quotations about comic books
Cheree, Cheree
My comic book fantasy
Oh, I love you...
Shut the door, baby
Come and play with me
SUICIDE
"Cheree"
Comic book should be written as one word. So from now on, I want you to remember that. I never want to see the word comicbook written as two words. They are not funny books. They are not comic books, they are comicbooks! Remember that, or incur my wrath.
STAN LEE
Youtube video, Stan Lee's World of Heroes
A critical analysis of the comic-book form is especially necessary now, when a growing number of contemporary American comic books are being written as literature aimed at a general readership of adults and concerned, not with the traditionally escapist themes of comics, but with issues such as the clash of cultures in American history, the burdens of guilt and suffering passed on within families, and the trials and small triumphs of the daily workaday world.
JOSEPH WITEK
Comic Books As History
I used to write, draw, paint comics before this. It wasn't until I started that they said, you're a penciller, it took me a while to say, I want to ink my own stuff.... I think it was Al Milgrom that said, "Well, let him. He has as much right to screw it up as anybody else," which I really appreciated.
BILL SIENKIEWICZ
interview, CBR, July 17, 2001
Slowly, and at first reluctantly, I have come to the conclusion that this chronic stimulation, temptation and seduction by comic books, both their content and their alluring advertisements of knives and guns, are contributing factors to many children's maladjustment.
FREDRIC WERTHAM
Seduction of the Innocent
Some people will say, "Why read a comic book? It stifles the imagination. If you read a novel you imagine what people are like. If you read a comic, it's showing you." The only answer I can give is, "You can read a Shakespeare play, but does that mean you wouldn't want to see it on the stage?"
STAN LEE
Denver Post Online, May 23, 2013
I feel like there are comic book artists who are comic book artists, and then there's comic book artists who are cartoonists.
JEFF LEMIRE
"Starting with Character: Matt Kindt and Jeff Lemire Discuss 'The Valiant'", Comics Alliance, July 29, 2014
I was a movie person. I think it was one of the reasons I drew comics. They galvanized me. When Superman came out it galvanized the entire industry. It's just part of the American scene. Superman is going to live forever. They'll be reading Superman in the next century when you and I are gone. I felt in that respect I was doing the same thing. I wanted to be known. I wasn't going to sell a comic that was going to die quickly.
JACK KIRBY
interview, The Comics Journal, February 1990
Comic books are history. Emerging from the shifting interaction of politics, culture, audience tastes, and the economics of publishing, comic books have helped to frame a worldview and define a sense of self for the generations who have grown up with them.
BRADFORD W. WRIGHT
Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America
Technically speaking, there is no good reason why comics should be confined to any particular age-group. They are capable of the same range of subject-matter as novels, films or any other media--as well as the same degree of depth in artistic and literary expression.
ROGER SABIN
Adult Comics
Being influenced is one thing ... and I'm searching for the right way to say this ... When I grew up, because I was kind of a loner ... I had friends ... but in terms of comics, there weren't a lot of kids around who read comics and not many drew, so comics were always a way of creating and controlling and writing stories in which I was control of a world ... real family situations or real world situations. I think most kids tend to feel that they don't have any power so ... playing out the comic fantasy was the way to get that.
BILL SIENKIEWICZ
interview, CBR, July 17, 2001
When the temperature falls to zero
I curl up by the fire with a good book
and for a while I am a superhero.
You really need to be a superhero
'Cause many times people will hurt you
and try to mess you 'round
And anyway, my comic book heroes won't let me down.
RICK SPRINGFIELD
"Comic Book Heroes"
Today, the comic book industry is an entertainment business not unlike Hollywood. Just as there are popular actors, there are also the star comic book creators, writers, and pencilers, who attract crowds of hundreds -- sometimes thousands -- of eager, autograph-seeking fans at every comic book convention they attend.
TONY CAPUTO
How to Self-Publish Your Own Comic Book
Comic books epitomize the accessibility, disposability, and appeal to instant gratification that lie at the core of modern consumer culture.
BRADFORD W. WRIGHT
Comic Book Nation
My whole attitude, when I was doing comic books, was kind of foreign to a lot of guys. See, they wanted to co-plot together.... My attitude was "No no no no. Here's how we deal with this relationship. You don't tell me how to draw, I don't tell you how to f***ing write, and we get along just perfect." Because the first time you accept any advice or criticism or whatever I have about your writing, I have to reciprocate and say that you can now change my artwork and, unfortunately, I'm not big enough of a man to have some f***ing writer change my artwork.
TODD MCFARLANE
interview, The Comics Journal, August 1992
I'm 40 years old. I've read so many superhero comics, I don't need to ever read another one. So like, it really takes something to get my attention.
MATT KINDT
"Starting with Character: Matt Kindt and Jeff Lemire Discuss 'The Valiant'", Comics Alliance, July 29, 2014
I'm a huge comic book collector. When I was a kid ... I was my own librarian. I made card files. I had origin stories of all the characters, and cross-referenced when they appeared in other comic books. I was full on.
JAMES MANGOLD
interview, Entertainment Weekly, January 8, 2013
Drawing isn't always going to feel like lightning bolts are coming out of your fingertips or playing jazz music. It's work, and on most days it will feel like work. If you've chosen comics as a vocation, a lot of your time is going to be spent measuring panel borders or crosshatching a brick wall, so get ready.
MICHAEL DEFORGE
"10 Rules for Drawing Comics", November 1, 2013
Maybe every other American movie shouldn't be based on a comic book. Other countries will think Americans live in an infantile fantasy land where reality is whatever we say it is and every problem can be solved with violence.
BILL MAHER
Real Time with Bill Maher
I was a painter and illustrator, so that when I came to comic books, they thought I fell from the sky. They had no idea, who was this guy, how can he do all this stuff. I also started off as a big foot guy. A big foot guy is a guy who, well, okay ... we have in the business a thing called big foot and little foot. Big foot is cartooning, 'cause you have little characters with big feet and big hands. Little foot is superheroes. They have big giant bodies and little tiny feet. Haven't you noticed that?
NEAL ADAMS
interview, Comic Book Historians, August 5, 2018