COMICS CULTURE SHRAPNEL from CBEM 311
A few weeks ago, maybe two or three, I found myself desperately looking for something to read. Granted I don't have a lot of time to dedicate to books given school and work and this evil computer, but hey, my computer was broken, right? So I needed something to pass the time other than Final Fantasy and the evil demon box of TV. I went to the library and grabbed myself a few things, including a JSA TPB. That was cool, but I needed a novel. So gave in and finally took out their copy of "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" by Michael Chabon.
Previously I was inclined to ignore it as some cheesy period piece that would manipulate and exploit my favorite medium for all it could. I've never seen anything that treated comic books as anything but silly or gratuitous. I originally planned to avoid this book altogether. But I was running out of reading options. (It's a small branch library, and I'm not going to resort to Jackie Collins.)
And what do you know, I was pleasantly surprised. In fact, I was hooked.
The novel tells the story of two teenagers, Josef Kavalier and Samuel Klayman, cousins who meet when Sam's mother bursts in his bedroom one night and demands that Sam move over and make room for his cousin Josef, newly arrived from Nazi-occupied Prague. Sam sees Josef's artistic talent and one thing comes to his mind: comic books.
Sam has this dream of writing and drawing his own unique super-creation, a hero to be the paternal figure his own father never was - and hopefully net him a fortune in the process. Josef is interested, if only because the money could be used to smuggle the rest of his family to safety in America.
Together they create the Escapist - an athletic, death-defying master of escape influenced by Josef's earlier experiences as a magician and escape-artist in his native Prague. What follows is a prolific career as the boys, now called Joe Kavalier and Sam Clay, recruit others into the new company they help create - Empire Comics, and the success is parlayed into radios, movies, fame, fortune, true love, tragedy, family life, and an eventual hearing in front of the Senate, thanks to Frederic Wertham and his evil little book.
Author Michael Chabon (who, it seems, also wrote the book Wonder Boys) essentually treats us to an extensive history of the Golden Age, all seen through the eyes of these two young men who, as we are told through a plethora of referential comments, are later acknowledged as two of the greatest innovators of comic storytelling. Right up there with Eisner and Gaines.
Chabon takes some liberties with fact, but they're forgivable. His manipulation of the facts succeeds with creating a credible atmosphere for these two young men to find love and success.
The book is just as much about their lives outside the comics page, tracing Joe's struggle to bring his younger brother over to New York, and the love he finds in the arms of Rosa Saks, a young socialite whose surrealistic paintings inspire Joe to create the psychedelic and sexy Luna Moth. Sammy faces his own problems, whether it be his overbearing mother, questions of his own sexuality, or increasing estrangement from his partner/cousin.
I've tried not to give too much away, but we are all too aware that the Golden Age must end and make way for the future. Which is the book's single failing - that like the era it portrays so vividly, it ends too soon. I found myself caught up in the magnificent prose, the intriguing characters and the adventures in which they find themselves entangled (and they certainly are adventures, I assure you), and the detailed portrayal of an era most of us probably regard as a dream.
I want to see what happens next. If any book warranted a sequel, it's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. It would be a treat to see Chabon's take on the Silver Age and beyond, hopefully with some indication of the fate of the Escapist and his two creators. Consider it a history lesson.