Customer Reviews

Teen Angels & New Mutants

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

An eye-opening and illuminating amalgamation of scholarship, media criticism, history and biography, with a little bit of autobiography thrown in for good measure. As 1991's graphic novel Brat Pack by Rick Veitch was a commentary on the exploitation of children, Bissette's book-length examination of the forces that created the need for that commentary shines a harsh light at our culture and the many ways we take advantage of the younger members of our society, and how that has changed over time. It's an astonishing, unique, vital work. You'll never look at movies, music, advertising, books, comic books, or your neighbors the same way.

"Teen Angels & New Mutants" is a fantastic achievement! A real wealth & depth of comics history, pop culture, and political analysis. Damned impressive amount of research. Stephen Bissette has so many well-chosen examples throughout, and I think he pretty much draws the right conclusions. So much to hold one's attention here (I especially enjoyed reliving those pulse-pounding events that unfolded in the spring of 1989 with Rick Veitch's Swamp Thing). Too bad there's no index (but let's keep up demand, so it can be included in a later edition!). Kudos to Bissette on an essential addition to the bookshelf of any comics fan (indeed, anyone interested in pop culture and politics too).

I think it is impossible for Steve Bissette to produce anything that is less than amazing. As a comics artist he is one of the best. As an observer and commenter of pop culture he often digs deep for insights and revelations that delight and surprise. TEEN ANGELS AND NEW MUTANTS is no exception to this. Steve takes a look at a series of comic books that were entertaining and thought provoking - and he reveals underpinnings that go a long way to defining the current state of the comic book super hero. Worth a read - but absolutely worthy of being used as a text book to teach a class.

On the surface, Stephen Bissette's Teen Angels & New Mutants is a study of Rick Veitch's Brat Pack, the seminal 1990s satire of super-hero sidekick, yet in fact, this is a far-ranging and fascinating cultural history of the media exploitation of children. The book begins with a comprehensive history of the sidekick in the Golden Age of comics, then discusses Frederic Wertham's controversial 1950s critique of their homosexual overtones in Seduction of the Innocent. Bissette agrees with Wertham's criticism of this exploitation, while making the argument that Harvey Kurtzman, Will Elder and Wally Wood's satires of the superhero in Mad were as equally critical of this aspect of Golden Age comics.

Bissette then traces the development of 1960s counterculture, and the underground comix movement, of which Veitch was a part. At the same time, Bissette provides insightful analysis of cultural changes in music and film during the 60s and 70s, in particular how these various media began to portray youth, cynically setting parameters for the definition of youth culture as a coded set of identifiable markers, to be packaged and exploited.

Bissette turns to the fascinating career of Veitch, from his hand-drawn comics as a child, to his education at the Joe Kubert School of Cartooning, to his work in underground comix. Bissette simultaneously charts the rise of the undergrounds and fanzines and the later usurpation of their ethos by the major publishers; in particular Marvel's Epic line of comics, of which Veitch was a major contributor, and DC's mid-80s revitalization, largely as a result of the work of Alan Moore and Frank Miller.

In a fascinating chapter, Bissette discusses Veitch's Marvelman-inspired The One (pre-dating Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns), a seminal work in this vein, and one that points toward Veitch's later King Hell Heroica works Brat Pack and The Maximortal. The term "brat pack" is unpacked: a 1980s term associated with a group of young actors, Veitch's use of the term is meant to conjure up the ongoing exploitation of youth culture.

Brat Pack, according to Bissette, is the offspring of numerous fathers: Wertham, Kurzman, Elder, Wood, and Moore. But it is also a result Veitch's disenchantment with DC following their cancelling an issue of his Swamp Thing because of its use of the crucifixion of Christ, particularly in the wake of the furor of Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ and Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses. As a result, Veitch left DC, taking with him Brat Pack, originally intended for DC's creator-owned imprint Piranha Press, Veitch now had the creative freedom to undertake a courageous attack on Marvel and DC's (and the rest of the media's) exploitation of their audience.

In the wake of the cynical 900 number call-in to decide the fate of then-Robin Jason Todd (he was put to death by the audience), along with other numerous events in other media, Veitch's satire perfectly captured the zeitgeist of the late 1980s/early 1990s. This, Bissette argues, was a troubling period when a cynical mass media, anxious to exploit every aspect of childhood in the name of the almighty buck, plumbed the last vestiges of childhood.

Bissette masterfully weaves all these seemingly disparate strands into a cohesive whole. His writing is lively and intelligent, and filled with original insight. This is a unique volume of comics criticism, and hopefully will point the way to similar studies. The continuing academic appropriation of comics as part of the growing fascination with pop culture among academics is a healthy sign; however, it threatens to devolve into formulaic interpretations, as comics criticism continues to develop and refine its vocabulary. Bissette's study removes the comic form from its fanboy ghetto, placing it in a wider cultural context without resorting to clichés. I know of no more excellent argument for regarding comics both as a viable art form, a means of communicating a personal vision and a comprehension of its almost limitless potential. Kudos, Bissette! I highly, highly recommend this book, for either the academic or the general reader, the student of comics, films, and music, or pop culture in general.

