Their relationships with masculinity, sexuality, power, individuality, violence, authority, and the modern fluidity of self were so tangled and so heartfelt that their work spoke to the anxieties of modern life more sympathetically, more completely, more acutely than they could have foreseen in their most inflated summer daydreams. With the passage of time, their creations become only more relevant. They forecast and helped shape geek culture. They laid the template for the modern concept of the entertainment franchise. They created the perfect packageable, marketable fantasy for the culture of consumer narcissism, They spawned artistic subcultures. All without quite knowing what they were doing. All by rushing frantically forward, trying to stay a step ahead of the wolves, santching at the cultural scraps they found around them on the Lower East Side and in Glenville and the Bronx and shaping them into something that could be sold quick and cheap. All by banishing yesterday from conscious thought and draming of the score they would make tomorrow.
That's the concluding paragraph from the Prologue to Gerard Jones' Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book. It pretty much sums up the thesis of the book--that the men who created comic books (and he includes the businessmen and editors as much as the writers and artists) created much that we think of as modern popular entertainment.
It's a masterful volume that debunks some of the myths of the industry (Jerry Siegel's famed tale of coming up with Superman all in one fevered summer night is pretty much of a piece with George Washington and the cherry tree) while providing useful background on the familial and business connections of the writers, artists, editors and publishers of comics from the 1930s until the 1980s.
One of the best elements of Jones' work is that he avoids the frequent fan tendency (a tendency that life-long familiarity with comics only exacerbates) to see the world in black-and-white, good-and-evil terms. While not dismissing the unfairness of the treatment Siegel and Shuster received from DC Comics--especially after 1948--Jones also recognizes the businessman's point of view and explores it, without casting the likes of Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz as somehow living embodiments of Lex Luthor or the Kingpin.
Jones sees the risks the early publishers took in chasing their own dreams, and putting into print the dreams of their creative teams...and sees the forces, personal and financial, that pushed those men--and their successors--to protect their investments in these risks once they had paid off so handsomely.
At the same time, he observes and records how much of their own lives and dreams the early writers and artists poured into their creations and why so many of them have fought so hard to protect their less financial but more personal investments. It's this even-handedness that makes the book so welcome--it's not a tirade or a screed for or against either vision of the comic-book business.
If Men of Tomorrow has a fault, it is this: Jones' treatment of the resurgence of the comics in the 1960s is overly Marvel-centric. He virtually ignores Julius Schwartz's reinvigoration of the superhero genre at DC, except to note the long-told story that it was the success of Justice League of America that spurred Martin Goodman to get Stan Lee to create new superheroes. Yes, Lee, Kirby and Marvel in general rethought the superhero, made him fit even more into "geek culture" than before; but they would have had no market into which to sell their efforts if DC and Schwartz had not modernized the Golden Age characters first.
All in all, Men of Tomorrow is a worthy addition to the bookshelf of anyone interested in how comics have shaped today's world of entertainment.
5 comments:
Hiya,
Carl Pietrantonio here to say that Pat's got it right on the nose with this review. Gerry Jones has done a great job with this book and it's a humdinger! Not plugging but it is a good 'un. Thanks for the dynamite review, Pat. I wish I could have said it like that meself.
Carl
Pat:
As much as I liked your review and agree with it, I wish it were longer. My main problem with Men of Tomorrow, other than agreeing with your quibble with his lack of attention to the DC Silver Age, is his omniscient narration. Too often, it seems, Jones makes definitive statements about things that it's hard to determine his sources for. He has clearly done extensive research that puts most past histories of the field to shame. I just wish I could be more confident about the accuracy of things he says about incidents that took places 50-75 years ago, when all witnesses and participants are long dead.
I did find his explanation for the secret origin of the comic book superhero startling.
Jim Hanley
Jim:
As a journalist, I recognized that Jones was working on the basis of several years (if not decades) of conversations with the principals in this story--or at least with their children, spouses, and others intimately associated with them. As such I did not expect a detailed source reference for every statement made in the book. If he indicated that some of the comments were based on conversations with a particular person, I was willing to assume that subsequent statements by or about that person came from the same set of discussions.
Jones was writing for a general audience, not one that expects a scholarly set of source notes. Indeed, that kind of constant referencing and footnoting would only turn off the very readers he was trying to attract, I'd bet.
As for the length of my review...I look at blogging as a "journal" kind of writing. I'm not trying to be definitive here about anything--just putting my daily thoughts into words, as it were.
Glad to see you commenting. Stick around...I hope to have more stuff you'll like.
I just started the book today on my lunch hour. I couldn't put it down. I am traveling for work next week, and I am hoping to read it on the plane. I have read many histories of the industry, and too many start with 1930... I have been fascinated with the way Jones has taken the roots all the way back to Europe- I imagine this will tie into the motivations for his "Characters". Even though this is non-fiction, I have already realized this contains a lot of supposition. Even if it may not be 100% accurate, it sure looks like it will be a fun read!
-Captain Jersey
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