The Four Color Media Monitor

The Times of India interviewed a local film actor about his comics reading hobby, which unfortunately includes one specific comic from the late 80s whose angle has only served as one of the most superfluous going forward:

Actor Kunal Kapoor has a romance, that he has kept lingering since he was a kid. It is Kunal’s dalliance with comic books. “Most kids like to play like superheroes. Put on the cape, put on the tights, and go to fancy dress parties. When you grow up, the capes and tights get replaced by pages and panels. You continue to love the superheroes through the comic books and that's what happened with me as well,” Kunal confesses, as he poses with his select few comic books for Bombay Times.

While growing up the actor would often read comics like Tintin, Asterix, Amar Chitra Katha, and also Indian superheroes such as Doga, Commando Dhruv, Nagraj, and others. “When I was about 15 or 16, I got introduced to Watchman, which is still one of my favorite comic books. That changed my entire perspective on the possibilities of comic books. It’s been a romance ever since,” Kunal recalls.

There's a slight typo there; that should be Watchmen. That aside, why is it a comic with a dark, downbeat angle, the 2nd of its kind I know of after Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns from the late 80s, serves as inspiration for a reader of the medium? How is it Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson's marriage from the same time doesn't get brought up in these discussions? The talk of loving all these superheroes would be a lot more convincing if he'd talk about that instead. Even Superman and Lois Lane's marriage nearly a decade later would provide a better point. Citing decidedly overrated stories like Watchmen, which put far more emphasis on depressing bleakness, only perpetuates a laughless farce. If memory serves, even Alan Moore, leftist as he's been for many years, doesn't seem to care much about his own story.

Earlier in April, a rare copy of Superman, reported to be one of around 100 in existence, was sold as the most valuable comic in the world, after a whopping $6 Million sale. Kunal, himself has bought comics of high value. “With comic books, it's a whole different culture that you're a part of. Earlier, it was a very geeky culture, but now it's become far more mainstream. Also, they are not just comic books for most of us. Sometimes one buys a precious comic book because it reminds them of their childhood. They become more than just little books,” the Empire actor mentions. Ask him which superhero character would he like to play and he replies, "I think I would be a love child of Batman and Deadpool – a brooding irreverent superhero."

And this only has the effect of making me groan sadly. Brooding is not a very inspiring direction to take, and even if Deadpool is built on a humorous angle, that's still no compensation for the direction taken here. Also, the actor buys high-value pamphlets just for collecting? Again, that's saying something very disappointing. I've said before, the whole medium can't be about collecting for profit only; it has to be about the reading value, and without any biases, as this article suggests is occurring. And mainstream? Unfortunately, it's only been watered down horribly in the past decade or more in the process, and what is more apparent now is political propaganda and such.

So it's a shame we have here yet another person who won't go beyond the shoddiest cliches seen in the press while discussing his hobby, and the journalists themselves are disappointing by not seaching for somebody who could talk about his or her love of the medium using examples like Superman, Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, and Avengers as serious talking points. This is practically why the medium's withering away stateside.

Labels: comic strips, dc comics, Europe and Asia, history, marvel comics, msm propaganda