Word: superheroism
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...wildly eclectic mix of participants on the panel, convened at the annual publishing industry tradeshow Book Expo America, included indie creators Adrian Tomine (Optic Nerve) and Charles Burns (Black Hole) with superhero/pulp auteur Frank Miller (Sin City) and novelist-turned-superhero-comics writer Brad Meltzer (Identity Crisis), who sat next to comic autobiographer and movie celebrity Harvey Pekar (American Splendor.) Thanks to Pekar's irrepressible personality, things got a little warm when he denounced superhero books as "escapist" and worthless when there were more important things to spend your energy on like "getting Bush out of office." Meltzer later gave...
...policy wonk with a supernatural body to live. He explores the world and does good deeds where he can. Past stories follow him climbing Mount Everest, working to save a family farm and being hired out as the bodyguard of a paranoid rock star. Using the tropes of the superhero genre, where Concrete often finds himself thrust into life-or-death adventures, Chadwick weaves in broader themes of the environment and social issues, along with the humorous quotidian details of Concrete's life as a walking boulder, such as his difficulties with unsupportive furniture...
...scene looks exactly like something from a mainstream superhero book, but with important differences. Thanks to starting his career drawing a different kind of loser hero, Marvel's ill-conceived Dazzler series, about a crime-fighting roller disco queen, Chadwick knows the basics of the mainstream look. Using the best of that style, such as its dramatic angles, to create dynamic pages, Chadwick also infuses the artwork with quirks, like the frequent use of X-ray shots into a character's body, so that no one could mistake it for mere hackwork. Another major difference between The Human Dilemma...
...there's another reason you wouldn't mistake Concrete for any other superhero. Chadwick, and not some corporation, owns Concrete, allowing the character to take positions on real issues. When, during a scene in The Human Dilemma, an interviewer asks Concrete if he is pro-choice, "You bet," is the unequivocal reply. The scene startled me into thinking about where other characters stand on major issues. We'll never know, because mainstream superheroes cannot be invested with that level of political awareness. They always have a secret, over-riding agenda, spelled out in the earnings reports of their corporate masters...
...Paul Chadwick's The Human Dilemma, and his other Concrete tales prove the superhero genre has no inherent literary limitations except the ones brought by a character's real-life role in the culture. Either they are there to move you or to move the products they are associated with. Owned by an artist and not a company, Concrete can be invested with meaningful characteristics that give his stories literary weight. Concrete: The Human Dilemma goes beyond mere genre, combining surprising visuals, smart characters, an entertaining story and above all, engaging issues into a work of valuable literature...