Positive Liberty

Comic books never played much part in my childhood. I can only recall ever having one comic book, and I believe it was a collection of Bible stories, which hardly counts. It was also before I could read, and my parents never let me have another–just to be sure that it hadn’t done any permanent damage. Much like television, comic books were bad, something to be avoided if I was to grow up as an intelligent person in a world full of idiots. Instead my parents encouraged me to move as quickly as possible from children’s literature to “real” books. Thus I went from Dr. Seuss to Tolkein in under a year–with only a short detour to pick up Madeline L’Engle and Roald Dahl.

It made all the difference in more ways than one, because I still can’t stand comic books. I hereby confess to being a complete philistine when it comes the graphic novel–in any of its forms.

To my ears, even the name “graphic novel” sounds absurdly pretentious, and when you combine it with the contents, the overall effect on me is one of profound annoyance. How could anyone could take something like this so seriously? The plots are like science fiction without the edge, like fantasy without the wonder, like all the hack-and-slash with none of the enduring impact.

Scott has taken, erm, heroic steps to get me to like comic books, and I still don’t like them.

I’ve been assured that Neil Gaiman is an excellent graphic novelist, and I’ve read five books of The Sandman in an attempt to find out why. But then I look at the impact that The Sandman has had upon my sense of life and my interior emotional background. It pales before most any piece of short science fiction I’ve read lately. When I look at, say, James Tiptree’s And Her Smoke Rose Up Forever, or Ursula Le Guinn’s The Barrow, I can honestly say I’ve spent more time thinking about these two stories than I have spent thinking of everything that I’ve read of Neil Gaiman.

What’s worse, I’m starting to think that it’s not at all Mr. Gaiman’s fault. I really am a philistine, and it might even be genetic. Scott and I argue about it all the time, and usually it sounds like this:

“Did you read the next book of The Sandman yet?”

“No, I forgot.”

“You forgot?“

“Yeah, I guess I just didn’t think about it.”

“I’ll leave it out for you.”

“Leave it on the shelf, I’ll remember.”

“Are you sure?”

“Well.. no, not really.”

“These are SO good. You really need to read them.”

“Okay… I will.”

“Oh, and you should read this too.”

“What’s that?”

“Hellboy.“

“Hell… boy?”

“It will give you an idea of what comics were like before Neil Gaiman. Then you’ll really be able to see how much he’s contributed to the genre.”

“So let me see if I understand this. I’m reading a comic book I don’t enjoy, and to make it better, you want me to read one that I’ll like even less?”

“It’s really not bad. I know the name’s hokey, but there are some interesting ideas.”

I read one story of Hellboy. I hate to say it, but I was right. No, that’s not true… I really like saying that I’m right, and Scott knows it–so just to make sure that it’s not out of some cussedness of mine, he keeps foisting more and more graphic novels upon me. Come to think of it, he really likes saying that he’s right too, so there’s no end to the problem in sight.

For a long time, Scott tried to diagnose what might be wrong with my aesthetic sense. He proposed that I’m just not used to thinking in pictures, and that it’s a skill I could develop in time. But I think the trouble is more serious than that.

I’ve never once thought in pictures. I can’t do it. When I’m thinking to myself, when I’m thinking just for the sake of thinking, it invariably comes out in a string of words. I compose lectures, monologues, dialogues, poetry. Almost always, my inner textstreams are focused, linear, and even more or less grammatically correct.

In other words, I even punctuate my thoughts. Except for dreams and altered states of consciousness, I have never once composed a picture in my mind. If you were to open up my mind and spill it out on a table, you would get nothing more than a pile of words. My imagination is like those times on Sesame Street when the gang is learning a new letter They play around with a big, spongy letter “M,” then combine it with other letters, and suddenly a glass of milk appears, or a mailbox–or a monster.

Thus, when I read a comic book I’m completely out of my element. They throw off my interior monologue more than anything else I know, and the result looks something like this:

“Here’s a picture and some words. Wait, the words are divided up into bubbles. Do I look at the picture first, or do I look at the words? Hmm… The bubbles are diagonally across from one another, this one is higher, but it’s on the right. Do I read the top right words first, or the bottom left? Or is it the reverse? Do I look at the picture last, first, or in the middle? Maybe I should skip to the next panel to get a clue. No, that will ruin the surprise–if there is one. I should probably read the previous panel again, then come back. Damn… now that I look at it, the “previous” panel is below this one, too. It’s also in the background, kind of. Was I supposed to read it first? Or is it supposed to be last, since it’s in the background–like a transparency through to the next page, perhaps?”

While all this is going on, I have here and there managed to read all of the words of the panel in question. I’ve also re-read the two previous panels, I’ve looked ahead to the next two panels, and I’ve skimmed the stuff in Neil Gaiman’s infuriating background panels. I may even have looked at a picture or two. In the process, I’ve entirely forgotten to think about what I’ve read, and even my emotional sense has been so distracted that I’m not really sure what to feel.

So… I’m sorry, Mr. Gaiman. And I’m sorry, Scott. Much like opera, I suppose there are some people who just don’t like this particular art form. I can’t say I haven’t tried.

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