Post by DieselsDen on Sept 30, 2010 0:30:41 GMT -5
www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/steve_duin/index.ssf/2009/10/gary_groth_peeks_under_superma.html
Read and enjoy (or not).
Incidentally, Gary Groth is publisher and editor of THE COMICS JOURNAL, one of the most literate but highly critical comics magazine around. I find his opinions maddening and enlightening at the same time.
And since we're all waiting for the next SUPERMAN movie (will there ever be one?), I though fans here might find this article interesting.
My only interest in Superman, marginal at that, stems from his continuing presence as a symbol of banality and infantilism in the history of the American comic book.
The character has emerged, after 50 years of relentless marketing and hype, as a legitimate literary creation. Fuzzy-minded liberals confer literary status upon the character because of the economic injustice perpetuated against its creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (an injustice for which DC Comics should be rightly castrated); conservatives adore the character as a patriotic manifestation, as American as mom, apple pie and selling arms to the Contras; the usual gang of academic lintheads and popcult apologists display their usual confusion of values by mistaking something of social interest for something of artistic significance. But the American mind, forever in a state of self-induced hysteria and blissful deceit, must infer Greatness from commercial success. Hence, even a mind as agile as Harlan Ellison's can be seduced into making one of the most foolish and excessive statements of his career when he tells us that Superman is a creation of literary greatness because "one of the unarguable criteria for literary greatness is universal recognition ..." And McDonalds is haute cuisine because it's sold more than 8 billion hamburgers.
In Superman at Fifty, Dennis Dooley writes a history of the creative composition of Superman, chronicling in torturous detail Siegel and Shuster's creative period in high school; it is dominated with minutia of no conceivable interest to anyone except, God help us, a Superman scholar. But however much Dooley tries, he cannot disguise the essentially banal and adolescent conception of the character. It is the story of two enthusiastic kids engaging in amateurish acts of exuberant creativity; certainly this is not to be sneered at, but since it is relevant only because of their character's subsequent commercial success and not because of the intrinsic brilliance of creative genesis itself, neither should it be bloated into the kind of high creative that it in fact is not; Dooley's suggestion that Superman is representative of and equal to the philosophical principles espoused by Socrates is too fatuous even to discuss.
Similarly preposterous is Ellison's statement that Superman is the "20th century archetype of mankind at its finest; he is courage and humanity, steadfastness and decency, responsibility and ethic." This is a schoolboy's perception of a comic book character, and, indeed, it is not surprising that it was written by a 55-year-old schoolboy.
Superman, quite apart from reflecting Socratic thought or Greek mythology, is the perfect American commodity, representing nothing so much as the 20th century triumph of market engineering, of image over substance, of visceral perception over the concrete understand of coherent values. When the public wearies of one Superman, the corporation that owns him, controls him, promotes him, and benefits most from his success, hires new marketing surrogates to satisfy the transient appetites of a new generation of consumers. After all, which Superman is revered as a literary icon and successor to the Greek myths? Is it Siegel and Shuster's Superman? Wayne Boring's Superman? Republic Serials' Superman? George Reeve's Superman? Mort Weisinger's Superman? Kurt Schaffenburger's Superman? Denny O'Neil's Superman? Curt Swan's Superman? Neal Adams' Superman? Christopher Reeve's Superman? John Byrne's Superman? Or the countless other Supermen that DC has commissioned over the years?
Superman is an American Symbol, though; notwithstanding his humble beginnings at the hands of Siegel and Shuster, Superman was sold to the American public by a company who couldn't care less for "courage and humility," and stands as the successful marketing of pop mythology, and like a political candidate who offers image, bombast, and demagoguery over substance and ideals, Superman has come to stand for values he never consistently realized as a creation. He's the ultimate America icon -- he can be sold, marketed, and merchandised, whose image can be replicated on everything from pillowcases to beach balls to underwear.
Read and enjoy (or not).
Incidentally, Gary Groth is publisher and editor of THE COMICS JOURNAL, one of the most literate but highly critical comics magazine around. I find his opinions maddening and enlightening at the same time.
And since we're all waiting for the next SUPERMAN movie (will there ever be one?), I though fans here might find this article interesting.
My only interest in Superman, marginal at that, stems from his continuing presence as a symbol of banality and infantilism in the history of the American comic book.
The character has emerged, after 50 years of relentless marketing and hype, as a legitimate literary creation. Fuzzy-minded liberals confer literary status upon the character because of the economic injustice perpetuated against its creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (an injustice for which DC Comics should be rightly castrated); conservatives adore the character as a patriotic manifestation, as American as mom, apple pie and selling arms to the Contras; the usual gang of academic lintheads and popcult apologists display their usual confusion of values by mistaking something of social interest for something of artistic significance. But the American mind, forever in a state of self-induced hysteria and blissful deceit, must infer Greatness from commercial success. Hence, even a mind as agile as Harlan Ellison's can be seduced into making one of the most foolish and excessive statements of his career when he tells us that Superman is a creation of literary greatness because "one of the unarguable criteria for literary greatness is universal recognition ..." And McDonalds is haute cuisine because it's sold more than 8 billion hamburgers.
In Superman at Fifty, Dennis Dooley writes a history of the creative composition of Superman, chronicling in torturous detail Siegel and Shuster's creative period in high school; it is dominated with minutia of no conceivable interest to anyone except, God help us, a Superman scholar. But however much Dooley tries, he cannot disguise the essentially banal and adolescent conception of the character. It is the story of two enthusiastic kids engaging in amateurish acts of exuberant creativity; certainly this is not to be sneered at, but since it is relevant only because of their character's subsequent commercial success and not because of the intrinsic brilliance of creative genesis itself, neither should it be bloated into the kind of high creative that it in fact is not; Dooley's suggestion that Superman is representative of and equal to the philosophical principles espoused by Socrates is too fatuous even to discuss.
Similarly preposterous is Ellison's statement that Superman is the "20th century archetype of mankind at its finest; he is courage and humanity, steadfastness and decency, responsibility and ethic." This is a schoolboy's perception of a comic book character, and, indeed, it is not surprising that it was written by a 55-year-old schoolboy.
Superman, quite apart from reflecting Socratic thought or Greek mythology, is the perfect American commodity, representing nothing so much as the 20th century triumph of market engineering, of image over substance, of visceral perception over the concrete understand of coherent values. When the public wearies of one Superman, the corporation that owns him, controls him, promotes him, and benefits most from his success, hires new marketing surrogates to satisfy the transient appetites of a new generation of consumers. After all, which Superman is revered as a literary icon and successor to the Greek myths? Is it Siegel and Shuster's Superman? Wayne Boring's Superman? Republic Serials' Superman? George Reeve's Superman? Mort Weisinger's Superman? Kurt Schaffenburger's Superman? Denny O'Neil's Superman? Curt Swan's Superman? Neal Adams' Superman? Christopher Reeve's Superman? John Byrne's Superman? Or the countless other Supermen that DC has commissioned over the years?
Superman is an American Symbol, though; notwithstanding his humble beginnings at the hands of Siegel and Shuster, Superman was sold to the American public by a company who couldn't care less for "courage and humility," and stands as the successful marketing of pop mythology, and like a political candidate who offers image, bombast, and demagoguery over substance and ideals, Superman has come to stand for values he never consistently realized as a creation. He's the ultimate America icon -- he can be sold, marketed, and merchandised, whose image can be replicated on everything from pillowcases to beach balls to underwear.
