Where Ideas Come From

There's an interesting tempest brewing over at Comic Book Resources. Chris Knowles has an intriguing-looking new book, Our Gods Wear Spandex: The Secret History of Comic Book Heroes, exploring the mythic and perhaps unexpected underpinnings of comics superheroes. As part of a quick piece promoting his book, he mentioned a theory that the cover of Action Comics #1, the first appearance of Superman, had been heavily influenced by the 15th-century Heracles and the Hydra, by Pollaiolo. He goes into detail here, but I think he's stretching. He also doesn't do himself any favors when he keeps referring to writer Jerry Siegel's influences rather than artist Joe Shuster's, but he states at the article's comment boards that he assumes Siegel told Shuster what to draw, so at least he tells us where he stands.

What I find most interesting about this is that it brings back the subject of the varied influences held by earlier comics creators. Far too many modern-day creators have no influences but the comic books they grew up on. They don't know literature, mythology, fine arts. The earliest creators weren't scholars by any means, but they had been exposed to a wider variety of material than we seem to be today. This was again brought home when many of the British creators came into the American industry in the '80s. American comics had been harder for them to get ahold of when they were growing up, so they'd seen a wider variety of materials. Comics are always given a shot in the arm when their creators have a broader knowledge of the arts and the world than just old comic books. Next year is the 70th anniversary of Action #1, so we've had any number of generations of writers and artists who are mostly responding to the comics that have gone before them. Their work too much reeks of making copies of copies of copies. I don't know that we can find new comics creators who've never had an interest in comics, but would it hurt for the current (and upcoming) creators to broaden their horizons a bit more? To allow themselves to be influenced in something outside of comics history? I suspect some of this is happening more in the realm of webcomics, which I have to admit that I don't follow very closely. But lets bring it into print a little bit more, too.