Comic book superheroes

April 26 - May 3, 2001

[Art Reviews]

Comic book superheroes

Jon Cooke chronicles the artists behind the art

by Johnette Rodriguez
Comic book illustration, that peculiarly American art form, has undergone many transformations from its beginnings in the mid-1930s and its heyday in the '40s and early '50s. Suppressed for its horror content in the late '50s, it rose like a phoenix in the underground "comix" of R. Crumb and Art Spiegelman (and many others) from 1968 through the '80s; it was co-opted by video games and animated films in the '90s; but it is now finding a whole new generation of readers.
West Kingston resident Jon Cooke, editor-in-chief and designer of the award-winning Comic Book Artist, has been fanning those embers of re-discovery since spring of '98, when he joined forces with publisher John Morrow (of Raleigh, North Carolina) to put out a quarterly magazine devoted to, in Cooke's words, "the celebration and examination of the careers of the great artists from comics, who are under-appreciated and virtually unknown, though in their art form, they are masters."
Continued from the cover
Cooke, 41, grew up during the rise of underground comics and during a renaissance in nostalgia for the old comics, avidly reading and collecting comic books and churning out fanzines with his three brothers (circulation, 25). When he and his younger brother spent a year with their mom in Europe in 1970, they were allowed to buy one comic a day, and they indulged their comic mania to the hilt.
"In the '60s, the audience for comic books was huge," Cooke remembered, in a recent conversation at his home (and office). "It was part of the whole culture. You'd read a comic book, fold it up and put it in your back pocket, walk around with it. It was part of the whole milieu of childhood."
Now that the kids of that era have become adult consumers, they often search for the trappings of their youth -- as evident in the proliferation of recent books that collect and anthologize comic book art; the use of comic books as a setting for contemporary novels (such as Michael Chabon's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay); the ongoing popularity of Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer-Prize-winning Maus chronicles; the continued interest in films and TV series based on comic-book characters; and the sell-out of each issue of Cooke's Comic Book Artist.

Jon Cooke

"Our magazine is a retro magazine, devoted to old comics, " Cooke explained. "It's primarily focused on the people who made the comics great, the talents behind them, in contrast to this geek attitude of focusing on the characters, such as Wonder Woman, Batman, etc."
Because Cooke is striving for an oral history of comics between the '60s and the '80s, he determines a specific theme for each issue of Comic Book Artist and then sets about researching it. He tries to interview as many artists and writers as he can find who are still living, and he presents their ideas and their stories in their own words. Thus, issues have focused on Marvel Comics -- its founders, artists, etc; on DC Comics; on independent creators; on female comic book artists (a rarity in the field); and on two lesser-known publishers, Charlton Comics and Warren Publishing. The latter built an "empire of horror" that was very successful in the '60s and '70s, and Cooke dedicated 16 articles to it in issue #4, Spring, 1999.
"This is totally unknown history," he stressed. "There's nothing you can find about this publisher anywhere else."
Cooke believes that that issue may have put his magazine over the top for winning the Will Eisner Award at the San Diego International Comic Book Convention last July. Like an Academy Awards of comics, this annual gathering, attended by 40,000 people, gave Cooke and his publisher the Eisner for "best comic-related periodical."
Eisner himself, still going strong at 83, has been a "guiding light for comics," according to Cooke. In the '40s, he convinced newspapers to do a comic book insert, when they were unwilling to pay for a strip; he envisioned the sequential images of comics as useful in education and job training and worked with the Army to develop maintenance manuals. He continues to be touted for his ability to tell a compelling story with humor and brevity.
Cooke and Morrow (whose publishing company turns out five comic-related magazines) recently finished and are currently distributing a soft-bound book, Streetwise, with an introduction by Eisner, that furthers their goal of recording the life experiences of the great comic book artists, with 32 autobiographical stories, told in drawings and/or words, from 31 different artists.
"We were looking at the current state of comic books and this obsession with superheroes," Cooke explained. "I might put superheroes on every single cover of the magazine, because they do sell, but generally there's very little about characters in here."
Despite his dedication to getting the word out about comic book artists, Cooke doesn't believe that comics as he knew them will ever return. He pointed out the derogatory attitude that developed toward comics after the self-imposed censorship in the '50s "took the life out of them"-- most adults began to look down on them as too simplistic. And even for today's young audiences, who are fascinated by superheroes in the comics, there is stiff competition. Paying $2.95 for a comic book that will provide 15 minutes of entertainment is no match for the Internet, PlayStation or even television.
"But as an adult medium, it's coming into its own," Cooke reflected. "Back then, it was a huge industry, with a lot of people making a lot of money from it. As an industry, it may be dying, but as an art form, it's never done better."

Comic Book Artist and Streetwise can be found at Mom & Pop's Bookshop, in Wakefield; Atomic Comics and Video, in Providence; Kelly's Comics and Collectibles, in Warwick; and at Waldenbooks and Borders. Or try JONBCOOKE@aol.com for more information about Comic Book Artist.