the best love confession I've ever heard
Dec. 8th, 2017 10:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
every_spiegelI’ve been at this long enough and I know a lot of the creators, and I can see behind comics. I see what you’re trying to do, I see how they did this. I read Kirby’s stuff and I don’t see how they did this. He touched the id of America and let it flow through his fingers. There are a thousand ideas on one page and they don’t add up and then they do add up and they come apart and they come back together. Half of them are an easy metaphor to see and then the metaphor falls apart. It’s just utter insanity. Yet somehow, that utter insanity became the modern myth of America.
You read New Gods, and you say that’s where Star Wars came from. It’s 100%. You can just see it on the page. This is why my kids wear Fantastic Four pajamas. This is why when I walk out in the street every day, I see half of the people wearing superhero t-shirts. This is the spine of our modern American myth, and it came from this outpouring of insanity from a man who, for all accounts and purposes, should have been past his prime. He should have done his best work, but instead, he channeled the energy of this new generation that was rebelling against this new perceived fascism into a child art form. How can you not try to catch that in your hands and do something with it? -- Tom King
This whole interview with King and Gerads is pure gold.
King: “Darkseid is” is taken from Grant Morrison’s JLA run in the early ‘90s. He captured what Kirby had captured, which is that Darkseid isn’t just a big guy who wants to take over the world. He’s not Mongul. He’s not even Thanos, a guy obsessed with death. He’s the evil inside of us. He’s the darkness. He’s the thing inside of us that calls us to do the wrong thing or be warped the wrong way. That’s inescapable: Darkseid exists. That’s there.
Gerads: He’s the only comic book villain that I’m legitimately afraid of. When I was a kid, Darkseid scared the heck out of me. I don’t think it ever went away. My mom brought home a Burger King happy meal, and it had this little cup holder. Different DC characters have their arms outstretched, with cups that go in front. My mom brought home Darkseid and I just started crying. I wanted no part of it.
[...]
King: I wanted to write about the Trump era, but I didn’t want to write, “Fascism sucks” or “Trump sucks.” That doesn’t get you anywhere. You’re taking your Twitter feed and putting it in panels. What I wanted to do is capture the emotion of the period, and the anxiety, the way Alan Moore captured the anxiety of the ‘80s or Kirby captured the anxiety of the ‘70s or even Lee captured the optimism of the ‘60s; to capture the feeling, more than the politics. That’s what interests me. That’s how you make something that’s just not a polemic.
You read New Gods, and you say that’s where Star Wars came from. It’s 100%. You can just see it on the page. This is why my kids wear Fantastic Four pajamas. This is why when I walk out in the street every day, I see half of the people wearing superhero t-shirts. This is the spine of our modern American myth, and it came from this outpouring of insanity from a man who, for all accounts and purposes, should have been past his prime. He should have done his best work, but instead, he channeled the energy of this new generation that was rebelling against this new perceived fascism into a child art form. How can you not try to catch that in your hands and do something with it? -- Tom King
This whole interview with King and Gerads is pure gold.
King: “Darkseid is” is taken from Grant Morrison’s JLA run in the early ‘90s. He captured what Kirby had captured, which is that Darkseid isn’t just a big guy who wants to take over the world. He’s not Mongul. He’s not even Thanos, a guy obsessed with death. He’s the evil inside of us. He’s the darkness. He’s the thing inside of us that calls us to do the wrong thing or be warped the wrong way. That’s inescapable: Darkseid exists. That’s there.
Gerads: He’s the only comic book villain that I’m legitimately afraid of. When I was a kid, Darkseid scared the heck out of me. I don’t think it ever went away. My mom brought home a Burger King happy meal, and it had this little cup holder. Different DC characters have their arms outstretched, with cups that go in front. My mom brought home Darkseid and I just started crying. I wanted no part of it.
[...]
King: I wanted to write about the Trump era, but I didn’t want to write, “Fascism sucks” or “Trump sucks.” That doesn’t get you anywhere. You’re taking your Twitter feed and putting it in panels. What I wanted to do is capture the emotion of the period, and the anxiety, the way Alan Moore captured the anxiety of the ‘80s or Kirby captured the anxiety of the ‘70s or even Lee captured the optimism of the ‘60s; to capture the feeling, more than the politics. That’s what interests me. That’s how you make something that’s just not a polemic.
