Quote For the Week 3/31/11

"I hear that there are too many superheroes, that they're choking the racks and shelves of the comic book stores, that they're the reason comics are so poorly regarded by the majority of Americans and more. And while I could quibble with some of the above -- I'd certainly like to see more diversity of the comics racks, for instance, but when I see superheroes ... in movies, on TV, in cartoons, in books or blowing off the toy-store shelves, I wonder whether superheroes are really what non-comics-readers are turning up their noses at when they pass up comic books -- it's one specific complaint against the superhero that I want to bring up here.

The complaint which never fails to charm me is that superheroes are limited. They're inherently juvenile, I'm told. They're simplistic. They're just an adolescent male power fantasy, a crypto-facist presentation of status quo values ... what charms me about that objection to superheroes is the way it points out in the guise of criticism, what to me is the greatest strength of the superhero genre -- the ease with which superheroes can be used as metaphor, as symbol, whether for the psychological transformation of adolescence, the self-image of a nation, or something else. A genre that can do something like that -- is that really a limitation?

I don't think so."

- Kurt Busiek (@KurtBusiek) in the introduction to "Astro City: Life in the Big City", the first "Astro City" paperback collection

~ @JonGorga