Image Superstars Discuss Genre in Comics

Image Comics held a panel Saturday at Comic-Con to discuss the genre renaissance currently occurring in the comic book medium. The panel included Ed Brubaker, Frank Barbiere, Tim Seeley, Mike Norton, Kurtis J. Wiebe, John Layman and Ron Marz.

Moderator Ron Richards got started saying that Image Comics publish comic books that didn’t fit into the traditional “superhero genre” that many publishers focused on. He had the panel each describe what genre their titles fit into and answers ranged from “slasher/humor book” to “rural noir.”

“Comics have been dominated by superheroes for a long time and I think the bubble had kinda burst,” Tim Seeley said. He pointed to exposure from TV shows like AMC’s The Walking Dead that opened up popular culture's mind to a comic book world beyond superheroes.

“As superhero comics have become more corporate and more editorial controlled, we have wanted to have other outlets to do new things,” Marz added. He pointed out that the comic medium allowed from bigger concepts and genre mash-ups. “I love pizza, but I don’t want to eat it every day, I want a variety.”

Panelist Ed Brubaker showed up a few minutes late and asked the panelist if they had “got to porn yet?”

When asked what sort of genre he would say his books fell into, Brubaker answered, “All of them. I’m very interested in horror and how it works in comics. You can’t control the reader’s pace and how they see that panels. I’m good friends with Joe Hill and he said I should just do shocking things, like having a guy get hit by a plane, so I did that!"

“I think genre can be an easier sell than superheroes. I mean, how do you describe Spider-Man? How do you pitch that without digging into all the details? With genre you can say horror or noir or zombies,” Seeley said.

Richards asked the panel if they felt that they had to follow the rules of their particular genres in their comics. Marz said he didn’t feel confined by rules, but he was mindful of them. “There is no one looking over our shoulder when we do this stuff, so we tell the stories we want to tell.”

“I think the art is what keeps you unsettled,” Norton said of Revival. He pointed out that the visuals of the series didn’t fit into a traditional horror or noir look, but that worked to play with the reader’s expectations.

“I think you can play with genre tropes,” Brubaker added. He pointed to writer John Sandford who plays with the expectations of crime fiction in his Prey series of novels. He noted that writers and artists needed to be mindful of the rules and tropes, but breaking them was an important part of the process.

On the subject of romance comics, the panelist said the genre could still come back. “I don’t want to read it,” Layman yelled.

Brubaker said that he felt that there would be a market for the romance genre, but finding the right avenue to distribute it would be difficult. “Saga is a romance comic, it’s also science fiction.” The rest of the panelist expressed their love of the romance genre and hoped that it would come back into the popular culture.

On the subject of research, Wiebe said “I do quite a lot for Peter Panzerfaust. I have to.”

“Have your story first and then make the research fit your story. Don’t be afraid to throw stuff out that doesn’t fit. You just go with it, you are writing fiction, not fact,” Brubaker said. He noted that being too confined by research can hurt a story.

Marz said that making the reader feel that what they read was the truth, whether it was or not, was what was most important. If what the reader is absorbed in the story, then creators have done their job.

Benjamin is a writer and storyteller. He owns many leather-bound books and his office smells of rich mahogany. Follow Benjamin on Twitter @616Earth, or find him on IGN.

Why Death Still Matters in Superhero Comics

Spoilers for Avengers vs. X-Men #11 within.

As far as I’m concerned, there are only two certainties in life. One is that we will all die. Eventually (sorry). The other, less grim, certainty is that death in superhero comics is a revolving door. It always has been and it always will be, regardless of what the current mandate is. But that’s not a bad thing.

Anytime a major character kicks the bucket like (last chance to avoid spoilers) Professor X did this week in Avengers vs. X-Men #11, inevitably the reaction from longtime fans – particularly ones that have seen Xavier die many times before – is understandably riddled with frustration. But I would argue that death and resurrection in and of themselves shouldn’t be scoffed at. In fact, they should be celebrated as something that makes comics as wonderful as they are.

