Sooooo, I've got the opportunity to attend a literature conference in march, and it would be a great experience, as I've never been to a conference before, not to mention that it would look great on my Vita.  The conference is specifically about science fiction and fantasy literature, which is an area of study that I (obviously, given my involvement on these boards) am very interested in, but have never really been able to get involved with.  Here is some information on the conference, for those who are curious:

[spoiler] Time and the Fantastic

                        The 30th Annual International Conference

                                        on the Fantastic in the Arts

Division of Children's and

Young Adult Literature

Guest of Honor:  Robert Charles Wilson

Guest of Honor: Guy Gavriel Kay

Guest Scholar:  Maria Nikolajeva

Special Guest Emeritis:  Brian Aldiss

        The 2009 ICFA welcomes paper proposals on all areas of the fantastic (including high fantasy, allegory, science fiction, horror, folk tales and other traditional literatures, magical realism, the supernatural, and the gothic) in all media (novels, short stories, drama, television, comic books, film, and others).

        The division of children's and young adult literature is especially interested in paper proposals throughout the field, including picture books, easy readers, novels, short stories, film, comic books, and other forms.  We embrace a wide variety of scholarly approaches and interests, including genre, historical, theoretical, and textual, models.[/spoiler]

So, I want to turn in a paper proposal, and I would really love to do some work on comic books.  My main literary interest is heroism, and while my area of expertise is the Romantic period, I've always wanted to work with the broad, archetypal heroism of comics.  They are one of the last bastions of the truly heroic figure left in our society, and even in this medium we've seen the idea of the hero undergo many changes in the last fifty years.  Anyway, I want to use this opportunity to work with a graphic novel, and I didn't want to retread old ground, so I picked something that I imagine has been completely unexplored, but that really spoke to me.  Astro City: Confessions: http://www.amazon.com/Astro-City-Vol-2-Confession/dp/1563895501

So, my problem is that I have a general idea for my paper, but I have been having a hard time nailing it down to a REALLY arguable thesis.  For those of you not familiar with the text, I'll spoiler the following:
[spoiler]The story is that of a boy trying to escape his small town for the big city, where he wants to become a hero, mostly so that he will 'be someone,' unlike his father, who died a penniless doctor, reviled by the people he sacrificed to help.  The boy becomes the sidekick of a mysterious hero named the Confessor, who turns out to be a fallen priest turned vampire seeking redemption by fighting crime.  The hero eventually sacrifices his life to save a city that hated him, in a very archetypal heroic redemption story, but his sacrifice and redemption bleeds into the other stories as well.[/spoiler]
The idea I have is to make the case for the heroic journey represented by this story to be a specifically redemptive one, (a three-fold redemption, in fact, including the boy's farther) but this is too simplistic.  I would like to contrast it to Northrop Frye's idea of the heroic journey, where redemption wasn't necessarily entailed in the story, and perhaps draw some wider conclusions to the trend this type of story has in comics, and the loss of similar trends in literature at large.  However, I don't know how to go about making those connections, lacking the hard data to talk about such trends in anything but anecdotal terms.

One of my major interests, theory wise, is Archetypal criticism, popularized and pioneered by Northrop Frye, and like many of my interests, about fifty years out of date following an (unjust) reaction against it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archetypal_literary_criticism

So, that's where I'm coming from.  It occurred to me that this was the place to seek ideas about heroism and its presentations in comics, so I wonder if some of you might have flashes of inspiration that I am lacking.  I appreciate anyone who wants to spitball some ideas, or bounce anything off of me.

Okay, so after a morning of intensive study, I've carved out something of a thesis.  Comics have long been associated with Romance, (in the literary sense, not that of bodice ripping) and Frye, in his chapter on Romance, discusses comic heroes briefly.  He describes them as the most naive form of Romance, engaged in an endless series of adventures, never developing and more or less frozen in place.  That is where the genre begins in earnest, with Superman as the ultimate wish fulfillment character, powerful in all the ways that his audience was not.  Frye also states that Romance always reflects the ideals of the society in which it is created, thus after the Depression you have Superman and early comics.  My idea is to represent "Confessions" as exemplary of a maturation of the genre, a movement from the desire for power and agency to a desire for meaning, represented in the redemptive heroic journey.  I can see tons of ways to expand this, but the argument itself is, I believe, something that I can accomplish without the hard data needed for my earlier, vague ideas.

:EDIT: The advent of redemptive heroism would also be a reaction against Ironic heroism, the first stages of the maturation of comics, like the Watchmen, in which the heroic journey is much less positive.

