HIGH ASPIRATIONS
An on-line magazine “Komikz” (www.komikz.pl), with Krzysztof Urbański as its chief editor, had only eight issues that were published at very irregular intervals. The main emphasis was put on thorough analytical articles, but also on interviews and reviews. Its readers could read reprints of interviews with such artists as Neil Gaiman, Masamune Shirow, Karol KRL Kalinowski or Artur Kurasiński. The editors did their best to have lengthy, cross-sectional articles about e.g. the Swedish comic-book history, or the relation of comic-book stories with politics.
The issue 8/2008 was published after a very long interval and announced as the last one. With a solid dosage of articles and reviews inside, two of Maciej Wycinek’s texts on certain phases of the American comic-book are considered by myself to be the most interesting pieces. In his article Dziwne Opowieści i Podróż w Nieznane (Weird stories and a journey into the unknown), the author writes about the crisis of the mainstream comic-book after the II World War and attempts to break a deadlock by publishers to become later known as Marvel Comics Group – one of the biggest publishing houses in the world at present. In his article, he showed what caused the changes that took place in the comic-book types, the birth of superheroes (Spider Man, Iron Man) who enabled artists like Stan Lee or Jack Kirby to become very popular. Maciej Wycinek draws our attention to a number of issues that have impact on the character of the superhero comic-book. The introduction of Comics Code of Authority in 1957 that put a ban on distribution of works emanating with violence and erotic resulted in comic-book authors’ giving up certain themes to replace them by those accepted by this peculiar censorship. In his other article, Po prostu R. Crumb… (Simply R. Crumb…), Wycinek presents a legendary figure of Robert Crumb, a guru of underground comic-books, complementing in this interesting way his previous article. He talks about independent comics that is in opposition to the mainstream comics. The independent comics authors are against the abovementioned Comics Code of Authority and smuggle in their works what is forbidden. Sex, violence, racism, drugs, defiance of America that is depicted in a grotesque way – with the emergence of these themes, the turning point in comics came. Crumb and his friends in their publications cross the boundaries of genres, both in form and content. Wycinek notices that Crumb does not impress contemporary readers as much as his early publications; it needs to be noted, however, that contemporary readers know many works constructed in a similar way, or even going further. It was Crumb and his friends who were the intrepid pioneers; their novel approach lies at the basis of the early independent comics, feature and artistic. Unfortunately, Wycinek left out some interesting facts from Crumb’s biography – namely, the fact that in 1999 he was awarded an Angouleme comics festival grand prix, and the story of a controversial poster designed by the artist for the next festival. The poster, having been considered too controversial, was rejected.
Apart from very interesting Wycinek’s texts, there appeared articles that were not polished up. For example Marcin Orzechowski’s sketch Archetypy w komiksie (Archetypes in Comics) could be really worthwhile, if the subject had not been treated superficially. I also had an impression that the examples of archetypal characters given by the author were often far-fetched. Writing about archetypes in comics, Orzechowski gives an example of an archetype of Shadow – the Lord Darth Vader (a character from Star Wars saga), who is, after all, a film character. When Orzechowski discusses an archetype of Golem, making use of Joker, he engages in an irrelevant and unnecessary digression on adaptation of Batman’s adventures, not justifying why Joker represents archetypal characteristics.
The issue is supplemented by articles on films and reviews of comic-books that were published a pretty long time ago. Tomasz Pstrągowski’s attempt to critique Aliens vs. Predator film is weird and it seems it was supposed to be a joke – if so, it fell flat.
Despite very high aspirations, the latest issue is not free from various mistakes. Some minor mistakes are irritating, e.g. the rules for dividing words seem to be entirely random. Probably the computer program used for setting the magazine is to blame, because it is very unlikely that incorrect forms like “zapomni-anej” or “disnejowk-ie” were intentionally produced by the editors (who are students or graduates of humanities, in most cases). Although these slip-ups could be put down to technical imperfections (which should have been spotted and corrected by the editors), another mistake – a recurring incorrect way of writing titles – can dismay readers. The authors forgot that titles are either put in quotations marks or italicized.
The authors of “Komikz” made sure, though, that the visual presentation is attractive. The frequently occurring background (that does not match sometimes – makes the text and picture below it blurred in, and thus difficult to read), the illustrations being presented in a non-standard layout and the text extracts originally laid out – make the magazine pleasurable to read.
It is really a pity this is the last issue of the magazine, because it did not lack decent, or even sometimes excellent articles that were not limited to reviews only, but presented analytical texts as well. This type of writing about comics is still missing in Poland. What is left is to believe that the authors will continue to write and let us see them again as thorough observers and interpreters of comic-book stories.
Daniel Gizicki
Translated by Kinga Witowska