Photo provided by the New Yorker; Photographer: Albert Ferreira

 

By Samantha Mason

Earlier this month this editor attended a panel at the New Yorker Festival entitled Superheroes, Up, Up and Away! A monumental moment for Foot2Mouth, this event marked the first of what I’m sure will be many future press passes granted to the website.

This little gem at the 2007 New Yorker Festival featured four big names in the comic book industry: Jonatham Lethem, novelist and new Marvel writer of Omega the Unknown, Tim Kring, much talked about creator of the current “it” TV show Heroes, Mike Mignola, comic book writer, illustrator, and creator of the character Hellboy, and the crème de la crème, Grant Morrision, comic book writer.

Several members of the press were in attendance, including another Foot2Mouth editor, Michael Climek, who was recruited by Comic Book Resources to report back on the panel. He’s completed an incredibly detailed account of the event and it is certainly worth a read, if you haven’t had the chance yet.

For Foot2Mouth, though, as our first press event, this panel provided not only the opportunity to report on an event hosted by the New Yorker, but it was also a time for—yes, you guessed it—schmoozing.

Marked out by the press pass swinging from its official lanyard around my neck, soon after arriving I was ushered from the general admittance line up to the front where I bypassed the line and was escorted to a table. I was able to meet some delightful gents from Wizard along the way, and slung around the ol’ Foot2Mouth name when fellow members of the press asked surreptitiously to the air, “do we know who she’s with?”

After being shepherded to one of many tables arranged perpendicular to a stage as though at a restaurant, I surveyed my surroundings. On one hand you could buy alcohol—but only Grey Goose Voldka—from the bar in the corner, a handy plus for the sponsors (yes, Grey Goose) to think of for this early afternoon panel. But the room was also cramped, dimly lit, and awkward, as you had to tilt in the chairs to face the stage once the panelists appeared, knocking elbows and inadvertently playing footsie with whatever unfortunate souls were also seated at your table.

Moderated by Ben Greenman, magazine editor and a fiction author himself, the event bounced around many of the questions surrounding the topic of superheroes today. While the panel roughly took the structure of a Q&A led by Greenman, it was followed by a succinct open audience portion, where fans could pose their own questions to the panelists.

It was a dark panel, though, and the intolerance of outside food and drink made sneakily consuming a Red Bull to counteract the negative effects of bad lighting less than ideal. Despite this and the meandering line of generic questions, however, the panel did yield some delightful little nuggets.

Grant Morrison, being Scottish of course, was not immediately easy to understand. Once your brain acclimated to his rolling vernacular, however, he revealed that his first encounter with superheroes was with the original black and white marvel comics. Why is this important? Well according to Morrison, this first exposure happened while he simultaneously had a very high fever which cause the world of comics to be, as he said, “implanted in [his] soul for all time.” I suppose we can thank this sad little illness for crafting the Morrison we know today.

Lethem’s first exposure to superheroes? The old Batman TV show which he described as “crack,” the ensuing addiction to which forced him to pursue more superheroes in comic form.

As clearly the lives of all the panelists in someway or another revolve around superheroes, the question arose as to what exactly is their longstanding appeal.

Lethem likened their popularity to their ability to paradoxically ascribe to opposing characteristics at the same time—to be both famous and wonderful and, through a secret identity, to remain anonymous and moody. Kring, conversely, hit on their super powers, saying that is the paradox of powers being both a blessing and a curse which provides the drama to make the characters have lasting appeal.

What makes the appeal of superheroes lasting to the likes of Morrison? Well he claims that superheroes must have a symbol in order to exist. They must be representative of certain human qualities, like how, according to Morrision, The Flash can be allegorical for urban living and culture due to his speed. Superheroes should be huge cosmic versions of humanity in order to continue to have a lasting appeal.

Launching off this idea, Kring commented on how his involvement with superheroes differs from his fellow panelists because he does not have to deal with pre-created characters, but invented his own for Heroes. To make them relatable, he expanded upon several large general human archetypes like a single mom or a politician, and then gave them powers which seemed to grow out of their unique needs. The single mom character, for example, has a kind of dual personality on the show because a single mom probably often finds herself wishing she could be in two places at once.

Morrison, however, as he is currently working on “All-Star Superman,” does have to grapple with characters who already have rich back stories. According to Morrision, while Superman changed and evolved for each decade and each ensuing generation, today “All-Star Superman” is about the largest possible human emotions such as loss, greed, and fear. At the very root of a successful character, despite the changes they may go through to meet each evolving generation, there is a kind of mythological archetype which people will always relate to.

Alright, well what about bad guys? Do the same theories that apply to superheroes also apply to super villains?

Well Mignola says that for him to write a bad guy, he has to be able to understand where the villain is coming from. For example in “Hellboy,” while you might think that ending the world is not a positive move, but perhaps to Rasputin the world has run its course and could use a good restart, so to him it’s not really evil. Morrison too, said he can’t engage himself in “radically insane villains.” In fact, he said he had trouble with Lex at first but once he figured out that to Lex Superman stands in the way of his success, Morrison was able to write convincingly for this bad guy.

Well from this editor’s perspective Morrison does a pretty dang good job, so whatever he’s doing, I’d say stick to it. The event continued with some fan time dedicated to a little Q&A and, upon conclusion, a little loitering by said fans to garner some one on one with their fav panelist. It was an impressive moment as the panelists, for the most part, did indeed stick around and, although it certainly was not required, acquiesced to sign a few things.

It was Foot2Mouth’s first press event. It was a moment in history. It was Superheroes, Up, Up, and Away.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 21st, 2007 at 5:18 pm and is filed under Comics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.