Some of Frye's notions about comics seem like they would be easily refutable.

However, a few iconic comic seem to have certain "redemptive" or "somewhat redemptive" qualities to their back stories.  Of course, this would depend a great deal on the writer of the title and the direction of the comic at the time.

spider-man - He is seeking some sort of redemption for failing to save Uncle Ben.
Batman - True his main motive is avenging his parents death.  However, it is arguable that there are several redemptive factors in his motivations.  Especially with the "Death in the Family" storyline, but also in his origin story.
Superman - Some writers have explored the notion that Superman is compelled to save as many as he can because of the guilt over the ones he cannot save.  Brian Azzarello showed an example of this in the storyline "For Tomorrow".

I am sure others can be thought of.

Frye was writing in the 1950's, and his comments on comics were all of two sentences, couched in a discussion about Romance at large.  The idea about the maturation of comics is mine, and I had considered Batman, although for some reason Spider-man didn't occur to me.  He actually muddies up my ideas somewhat, while for Batman, the more overtly redemptive elements in his story are a more modern addition.  That is also true of the redemptive aspects of Superman's story.  Still, I'd say that the general idea is true, especially considering the way that these characters are never really allowed to FIND redemption, because of the desires of DC and Marvel to continue to milk the properties for all their worth.  These examples actually support my thesis, pointing to a greater interest in this type of redemptive story, and its proliferation among comic heroes.  With the exception of Spider-Man, I can't think of any mainstream heroes who started OUT looking for redemption.  Superman was the ultimate example of the timeless power fantasy, Batman was out for revenge, etc., etc.  I do not claim that other examples can't be found, however, just that I can't think of any.  All of that being said, I think "Confessions" still serves as an excellent, self contained example of the kind of story that I'm looking for.

Thanks for the input Mr. Hamrick, you've given me something to think about.

I've often encouraged my students to find a way to position themselves between text and critic in such a way that they hitch a ride with their chosen critical paradigm for half their journey and then rely on the text (or a differing paradigm) for the remainder of their journey.  Too often at academic conferences of this sort one encounters papers by ambitious young scholars that essentially "Derridise" BOOK X or "Bhabhise" POEM Y or "Baktinise" PLAY Z without really engaging with the complexities of the text that refuse to drive down the correct side of the critical road (if I may continue our journey metaphor).  In this postmodern age, and in the wake of the various literary theory vogues, changing lanes on Northrop Frye might seem akin to pitting a gang of young, drug-fueled Knot Tops against an unsuspecting, elderly Hollis Mason; however, I would still urge you to see where you can gently correct or constructively build upon Frye's commentary with a more insightful argument.  (Nota bene: I cannot speak intelligently about "Confessions," having not read that book, but perhaps what I have to offer below can be applied to that tale.)

For instance, you might consider the picaresque novel as a better archetype for modern comic books than what Frye wants to call "naive ... Romance."  The picaresque is part of the Romantic tradition and strikes me as the opposite of naive: all satire is, by nature, immensely self-aware and knowledgeable about the world it critiques and involves a sort of meandering progress toward social reform.  Yes, I would be the first to agree that the seemingly endless adventures of comic book heroes are due almost entirely to the search for more money to put in publishers' pockets; however, there may also be a (kinder) way to perceive comic books expanding the realm of the picaresque tradition.  Spider-Man provides an excellent example here of a cheeky fellow who survives in a corrupt world by his wits and resourcefulness.  His ceaseless banter points up the absurdity of the notion of carrying on a verbal exchange while exchanging blows, but it also pushes to the forefront the concept of words as weapons, critique as crimefighting (or satire as social reform).  Spider-Man also acknowledges that he is but one (small) man in a boundless sea of enemies; however, he continues to act as if he can make a difference (perhaps one thug at a time).  I am reminded of Camus' analysis of Casanova in "The Myth of Sisyphus" as the type of Romantic hero who engages in seemingly endless smexual exploits not because he is seeking his greatest love but because each woman is his greatest love.  Similarly, Spider-Man does not fight crime because he can someday resolve the challenge he faces in redeeming himself in his dead uncle's eyes but because each encounter with a criminal poses that challenge, which he must face.  One might argue that the (transitory) redemption of comic book heroes is in the (repeated) doing of their self-imposed duty, a quest which they acknowledge they cannot fulfill but toward which they continue to strive nevertheless.  To put matters another way (continuing the travel metaphor), "Redemption" is not the name of a terminus on a railway but an impermanent state acted out along the contours of that railway.  The picaros and the brightly-clad heroes of the world militate against complacency and are forced to state and restate their opposition to evil in a seemingly endless fashion as a result.

