By Steve Gerber \u2013 It sometimes seems every comic book reader harbors the ambition to write or draw comics, which is \ufb01ne. A creative, critical, and vocal fandom helps keep the current gaggle of professionals on their toes.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, however, too many aspiring writers and artists have been led to believe that they can learn their craft by immersing themselves in comics to the exclusion of all other in\ufb02uences. It\u2019s not true.<\/p>\n
Axiom: If your literary and artistic in\ufb02uences are rooted entirely in comics, it\u2019s a virtual certainty you\u2019ll never write or draw anything more interesting or original than what you\u2019ve already read.<\/p>\n
So if your big ambition is to write Marvel\u2019s \ufb01fth Thor<\/em> title, you can stop here. Just avoid bookstores and libraries at all costs, and never venture beyond the new releases rack in your local video store. You\u2019ll be \ufb01ne.<\/p>\n If, on the other hand, you aspire to something more, you\u2019re going to have to explore the world as it exists outside<\/em> comics. Here are some books that took me there, and considerably further.<\/p>\n The single novel that most thoroughly rearranged my mental processes was The Stranger<\/em>, by Albert Camus. Camus (pronounced kah-MOO) was an existentialist writer who fought with the French resistance during World War II. He died in 1947\u2014the year I was born\u2014in an automobile accident. The novel is set in Algeria and concerns a man so cut off from his own being and from the world around him that even the news of his mother\u2019s death can\u2019t rouse him to an emotional response. It\u2019s impossible to look at the world the same way after reading this novel, so if you\u2019re deeply fond of your internal status quo and satisfied with all your working assumptions about life, death, and humanity, stay away. If you don\u2019t mind having your perceptions rattled, I recommend it highly.<\/p>\n The same applies, in a very different way, to the writings of Marshall McLuhan, particularly Understanding Media<\/em> and The Medium is the Massage<\/em>. Wired<\/em> magazine considers McLuhan its patron saint, because he explained the digital age 30 years before it arrived. If you\u2019ve heretofore subscribed to the common monkey-see, monkey-do theory of how media affect us, you\u2019ll come away from McLuhan thinking very differently, and far more subtly, about television, \ufb01lm, radio, and even more recent innovations like the World Wide Web.<\/p>\n What about non-mediated reality? How real is that? For one view, consult the works of Carlos Castaneda, beginning with The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge<\/em>, Tales of Power<\/em>, and my personal favorite, Journey to Ixtlan<\/em>, which is as scary and suspenseful as any horror novel.<\/p>\n Marvel has been making a big deal lately about \u201cputting character back into comics,\u201d but character can\u2019t be summed up in a few advertising taglines. To put character into characters, it\u2019s necessary, I think, to understand the cultural context in which they operate and which shaped them. For a completely terrifying look at the current version of America, try Philip Lasch\u2019s The Culture of Narcis\u00adsism<\/em>. For a completely hysterical look at the same culture, try Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot (And Other Obser\u00advations)<\/em>, by Al Franken.<\/p>\n Another axiom: Enter\u00adtain\u00adment doesn\u2019t have to anesthetize your brain.<\/p>\n When your circuits overload from trying to absorb all of the above, relax with almost any science \ufb01ction by Arthur C. Clarke or William Gibson, the vampire or witch novels of Anne Rice, or one of Scott Turow or John Grisham\u2019s legal thrillers.<\/p>\n You have nothing to lose\u2014except your desire to write Marvel\u2019s \ufb01fth Thor title.<\/p>\n Steve Gerber<\/strong> is making a long-awaited return this fall to his best-known creation, Howard the Duck.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Steve Gerber \u2013 It sometimes seems every comic book reader harbors the ambition to write or draw comics, which is \ufb01ne. A creative, critical, and vocal fandom helps keep the current gaggle of professionals on their toes. Unfortunately, however, too many aspiring writers and artists have been led to believe that they can learn their craft by immersing themselves in comics to the exclusion of all other in\ufb02uences. It\u2019s not true. Axiom: If your literary and artistic in\ufb02uences are rooted entirely in comics, it\u2019s a virtual certainty you\u2019ll never write or draw anything more interesting or original than what you\u2019ve already read. So if your big ambition is to write Marvel\u2019s \ufb01fth Thor title, you can stop here. Just avoid bookstores and libraries at all costs, and never venture beyond the new releases rack in your local video store. You\u2019ll be \ufb01ne. If, on the other hand, you aspire to something more, you\u2019re going to have to explore the world as it exists outside comics. Here are some books that took me there, and considerably further. The single novel that most thoroughly rearranged my mental processes was The Stranger, by Albert Camus. Camus (pronounced kah-MOO) was an existentialist writer who fought with the French resistance during World War II. He died in 1947\u2014the year I was born\u2014in an automobile accident. The novel is set in Algeria and concerns a man so cut off from his own being and from the world around him that even the news of his mother\u2019s death can\u2019t rouse him to an emotional response. It\u2019s impossible to look at the world the same way after reading this novel, so if you\u2019re deeply fond of your internal status quo and satisfied with all your working assumptions about life, death, and humanity, stay away. If you don\u2019t mind having your perceptions rattled, I recommend it highly. The same applies, in a very different way, to the writings of Marshall McLuhan, particularly Understanding Media and The Medium is the Massage. Wired magazine considers McLuhan its patron saint, because he explained the digital age 30 years before it arrived. If you\u2019ve heretofore subscribed to the common monkey-see, monkey-do theory of how media affect us, you\u2019ll come away from McLuhan thinking very differently, and far more subtly, about television, \ufb01lm, radio, and even more recent innovations like the World Wide Web. What about non-mediated reality? How real is that? For one view, consult the works of Carlos Castaneda, beginning with The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, Tales of Power, and my personal favorite, Journey to Ixtlan, which is as scary and suspenseful as any horror novel. Marvel has been making a big deal lately about \u201cputting character back into comics,\u201d but character can\u2019t be summed up in a few advertising taglines. To put character into characters, it\u2019s necessary, I think, to understand the cultural context in which they operate and which shaped them. For a completely terrifying look at the current version of America, try Philip Lasch\u2019s The Culture of Narcis\u00adsism. For a completely hysterical look at the same culture, try Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot (And Other Obser\u00advations), by Al Franken. Another axiom: Enter\u00adtain\u00adment doesn\u2019t have to anesthetize your brain. When your circuits overload from trying to absorb all of the above, relax with almost any science \ufb01ction by Arthur C. Clarke or William Gibson, the vampire or witch novels of Anne Rice, or one of Scott Turow or John Grisham\u2019s legal thrillers. You have nothing to lose\u2014except your desire to write Marvel\u2019s \ufb01fth Thor title. Steve Gerber is making a long-awaited return this fall to his best-known creation, Howard the Duck.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[61,62,60],"class_list":["post-434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-recommended-reading","tag-issue-20","tag-september-1996","tag-steve-gerber"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":443,"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434\/revisions\/443"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}