WEEKEND OPEN BAR: consult your medium
[WEEKEND OPEN BAR: The one-stop ramble-about-anything weekend post at OL. Comment on the topic at hand. Tell us how drunk you are. Describe a comic you bought. This is your chance to bring the party.]
I want you to consult your medium.
And I’m not talkin’ about that gargantuan-racked Gypsy babe you met at the bus stop. Do I think it’s righteous that she wore a revealing shawl and was jambox-blastin’ an Among the Living cassette? Yes. Do I think that she actually has psychic powers? No. Unless you like waking up in another state to find that you’ve been drugged, robbed, and’re wanted on an arson charge, you’re goin’ to want to stay away from her.
Trust me, I know from experience.
Anyways, the sort of medium we’re dealin’ with today ain’t of the supernatural variety. Well, not literally (we’ll come back to that). See, the word “medium” comes from the old-tyme Ancients’ expression for “in the middle.” As such, there’re a whole mess of ways to apply the term. Yes, that’s why when you go to Dunkin Donuts, the serving size of hot dirt-water that’s larger than the small but smaller than the large is called medium!
Ta-dah!
When takin’ a stroll across the Arts & Entertainment Dance Hall, we need to look at media as the ways in which creators express themselves. In a sense, any given medium is the means by which a transfer occurs from the mind of the Creator to the mind of the Viewer. It’s actually an alarmingly simple process: an idea is in the Creator’s mind, the Creator shapes some sort of artifact, the Viewer experiences said artifact, and now the same idea is in the Viewer’s mind! Voila!
Stephen King describes the process in On Writing:
Look — here’s a table covered with a red cloth. On it is a cage the size of a small fish aquarium. In the cage is a white rabbit with a pink nose and pink-rimmed eyes. In its front paws is a carrot-stub upon which it is contentedly munching. On its back, clearly marked in blue ink, is the numeral 8.
Do we see the same thing? We’d have to get together and compare notes to make absolutely sure, but I think we do. There will be necessary variations, of course…
I sent you a table with a red cloth on it, a cage, a rabbit, and the number eight in blue ink. You got them all, especially that blue eight. We’ve engaged in an act of telepathy. No mythy-mountain shit; real telepathy.
That’s right, you degenerate broads and bastard boozers clinging to the railing of Spaceship OL — every time you read a book or listen to an album or play a video game, you’re on the receiving end of some genuine telepathy! And when you find it in your soul to create some art? When you show someone the landscape you painted or the sonnet you penned? Yeah, you’ve got it — you’re on the transmitting end of the thought-transfer!
So what’s this all gettin’ at? Well, simply put, I want every goddamn one of you to declare your medium-allegiance. At the end of the day, in which art form are you most invested? Which mode of expression sweep-picks your heartstrings? What is it about this medium that gets your blood pumpin’ and spirit swirlin’?
[What is your medium of choice?]
—-
[Comic books!]
There will always be a special place in my heart for the funny-books.
Now, to be fair, I’ve invested a lot of my time in other media as well. I mean, I’m an avid music fan, Star Wars (a film, duh!) is my all-time favorite thing ever, and the majority of my nascent adulthood has been spent studying literature. But at the end of the day, there is something magical about the combination of images and words that is the comic book medium.
Maybe part of my affinity is rooted in the fact that comics are where we find our modern mythology. I won’t belabor the point here, as it’s been absolutely pummeled into the pop-consciousness over the last decade, but superheroes are nothing if not mythological figures in spandex. So I’ll acknowledge the possibility that maybe I like comic books because they tap into some deeply-embedded collective unconscious structure that Jung says is in my mind.
Could be.
But when I really think about it, what I love about comics isn’t the superhero genre, it’s the form itself. Words. Images. Captions. Dialogue. All working in such perfect synergy. And unlike a movie, a comic book gives more control to the reader. Whereas I might be absolutely lost after the big `splosion in a movie, the comic book lets me stop so that I can scrutinize every brush stroke. I can even turn back a few pages to inspect the precipitous panels. Hell, sometimes you have to slow down to take it all in:
And yes, you could argue that readers get this same power when engaging with poetry & prose. However, these forms don’t have bad-ass images. More importantly, the comic book medium is one of interplay, the synthesizing of meaning by mashing together text and imagery.
Through the juxtaposition of words and pictures, absolutely anything is possible. Maniacs are dressing up like flying-rodents so as to beat the shit out of clowns. Long-dead historical figures are resurrected to wage inter-dimensional warfare. Lovers of the future are living life to the fullest. I can’t help but think a maxim of Harvey Pekar’s that Warren Ellis has cited on occasion: “Comics are words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures.”
Give me a stack of comics and I’m a happy guy.
—-
There’re plenty of ways to experience telepathy. Music does the trick. So does literature. Any time you assume the role of Super Mario, a Japanese dude is sending messages directly into your brain. On the gustatory front, even eatin’ a plate of spaghetti will send ideas into your brain that a chef had to — wait for it — cook up! There’s no denyin’ that there’re plenty of thought-vehicles, but eventually we have to head to the dealership and find one to drive home.
[What is your medium of choice?]