COMIC BOOK CONFIDENTIAL
Liner notes for the Criterion Laserdisc
by Michael Dare
Paintings have always been taken
seriously, and art museums around the world have no problem gathering hoards
of oglers whenever they display the works of visual stylists who express
themselves on canvas. And the novel has always been taken seriously, as
book stores around the world have no problem gathering hoards of readers
whenever they display the works of linguistic stylists who express themselves
with typewriters.
But the perfect confluence of
these two mighty art forms, the simple combination of storytelling and
art, the visual novel, the comic book, has always been treated as the Rodney
Dangerfield of the art world. They can't get no respect. The Museum of
Contemporary Art in Los Angeles has never displayed a single original piece
by Will Eisner or Bernie Wrightson, and the permanent collection of the
Guggenheim in New York contains not one Daredevil or Dr. Strange.
Of course bookstores now carry bound editions of comic books, but the New
York Review of Books never came close to reviewing the first issue of the
Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles, and William M. Gaines hasn't been considered
once for a Pulitzer Prize.
Ron Mann's Comic Book Confidential
finally treats comics with the esteem they deserve. With a combination
of interviews, historical footage, and montages of comic art, it's a comprehensive
and thoroughly entertaining account of the history of comics, from the
very first (Funnies on Parade in 1933) to the very hippest (Rip
Off Press) to the very latest (RAW). It's an intense and introspective
look at the public's unquenchable need for superheroes.
See Captain America fight the
Nazis. Witness the insane artistic witch hunt of the fifties in which a
Senate sub-committee on juvenile delinquency tries to prove that Tales
From the Crypt makes kids want to rob liquor stores. Meet not only
Stan Lee and Frank Miller, but generally reclusive Zap Comic artists S.
Clay Wilson, Robert Williams, and Robert Crumb, the men who took the art
of satire and psychedelia to new heights.
Better, more intelligent and
demanding artists are entering the field all the time. Comic books are
unquestionably the most important purely indigenous American art form,
and that's not just because they're the only purely indigenous American
art form. They can deliver thrills available in no other medium, and they're
cheap. Enter a modern comic book store and the variety of madness
available is staggering. Watching this disc is like entering a secret society
that anyone can infiltrate, even kids with a buck and a quarter, even grown-ups
with mega-bucks. Comic Book Confidential can help you justify reading
comics. Just because all children like books with pictures doesn't mean
that all people who like books with pictures are children.
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