bit darker in their world, and I think it was to the better

I too was learning that life was not as black and white as I thought it was in my childhood. It was the era of the JVP's "second revolution", I watched a ruthless uprising get quashed equally ruthlessly. I still have problems deciding if what was done was right or wrong. At the same time that Batman and Superman were battling their codes of honour that stated that they would not kill, I was also questioning the idealism that had been a major part of my life so far. Batman, in the end, didn't kill, neither did Superman. Although their NOT killing allowed many deaths to happen. Comics had up to then formed a major part of my life, but I was looking for more.

This was the time I started to turn to the "other" heroes. Green Lantern, The Huntress, Lobo (especially Lobo, who taught me the word "frag"), became part of my reading matter. Their darker takes on life, the attitudes that they presented made more sense to me than most other comics. It was during this time that I started to get my hands on the limited run comics. 4-6 isssue minis, 12 issue maxis, comics that were simply so strange that people didn't buy them. These were the ones that REALLY made my mind work.

One of the most influential for me was the Green Lantern: Mosaic series. It followed Green Lantern John Stewart as he tried to care for a community made up of many different worlds, species and sentients. As John began to understand the way the Mosaic worked, so did I begin to understand how the fractured country I lived in worked. In a way I would credit Mosaic for a lot of what I have become today. Mosaic would be one of the most influential comic I read for a very long time. Then I met Anarky

One thing I did when I went to the dotus was I started buying comics. As soon as I could get a job, I was buying as many comics as I could afford my hands on. And boy, did I ever buy them. Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Lobo, The New Titans, Teen Titans, Superboy, Robin. I bought them all, and read them. But none of them really spoke to me, not until I got my mitts on a four issue mini called "Anarky". Batman had battled Anarky before, and this time Anarky was out to change the world. It was Anarky that really got me into Libertarianism, and the concepts of personal responsibility. It was an eye-opener for me. I would confidently hold up GL:Mosaic and Anarky as two of the books that helped shape me into who I am today. In each comic of the Anarky mini series was a list of "recommended reading", this led me to hunt down more and more books that led me to further examine and evaluate my philosophies in life and living. They influence me to this day

As you can see, most of my comic book reading has been based on DC Comics. I don't often read Marvel. I am sometimes unsure why myself. I guess it is because during my formative years I really didn't have that many Marvel comics around. It was almost exclusively DC. I am aware that Marvel was into character development well before DC was. But I don't seem to have too much interest in their lineup. I guess I should look further into this phenomenon. Something I have found interesting about Marvel is their choice of terms for their superheroes. DC calls their stable "metahumans" and Marvel calls them "mutants". This, I believe shows one of the fundamental differences between the two camps.

DC looks at the superheroes, even the ones who are from outer space, as being "different human", a part of humanity, but different from it. This makes the heroes more "duty-bound" to protect the people. After all they are humans who have strange abilities, it is part of their duty to use their powers to protect the humanity that doesn't have those powers. This also makes the villains more, for want of a better word, villainous. They are human but, due to an accident of birth, have incredible powers they can use. And they choose to use them for their own benefit.

The Marvel universe has "mutants", not "different humans" but "freaks". This shows the antagonism they have to deal with when moving in human society. A society that hates them, and yet depends on them for protection from the "evil" mutants. And it makes you wonder, are the "evil" ones really that evil? Magneto wants a world where the mutants can live in peace, and he's not above fighting the normal humans to do it. The "good" mutants want to protect the world in the hopes that it will enable them all to live in peace.

This dichotomy between the two aspects of the superbeing, is what makes the conflict interesting. It is not interesting to see Superman rescuing a cat from a tree except as a "how cute" measure. It is not interesting to see Superman beat the shit out of a purse snatcher, after all, he can carry a supertanker. It is the conflict between the societies that make it interesting.

