American Mash-up Comics

American Mash-up Comics

Apr 14

I think we’re maybe on the verge of another major era in comics, and I think it’s going to come from the internet, specifically comics bloggers. And I think it will kick UNHOLY ASS.

Reading Chris Sims’ Solomon Stone comic the other day was an enjoyable experience, but what really stuck with me was a tagline on the Action Age homepage:

“Two-fisted American Mash-up Comics.”

It sorta clicked something in my head, because if you read Solomon Stone, or Rich Lovatt’s excellent Mecha-Simian over at Zuda, or even the work of Jeff Parker, Fred Van Lente, and Matt Fraction, they all share a similar mash-up sensibility in many of their ideas.

Robot + Ape + Space = Mecha-Simian
Vampire + Private Investigator + Teen + Skateboarder = Solomon Stone
Kung fu + Rich dude + Tripped-out Eastern Spirituality = Iron Fist

All these pulp, heavy genre, often outright silly concepts are being tossed together, blended until smooth, and then poured out into the gullets of waiting readers.

It seems like the logical extension of where the comics blogosphere began, which was heavily driven by the snark-filled critique of silver and bronze age comics. It makes sense that after looking at these wild abstract ideas used to perfectly straight effect in old comics, it might be time now to take those ideas mix them up again for comics that are at least somewhat ironic, but still played straight enough to be enjoyed as adventure genre entertainment. In effect, having genre cake and eating snark cake too.

That term seems to work as well as any, “American Mash-up Comics,” and I don’t know if it’s even confined to comics anymore. I sense echoes of it in the latest Batman series, The Brave and the Bold, and even in the latest Star Wars cartoon, The Clone Wars.

Given my hatred for the Star Wars expanded universe (or EU, pronounced “EWWWWWW”), I’ve been confounded of late by a genuine enjoyment of this Clone Wars show, which by all accounts, I should hate. And yet, I don’t.

I like it so much that I actually REWATCHED an episode I’d already seen, “Duel of the Droids,” in which R2D2 conducts a gadget-filled fight to the death with an evil R3 unit who had conspired with General Grievous to attempt to kill Anakin Skywalker and his padawan Ahsoka.

In pondering that episode, it struck me that after years of denying its pulp genre roots and attempting to act as some kind of modern mythology woven wholecloth by the pseudo-intellectual George Lucas, Star Wars has finally circled back around and become pure pulp entertainment again. Only this time, they’re embracing the fundamental silliness of the Star Wars universe with episodes like this, in which a droid duel to the death can seem perfectly dramatic on its face, but you also can’t help but grin like an idiot at the absurdity of the action you see.

It’s taking all the toys Lucas and the EU writers have left lying around in the Star Wars universe, tossing them together, blending until smooth, and then pouring them down the gullets of waiting nerds and their young sons, who are being slowly transformed into either The Geekiest Generation or a legion of future high school football quarterbacks who will have no problem beating up their own fathers for lunch money.

In other words, it’s another American Mash-up. Embracing pulp and genre concepts unabashedly and deriving both ironic and genuine entertainment from them, playing ideas for laughs and thrills at the same time. Exciting stuff, and as these talented writers move from the blogosphere to the world of “pro” comics (perhaps bypassing the industry entirely and finding new revenue streams and success on the internet), I can’t wait to see what happens. And, of course, to participate.