Want quick immersion into pop culture? Attend a comics convention. Our soccer-mom senior copy editor did and was strangely transfixed …
Comics are powered by “a longing for the fantastic, the supernatural.” —Jason Rovenstine
To get to Doug TenNaple’s booth at San Diego’s humongous Comic-Con International last July, we had to trudge through herds of costumed comic nerds, cranky children, and mobs of freebies hunters. We ducked under a life-sized Voldemort leering from a two-story-high display (this was, after all, five days after the launch of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) and trekked past innumerable Disneyland-scale displays for upcoming movies (Beowulf, The Golden Compass, The Simpsons Movie).

When we finally reached the geek tables—where the real comic artists sat—there was still no relief from the masses. A dozen fans crushed close to TenNaple’s tiny stall, asking for autographs of his latest work, a dark graphic novel for adults called Black Cherry. My 13-year-old son, Benjamin, and his friend Jacob watched with big eyes. I sighed.

Welcome to the largest comics convention in the United States. Welcome to pop-culture immersion therapy. Welcome to Nerd Nation, fast being overrun by Hollywood. (But doesn’t Hollywood overrun everything?)

If you want a snapshot of the culture young people swim in, then come with me to a comics convention.

A Colossal Mosh Pit

Comic conventions are bull horns for what’s coming during the next year—and what young people will be consuming.

Comic-Con—which started 38 years ago in the basement of a San Diego hotel for three or four dozen mostly young men who traded old-fashioned comic books—these days draws TV celebrities, New York publishers, well-heeled collectors and monster crowds of kids.

The first time my son and I attended was a shocker. Physically, mentally, psychologically, spiritually: absolutely mind-blowing. One reason, of course, is Comic-Con’s colossal size. In 2005, the attendance was estimated at 104,000. In 2006, it had grown to around 123,000. Last year, all four days sold out in advance; and the fire marshal shut the box office at more than 125,000. (There’s talk of having to move it to Los Angeles.)

For this suburban, Christian soccer mom, the sensory explosion of jumping into a 460,000-square-foot mosh pit of rock music, movie trailers, goody give-aways, collectibles, toys, video, original art, T-shirts and memorabilia is astounding. Exhausting. And exhilarating.

Beyond size, though, the convention forced me into a visual storytelling world that, after three years, I have grown to love.

And I’m not alone. A visit to any book store proves the comics/graphic novels/manga industry is exploding—with good and bad. It’s something anyone concerned with young people need to be immersed in.

“It’s important for youth workers to know what kids are reading,” said Brett Burner, a well-connected comics publisher in Southern California who also is a youth minister.

A Hunger for the Miraculous

The growth is being driven in part by manga—at $200 million one of the fastest-growing segments of the American publishing industry. And while comic books typically have been read by more young males than females, 60 percent of manga is read by girls and young women.

I didn’t read comics growing up; and as a literature major and newspaperwoman, I have spent most of my adult life looking down my nose at them. But then my son, a typical athletic boy unwilling to sit still, started to burn through both comics and graphic novels, manga or not. That’s when I knew I had to get past that snobbery and actually crack their covers to see what he was ingesting.

What a fascinating world to enter.

Yes, there are darkness, sex, and violence there. But nowhere else is the battle between good and evil put into sharper relief than in comic books and graphic novels. The good guy doesn’t always win, but he tries. And there seems to be a pervasive sense that there’s something wrong with the world, as if it’s fallen from some height and can’t get itself back together.

H. Michael Brewer is a Presbyterian minister in Kentucky and author of Who Needs a Superhero? Finding Virtue, Vice, and What’s Holy in the Comics (Baker, 2004). He says that “at their best, comics are a powerful art form.” He applauds the genre’s heroism and rich mythology while not ignoring its darker side. “I’m troubled by the increasing grittiness and moral ambiguity.”

Comics and graphic novels are powered by “a longing for the fantastic, the supernatural,” says Jason Rovenstine. He was the acquiring editor when Barbour Publishing launched the popular Serenity graphic-novel series before it was sold to Thomas Nelson Publishers. It’s a hunger for the miraculous “embedded in our [spiritual] DNA.”

Rovenstine believes youth workers should “pour gasoline” on that desire by embracing the good part of the industry.

A Growing Market

Christian publishers appear to have adopted that philosophy. Virtually every major house and many smaller and independent ones are moving beyond Veggie Tales, Bibleman, and the Left Behind graphic-novel series.

“There has been a significant increase [of Christian graphic titles] coming across my desk in the last six months,” said DeWayne Hamby, news director for Christian Retailing. “Christian publishers realize it’s an open market, a growing industry that has done well in the mainstream.”

Hamby pointed to as an example the Manga Bible and the Manga Messiah, both distributed by Tyndale House Publishers and developed by NEXT Inc., an international nonprofit formed to produce biblically based manga.

Burner likens the current trend to the 1970s, when Christians began producing rock music. Much of it was derivative. “Do we desire to lead the charge?” he asked.

Looking at the projects he has worked on recently, for instance with ZonderKidz, Burner is excited. “The next year will be telltale,” he said.

Going After the One

Communicating truth with a medium viewed as juvenile, lewd, worse can indeed be tricky.

TenNaple, a Christian, already has successfully tackled comic books, graphic novels, television shows, video games, children’s books, and films. My son and I have devoured his Earthworm Jim, Iron West, Tommysaurus Rex, Gear, and Creature Tech (to which Twentieth Century Fox has picked up film rights). His work is more inventive and challenging than what most Christians are publishing right now.

I asked him how he might answer a question from a Christian newbie apprehensive about participating in such a worldly industry.

“Comics provide a giant opportunity to communicate the gospel and hope to a different crowd—the reader who won’t listen to typical media,” said TenNaple, a blunt, lanky fellow. “Jesus left the 99 to go after the one. Why shouldn’t we?”

It’s a good question for youth workers to ask, too. Go visit a comics convention for the answer.

A Comics Convention Near You

Comic-Con International in San Diego may be “the largest pop-culture event in North America,” as it bills itself. After San Diego, the next largest are Wizard World Chicago (June 26-29, 2008), Wonder-Con in San Francisco (Feb. 22-24, 2008), New York Comic-Con (April 18-20, 2008) and Fan Expo Canada (August 22-24, 2008). The biggest in the world is Comiket, held twice a year in Tokyo.

Rest assured there is a comics convention somewhere in this country on every weekend of the year. (See www.comicbookconventions.com/conventions.htm.)

Comic Book or Graphic Novel?

Manga: Pronounced “mahn-guh,” manga is Japanese for “comic” and has come to be equated with a style that originated in that country and now owns a chunk of world pop culture. Manga can be used in single comics, comic books, graphic novels, or anime (Japanese animation).

Manga art is often characterized by huge eyes and youthful faces. It usually is black and white and often showcases adolescent heroes. Its worldview is influenced by its origin, suggesting Eastern themes such as honor and self-sacrifice, but also the spirit world of Shinto or pagan thinking.

Comic Book or Graphic Novel? It can be confusing! They both can be described as “books in pictures,” but graphic novels became popular as a label with the publication of Will Eisner’s groundbreaking A Contract with God, and Other Tenement Stories in 1978. Because this collection of short stories had complex plots about ordinary people, the term “graphic novel” was intended to distinguish it from traditional comic books.