Pretty much from the from the beginnings of buying Pegasus Books, I've been using my own family as a touchstone as to how to reach the general public with comics.
My Mom wouldn't let me read Classics Illustrated when I was kid. Fundamentally, she just had no real respect for comics -- they were for illiterates and stupid kids.
My siblings still have similar feelings toward them. Nothing I could say or do, no amount of Sandman graphic novels in the Christmas stockings, would change their minds. Normally, I try to convince them of the literacy of the stories -- the intelligent content, the wild creativity of the stories, the play between words and pictures.
Nope.
They're having none of it.
This morning it occurred to me, that the one thing that might have really caught my Mom's attention -- and by extension, my siblings, and by further extension the general public, may not be the writing and story at all.
It's the art, stupid.
My Mom was an art major. I think I might --just might-- if I could get her to even glance at a few pages--caught her attention with the art, which after all, can be fabulous.
Probably not. But I probably would've had a better chance with the art, then trying to convince her how clever the writing was.
So maybe I should be trying to catch them with the art --- and then tell them all about the storytelling. Even though, for me, the writing is so much more important. Or, perhaps I should say, equally important. Because a great comic has the two elements working in tandem.
My Mom wouldn't let me read Classics Illustrated when I was kid. Fundamentally, she just had no real respect for comics -- they were for illiterates and stupid kids.
My siblings still have similar feelings toward them. Nothing I could say or do, no amount of Sandman graphic novels in the Christmas stockings, would change their minds. Normally, I try to convince them of the literacy of the stories -- the intelligent content, the wild creativity of the stories, the play between words and pictures.
Nope.
They're having none of it.
This morning it occurred to me, that the one thing that might have really caught my Mom's attention -- and by extension, my siblings, and by further extension the general public, may not be the writing and story at all.
It's the art, stupid.
My Mom was an art major. I think I might --just might-- if I could get her to even glance at a few pages--caught her attention with the art, which after all, can be fabulous.
Probably not. But I probably would've had a better chance with the art, then trying to convince her how clever the writing was.
So maybe I should be trying to catch them with the art --- and then tell them all about the storytelling. Even though, for me, the writing is so much more important. Or, perhaps I should say, equally important. Because a great comic has the two elements working in tandem.