Fan Fiction and Comic Books: What they Have in Common, and where does James Joyce Come In?

Three newspaper articles caught my attention yesterday, all of them about topics I have never paid much attention—not that I eschew them, but rather that there is only so much time and I can’t do it all.

Two of them have related themes, summed up in the words I have heard from many a teacher: I don’t care what your child reads, as long as he reads. Extrapolate that out and you get to fan fiction and comic books. As “serious writers,” we get to ask ourselves, do we really care what people read, as long as they read?

Should we grit our teeth at fan fiction?

The Friday Journal section of the Wall Street Journal ran a lengthy piece on fan fiction, that weird mash-up in which fans of Twilight or Harry Potter or even Star Trek (pause while all the fans genuflect) are thrown together in plotlines that twist and turn like your teenage son’s version of what really happened to the family car last Friday night.

The most popular fan fiction, and the most controversial from the “serious writers” is arguably Fifty Shades of Grey, which I know little about. It has something to do with the Twlight series, something else I know little about, other than that my wife read all three Twilight novels.

The WSJ article tells me more than I ever wanted to know about fan fiction, and just how strange it gets. A sampling: Katniss is a Unicorn (The Hunger Games), Spock and Kirk in Love (Star Trek—genuflect again), Harry’s Pregnant (Harry Potter with child) and The Vampire Choir (Twilight meets Glee).

Weird stuff.

This stuff is all written by fans of the original work. Where they get the time, I don’t know.

Fan fiction gets into the murky areas of copyright infringement. There have been lawsuits. It’s dicey because a lot of fan fiction is available free on the internet (taking away the profit angle, a big part of any copyright infringement argument). Writers are realizing, however, that in the end fan fiction is more likely to have a positive effect on their works. After all, to really appreciate fan fiction, you have to be familiar with the original piece.  Fan fiction websites get hundreds of thousands of hits. If a percentage of those fans by the original work… do the math

I probably won’t read Fifty Shades of Grey, but no one is twisting my arm to do it. I go back to what the teacher says: “I don’t care what they read, as long as they read.”

… and then there are always comic books

The second piece from yesterday’s newspapers was an article in the L.A. Times by Los Angeles-based writer Gary Phillips. Phillips writes crime novels and comic books (he does some community organizing, too). I’ve seen him at a few literary gatherings in Los Angeles and read one of his books (I have another on my Nook).

Since his days as a kid in South-Central Los Angeles, Phillips has been a passionate comic book fan. He writes about how Marvel was the first comic book publisher to introduce black superheroes. T’Challa was he first in1966--the warrior-king of a mythical African nation. T’Challa was followed by The Falcon, and then Luke Cage, Hero for Hire.  

I read a few comic books as a kid, not much. Something else that never stayed long on my radar screen. For the most part, however, they are full of morals and lessons—oriented towards good vs. evil, honor and loyalty. Again, I can hear the teacher say, “I don’t care what they read, as long as they read.”

Here’s another one I have never read

I’m putting myself out on the edge here by admitting that my total experience of James Joyce is Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I’ve never read Dubliners, Finnegan’s Wake or Ulysses. But today, June 16, is Bloomsday, named for Leopold Bloom, the protagonist in Ulysses. This was also reported in an article in the L.A. Times.

Bloomsday recreated the one day, June 16, 1904, chronicled in Ulysses,when Leopold Bloom traveled through Dublin on his adventure. Uylsses is celebrated as one of the most difficult novels of the twentieth century, but that doesn’t stop the fans. In Dublin there are tours on this day, following the travels of Joyce’s character in the novel. True to the Irish roots of the novel, the tours often fall apart before their scheduled conclusion because the participants become too drunk. If you don’t believe me, listen to the story as told by Garrison Keillor on the Writer’s Almanac. Judging from the Times article, it sounds as if Los Angeles events will be no different.  

That’s the day in literature, as reported in the newspapers.

See ya’ later.  

 

Comments

[Paula Shene]

Loved the article, as I could totally relate to the comic side. My first spendable allowance was used on a weekly fix of Classical comics @ 15 cents a pop out of 25 cent stipend, 5 cents spent on penny candy and the other 5 cents saved for the following week so I could get two more Classics - I went on to read the actual books, but the pictorial always held a fascination because of my love of drawing. I branched out into action comics and then horror. I still read comics and graphic novels along with marketing and health care and popular fiction and some not so.
I have yet to entangle myself with fan fiction, because of time constraints, but I understand some students of this category outstripped their masters.
Thanks, for a time out in my schedule to enjoy and remember those balmy summer months where days were spent in speeding along on bikes down to local fishing docks and nights curled up reading and enjoying the eye catching pictures.

[Tim Sunderland]

No problem. Glad I could help.