“The Funnies” – Seriously Important

In my day job I am working with a client that has been trying to share an initiative with the rest of their company in a variety of different ways: videos, blog posts, presentations, and, just recently, a digital comic. The thinking was that the comic book format would jar the audience out of their normal “ignore all corporate emails” posture and engage people in a way that would be interesting and easier to identify with — it was a way of making otherwise bland corporate communications “fun.”

We’ve all seen this before, of course, using the sequential art format in different ways for different audiences, but when my client kept talking about how much “fun” the comic book would be, it just struck me—for most people, panels of art with talking balloons represents “fun.”

But does it, really? What are comics, now, for most people? I think the answer to that lies in the question, “what were comics, then?”

My earliest comic memories, perhaps obviously, come from the daily newspaper strips and weekly “Sunday funnies” — which is how my very stern and strict and imposing grandfather would refer to them as. As intimidating and strict a figure as he was, even as a child I can remember that he and my grandmother would read the comics as well, and refer to them with my parents and at the dinner table.  I sit here and think about those days gone by, I realize just how much a part of my life the “funnies” were — they gave me a glimpse into what my elders thought was funny and they were fun for me to read as well.

These single panel comics and multi-panel comic strips also taught me how to read comics.

Now, I don’t know what it’s like to raise a kid these days, but I do know that newspapers no longer play the same kind of role in modern life as they once did.  Sure, if you have the time and the strength, you might find yourself lugging around a Sunday paper and picking through it over the morning like a coffee/viagra commercial, but for the most part, I think it’s fair to say that people tend to get their news throughout the day from a variety of devices and screens and that’s pretty much that. The idea of a kid rifling through their parents’ newspapers looking for comics might strike many out there as kind of quaint.

Today, things are obviously different, and regardless of how we feel about these changes, I can’t help but think differently about the future of comics — and for once, I don’t mean their actual existence! I mean, really, what comics will/can be in the future in a world where our relationship with printed paper is changing to drastically from where it has been for so many hundreds of years.

“It’s a French film, so we don’t have to shower.”

It’s interesting to think about the stir that motion comics made a few years back. I found it pretty easy to dismiss them out of a hand, but, as I look back, I guess I can admire the effort, the attempt to figure out where comics fit in the spectrum of, well, reading. If the success (or, at least, grudging adoption) of digital comics is any indication, it does seem people do like that aspect of comics, the reading. Motion comics were useful inasmuch as it forced us to think about what comics were for us —and it certainly wasn’t this half-comic/half-cartoon mix that seemed to be focused on pleasing everyone (which, of course, cemented its fate in pleasing no one). Motion comics did set the stage for “Guided View” on tablets and mobile devices, which seems to work pretty well. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to use it, if you do like it, the option is there for added drama and a closer view of the art, making the smaller screen less of a frustration. Pretty good option, all in all.

The thing about comics, digital or otherwise, is that you pretty much have to decide to go and get them. The newspaper strips and single panel comics in magazines were “free,” more or less, as a kid. They were the “fun” in the otherwise serious endeavor of delivering the news of the world. Your parents paid for the content. One of things I remember about being a kid was hunting around for comics and comic art, no matter the source. From newspapers to The New Yorker and other magazines, I was always looking for “the funnies” even when I had no idea what I was reading. I just liked the format — it was more interesting than “regular” reading and I liked the drawings! However, that process of looking for comics was, I realize, part of the fun as well. I would invariably bump into some article in a magazine that I found interesting enough to check out, an article that I would normally never run into — which taught me to be a better reader.

I think about these experiences and wonder whether the hunt for comics in “normal” media will be as much a part of childhood — and how the absence of these encounters will impact the relevance of the comic book format for generations to come. If the majority of your content given to a child is specific — here’s this child-friendly comic book or here’s that collection of Calvin and Hobbes — then where do those chance encounters? Like, I find most of The New Yorker cartoons funny (well, adult “funny”) now, but as a kid, I had almost no idea why these comics were supposed to be funny (weren’t all comics supposed to be funny?) and I remember trying to imagine where my parents found the humor. But just thinking about the differences between what I thought was funny and what my parents apparently thought was funny definitely helped me, I think,  develop my sense of humor at a young age.

I like the panel-to-panel, page-to-page format of comics quite a bit because I expect that format. It’s what I grew up with, informed first by single panel comics like The Far Side (or perhaps Marmaduke?), then comic strips, then comic books. Pretty simple progression facilitated by newspapers.

Now a device that weighs less than a newspaper can play cartoons for kids. While their parents read the news on their device. There are fewer, if any stacks of newspapers or magazines laying around, and every one is content having that 1:1 experience with whatever they are viewing.

Where do those chance encounters happen? Worse—how do kids learn to read comics? And if comics are not a part of their youth, what is the value of printed sequential art when they grow older? Furthermore, what does a page mean these days? I know plenty of people who refer to their progress in a book by percentage now, thanks to their Kindle or iPad. Digital comics as we know them now are, I think, an interim step to something…else. Not motion comics—that didn’t work—but something that still requires some degree of effort on the viewer’s part (otherwise, it’s “just” a cartoon or a TV show). I’ve mentioned companies like Madefire before, where they are moving away from the rectangular page concept—but, to be honest, it’s been a year and they still haven’t broken into my comic book radar. Clearly, we’re still in the middle of a transition in what comic books are, and I am already wondering if I need to stop using the work “books” when talking about them.

All of this thinking reminds me a bit of poetry, which seems to have been far more relevant in people’s lives a hundred years ago than it is today. Honestly, how many of you out there are pining for a new poetry compilation to come out? Nothing against poetry, of course, it’s just that my only experience was when I was assigned poetry to read and analyze or recite in a few acting classes. That is to say, I only read it when it was forced on me and I had very little say in the matter. And now that I am an adult, poetry has zero relevance in my life. Which is sad and, I guess, vaguely poetic statement.

Look, just like the poetry collections I pass by on the way to the bathroom in Barnes and Noble, comic books will always be around. I just wonder what happens when the associated sense of fun, the sense of nostalgia, slowly exits our collective consciousness. My client chose comics to tell her corporate story, for example, whereas perhaps a few generations earlier she might have thought to use a limerick or short poem.

Is this a bad thing? Well, it is if you are fan of the way comics are right now, and I hope efforts like Free Comic Book Day and conventions go a long way in making new fans of our beloved medium. The problem facing comics is not isolated to just comics, of course — all content is suffering from the benefit of everyone having their own personal media screen. It’s just worth taking a second to realize that in our headlong dash for digital 1:1 convenience we may be losing more than just an appreciation for the incredible stories comic artists and writers and colorists and editors make, day in and day out — we risk be losing a kind of “fun” as well.

Mike Romo is having a lot fun being an actor in LA (at least, that’s what he tells himself.) Email/twitter/facebook.