Gaiman on Superman
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I link to herothings again. This time, its a nice piece on Superman written by Neil Gaiman and Adam Rogers. It also addresses some of the questions I found when reading this thread.
He has evolved into a folk hero, a fable, and the public feels like it has a stake in who Superman really is. Schwartz quit writing Superman because his bosses were telling him to put in things that he thought were out of character. That was admirable, but really, the specific stories we tell about Superman - the what-happened and what-he-did - don’t matter that much. Superman transcends plot. We retell his tales because we wish he were here, real, to keep us safe.
Wired 14.06: The Myth of Superman
Thanks for the link Raja Sen.
Posted on Thursday, May 25th, 2006 at 10:33 am and filed under Myth, readworthy.
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interesting article. you know, i think this is where your two interests (mythology and comic books) collide. in the us, which (unlike india) does not have its fair share of thousand-year-old heroes and gods, they have to work with what they have. don’t know if you have read it already, but there’s a really nice book by joseph cambell (amazon link here) which is about how myths (and heroes - the stuff of myth) are created. he even talks about star wars and how its been raised to the level of mythology here.
I think that puts USA in an enviable position ‘mastur’.
They can do rightfully what I do all the time. Claim everything (all myth) as their own, work on it, rewrite it, and have a whole lot of fun.
Thanks for the book link. Added to wishlist.
The book itself is not bad… But if you’ve ever tried to do any reading of myths on your own then you find it disappointing, often pointing to the obvious and at other times just forced… Just my two bits…
But yeah, I agree on the comic books and myths thing… The superheroes in their garishly bright costumes are the new pantheon.
Ken Kesey I think described them as American Gods… I love the sound of that somehow…