Recently, after admitting to a couple friends (notice the verb) I had a comic book review blog, both mentioned they had not yet started reading—and here both paused— graphic novels. They said it as though reading a comic book was one of modern life’s new requisites. The popularity of superhero movies, whether pretentious or straightforward ones, combined with the decade plus efforts to make indie (i.e. non-superhero) comic books acceptable public reading material for adults has made “graphic novels” a medium people do not want to dismiss.

But, as someone who has been reading comic strips, graphic novels and the good old so-called comic book since he was two or three, I am unsure why adults all of a sudden think they need to pick up a new entertainment medium.

I do not, for example, listen to opera. I do not plan on making an effort to listen to the best operas so I can identify myself as being opera-literate. If someone recommends an opera to me, however, I might give it a listen. Comic books are no different. Over the years, I have probably recommended two comic books to people who do read them. Maybe three. Comic book readers are very particular and if one is not inclined to a particular genre, getting him or her on board is difficult if not impossible.

So trying to think of what comic book I would recommend to a new comic book reader (an adult one) … it takes a lot of thought. Mainstream comic books often have a lot of history to them—but they also require the reader wear rose-colored nostalgia glasses. Atrocious grammar, contrived plotting and goofy dialogue can get a pass depending on the plot. Just like old television shows and movies from childhood, going back to a comic book read ten or twenty years ago can sometimes cause embarrassment. Perhaps, in popular media, some things are better remembered, instead of re-experienced.

A little while ago I returned to the comic book Swamp Thing. For those unfamiliar with the comic (and the eighties low budget movies, television show, cartoon and action figure line), it is about a scientist who is turned into a giant swamp monster. The comic concerns his attempts at regaining his humanity and his eventual acceptance of his condition. There are also a lot of bad guys.

Swamp Thing was a horror comic (but still one for general audiences). Many of the bad guys were sinister, but others were just robots and so on. In the early eighties, after the first movie based on the series, Swamp Thing got a creative jolt from writer Alan Moore and artists Stephen R. Bissette and John Totleben. The jolt came in two parts. First, Moore redefined the character of the titular protagonist, fundamentally changing him. Second, Moore and the artists created a far more visual way of telling a story in a comic book. Rereading their first two issues, I realized if I had to recommend a comic book to an unfamiliar adult reader, it would be the Alan Moore Swamp Thing.

His first issue—and I am recounting all of these from memory and scant notes–makes an undeniable impression. It’s a wrap-up of the previous writer’s almost two year storyline. Moore makes some immediate changes in how the male “heroes” finish up. Instead of a couple sympathetic heroic males, Moore recasts them as villains. In both cases, their gender is integral to their new roles as villains. Only one is actually evil—plotting how he can use his reluctant love interest’s insecurity to control her; the other has some problems of the demonic nature and occasionally ignores his wife, preferring his succubus. Now, Moore’s move is a little obvious—he is drawing the proverbial line in the sand. For a new reader, these changes make no difference, which is why I would recommend Moore’s Swamp Thing, starting with the second issue (although it used to be the first issue in the collections).

But that first issue uses a visual motif of Newton’s cradle to tie the issue’s events together. Moore plays with how an unconnected visual element can force his reader to make connections. For the next six issues, he is never as obvious about it … but he is seeing how it works. Comic books are usually monthly. This means, so long as no one gets fired, writers and artists are able to experiment.

The next issue—Moore’s second issue and the first traditionally included in collections—is narrated in the first person. Bad first person narration is one of the things a regular comic book reader has to accept. Whether a mainstream comic or an independent one, writers tend to use first person narration and most of it is poorly written. Comic book writers generally don’t understand perspective or tense, but they also don’t think through their characters reactions or motivations for narrating their experiences. Like anything else, one has to go into a comic book assuming it will be bad. Statistically speaking, it will be. Someone could probably come up with an equation to figure how bad.

