When we encounter discussions of collaboration, there is a natural tendency to gravitate toward a conversation about practice and the process behind comic book production. However, we should be wary of such practice-centred approaches because comics, as they often do, occupy a problematic space when it comes to representing a collaborative endeavour. Indeed, comics are so intertwined in the various machinations of our cultural expression and the collusion–not collaboration–that governs that expression, they offer up a different way of thinking about the nature and representation of collaboration.
Recently, the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination has been a topic of reflection. Along with that reflection was the auctioning of Curt Swan’s original artwork for Action Comics #308 and DC’s purchase, and subsequent donation to the Kennedy Library, of Al Plastino’s original artwork for Superman #180. Both these events are full of the usual meanderings and musings about the value of original artwork, missing issues and so on – you can look up the backstory yourself. What’s interesting for our purposes here is the way both of these issues suggest a different type of collaboration or, more precisely, collaboration as cultural collusion for the public good. In Action Comics #308, President Kennedy stands in for Clark Kent to protect Superman’s secret identity. What’s made evident by this story, if it wasn’t evident already, is the collusion between Westernized cultural enterprizes that value secrecy over transparency. It’s a timely commentary that we now read Superman’s declaration at the end of the comic as rich in irony.
Point is, comics, perhaps more than any other medium, are directly implicated in furthering a cultural hegemony. In effect, The President of the United States of Freedom is collaborating with Superman to keep a secret from all of us so we can go on oblivious to the machinations that revolve around us.
Lest there be declarations of conspiracy theories, Superman #180–drawn by Al Plastino–represents a more positive collaboration between systems of power and comics. In this issue, Superman is enlisted to help further Kennedy’s fitness program. He does so willingly of course, and it would seem the cause is just.
Problem is that even this collaboration marks the kind of philosophical collusion that demonizes the new in favour of resuscitating and entrenching a conservative agenda that again reflects the dominant cultural hegemony. In other words, while all this is painted as a collaboration to make good things happen, on a deeper level it represents a kind of collusion designed to devalue the innovations Superman supersedes and represents. He comes to his great fitness by happenstance of birth and the luck of getting off a dying planet, not through hard work–he’s part of the problem!!. Then there’s the little pun that shows Superman’s complicit involvement in the politics of closing the “missile” gap, but moving on. Collaboration in the way it is represented here is both on the page and in the making. Superman is sent to physically dictate a cultural shift toward physical fitness–its collaborative propaganda.
Which brings me to the above–the collaborative approval statement. Superman #180 borrows the language of the Comics Code Authority for its splash page. The Presidential seal replaces the Comics Code Authority seal, but the sentiment, one that represents a supposedly rigorous collaboratory approval process, is the same. There’s lots of literature about the Comics Code, but the important point here is that the Code–and the seal that represents it–is a signal of collaboration. It suggests a singular mindset that will protect us, like Superman, from all the horrors that cultural expression has to offer. After all, the code is a collaborative endeavour by the major comics publishers to push back against the cultural hegemony that would wish to censor them and their content. It’s a tactic developed in Hollywood a transposed to comics. But again, it’s comics collaboration as collusion.
If the above all seems real obvious, it is: we’re used to seeing things overtly now. Porn is everywhere; it’s not illicit anymore–as Anthony Bourdain has eloquently demonstrated, even the Food Network is just porn with food–comics regularly push the boundaries of taste (and good for them!), and our cultural production is dominated by the vacuous but riveting discourse of The Kardashians and their clones. All of these commentaries reflect a collaborative enterprize between our evolving culture and industries that seek to represent it so that it is palatable.That said, our cultural production has never been more openly collaborative. Facebook represents a collective archival and ongoing cultural discourse unlike anything the world has yet seen (Like Us!).
All this to say that it’s important not to get too focused on the role collaboration plays in the production and practice of comics. If collaboration means to work with someone to make something, then there are plenty of open spaces where we can think about how collaboration manifests itself. With comics, the intersection of cooperation (Avengers, Justice League, Fantastic Four), collaboration (drafting, drawing, painting, inking, writing, renewing, reinventing) and collusion (Comics Code, political agendas, propaganda) is a busy one often causing collisions that drive our representation of contemporary culture.