Wow can you believe we actually made it to four? I can’t! Though, to give credit where its due, its thanks to the immense outpouring of interest and support from YOU, the readers, that we can celebrate our first month of Into the Fancave. One such supporter was Mr. Balls himself, Joey Heflich. This Jersey-based freelance writer has gone through multiple waves of comic addiction, and has shared some of his best insight in this week’s Fancave. Dive on in!
Joshua Mocle: Tell us a little (or a lot) about yourself!
Joseph Heflich: My name is Joey. I’m 26 years old and I’m from New Jersey. I’m currently working as a freelance writer. I’ve been reading comic books since I’ve been old enough to hold them up in front of my face.
JM: What books are you currently digging?
JH: That’s a hard one, since I pretty much dig everything I read and I try to read a lot. I guess I’d narrow it down to Chew, Sweet Tooth, Incorruptible, The Walking Dead, Invincible, DMZ and Scalped.
JM: Wow, a lot of indie (or indie-ish) books on there. Do you make an active effort to buy indie?
JH: Not consciously. I used to read a lot of Marvel and DC when I was younger, but I quit reading comics entirely when I was 12 or 13. I was turned off by the state of the medium and I generally didn’t think the Big Two had much to offer to me anymore. (The Death of Superman, Clone Saga and the Breaking of Batman helped with that a lot.) So, it wasn’t until I found books like Midnight Nation and Transmetro years later and decided that it was time to get into comics again. Ever since then, I’ve just been focusing on the books I love instead of who publishes them.
JM: Can you pin down any attributes that lead you to loving a book?
JH: One common thread immediately springs to mind: whether or not I can relate to it. Even for as something as out there as The Punisher (and I really do think Ennis’s run on The Punisher was one of my favorite things in the last decade), I want to be able to read something, escape into it a little (or a lot) and see some of myself in there. Whether it’s Power Girl or Matty Roth, I love to find something that connects with me.
JM: What goes into your thought process when taking the plunge on a new title? Do you meticulously educate yourself on a new book before buying it, or do you see a totally sweet cover on the shelf and say “screw it” and add to the pile?
JH: I hate to say this: When it comes to video games, movies, books or music, I’d like to think I’m ahead of the curve. I’m always trying to find something new and interesting. When it comes to comics, I’m always the follower. I pretty much buy what my friends like and do very little research into new stuff just for me. Once and a while, I’ll check out a new book and that’s definitely some meticulous education. I just started reading the Amulet series and it was like that.
JM: Given that you’re also a connoisseur of other media, what place to comics hold in your overall media hoarding experience? What makes them special to you?
JH: Comics have always felt like a window to another world. When I started reading them in the 80s, they were spot on where they needed to be already for years, if not decades. Technical advancements and trends really change how we look at video games, movies, music and TV, but, as humans, we’ve been drawing sequential art since… I have no idea. I would imagine a really long time. Lately, video games get my top slot for media, but whatever holds that top slot will always be tied with comics. There’s always new talent to bring in to the medium of comics and things will always be getting better, but that’s on a book by book basis. The medium of comics, just in its modern form, has survived so much, especially the Comics Code, and that’s something no one should ignore.
Continued belowJM: Why so? The comics code as in that little box on the issues that Marvel told to piss off a while back?
JH: Yeah, that was a big deal. It killed horror and crime books for a while. It’s the reason we’ve had superhero books as the dominant force in the medium for so long. I mean, not a single publisher was able to put in a realistic portrayal of a gay/lesbian person until the late 80s under the Code. And that was a good decade after the Code softened on vampires and werewolves. That little box did as much to change the medium as someone like Jack Kirby.
JM: Very interesting stance, good sir! How do you feel the code’s influence has lessened in recent years? And why do you think it did?
JH: That might be getting out of my limited range of knowledge, but it’s definitely lessened, probably for the same reason Marvel and DC gave up on it. To pull in readers like me, guys and gals that don’t care about Superboy punching reality in the face or these titles mired in continuity, the Big Two have to compete with all of the independent publishers. You couldn’t have a great book like Alias with the Code. With the Code, you miss out on a lot of great stuff you could be running and you can’t bring in talent like Bendis, Ellis or Ennis to do the stuff they wanted to do, let alone be relevant to today’s readers. The Code was a joke spawned from some idiot’s book about how reading a comic about zombies would drive a kid into a homicidal rage. We’ve got video games to blame for that now.
JM: Hahaha! Excellent point! Switching gears a bit, a lot of people (most notably Mark Waid) seem to think that print comics are about to start down a path that will see them develop more in common with dinosaurs than other forms of media. Do you think the future of print comics are in any kind of danger? And do you see digital comics as a viable alternative?
JH: As a fan of print media, I hope he’s wrong. Then again, with Mark Waid stepping down as the CCO of Boom! Studios and saying he’s going to do his own digital comics in addition to Darwyn Cooke saying his next big book will be digital-only, I’m not going to be reading only print for the rest of my life. However, until I can actually own my books and see a difference in price between digital and print, I’m sticking with mostly print. Digital comics could be a viable alternative, but they’ve got a long way to go with publishers making bonehead moves like that digital value crap Marvel just announced. As a fan of print, I’m going to be a lot more afraid of digital comics when publishers start making smart moves.
JM: What about actual comic ownership excites you? Is it a desire for something tangible, or is there more to it?
JH: As someone who was quick to embrace digital music distribution, I feel like I need to own what I buy. After what happened with Marvel releasing that Thor book early and then essentially ripping it out of the hands of fans, I’m skeptical. It’s not so much about something tangible as it is value. I’ll be frank: If I’m going to pay for a digital comic, I want to own it as much as I own an illegal scan of the same book. That just seems reasonable to me.
JM: Absolutely. Wrapping up, if you can distill a bit of advice for someone looking to get into comic collecting, what would it be?
JH: Find something to connect with. There’s so much out there now, so many great books from so many publishers, that there’s no reason to settle. Don’t be ashamed to enjoy what you like, whatever it is, but find what you connect with and support those creators. Comics isn’t just about bagging and boarding, spandex, variant covers, movie tie-ins and arguing over who could beat Batman in a fight. In fact, I’ve found way more joy with the medium when I’m simply reading stuff I love without worrying about all the stereotypical comic book geek things like a book’s value ten years from now or how it works into continuity. That wasn’t really distilled, but I think that’s what I’ve learned since I’ve gotten back into comics over the last decade.
If YOU would like to enter the fancave and let YOUR voice be heard, drop me a line at the address below!
