COMICS CULTURE SHRAPNEL from CBEM 323
I went to the library the other day and was amused to bring home a large stack of books, the majority of which were trade paperback collections. These finds from the young adult section (yes, young adult) of the library included Stormwatch: Lightning Strikes, Fushigi Yugi vol. 3, and Ashen Victor (a spin off from Battle Angel Alita). My thought on finding these books is that they have to be some of the most obscure things one could possibly pick out from the massive list of collections made available through traditional channels, so the buyer for the library either has really particular tastes and knows their stuff - or is on crack. There's no reasonable explanation. I'm going to make up a list of books I think the library should get if they don't already have them, and all of you should do the same. Doesn't matter if you've read it already, doesn't matter if you own the damn thing. Think of all the impressionable young minds in your neighborhood you'd like to see reading comics. Then go to the library after school hours (once school is actually in session again) and just look at how many of those kids actually hang out in the library. It's a lot. And they could pick up a comics reading habit while they're in there.
Anyway, I also picked up a copy of Ultimate X-Men. The hardcover published by DK Books, not the Marvel series (which I've also read and liked). Fond childhood memories have helped me form an affinity with DK, since they are the company that puts out the wonderful Eyewitness Books. This series is a wonderful reference tool for students putting together a school report, and just nice browsing material for curious adults. They have illustrations, diagrams, maps, cutaway drawings, and lots of useful little facts about the particular subject that book is covering. I used to take these out of the library just for fun.
Recently DK has been tapping into the greater field of pop culture, publishing books on things like Star Wars and LEGOs. They are presented much like the Eyewitness Books, with diagrams and cutaways. Ultimate X-Men is in this vein, though perhaps truer to the ideals of the Eyewitness Books. The sheer information presented in this volume is mind-boggling. It's everything you ever wanted to know about the X-Men, all the pertinent information about every major character given to you in little bullets of text, with the appropriate reprinted panel next to it. Presented to you decade by decade, forming what is in fact, a comprehensive textbook for the X-Men universe.
What a great idea. Between the movie and the cartoon, we probably have a goodly amount of people flocking to the x-books, with not the slightest idea who anyone is or what the heck is going on. This is the book to buy. It's affordably priced, at $19.95. Anyone can pick this up and get a crash course that will bring them up to speed. Not completely, of course, since the book only covers up to the end of '99, with two pages that ramble on about the changes in 2000. And of course the text has no clue about the revamp kicking in right now. But it's a start, and that's more than most new readers get.
We need volumes like this for a lot of other things. Imagine an extensive volume covering the Avengers, or the Justice League. The Secret Files are interesting, but not enough information to be useful to an outsider. Books like Ultimate X-Men are all about accessibility. Which is important in sucking in new readers. As well as keeping insiders up to date. Treating the history of the X-Men, or any other comic, like something worthy of study and comprehensive knowledge only helps to legitimize it in the eyes of pop culture.