That second issue has, for a comic book, okay first person narration. Moore uses the word “that” in a weak fashion (without a noun) and it bugs me. But, overall, the issue is outstanding. Every one of the subsequent issues are outstanding as well. Moore, Bissette and Totleben create a kind of language for their storytelling. Some of it relies heavily on text—Moore repeats a phrase—the obvious “Swamped”—in one issue (the issue’s story title) as it relates to his different characters. A lot of its success has to do not just with art and layout, but how Moore is able to control the reader’s pace in order to make a visual moment have greater impact. Sadly, the first example of that method is an abject failure: an attempt to have a rousing moment when the Swamp Thing rescues the girl. But big green swamp men are unsuited for heroic movie moments. Still, the attempt is well-executed.

Swamp Thing, of course, is not all I read. But I can talk about it with people who do not read comic books. There is no specialized vocabulary for it. In fact, it is a completely different reading experience than how I usually go into a comic book. Starting one, I expect a comic book to be bad. I do not expect to quit reading it in repulsion. Though I have quit reading some comics, usually I can finish the issue, sometimes not. Reading a comic book takes between five and twenty minutes; a lot of the reading time depends on how much work the writer puts into the description and the dialogue. Comic books so graphically complex they take time to comprehend visually are rare. The visuals in a comic book serve the story and the writing—in that order. Many comic books were illustrated from a storyline, not a finished script. That method often makes the comics worse overall, but occasionally creates something fluid.

But the point of comic books is not to create something fluid. It is to sell comic books, advertising, action figures and Underroos. Because they are “in print,” comic books somehow seem loftier than television, but they have more in common with a TV show than they do with any other kind of media. And going into a comic book expecting it to be as rewarding as a TV show is a good idea. But TV shows—most TV shows—do not come with preconceived notions about who should be watching them.

For my comic book blog — and because I find myself curious to see if I had any taste as a child—I often revisit older comic books. Since the late eighties, when comic books starting getting good reviews in the mainstream press, since publishers starting collecting issues or series for bookstore audiences, comics have gotten “more serious.” When I hear about an obscure comic book series and am interested, I read it. So I end up reading a lot of comics no one—not the writer, not the artist, not the publisher—ever intended to be reprinted, much less reviewed. Some of them are good. A lot more of them are mediocre. The rest of them are bad.

So why do I keep going? My comic book blog is non-profit. In terms of readership, a day with twenty readers—total, not per post—is a good day. But reading these comics is, for me, another reason the blog is non-profit. And when someone is reading for him or herself, as an adult, the experience is different. Comic book readers, since the advent of the Internet and the rise of big budget Hollywood adaptations, are constantly finding validation. When Batman 2 makes a billion dollars, this means comic books are good. When Scott Pilgrim fails to make enough to buy everyone on the crew a Happy Meal, this means the general public—the non-comic reading squares—are stupid. The Internet has brought comic book readers, a disparate bunch, together.

And I cannot figure out why anyone’s happy about it.

For every fellow Thomas Pynchon fan I bond with, I bond more with two Pynchon detractors. The same with T.C. Boyle. Reading is an individual effort. Checking in occasionally with someone to compare recently read books is natural. But novel or short stories are not ephemeral. Comic books and television shows (traditionally, obviously TV on DVD has changed everything) are ephemeral. For the majority of their existence, they were not meant to be picked over. I think Bryan Cranston, star of Breaking Bad, once said it was easier to be a working actor before the Internet–because no one could check IMDb and see what terrible shows you had done.

Reading is personal. Recommending is personal. As comic books have become more “accepted,” non-comic book readers want more one-line reasons for what makes a particular comic book appealing. And “I liked it when I was six” does not get the same acceptance as justification for reading one as an explanation of the use Newton’s cradles as a visual motif. But comic book readers, unlike most fiction readers, do toggle between those reading motives. Because novels, whether Dostoevsky or Jacqueline Susann, were not written to be read in one sitting on the toilet.

Comic books on the other hand….

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Note from Jess: I asked Andrew to suggest a list of comic books he thought you might enjoy.

Recommended and readily available (in book stores or libraries):

Swamp Thing by Alan Moore, Stephen R. Bissette, John Totleben, Rick Veitch and others
Unknown Soldier by Josh Dysart, Alberto Ponticelli and others
100% by Paul Pope
Moonshadow by J.M. DeMatteis and Jon J. Muth
The Sixth Gun by Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt
Thor: The Mighty Avenger by Roger Langridge and Chris Samnee
Mysterius by Jeff Parker and Tom Fowler

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