By MELISSA RAYWORTH By MELISSA RAYWORTH ADVERTISING Associated Press PITTSBURGH — He towers over the land, his muscles rippling and blond mane blowing in a windstorm of his own making. Wielding his trusty magical hammer, he crushes villains as easily
By MELISSA RAYWORTH
Associated Press
PITTSBURGH — He towers over the land, his muscles rippling and blond mane blowing in a windstorm of his own making. Wielding his trusty magical hammer, he crushes villains as easily as he romances beautiful women.
Thor, epic god of thunder, was inspired by Norse mythology. But his modern, movie-star incarnation was born on the pulpy, hand-drawn pages of 1960s comic books. He will storm into your local multiplex again next month, one of the many superheroes who have escaped the illustrated panels of comic books to dominate not only our movie theaters and TV screens, but much of our pop culture landscape, from toys to clothes.
But while comic book characters are everywhere, comic books themselves remain mostly a niche product.
Take Arkham Gift Shoppe, for instance, a small comic book store on the northern fringe of Pittsburgh. When regulars arrive to pick up their monthly orders, some slip in with all the stealth of Catwoman eluding Batman. These guys carefully hide their comic-buying habit, or the extent of it, from their girlfriends or wives (yes, they have those) because these women “aren’t cool with them spending their money on something so juvenile,” shop owner Jeff Bigley says.
How is it that the painstakingly inked comic pages where these wildly popular characters were born still don’t get the attention and respect that fans say they deserve?
Chris Sims of Sumter, S.C., waits for the befuddled reaction when he tells people that he reads, writes about and creates comic books for a living. The popularity of Marvel’s blockbuster films has made it only a little less awkward for him to admit being an avid consumer of comics.
“If you tell somebody you read ‘Captain America’ now, they know who you’re talking about,” says Sims, who blogs at websites including ComicsAlliance.com. “The characters’ being visible lessens the kind of stigma of reading comics, because people know those characters and have affection for them.”
But only to a point. Amanda Osman-Balzell is a married opera singer raising a toddler daughter while attending graduate school. When new friends visit her Tempe, Ariz., home, they raise eyebrows at her stash of comic books.
“They see that we have comic books,” she says, “and they look at us like, ‘Really? You guys look so normal.’”
She explains that many of today’s comic books boast intricate artwork and story lines far more complex and thought-provoking than their big-screen counterparts. But friends roll their eyes when she describes comics as “literature.”
Lina Krueger’s life is very different from Osman-Balzell’s — she’s a single woman in her 20s working in Washington, D.C. — but her love of comics garners an identical reaction.
“A lot of guys are like, ‘Really?’” Krueger says.
In her spare time, she blogs at girlsreadcomics.com, hoping to fight that attitude.
But many hardcore fans aren’t worried about the ambivalence of the general public. If anything, Sims says, some comic book readers wish their favorite characters hadn’t become quite so mainstream.
