Newsgroup: it.arti.fumetti
Titolo: [long] Master of the Obvious #21 by Steven Grant

Oh Oh Oh....un regalo per voi...un altro grande articolo dello Zio
Natale Grant.
Se vi interessa leggere la sua ultima fatica, trovate on-line al sito
www.comicbookresources.com
 il numero #22, dove lo Zio ci parlerà della
casa editrice perfetta.
Stay Tuned!
-------------------------------------------------------  
Wednesday December 22, 1999 
  Issue #21 
Our century has been a war of dreams. 
The 20th Century really began in 1896, when Sigmund Freud coined the
term psychoanalysis. The great empires of the previous three centuries
were already crumbling, and about to death throe through two world
wars, as Freud introduced dream interpretation, formerly the province
of fortune telling hucksters, as a roadmap through the psychosexual
repression often crippling his patients. (His original theory -
probably accurate - that his upper class female patients were sexually
repressed because as girls they'd been molested by their well-to-do
fathers was so socially repugnant he had to drop it or be drummed out
of the business.) But opening the door on the terra incognita of the
human psyche inadvertently bared a new land full of riches and ripe
for colonization. 
Which has been going on ever since. 
Western civilization has always had a love-hate affair with imagery,
both visual and poetic. Whole cultures have built around suppressing
it. Christianity has waffled between condemning imagery and
iconography as idolatry and sacrilege, and building elaborate
cathedrals and commissioning the ceiling painting of the Sistine
chapel. Dreams and dream imagery are nothing new, and weren't remotely
new in 1896. What was new was the suggestion this territory could be
mapped, catalogued and mined, at a time when technology was becoming
the dominant feature of society. 
 We now live in a world defined by mass media. In THE MATRIX, the
Wachowski brothers, frustrated comics creators turned filmmakers,
postulate a world wherein "reality" is pumped directly into the brains
of unwitting, sedated humans who think they're living in that
"reality" when they're nothing more than fodder for a vast, insatiable
machine - widely popularizing an idea that's been a strong
undercurrent in modern fiction, including Phil Dick's UBIK; Grant
Morrison's THE INVISIBLES; and works of William Burroughs. It's the
metaphor of the American century. 
Europeans have been grousing about "cultural colonialism" at least
since the end of World War II, and probably since radio started to
wipe out indigenous folk music as a living art in the 30s. To American
ears, such claims sound tinny - sour grapes from those who once ruled
the world but let it slip from their grasp - but when you think of the
universal icons in the world today, you can see their point. Mickey
Mouse. Tarzan. Superman. Ronald McDonald. Bugs Bunny. JR Ewing.
Baywatch. When you think of the onslaughts of Mighty Morphin' Power
Rangers and Pokemon on American soil, you can feel some of the horror
and panic Europe must have felt for the last 80 years in wave after
wave of American product flooding their shores, from movies to pop
music to TV shows. We haven't exactly been eroding their national
characters, but we've - unintentionally, for the most part - forced
them, in a sort of cultural cold war, to absorb our influence and
retaliate with our own weapons. Chuck Berry is transmuted and
regurgitated as The Rolling Stones, HILL STREET BLUES and LEGION OF
SUPERHEROES as Alan Moore's TOP TEN. 
Not that there isn't a colonization going on, nor does it hold such
pissant concerns as geopolitics. It's a marketing thing, built around
product placement and brand names. These are the colonists of inner
space. In the late 50s, English author J.G. Ballard coined that term
to refer to the unknown reaches of the human imagination, but, like
the Wild West before it, those reaches have been fenced in and made
about as unknown as your average suburb. Freud braved the unconscious
as a therapeutic technique, but the "science" of advertising and
marketing (not to mention the somewhat more sinister sciences of
propaganda and mind control) has attacked the unconscious (with
resources that would have had Freud weeping like a baby in envy) for
the purpose of figuring out constantly more effective and efficient
ways to sell you things. 