I think we can all agree that superhero comics are power fantasies. The escapism that forms the core of these books is based around the characters’ abilities to circumvent the rules of physics and do things we’ll never be able to: flight, super-strength, x-ray vision, telepathy, shape-shifting, and time travel, the list goes on and on. These things are all welcomed with open arms. But what about that one great big inevitability that we’re all faced with? What greater superpower is there than cheating death? It doesn’t compute that as readers, we can willfully accept people from other planets punching giant robots or mutants so powerful that they can destroy universes, but coming back from the great beyond is a bit too far-fetched.

The usual argument is that when death is used as a device too often it loses its impact. However, that shouldn’t be a blanket statement; it’s not a given. There are instances of that happening, of course, but the impact of a death falls on the lap of the creators that are handling it. Bucky Barnes was always one of the “untouchable” few that could never, ever return from the dead. But when Ed Brubaker brought him back, he wound up as a fan-favorite. That’s an incredible example of what death and resurrection can do; Bucky’s return was a storytelling triumph against all expectations.

I really don’t think the fact a particular death has occurred before necessarily affects the impact of the most recent occurrence. It all comes down to how the creators and editorial staff plan on using that death and what implications it will have on the characters left standing. In the case of Xavier, Bendis said it best in our interview with him: “We started talking about why Xavier had outgrown the X-Men franchise. He wasn't really part of it. I thought that was interesting. Is he more interesting now in death than he was in life? Does the idea of him being sacrificed to all of this make the X-Men as characters that much more interesting? And if so, what kinds of stories can we get out of it? And that's when the serious talks started happening."

Read our full interview with Brian Bendis about Professor X's death!

As tied to the X-Men as Xavier is, in recent years, he hasn’t been doing much. Where do you draw the line between respecting legacy and promoting progression? I’m not saying Xavier won’t ever come back, but for now, his absence makes for better potential stories than his existence. How will Cyclops react to his own actions once he’s free of the Phoenix? What will the original X-Men think of the situation when they time travel to the present day in All-New X-Men? Xavier’s death was a sacrifice not only in the context of battle, but also a sacrifice to the narrative as a means to push the characters around him to a different place.

The real miracle is that, when his current death has been explored and the storytelling exhausted, he can come back to a whole different world and thus open up new story possibilities. Because comics say that’s okay. Death and resurrection is part of what makes superhero comics unique; it’s a contributing factor to keeping these stories continuing for 75+ years. Instead of chastising a publisher just for killing a character, we should think about how that event could affect the universe and let it unfold. If it turns out to be pointless, then by all means, complain away.

Readers tend to follow characters and not the creative talent (which is a terrible thing to do, and here’s why), it’s easy to forget that it’s not as if the same people that killed Xavier 20 years ago are killing him again now. With different people running the show, the universe is different, and his death in 2012 will have a different impact than his death did in any past incarnation.

The larger problem, I think, is the way that publishers use these deaths to grab headlines. I’m not talking about the comic book sites that routinely cover the industry on a day-to-day basis. I’m talking about major news outlets that only cover comics when something of this magnitude occurs. I’m 100% for comics publishers snagging mainstream attention – the industry needs it – but issuing press releases that spoil the story actually lessens the impact of the event. The attention is then centered on the "gimmick" of death rather than the implications in the story.

Compare the amount of discussion about the narrative itself in the New York Daily News article that broke the news to those of comic book websites that cover this stuff day in and day out, you’ll see a stark contrast. The news shouldn’t be another death in comics. That’s nothing new. The news should be talking about why this one is unique and how it will move the universe forward into new places.

The language of comic books has a great many assets; sound effects, use of gutter space, lettering technique, the juxtaposition of words and pictures, and, in the case of superhero comics, death and resurrection. Just like we embrace all the quirks of the comics medium, so too should we embrace this one that’s traditionally been frowned upon.

Superman died and came back, but from it we were given fan-favorite characters like Kon-El and Steel (not to mention mullet Supes). Batman died and came back and we got to see Dick Grayson take the mantle. Captain America died and came back and we got to see Bucky atone for his past since as the Winter Soldier, cementing his role as an integral member of the Marvel Universe.

Death itself in superhero comics might not be permanent, but its impact on the characters often is, and in the end, that’s what matters.

Joey is IGN's Comics Editor and a comic book creator himself. Follow Joey on Twitter, or find him on IGN. He loves superhero pets so hard.