Comic books deserve respect

Hi my name is Tom, and I am an addict. A comic book addict. A comic book nerd.

"Hi Tom!"

Actually, I'm not even that big of a comic book nerd. Most months I only buy the 11 comics that are set aside for me in my local comic shop. But I guess that's just me trying to deny the addiction.

I'm trying to cut back, but the fact is I can't.

And with promotions for the "X-Men" movie that opens this week in full swing, I am reminded of my own rather neglected comic book collection.

Yeah, I'm a comic book nerd, something that in recent years has become a guilty pleasure. But I don't want to feel guilty about my back issues of "Eightball" and "The Avengers" anymore.

Comic books are the red-headed stepchild of our popular culture — we won't acknowledge them in public, but whenever they're responsible for a summer blockbuster like "X-Men", it's OK to privately acknowledge their success

Comics are just the another incarnation of "sequential art", the process of telling a story with words and pictures placed in a sequence. Sequential art has arguably been around since the Egyptians told the great legends of their kings and gods with hieroglyphics. Their characters even had super powers and predate "legitimate" art forms like film and photography by thousands of years.

Why then are comics not allowed to be art? Well, in some cultures they are. In Europe and Japan comics are widely accepted and enjoyed. America, though, tends to culturally stereotype both comic books and their readers.

Though only a portion of the comics released every month fall into the "spandex-clad muscle head with big guns and dumb, gorgeous females killing each other in as horrendous manner possible" category, they sell the best and are immediately what comes to mind when people think of comics.

Though only a portion of movies released in a year fall into the action movie genre, no one ever makes the mistake of assuming that all movies are action movies. Though only a portion of novels released in a year deal with the adventures of Harry Potter, there's no one thinking that all novels are Harry Potter novels.

Why then do comics get this special treatment?

Even though the writing talent behind these stereotypically juvenile comics has grown exponentially over the years, they're held to that image of "kid's stuff", when most read more realistically than the average summer blockbuster movie.

The kid's stuff image is the main killer of comics. Not only does it portray comic readers as childish and immature, but it prevents more mature works from getting the credit they deserve. Your average kid won't appreciate the comparative mythology in Neil Gaiman's "The Sandman", or the underlying themes and images in Alan Moore's "Watchmen", and yet to be seen carrying one or the other is to bear a scarlet letter to the world.

The superhero is an interesting cultural phenomenon, created by a people who feel powerless to the injustices in their own lives. Comics boomed into their Golden Age in the fear of World War II. But books that seek to examine this phenomenon in a social commentary sit right alongside trite slug-em-up comics with no special marking to make them stand out.

Non-superhero books have also been on the rise for a number of years. Sadly, many of these comics would find a much larger audience if the artwork and writing were separated into award winning sketches and paintings, and high-quality, novel-caliber writing.

Together the art and writing compliment each other beautifully to the point where they should be acknowledged as something better than both art and literature. And yet, these masterworks are usually hidden away in a dank corner of bookstores or forced to sit neglected on the shelves of comic book shops all over the country.

Because the public at large views comic shops as a place where dark rituals beyond their understanding take place by over- or under- weight guys who smell bad and have pale complexions from lack of sunlight, they're never going to make that first step in the door.

And because of this negative image, going into a comic shop is like going into a pornographic bookstore. Normal folks will roll their eyes or recoil in terror from us, and we have to feel a secret shame that’s only alleviated by the fact that there are so many others like us browsing the back issue bins.

Hence, the only way to find good comics seems to be if you've integrated yourself into the system by reading a lot of bad comics. Since most people don't want to put up with the struggle or the repetitiveness, they just stay away altogether unless presented with an opportunity in cinema like "Blade" or "Spawn" or when mega-events like the death of Superman find their way onto the nightly news.

I propose a solution: after wading through piles and piles of my own collection, I present a series of recommendations for the average Jane on the street to help change the focus from the pulp to the art, from the trite to the triumphs.

• Comedy: "The Flaming Carrot" by Bob Burden, "Milk and Cheese"

by Evan Dorkin

• Drama: "Strangers in Paradise" by Terry Moore, "The Acme

Novelty Library" by Chris Ware

• Anything and everything: "Preacher" by Garth Ennis, "The

Dark Knight Returns" by Frank Miller, "Watchmen" by Alan Moore, and "The Sandman" by Neil Gaiman.

Try some you just might like it, and tell your friends. And if you don't like it well, there's always more and eventually something will appeal to your palate.

And last but not least, remember comic book nerds are people, too.