I don't know if this helps, but it might give you something to consider as you prepare your abstract/paper.  Good luck!

ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Fop o' th' Morning

Ow, I don't want you to think that I ignored your response.  I read it shortly after you made it, but I've been to busy to give you a thoughtful reply, so I have abstained from replying at all.  In the meantime I have been working very hard on this project, and I have just submitted the following.  I will attempt to reply to your thoughts soon, but at the moment I am mentally exhausted:

[spoiler]   Readers of Kurt Busiek's (et al) Astro City series find a question posited that, many are no doubt familiar with: "what if superheroes were real?"  While the series as a whole attempts to answer this question much differently than forerunners like The Dark Knight Returns and The Watchmen, presenting such a world as hopeful instead of nightmarish, the collection entitled Astro City: Confessions is especially significant.  In many ways it seems a response to the ironic heroes and self-reflexive writing exemplified in The Watchmen.  While still remarkably self aware of its position within the tradition of superhero comics, Confessions is mostly devoid of the ironic tone of its predecessors, portraying characters as capable of unequivocally "good" works and selfless heroics as opposed to being utterly consumed with moral ambiguity.  While works like Moore's Watchmen grew out of Postmodern sensibilities and the politics of the 80's, the revelations they presented have been examined exhaustively, and though things may have fallen apart, the mere fact of the center's collapse has ceased to be news.  Instead, Astro City asks what will hold?  What can hold?  Can heroism exist in a world of shattered perspectives and moral relativism?  Even more, can heroism create a new unity?  Perhaps not in a world of competing ideologies and self or culturally constructed truth, but Busiek shows through Astro City that, met on its own terms, heroism can create a new unity, or perhaps restore a very old one.  As Neil Gaiman writes, "Astro City is what would have happened if those old comics, with their fine simplicities and their primal, four-colour characters, had been about something.  Or rather, it assumes they were about something, and tells you the tales that, on the whole, slipped through the cracks."
The book manages to accomplish this, not by excising the irony from the super heroic form altogether, but by subsuming it within a narrative of redemption.  In fact, the relatively low ironic nature of Confessions is absolutely necessary in order for the readers to accept the heroic myths it engages as "true."  As opposed to the alienation and fragmentation of the Postmodern ironic tale, Confessions moves its characters toward a sense of community and security, in the end creating a restored order through the sacrifices and efforts of its heroes, which are generally uncolored by moral ambiguity.  Concurrently, the world that Busiek and Anderson create is one in which morality and justice are not unconnected as they are in the world of Watchmen and the stories that follow, and while they may seem to flow from the character's personal conceptions, they also form a shared perspective among not only the heroes of the tale but the society at large.  The disparate and conflicted elements of the story are eventually brought into harmony through the portrayal of the heroic journey as a redemptive one.  In an era of splintered perspectives, Astro City appeals to heroic archetypes and a redemptive model of the heroic journey to establish a center that can hold, if only within the pages of the text itself.
[/spoiler]

Wish me luck!

There's no need to respond to me, Benton.  My post is there to try to be helpful, not to seek its own attention. :)  Good luck!

ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Fop o' th' Morning

Thanks for wishing me luck Ow, and apparently I had a little...I'm in!  My paper was accepted, so I'll be able to present it this coming March in Orlando!  I'm incredibly excited about this, as it will be my first conference, as well as my first scholarly effort in comics. 

Ow, I am certain you weren't waiting on pins and needles for my response, but I did feel like I should acknowledge the thought you put into your attempt to help me broaden the horizons of my subject.  I just wanted to let you know that it did not go unnoticed.  I usually position myself in opposition to Postmodern trends and ideas.  In fact, you might say that I see myself as a post-postmodernist, endeavoring to find the next step.  I think Archetypal theory is vital to that, a revision of which could provid us with the common ground that has eroded beneath our feet in the last half century.  As one of my professors said to me the other day, "the question is beginning to get asked more often, what DOES tie all of this together?"  So, while I am relying for my basic ideas of Frye (and certainly for the BEGINNINGS of my ideas) I am definitely stretching out in other directions.  There is a little historicism, a little of this, a little of that, but mostly just old fashioned textual analysis.  The idea of the Picaresque hero as comic hero actually has some interesting connections to an article I read while researching this, about the 80's ironic heroes (Watchmen, DKR) and their creation of vigilante identities. 

Good show, lad!  Congrats on the acceptance of your paper!  :thumbup:

I hope you enjoy the conference. :)

ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Fop o' th' Morning