EISNER'S 100TH

Some thoughts, first posted here some years back, in celebration of what would have been Will Eisner's 100th birthday:

I had the honor of sitting on a panel beside Eisner—one of few comic book creators who crossed, then utterly erased, the line between pop culture entertainment and genuine literature—many years ago, but we never had the opportunity to really talk, really connect.  And yet we did connect, through his work, and he spoke to me, via words and pictures, in eloquent, unforgettable—and deeply personal—ways.     

There have been times, in a career that’s lasted over thirty-five years, when I’ve grown tired of comics, when I’ve felt that there’s nothing left for me to say; when I’ve looked at the form with a cynical, dismissive eye.  Better, I thought, to just focus on my television and film work, on novels, on anything but those damn comic books. 

And then, I’d pick up some Eisner graphic novel—Dropsie Avenue, To the Heart of the Storm, or my absolute favorite, one of the single most brilliant works this medium has ever seen, A Contract With God—and the scales would fall from my eyes, the cynical words would dissolve on my lips, the innocence and enthusiasm of a kid reading his first comic book would burn bright in my heart. 

Will Eisner didn’t traffic in costumes and super-powers:  He looked at the (apparently) mundane, everyday world and revealed the infinite universes within each person’s heart.  His work, unfailingly, inspired me and taught me, again and again, that the true potential of comics has only begun to be tapped; that we, as writers and artists in this medium, can, and must, tell stories of intelligence, emotion—and heartbreaking, uplifting humanity.  

Eisner inspired me in another way, as well:  He never stopped.  The man kept  working, producing graphic novels of unparalleled quality—producing art—till the day he died.  May we all follow his example and keep creating new worlds of imagination into our eighties and beyond.  Aspiring, as Will Eisner clearly did, to always be better at our craft.

©copyright 2017 J.M. DeMatteis

DR. SEUSS DAY!

Yes, there really is a Dr. Seuss Day and it's today.  

I remember being very young, going to the library with my parents, and discovering Seuss's magical mix of whimsical, poetic text and brilliantly fanciful art.  (I wonder if my love of Seuss is what led me to seek out the equally-magical word/picture blend of comic books?) 

The man was a true genius of the imagination and his work enchants me as much now as it did when I was four years old, sitting in the children's section of the Avenue J library in Brooklyn, my eyes wide with wonder.  

So thank you Theodor Geisel for igniting my imagination and filling my heart.

MISSION TO MARS

I had a very enjoyable talk with Kevin Volo of the Heroes, Villains and Sidekicks podcast, discussing the life and times of J'onn J'onzz—with a focus on the 1988 Martian Manhunter mini-series I did with Mark Badger.  You can listen to it below.  Enjoy!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEHER BABA!

"Love has to spring spontaneously from within; it is in no way amenable to any form of inner or outer force. Love and coercion can never go together; but while love cannot be forced upon anyone, it can be awakened through love itself.

Love is essentially self-communicative; those who do not have it catch it from those who have it. Those who receive love from others cannot be its recipients without giving a response that, in itself, is the nature of love.

True love is unconquerable and irresistible. It goes on gathering power and spreading itself until eventually it transforms everyone it touches. Humanity will attain a new mode of being and life through the free and unhampered interplay of pure love from heart to heart."

                                              Avatar Meher Baba

A REMINDER

I was looking through some old Creation Point posts and came across this one from seven years ago that, given the current lunacy in our country and our world, was just what I needed to read today: a reminder to myself about what's really important, what's really possible, stuffed in a bottle and tossed out to sea in 2010, found and opened in 2017.  Here it is, in a slightly edited version:

***

While reading Ellen J. Langer’s book Counter Clockwise (which details a 1979 experiment in mind-body connection, in which Langer, in essence, mentally time-traveled a group of men in their seventies and eighties decades into the past, resulting in significant, positive changes in their physical health),  I came across a quote that went straight to the center of my soul:

The fact that something has not happened doesn’t mean it cannot happen; it only means the way to make it happen is as yet unknown.

As someone who believes that the (apparent) limits of the possible exist only to be exploded—as that quote over there on the left attests—I was delighted to come across such  a powerful reminder of a truth I already know, but still, for all my efforts, sometimes forget.

In my novel Imaginalis, the main character, Mehera Crosby, is guided on her adventure by words that many would dismiss as childish imagination:  “Because it’s impossible, I’ll do it.  Because it’s unbelievable, I’ll believe.”  To me this isn’t an immature world view, this is the essence of our existence.  For all the strangeness and suffering life can offer, it’s been my experience that we truly inhabit a universe of magic and miracles—one universe in a simultaneity of universes that we step into and out of with more frequency than we realize—and the more we acknowledge that, the more we realize that the sky isn’t the limit, that the only real limits are in our own heads, the more that magic will come alive for us.  Respond to us.  Transform the world within and around us.  

Just because something hasn’t happened doesn’t mean it can’t.  If we keep our eyes wide, open to the endless impossibilities the universe has to offer, the miracles will come.

Feel free to remind me of that if I forget again.  And I hope, in some small way, I’ve reminded you.

 

©copyright 2017  J.M. DeMatteis

BEETLE, BOOSTER, PETER AND SERGEI

I recently did two podcast interviews directly related to the aforementioned Justice League International 30th anniversary.  The first was with the JLI Podcast (yes, there is such a thing and they analyze, and celebrate, a different Justice League issue each month) and for the second I traveled all the way to Australia (well, via Skype) for a chat with the Saturday Detention Podcast.  You can listen to the JLI Podcast here and Saturday Detention right here.  Enjoy!  And speaking of anniversaries:

This year is also the 30th anniversary of Kraven's Last Hunt.  As part of the celebration, I'll be attending New Jersey's East Coast Comic Con in April and participating in a panel that will reunite pretty much the entire KLH team.  I haven't been in the same room with Mike Zeck since the nineties and I look forward to spending time with Mike and the rest of the crew.  

IT WAS THIRTY YEARS AGO TODAY

I tip my hat to my brilliant co-writer Keith Giffen, to the amazing Kevin Maguire, whose one-of-a-kind art set the tone for the talented crew of artists that followed, to our truly extraordinary editor, Andy Helfer, who made the whole thing possible and to letterer Bob Lappan who fit all that damn dialogue in with style and grace.  We had no clue what we were getting into but, thirty years on, I'm profoundly grateful I climbed aboard the good ship JLI.

P.S.  Here's an anniversary interview I did with the JLI Podcast (and, yes, there really is such a thing).