laughing_tree: (Default)
laughing_tree ([personal profile] laughing_tree) wrote in [community profile] scans_daily2017-04-09 08:33 am

Astro City #42 - "The Deep Blue Sea"



'Western Detective Fiction thinks Dupin important as he was formative to the genre but does not consider him the paragon of the type. Imagine a world where we could say "Apollo is a more interesting character than Superman" rather than "Apollo is derived from Superman."' -- Kieron Gillen

'I’m trying to imagine a world in which Apollo is more interesting than Superman. No knock on Apollo. But yeah, in other forms, inspiration is a legitimate springboard to creation; in comics it’s looked at askance.' -- Kurt Busiek





















lordultimus: (Default)

[personal profile] lordultimus 2017-04-09 02:09 am (UTC)(link)
To those quotes, I think the problem is that Dupin was only in three stories over a hundred and fifty years ago, while Superman has been a near constant presence for over 75 years in some form or another, especially in the world of comics. It would be far different if, say, Captain Marvel succeeded in eclipsing him in the forties.

[personal profile] palgrave_goldenrod 2017-04-09 02:18 am (UTC)(link)
It's not exactly the same, granted, but if we replace 'Dupin' with 'Sherlock Holmes' then suddenly Gillen's point looks a lot more shaky.

[personal profile] palgrave_goldenrod 2017-04-09 02:26 am (UTC)(link)
Actually, no it doesn't, that is Gillen's point, what on earth am I thinking.
alschroeder3: (Default)

[personal profile] alschroeder3 2017-04-09 04:37 am (UTC)(link)
Another difference is that comic heroes keep on going. Dupin and Sherlock Holmes have their pastiches, but in general the stories of them are done. They're in the past. New characters can evolve as the genre evolve, and they're not stuck in a shared continuity where Dupin is STILL deducting in a modern Paris, Holmes in a modern London. (Well, there's the TV series SHERLOCK, but you know what I mean). Most TV detectives these days are police procedurals, not the hard-boiled detectives of the thirties and forties, much less the eccentric genius of Victorian fiction. Nor are they stuck in a shared universe (unless you're a follower of Wold Newton theories) like most comic book heroes are, where they share a universe with characters conceived in the thirties and forties. They can start again, in the "real" world and take their own tangent---owing the past, but not stuck in it. Unlike comic heroes.
zachbeacon: (Default)

[personal profile] zachbeacon 2017-04-09 04:00 pm (UTC)(link)
I feel like Batman is going to be remembered long after Zorro and Zorro has certainly overshadowed the Scarlet Pimpernel.
glprime: (Default)

[personal profile] glprime 2017-04-10 02:14 am (UTC)(link)
I mean, Batman still incorporates Zorro into his mythos with that origin story of going to the movies (sometimes it's the opera or theatre) and often it's Zorro on the marquee. That always gets me.