Today I met one of young upcoming comic artists of Finland today and we had a long discussion(ok, ok: rambling) about comics overall.
About forum's and scene and all that funky stuff.
In a way I admire his lean towards artsy and personal.
And humor.
And the fact that both of us are solely interested doing comics we would ourselves want to read.
I enjoy horror, scifi, crime, adventure basicly all of those "escapists" stories. If you want to tell me about relationships or how lonely you are I see no reason not to tell it through some hard-assed kick-your-face-in-if-you-look-at-sideways kinda way.
And now after that comment all those with only two live brain cells have stopped reading after categorizing and judging me on their own preconceptions and stereotypes as semi-fascistic violencemonger.
Good riddance to them.
You see I enjoy stuff like The Walking Dead and Locke&Key.
Both are horror, both are gruesome, neither are cheap or pandering. They dont glorify violence.
And while I like old-school adventure films(even though I know the truth about people such as "heroic" Errol Flynn) many of them or the current Disney's violence flicks are way more harmful than the R-rated movies.
Best example is Pirates of the Caribbean. It does good things too, I mean it has introduced zombies to loads of kiddies, but c'mon it has the bloodless swordfights where folks are whacked repeatedly with blades WITHOUT A SINGLE CUT.
That is dangerous.
As our western culture grows more estranged from actual life we also grow ever more unaware what violence is. the repercussions, reasons, repeats...the whole shebang.
Where I live(Finland) local comics are mainly newspaper strips aimed solely to funnybone or artistic "slice of life" comics.
We practically don't have any adventure or crime comics. Take Petri Hiltunen, P.A.Manninen, Anssi Rauhala and Jussi Piironen out of equation and then the realistical, straight-played comics are not even once in a blue moon.
And that is a very sad thing indeed.
You see if you don't talk about something or just refuse to acknowledge it...it still does not go away.
I have heard it a million times: "portrayal of violence just de-sensitizes to it and increases aggression"
Right. Sure.
there is some truth there, I admit. there is also a chance of similar truth that I am reborn god of wine too.
It's a matter of talent.
Yes, it can be violence for violences sake, utterly empty, dehumanizing trite.
If you forget it is about humans.
And it is exactly the reason I grow so bored to most slice of life stories, because they should also be about people, about humans.
because you just dont care a bit about any of them.
You should care about the characters, they should be as real as your friends, as real as you.
Or more so.
But while most of us have more in common with getting bills and going to shop etc we are pulled to acts of mayhem and murder.
Why?
because it is exeptional, vibrant, scary.
And it shows some part of people's true character.
Real self.
Yes, the same abilities come out whenever someone does something altruistic, aiding to fellow man unrequired, without any overt or covert plans of their own.
And lookee how often that happens, huh?
And there are also aestehtics.
There is something very wrong in the beauty of bloodshed, war and death.
But while many can accept grace, awe and purpose in predatory animals, eagles, lions, crocodiles, wolves we find it disturbing to see the same in men.
We know it but still we want and need to watch and not just for our curiosity.
It is a heinous thing to say there is something alluring in death and suffering, but we are social creatures.
We know that while we want to get along with everyone we cant. not with everyone and honestly, we don't want to either.
Frank Miller has lately been put down,his latest batman work was way beyond uneven and there was a movie called Spirit too, but weirdly beneath hookers with hearts of gold, hitmen, ninjas, nazis and gangsters Frank Miller has produced lasting works in comicdom.
His Daredevil, Ronin, Give me Liberty, The Dark Knight Returns are but mere pinnacle.
And his Sin city series nigh singlehandedly brought back crime and noir comics.
Without those David Lapham's Stray bullets or Brian Azzarello's and Eduardo Risso's 100 Bullets would have had no chances.
Or Scalped by Jason Aaron and R.M. Guera.
Even Criminal by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips owes a debt to that direction.
See crime and horror went away, lurking into dark recesses of comicdom and were almost forgotten. Our fears were packed into spandex dreams and european BD comics or worse: something veiled under funny or "not dangerous".
The comics code sought to protect the kids but in my opinion it did anything but.
Being a male of species I have had my share of scrapes. I know firsthand how it feels to be threatened with violence, to be beaten and kicked and been shot at not to mention blunt trauma or stabs and slices.
There is no glory, just hurt, pain and fear.
None of it made me a better person.
but none of it made me worse either.
And all I have ever seen shows me that most of all that is caused two groups:by those people most loudly judging such behavior and those with low self-esteem.
the other group has "moral high ground" therefore has god-given right to opinion and forcing it to others at any point in their own mind.
And the other group is alienated already and has far more limited means to affect the world around them.
Having money and opportunities is power but as long as you dont have a pool of sharks, pet a white persian and have flunkies and henchmen no one views themselves as an aggressor.
Because violence defines us.
some of us worship it and some demonize it.
If we disavow it we are in effect making a choice between violence and non-violence thus accepting it's importance.
Tales of violence are tales of life and death.
They define also the choices we make, what respect we give to life.
They remind us of our mortality.
And as I work in construction I feel the need to add some of mine to the lot. A few more houses to be built.
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