First of all, it was revealed recently that Barack Obama has a collection of Spider Man and Conan comics. Do you hear that? OUR FUTURE PRESIDENT READS MARVEL!!1! Bush strikes me as a Superman guy. (Green Party types read Vertigo and Maus and maybe Love and Rockets)
So when Madeleine Brand (who I love!) of NPR’s Day to Day did a short piece covering this, she treats comic book collecting like an embarassing disease, like a case of the nerd scabies or something. The comic book shop owner she interviews attempts to inject some seriousness, pointing out the escapist nature of most superhero comics. When she expresses relief that “he’s not into the really out there stuff…something a little more disturbing,” I feel like she’s dimissing an entire vibrant and growing cultural medium and perpetuating negative stereotypes. Maybe I have a clue now how granola/green Evangelicals feel when they get lumped in with global warming denialists.
One more thing: Jana’s taking me to see The Dark Knight this evening! On the big screen! Not only am I a huge fan of just about everything that Frank Miller has churned out, but the casting is incredible–if Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Michael Caine and Maggie Gyllenhaal were having a post-production orgy and needed a love slave, I would volunteer in a heartbeat.
Don’t think too much about that last bit.
7 responses so far ↓
1 Elise // Nov 21, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Would you volunteer as the natural youngish-looking attractive half-Asian man John, or the oddly beautiful cross-dressing half-feminine Halloween John?
Not that I’m thinking too much about that last bit or anything…..
2 John // Nov 22, 2008 at 7:50 am
/blush.
Whatever they requested?
3 Chandelle // Nov 22, 2008 at 8:42 am
That might have been the most convincing (if unintentional) argument to see that movie, which, heretofore, I had no intention of watching, but now I have all kinds of fantasy fodder to linger upon alongside it, so.
4 Jana // Nov 22, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Oddly enough, I think both Johns might fit in that orgy. Maybe he could be two-face John: half Asian/LDS missionary looking and half-cross dresser goth girl?
5 angryyoungwoman // Nov 22, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Now I’d rather see the orgy than the movie. Mmmm.
6 MostlyNormal // Nov 24, 2008 at 8:11 am
Personally, I think “Comic Book Guy” in the Simpsons is the perfect embodiment of what comic book collectors over the age of 15 are really like
7 xJane // Nov 24, 2008 at 9:39 pm
lol! I’d totally watch a vid of that orgy…after finals :-p What’d you think of DK? I saw it twice in the theater, which is unheard of for me.
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