RVANews

PHOTOS: Richmond Comic Con

Matt Fisher — Tue, 16 Sep 2014 13:05:56 +0000

This past weekend, Richmond hosted a stop on the Wizard World Comic Con tour. This series of large conventions is put on by the same company who brought us the much beloved Wizard magazine--which may have defined my 90s childhood a little.

The con provided a chance for Virginians from all over our fine state to let their geek flags fly, meet heroes like Bruce Campell, do some Sci-Fi Speed Dating, and (of course) COSPLAY. If you didn't get a chance to attend, or your inner voyeur is curious as to just what all us weirdos do when we congregate, feel free to take a little photo journey through Saturday's festivities in the album below.

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Founding Fathers: Hulking Out

Matt Fisher — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:00:12 +0000

I think there are two types of angry people.

The first type are prone to rage because that’s what they’ve observed. Maybe they came from a home where anger was the only valid form of communication. Perhaps, they feel that they’ve been dealt a crap hand by life, and the only thing they can think to do is be hateful about it.

The second type are what I call Hulks.

Hulks are named after legendary comic book character Dr. Bruce Banner's alter ego. Banner is a mild mannered and emotionally unavailable geek. Emotions are illogical, precarious, and more complicated then even his advanced gamma radiation research. Whenever things become emotionally complex for Banner (i.e. his girlfriend breaks up with him or someone insults him on the bus) he reverts to a superpowered caveman who refers to himself as The Hulk. Hulks are angry because it’s easy. They consolidate their complicated emotional portfolio into one all-encompassing and primordially simple feeling: anger.

I’m definitely NOT the former; I don’t feel like the hand I’ve been dealt by life is anything short of a royal flush, and I’m thankful for it every minute. My parents were ever-civil and loving even in their disagreements, and we didn’t use anger or aggression as a means to get things done. I pray daily that my son’s home life is comparable to my own growing up, and I’d feel like I won the lottery if I improved on the job my parents did.

This leaves me squarely in the “Hulk” category.

I was an emotional kid, and I’m afraid my 4-month old -- Cash -- is already the same. I was the preschooler who had a meltdown EVERY day when mom dropped him off. When I was in 4th grade I read a Batman story arc where the Caped Crusader broke up a child smuggling ring. It took days for my parents to calm me down. I was the chubby middle schooler who got beat up in front of the local movie theatre -- and cried about it. As a result, I became the high school dropout who’d rather render someone unconscious with a pair of flea-market brass knuckles than feel lots of feelings all the time.

So now, here I am, a married man with a full-time job and an education, holding the most perfect little human I’ve ever laid eyes on. This is the emotional equivalent of dropping a hydrogen bomb into a volcano. When I held my son for the first time I was rocked to my very core. I realized that all the emotional barriers I’d built up around myself were nothing but childish, neanderthal reactions of a hurt little boy in the body of a grown man.

I’m faced with a choice.

If I stop this charade of he-man antics -- that masks my true weepy nature -- am I dooming my son to the childhood of a blubbery mama’s boy? He’ll constantly fight the torrent of emotions that so often knocked me to the ground on my trip from child to adult. Don’t I want him to see me as a tough guy, unwilling to take shit from anyone? Shouldn't he know that I have the ability to stand strong in the face of adversity for my family?

If I stick with the Hulk, then I run the risk of becoming one of THOSE parents. The low-class freaks you hear about on the news who punch tee ball coaches and threaten 6-year-olds on playgrounds. Just because I can say, with absolute certainty, that I would never hurt my wife or son doesn’t mean that using rage as a crutch against more complex emotions wouldn’t cause extremely serious damage to our family unit!

So what do we Bruce Banners do to keep from becoming awful parents?

I’ve been a crybaby for 26 years, a meathead for 8, and a dad for less then 6 months. I don’t really have any definitive answers on what to do with anger as a father. The only thing I can think to do right now is just let myself feel the feelings I feel and hope to high-heaven that my wife and son won’t be ashamed by my lack of grit.

Photo by tinyfroglet.

The Good Book gets a new look

Matt Fisher — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:00:49 +0000

By no means am I an aficionado of underground comic books. My comic collection is admittedly comprised of mostly beat-em-up titles of a more conventional nature (X-men, Batman, The Goon, etc.). Consequently, the extent of my previous knowledge on R. Crumb was relegated to the Internet, a co-worker who “went to college in the sixties,” and a personal geek-out over his work with Harvey Pekar on now famous funny book American Splendor.

After thumbing through Crumb’s ambitious foray into the illustration of Holy Scripture, The Book Of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb, I have to say that my respect for the no-tights, no ass-kicking, non-escapist form of comics and illustration in general is blown wide open. In my research of Pekar, which included the above-mentioned co-worker loaning me some comics that are worth more then my whole collection, I came to know Mr. Crumb as a bit of a shock illustrator. He is know for such titles as Fritz The Cat and as the illustrating arm of the counter culture movement of 1960’s San Francisco, His work has been criticized for being misogynistic (due to his overtly-sexual depictions of women in subservient roles) and even slightly racist. Regardless of your thoughts on the matter, I found the material I went over to be comically crude and so unique that, even having slept on this artist for years, I’m confident I’d be able to pick out an R. Crumb from a line up of impostors.

What really struck me about The Book of Genesis, was that Crumb seemed to transcend some of his thematic trademarks and still retain a visual originality that actually enriched an ancient text.

As a studier of the Bible, and specifically the Hebrew Texts of late, I found that Crumb’s illustrations exceeded entertainment value and are actually worthy of being listed with various scholarly interpretations of the Bible.

This book, from cover to cover, brings a surreal life to the text (which, I must mention, is unaltered for the most part). A few things I noticed which really affected my reading of stories I’ve read so many times were little details. The great thing about Crumb is that his details aren’t typical (shading, color, number leaves on trees) but rather creatively practical. For instance, the women in the book all have hairy legs. It’s a small detail, but one that’s a perfect example of the impressively fresh take that Crumb brought to a book that’s been read a billion times over thousands of years.

After seeing his other work, and reading the “Adults Only” warning on the cover of his new release, I was expecting some really racy stuff. Despite what your coloring books told you, The Bible (especially the Hebrew Scriptures that comprise the Christian Old Testament and the Jewish Pentateuch) is very graphic material. There is no lack of sexual hedonism, bloodshed, or scandal in this revered text. However, I was surprised to see that Crumb, boldly so, tackled the scripture just as it was. The sex scenes were no sexier then what they probably really were, the violence was not over-hyped, and even the part when the men of Sodom try and rape Lot was just as it appeared in the text. He even refused to edit out the lengthy (and boring) genealogical verses of the scripture!

My favorite part about this release is R. Crumb’s scholarly standpoint on the source material. He interjects none of his own beliefs into the illustration, he simply uses his imagination and definitive style to bring life to a book that has depth, historical significance, and no lack of popularity.

Considering all of the above, make it a point to go see Mr. Crumb speak at the Carpenter Theater, Richmond Center Stage on Tuesday October 27th at 7:30pm. This is an inimitable opportunity to get a rare peak into the rarely public mind of a definitive hand in the underground comics scene. Mr. Crumb will also be joined by Françoise Mouly, long-time art editor of The New Yorker.

Public tickets range from $19 to $38 and can be purchased online here. Use the coupon code CRUMB10 to get $10 off an adult ticket. Admission for UR students if free, but tickets must be purchased through the Modlin Center box office. And for all you VCU students, there are coupons for $10 tickets available in the VCU Libraries Administration Office and on the 4th floor of Cabell Library.