The Power of the Pen

Earlier today as I was trying to find an appropriate image of Wonder Woman to post on my other blog the old TV series came to mind – hard not to when there are more images of Linda Carter as WW available than the cartoon itself. This is what led me down this train of thought.

As a child I had a stack of comic books starting with Archie Comics and then moved to Marvel Comics in my early teens. The heroes were larger than life and seem to jump off the pages. From fifteen to seventeen I read mostly romance comics and PhotoRomance Kiss and Darling. The comics were in black and white and whenever I found one in colour it was a treat. The PhotoRomance had real people and the stories were told in frames, very similar to a comic. I couldn’t get enough of these and would read them until they became dog eared and the covers fell off.

Today my love for print comics has expanded to include cartoons such as X-Men and Batman Beyond and a few of the movies that have been made based on these characters. When it comes to images such as these, one would expect the camera aught to be mightier than the pen. However, the movies and shows that have been created with real people are sadly lacking. The strokes of the pen that portrays strength, agility and larger than life personas are somehow missed by the camera when these characters are brought to life on screen. Besides Spider I and II, I cannot think of another movie that is as exciting as reading a comic book. Superman in all his comic book glory is lost on both the small and large screen.

Not to say that they are not good movies and TV shows, they are, they are just not as good as the comics and cartoons. This could explain why the comic book industry is still booming and Marvel Comics has such a large following.