An excuse to post Jack Kirby artwork

This week’s New Yorker: The Style Issue. I have a love/hate relationship with the New Yorker. Actually, that’s a bit too strong. For me, the New Yorker is like that band whose work you really respect without actually enjoying. I know their coverage of arts, culture, and politics is untouchable. But really, when you get down there and read an issue, the articles are too long winded and you end up reading the comics. That’s what I do. There’s no shame in that. You can admit it.

I only keep subscribing because it’s so cheap. I think you pay like 43 cents an issue or something. This makes me able to justify reading approx. one article per every four or so issues. That’s not counting their arts critics in the back of the book, and of course the aforementioned cartoons.

Well, The Style Issue arrived this week and it looks like this is the one: Michael Chabon, author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay, contributes "Secret Skin: an essay in unitard theory,” a dissection of superhero costumes. The article, of course, is a bit long winded and I did retreat to the comics for a while in the middle there. Chabon starts out discussing the myth of comics as escapism, ultimately deciding that it’s the costumes we’ve really got to blame; the nylon (is it nylon? Spandex? Unstable molecules?) and the capes are what lure children to tie a towel around their necks and misguidedly attempt to take flight. From there, Chabon proceeds to delve into the science of costume design, taking us from the “zero minute” of Superman and from there pinballing around the superhero universe, making me grin with references as far-flung as Zatanna, Ka-Zar, Martian Manhunter, and Black Bolt (pictured). And of course, he takes us to the comic convention to mock the costumed losers trying to recreate their dreams.

It’s a fun little article, but it’s also very long and it tries a little too hard. I’m not impressed with Chabon’s conclusion that superhero costumes at once hide a hero’s past while explaining it to the bystanders. It’s true, but for all the work Chabon does trying to get there, its a little bit of a no-duh. Chabon has the most well regarded comics-based novel, but he once again loses to Jonathan Lethem when it comes to non-fiction fanboyism. And that being said, let me put in my two cents: with all respect to Kavalier and Klay (still one of my favorite works of fiction in any medium) Lethem’s The Fortress of Solitude is the greatest novel ever written to use comic book worlds as a backdrop.

Secret Skin: an essay in unitard theory [The New Yorker]
Top Five Depressed Superheroes [JonathanLethem.com]
The Jack Kirby Museum [Kirbymuseum.org]
Image: http://home.flash.net/~jeanneb/b.html