I said that I wanted to talk about the comics form (or formalism, which I believe can be correctly used here). And if you are going to talk about comics, you cannot avoid talking about superheroes. And why not? Superheroes are fun, there have been many interesting stories about them, and there is a wealth of interesting writing about those stories (which can be seen at various blogs as soon as I setup the sidebar). Superheroes are the dominant subject for comics, a state that Warren Ellis once described as akin to walking into a bookstore and seeing nine tenths of the shelves filled with nurse novels.
Why is that? Why is the superhero form the dominant subject of comics? How is it that they became so entrenched that when most people (particularly non-comic readers) think of comics they think of superheroes? I have not read all the books on comics and comics history in the world, but I have read many. And most of them end up taking a socio-historical tack. They talk about the effect of the Great Depression on the American public, and the superhero as the embodiment of Roosevelt's New Deal. Superman as liberal ideal, rooting out corruption, both as reporter and as a flying ideal of humanity. Other books take an economic approach, talking about the fact that the Great Depression decimated many forms of entertainment. Children did not have a great deal of money, and could spend their dime on comics. And superheroes, with their bright colors and great adventures, appealed to children more than many of the other subject matter. There are also explanations as well.
And all of them are to some extent correct. Having one be correct does not necessarily make another less correct, and I tend to agree with many of these views. But one view that I have not seen before is a formalistic view. I would propose that the superhero form was uniquely suited to use comic form, at least the comic form of the 1930's.
I want to take a side note to clarify certain things. I tend to use the defintion of comics per Scott McCloud as "sequential art" (but not always!). I am aware that comics existed before the 1930's, even in the current forms as "pamphlets." And that comics in general have existed basically since before human writing (once again, depending on how lenient you want to go with your definition of "comics"). I know that comic books don't exist solely as a medium for superheroes. I know all these things, and I acknowledge them. But in terms of popular comics and comics as most readers are familiar, Action 1 seems a good place to start, but certainly not to finish. I would eventually like to go back to certain things, especially McKay, Katzenjammer Kids, Yellow Kid, etc.
Once again, I propose that one of the major reasons that superheroes succeeded, is because the subject matter works so well within the comics form of the 1930's. The printing techniques, color separation, and paper quality of the 1930's tended to be much poorer than they were today. One could not get the clear and crisp printing and art that one gets nowadays (generally that is).
Because of the limitations of comic printing, one needed art that could compensate. A pulp story where every character is a man wearing a black trenchcoat can lead to art that is not only muddled, but characters that all look alike. To counteract this, there was a need for characters that had a distinctive look. Superhero (and supervillain) costumes is the solution to this problem. It did not matter that Superman's face might have looked like five or six other male characters in his book, but goddamn he was wearing a blue and red suit with a giant S on the front (yellow or black usually). The early Joker is one of the most disturbing images in comicsdom for me, and probably one of my favorite depictions of my favorite villain (save perhaps Brian Bolland's), in my opinion much better than Jim Lee's stretched out monster from Hush. Put something as striking as the Joker on the cover of a comic, and not only do you have something that grabs the eye, but something that is recognizable, even if the form changes in the details. Spitcurl or no, Superman is Superman, even if the S on the chest changes slightly.
Superhero art was uniquely suited to deal with the limitations of early comics printing. The use of both bright colors and iconic costumes allowed them to combat the fact that early printing (for mass market consumption) would often destroy the more delicate areas of art. No cross-hatching here!
Of course, when printing techniques became more developed, there was no such limitations. But by this point, superheroes had become entrenched as an integral part of the comics medium.
Of course, that is my theory, and I don't hold it to the exclusion of some of those other theories I mentioned. But if anyone wants to pick my theory apart, please go ahead!