It is same conflict that makes it very easy to draw the parallels between superheroes and Nietzsche's Ubermensch. After all, the first aspect of the ubermensch is using his will to power destructively, in the rejection of, and rebellion against, societal ideals and moral codes. How different is this from a supervillain. The reason we look on him as a "villain" is simply because he is rebelling against the moral codes. ALL moral codes.

Many people refuse to acknowlege comic books as a valid medium. And yet the Japanese have had comic books for years. They call them manga, and they cover everything from sci-fi to hisorical, computers to drag racing, romance to tentacle rape, and usually every combination of those mixes you can imagin. If there isn't a manga dedicated to historical dragracing women who are raped by tentacle monsters, I'm sure there will be soon. If the Japanese can consider a comic book a valid form of literature, why can't most of the rest of the world do so? One reason is the name "comic book" invokes an image of a book full of jokes. Something that is written with little to no serious intent. The other is that most people still equate comics with Bugs Bunny, Archie and the crew, and the ever popular Mickey Mouse. Something for kids, that no adult would be happy reading

But in my view, and in the view of many others, comic books are literature. The transmission of an idea is not lessened by the fact that it is presented in a graphical medium. In fact, there are lots of subtle ways a good artist and inker can convey a lot of feeling and nuance in the art. The great John Byrne was one of those people. Reading the comics that have his touch to them proves that it is not a comic book, but a book that has been written in a graphical format. And the requirement for the writer to show all the ideas and nuances in a limited number of words, and using only dialog means that the writer himself must be very talented. You won't get "War And Peace" in comic book format. And if you did, it would probably be a more enjoyable read than the book I got less than 10 pages past.

We don't get good comic books here in dotelkay anymore. The DC comics we get are the half sized Indian editions. These are not exactly in the canon and continuity. Besides, I like my comics full-sized thankyouverymuch. Vijitha Yapa still carries a large selection of graphic novels, trade paperbacks and manga. I would buy them if I could afford the price. My current selections come from the net. I have a bunch of online comics that I visit every day, and I would like to introduce you to some of them. Please note that some of them are NOT SAFE FOR WORK, some have strong language, and some are just strange.

You have been warned. Let us begin

PVP Online - Scott Kurtz

Published every day. Wikipedia

PVP was one of the first comics that I got into, and still remains my top favourite. The premise is simple, a crew of people working for a gaming magazine. The story is usually taken forward in short arcs that rarely last more than a week, interspersed with one off strips. Light hearted, and there is a great deal of homage paid to the 80's

Penny Arcade - Jerry Holkins & Mike Krahulik

Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Wikipedia

Like your gaming news in webcomic format? A webcomic dripping with venom? You got it. Possibly the most finalcially successful webcomic Penny Arcade was the first comic I started reading. And for some reason, maybe its the insulting attitude, or the massive swipes it takes at idiots in the gaming community, or the fact they actually say "fuck". Either way, a good read.

Questionable Content - Jeph Jacques

Published every weekday. Wikipedia

Many thanks to ur-blogger Mary Anne Mohanraj for pointing me in this direction. If you like your relationships with drama and insanity, this is the place for you. It also involves sex, indie music, anime references, and much strangeness. There are over 700 strips already archived, but its all pretty fucking cool

Irregular Webcomic - David Morgan-Mar

Published every day. Wikipedia

Webcomics made with Lego and d&d miniatures by an aussie physicist. Nuff sedd.

Four ongoing webcomics to get you started. Plenty more where they came from. But now, I would like to make a special mention of an online graphic novel that I found out about literally two days ago. Ladies and gentlemen I proudly present to you The Probability Broach: The Graphic Novel, an alternate universe graphic novel on the book by L. Neil Smith. Discussing the concepts of libertarianism, personal freedom and responsibilty, and gun ownership, this comic is a great read. It is ongoing, so I am not sure how it ends, but I love where it has gone so far. The publisher, Big Head Press has another three graphic novels online, and I would happily recommend all of them.

This was a really long post, but I am glad I did it. If you want to know more, post your comments here, and I will do my best to answer them