TEEN ANGELS is a bold, ambitious, passionate book. Bissette makes fascinating connections between Rick Veitch's BRAT PACK comic book and underground comics and culture, between Bat-camp and manifestations of gayness in superhero representations, etc. Especially disturbing is Bissette's dissection of our culture's sexualization of children. I have a ten-year-old daughter who loves those Miley-Cyrus-Sprouse-Twins Disney shows, and I now have a better sense of why I dislike those shows so much.

Bissette also talks very directly about the American body politic, past and present: he identifies the Reagan era for the cesspool of excess and lies that it was, talks with great clarity and force about the mess we're in right now, and realizes how much growing up we'll need to do to save ourselves.

At the center of TEEN ANGELS, though, is a reading of BRAT PACK, a comic that's always made me uneasy. In some ways, it seems like Veitch wallows in decadence--the sidekick heroes of BRAT PACK are all damaged goods--but Bissette's commentary convinced me to give BRAT PACK another chance. Bissette sent me back to BRAT PACK with fresh eyes.

I'd recommend TEEN ANGELS for anyone interested in comics and/or cultural commentary.

Rick Veitch's Brat Pack first saw print in 1990, just a few years after Alan Moore's Watchmen and Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Cut from the same cloth as those two groundbreaking comics--and inspired in many ways by the 1988 Batman: Death in the Family serial, in which readers called in and voted if Robin should live or die--Brat Pack took a dark, satirical, and very adult look at superheroes and their kid sidekicks. As Veitch saw them, these characters were exploited and abused by their adult counterparts, by the comics industry that created them, and even by their readers and "fans."

While Watchmen and Dark Knight have been endlessly analyzed and written about for the past two decades, Brat Pack has not enjoyed the same level of discussion. With his new book, author and artist Stephen R. Bissette (best known for his work on Swamp Thing, on which he occasionally collaborated with Veitch), corrects that oversight.

Bissette, one of comics' most important historians and commentators, first started writing what would become Teen Angels & New Mutants as an essay for inclusion in a planned (but then canceled) limited-edition graphic novel collection of Brat Pack. That essay has been dramatically expanded into book-length form, and that's actually a good thing, since it more than stands on its own. In fact, you don't need to have read Brat Pack to understand this book, because Teen Angels & New Mutants is less about Brat Pack than about the cultural forces that led to Brat Pack's creation.

You see, just as Brat Pack was a commentary on the exploitation of children, Bissette's book-length examination of the societal elements that created the need for that commentary shines a harsh light at our culture and the many ways we take advantage of the younger members of our society, and how that has changed over time. Along the way, Bissette looks at film, books, the advertising industry, comics (both mainstream and underground), societal norms and taboos, and real cases of exploited children. He cites hundreds and hundreds of examples, all thoroughly documented, and they add up to a damning portrait of our own society, once that exploits the youngest and weakest citizens for sex, money, and power.

Bissette also paints a vivid picture of Veitch's life (both personal and professional) leading up to the creation of Brat Pack. And, since Bissette was present at the genesis of Brat Pack--and the comics he worked on were an essential part of the genre's growth in the 1980s--the book also has a little flavor of autobiography thrown in for good measure.

With that incredibly detailed and well-thought out perspective, Teen Angels & New Mutants is an eye-opening and illuminating amalgamation of scholarship, media criticism, history, and biography. Itis an astonishing, unique, vital book. There's never been a work of comics-related commentary like it, and I doubt you'll find many works of media criticism that tackle a subject with such a detailed, damning eye. Give it a try and be illuminated, and quite possibly disgusted by the way society treats the young. You'll never look at movies, music, advertising, books, comic books, or your neighbors quite the same way.

Review by John R. Platt

Bissette writes an entertaining book looking at Veitch's important buy sadly under-rated graphic novel BRAT PACK, tracing its roots in pop culture (not just comics, but the wider pop culture roots in movies, music and prose) and also examining its place in the history of comics and in Veitch's own personal history. Thanks to Bissette's wide-ranging knowledge (backed up by copious footnotes) and his access to documents like Veitch's original proposals for the series you get a fascinating book which will expand your understanding of events and deepen your appreciation of some interesting works.

Hopefully this will only the the first of many books of comic book history and criticism by Bissette.

Part of the fascination of this book is discovering its scope and realizing how delightfully unclassifiable it is. At first I was prepared to enjoy a long overdue analysis of Rick Veitch's essential Brat Pack. But Teen Angels & New Mutants is so much more. In this personal, powerful, and sometimes savage book, Stephen Bissette takes a long, uncomfortable look at a corrupt and corrupting culture. There's comics history, pop cultural insight, film analysis, and a very intelligent and informed look at the entertainment business at large (and our inevitable symbiotic relationship with it). A good read, scholarly (but not academic), entertaining, and vastly informative. Thoroughly illustrated. I honestly couldn't put it down. Enthusiastically recommended.