Mass media daily barrages everyone in western civilization with
thousands of images, trying to sell us dreams. To tell us, literally
and figuratively, what our dreams should be. Television, able to
broadcast the same image worldwide virtually simultaneously, is the
key delivery system, but all media, which in practice can be defined
as delivery systems for advertising, play a role. To some extent
there's such an oversaturation of images that a large part of them
cancel each other out. But what they're really selling you, what
spreads over most of the images, is an attitude, constantly
reinforced, that is so much a part of our environment that we rarely
even notice it: a "normalcy" to aspire to, the absence of which
creates a tension that only a return to "normalcy" (ie, the purchase
of the suggested product) alleviates. 
Comic books - rarely much of a place to question consensus reality -
are as much a party to this as any other medium, though its outlaw
status gives the comics medium a certain leeway. In their nascent
days, they were flat out propaganda, carrying little more than
simplistic messages to hate Nazis and support the war effort, or that
criminals are always caught and punished. The tradition of comics,
still strongly in force today though things have gotten more complex,
is that stories always return at their climax to a nearly inviolable
status quo, much like most (non-soap opera) serial TV shows. With
minor variations, virtue triumphs, villainy is punished, and all is
once again right with a world where you're free to go out and buy
things, and all the popular landmarks like the Daily Bugle are still
reassuringly there. 
“The tradition of comics, still strongly in force today though things
have gotten more complex, is that stories always return at their
climax to a nearly inviolable status quo, much like most (non-soap
opera) serial TV shows.”  
In other words, your basic conservative vision, though "image" is a
more applicable word than vision. 
Even the dystopia supports this. The dystopia is posited on a
catastrophic rupture of social or technological norms, resulting in a
very bad place, and they were once all but unheard of in comics. It's
significant they came into their own during the Thatcher-Reagan
regimes. Dystopias suggest that progress must come to a halt, the
present is comfort while the future is pain and suffering, and the
system we have is far preferable to whatever else might come. It's a
philosophy tailored to justify the status quo, and it's amusing that
it was often used by writers who viewed themselves as progressive and
liberal. Even THE MATRIX follows this pattern, choosing 1999 as the
year when everyone was comfortable, happy and fulfilled. Alone among
dystopias, only Howard Chaykin's AMERICAN FLAGG stands out as a future
that would be fun to live in despite its downsides. 
But while comics are very dedicated now to replaying imagery from
familiar television, movie and other comics sources, their
"sanctioned" existence is as franchise machines now, to pump out more
product that can be turned into bedspreads, underoos, Saturday morning
cartoon shows, candy bar sponsors, etc. Superman, Batman, Spider-Man,
The Hulk, The X-Men and others have been transformed from
individualistic creations to products of our shared psyche. That's
what the corporations that own them want them to be: icons, imagery
that can be recycled over and over to a predictable profit. What new
companies we see starting up mostly follow this same pattern. All work
is product, and the product that can infiltrate the shared psyche
becomes the franchise. Image is everything. 
“Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, The Hulk, The X-Men and others have
been transformed from individualistic creations to products of our
shared psyche.”   
Has the shared imagery of media eroded the individual psyche? No
significant studies have been done, but that's the clear intent. The
colonization of inner space, of our dreams, by corporate interests
isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's hard to view it as good.
Variation is an evolutionary force, and wiping out variations of
imagination, response and internal imagery is anti-evolutionary and
anti-progress. It supposes a static world where "the good life" - the
core dream being sold, even when tarted up in dangerous clothing - can
continue on indefinitely if everyone just plays by the rules. 
But comics are a special beast, one of the more egalitarian media.
They're relatively cheap to produce. Not quite a mass medium, comics
have still had their influence. Still somewhat viewed as "outlaw"
(meaning not bringing in as much money as other media and restricted
to a demographically uncertain spectrum of the population), there's
still room in them for subversive visions, true visions. If we're
willing to put them under our own microscopes. We can slip through the
cracks, at least for a little while, and, more than any other medium,
comics still holds the promise of something astonishing and
unexpected. Something new. Carl Jung, Freud's dissident student,
undertook his own dream studies, immediately writing his dreams in a
notebook and analyzing the symbolism both of individual dreams and as
a collective. He coined the term archetypes, a concept much abused by
fiction and marketing ever since. 
