Classic EBI #23: Tripping the Light Fantastic
EVERYTHING BUT IMAGINARY 8/13/03 -- TRIPPING THE LIGHT FANTASTIC
Tripping the light fantastic
I became a word-hungry creature at a very young age. Comic books, magazines, novels, I’d tear through anything I could get my hands on. At that stage most of my favorite books were science fiction. Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, the pseudo-horror of William Sleator -- not only were these the things I loved reading the most, but once I began to learn any talents I had trended towards the written word, I always assumed that would be the sort of thing I’d write myself one day.
Along the way, though, I discovered J.R.R. Tolkien. Neil Gaiman. Terry Pratchett. Even the genre-straddling Orson Scott Card. What I learned from these guys, as well as from my own attempts at writing, is that while I still like reading science fiction, my brain is far more geared towards creating pure fantasy. Sci-fi, to be any good, has to be very grounded in reality and, by necessity, has to be coupled with an understanding of things like computer engineering and physics and robotics -- things that frankly bore me to tears. The rules of science fiction are far too restrictive for me to be entirely comfortable in that playground.
This isn’t to suggest there are no rules in fantasy. Far from it. If anything, the rules have to be even stricter and more defined because you have to establish them all during the course of the story rather than leaving it up to the reader to look in the encyclopedia and make sure you’ve got the duration of Saturn’s orbit around the sun correct. The difference is, with fantasy, the writer gets to make up the rules of reality himself.
When I wrote my first book, Other People’s Heroes (a fantasy/sci-fi/comedy/superhero/adventure, which of course means bookstores love it because it’s sooooooo easy to shelve), I found that I had to craft an entire new branch of magical science and my own theory of the universe, along with all of the physical laws that accompany it, and that even though none of those laws are played out or even referenced in the story, I had to flawlessly adhere to them. I’ve kept those same laws for everything I’ve written since, and if I ever land my own comic at a publisher, I’m going to have a field day playing with them.
For a long time, there wasn’t a lot of fantasy in mainstream American comics. You had your frequent attempts at Doctor Strange, the odd Doctor Fate project from DC, even Malibu’s Mantra series for a while, but they were all just magic users in a superhero universe. Any real fantasy, good fantasy like Sandman, was shunted off to places like Vertigo where they got critical acclaim while still only selling a fraction of that month’s X-Gimmick.
Lately, though, fantasy has really begun to make a showing in your friendly neighborhood comic shop. Although its publication is sporadic at best, James Robinson and Paul Smith’s Leave it to Chance is one of my favorite examples of a fantasy comic, because it’s not only really well-written and drawn, but it also doesn’t fit into the “swords and sorcery” context that a lot of people associate with fantasy and that turns quite a few of them off. It doesn’t need dragons or knights in armor to qualify for me (although this one does have dragons), it only needs to rely on elements that could not theoretically exist based on our current understanding of physics. In other words, it just needs a dash of magic.
Over at DC, Fables has rapidly taken its place as my favorite monthly comic. Writer Bill Willingham and his rotating stable of perfectly-chosen artists blend the characters from centuries of fairy tales and folklore in a book that is consistently smart, funny, exciting and sometimes even a little scary. Like another series from back in the day, it’s from Vertigo, where it has critical acclaim while only selling a fraction of this month’s X-Gimmick. If you’re not reading this book, you’re seriously missing out.
Under their Cliffhanger imprint, Wildstorm is also treating us to Kurt Busiek and Carlos Pacheco’s Arrowsmith, a fantasy comic with a World War I setting -- alternate histories are big in fantasy novels. There’s no reason they can’t be just as good in comic book form.
As I may have mentioned in this column once or twice before, CrossGen is putting out some pretty nifty comics these days, and a lot of them are great examples of fantasy. Meridian has a lot of the same coming-of-age elements as Leave it to Chance, while Mystic takes the “sorcerer supreme” route by telling the tale of mystical guilds and magic spells. Sojourn exists to appeal to those who like a little swords-and-sorcery in their comics, and Scion straddles the genres, blending a sword-and-sorcery mindset and setting with a more science fiction reality, complete with genetic engineering and high-tech weaponry.
Roaring Studios, along with the good folks at Image, are taking some of the great fantasy properties from Robert Silverberg’s Legends anthology and bringing them to comics, starting with George R.R. Martin’s The Hedge Knight. Martin shouldn’t be a new name to superhero fans -- his series of Wild Cards mosaic novels is probably the most popular superhero universe ever created outside of the realm of comic books (at least until The Matrix came along). As far as I know, this is his first foray into comics, except for a Wild Cards special from the old Epic imprint. The Hedge Knight, a prequel to Martin’s best-selling A Song of Ice and Fire series, is straightforward fantasy, about a squire who takes his master’s place in a tournament when the elderly knight dies. It was a great short novel, and if the first issue is any indication, it will make a really good comic book.
I don’t know what other properties from Legends Roaring Studios is planning to bring to comics, but I’d go all a-twitter to see Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, Orson Scott Card’s Tales of Alvin Maker or even (dare I hope?) Stephen King’s The Dark Tower make the transition.
If you’re at this website, you’re probably a comic book reader already -- but in my experience, most comic readers have a lot of fun going through those books without pictures too, and probably have a lot of friends who won’t blink at a 1,000 pages of The Wheel of Time but would turn up their nose at Busiek’s A Wizard’s Tale. Those are the ones this week’s column is for. Sandman has provided a gateway between fantasy novels and comic books for years now -- it’s time some other titles started pitching in. Go out this week, grab a fantasy fan, and show them that magic comes in four colors.
FAVORITE OF THE WEEK: August 6, 2003
Many of my favorite superhero titles, especially at DC, deal with the concept of the heroic legacy, and these days none of them do that better than JSA. Last week’s JSA All-Stars #4 handled it as best as I’ve seen since Mark Waid’s days on Flash. Courtney Whitmore is carrying not one, but two heroic legacies -- that of Sylvester Pemberton, the original Star-Spangled Kid, and of Ted and Jack Knight and all those who have borne the name Starman. Each issue in this series is about one of the current crop of JSA members coming to terms with his or her past. In this issue Courtney more fully embraces both her past and her future, taking an intriguing, but not unexpected step towards the Starwoman readers know she is destined to become.
Blake M. Petit is the author of the superhero comedy novel, Other People's Heroes, the suspense novel The Beginner and the novel-in-progress ”Summer Love” at Evertime Realms. He’s also the co-host, with good buddy Chase Bouzigard and Not-On-the-Internet Mike Bellamy, of the 2 in 1 Showcase Podcasts. E-mail him at Blake@comixtreme.com and visit him on the web at Evertime Realms.