SAN DIEGO —
I understand the allure of comic books. Stunning artwork. Twisting plots. Serial cliffhangery.
What I've never been clear on is why this visual and narrative approach is so pressed into the service of stories about people who wear capes and fly through the air. How did it come to be that comic books -- and comic-book-inspired movies, and the fans who adore those movies, and the culture at large -- are all deeply obsessed with the notion of the superhero?
Thursday afternoon at Comic-Con, I attended a panel that I hoped might shed some light on the matter. A group of academics had convened in a medium-size conference room to explore the past and the future of superhero studies. What flavor of seminar was this? Let us note that when the projector clicked on, the first slide was a photo of Carl Jung.
What I've never been clear on is why this visual and narrative approach is so pressed into the service of stories about people who wear capes and fly through the air. How did it come to be that comic books -- and comic-book-inspired movies, and the fans who adore those movies, and the culture at large -- are all deeply obsessed with the notion of the superhero?
Thursday afternoon at Comic-Con, I attended a panel that I hoped might shed some light on the matter. A group of academics had convened in a medium-size conference room to explore the past and the future of superhero studies. What flavor of seminar was this? Let us note that when the projector clicked on, the first slide was a photo of Carl Jung.