“...more than any other medium, comics still holds the promise of
something astonishing and unexpected.”  
What Jung discovered is that the closer you get to your unconscious,
the further it recedes from you. As he unraveled dream imagery, it
became increasingly complex and inventive, the symbolism increasingly
strange and fascinating. But nothing springs from nothing, and what
images our minds create are synthesized from the images we put in. As
the mass psyche attempts to homogenize and hold static the imagery of
our civilization, comics have the odd opportunity to be the spoiler.
Comics can be dangerous and unsettling, and they can put forth the now
radical concept that other futures, and better, might not only be
possible but desirable. Or they can continue to regurgitate
"sanctioned" imagery, following the lead of other media instead of
carving their own path. In their endless hunt for acceptance, comics
have followed the lead of other media, buying into marketed dreams. If
I had to predict the future of comics, the smart money is on nothing
changing, which is the whole point of colonizing inner space. 
But I hope not. There has to be room left in this medium and in our
culture for real dreams. 
Whatever holiday you celebrate, happy holidays. 
And pleasant dreams. 
One thing that's always made me uncomfortable is hawking my own wares.
Nonetheless, comics companies have made it abundantly clear that if I
don't no one will, so: 
In March, DC releases LEGENDS OF THE DC UNIVERSE #28, the first part
of the Silver Age team-up that should have been and never was, Green
Lantern & The Atom. Silver Age buffs will know that Gil Kane designed
and for years drew both characters, and that's why I wrote the story,
set in the Silver Age, especially for Gil to draw. Klaus Janson inks
the book. It looks terrific. Alex Ross painted the cover. It also
continues the "Traitor" Saga from the Abin Sur western Mike Zeck and I
did in LODCU #20-21, pitting Traitor against Abin Sur's successor, Hal
Jordan. The story concludes in LODCU #29. 
Here's where you come in. Because there are so many DC books coming
out in March, this will be lost in the crowd - unless you tell your
dealer to order it right now. The solicitation process has already
begun. Bring it to your dealer's attention right now, please. Thank
you. You won't regret it. 
Whatever questions you might have about me can probably be answered
with a quick trip to Steven Grant's Alleged Fictions. You can also
express your own views at the Master Of The Obvious Message Board, or
send me mail. Bear in mind that while I read all my mail, time
constrains me from replying in most cases. Thanks. 
 
 
 
Steven Grant 
---
Hellboy
Dove c'è molta luce, l'ombra è più nera.
                                         W. Goethe
 

culture for real dreams. 
Cosa commentare ora? Gli esempi piu' eclatanti potrebbero essere i
persoanggi di successo entrati nei discorsi di tutti i giorni, come
zio Paperone, o Mazinga, e usati anche da chi non sa nulla dei
personaggi. Viceversa, esistono casi e serie a loro modo di successo
ma che non sono conosciuti fuori da un certo ambito. Per esempio, Star
Trek non ha mai attecchito molto in Italia, malgrado alcune recenti
pubblicita' con alieni con le orecchie a punta. (Questo discorso non
vale per gli USA). Di conseguenza gli appassionati di Star Trek e di
fantascienza in generale, in Italia, costituiscono un gruppo
relativamente ristretto, in grado di usare un linguaggio mitologico
per lo piu' malcompreso oppure frainteso dalla maggioranza.  
Ma questi sono solo altri spunti di riflessione, e non ne traggo, al
momento,  conseguenze.
Saluti da
Sten 
alias Hyo, a.k.a. Dr. Hebime, 
aka Ghunzatrox, Signore dell'Ato Scuro, 
alias  
ECCETERAECCETERAECCETERAECCETERAECCETERAECCETERA
["
h...@libero.it
" non e' il mio vero indirizzo, 
rispondete sul newsgroup, oppure scrivere a stefano.bertoni ** ]