Comic Books More Than Just a Laughing Matter at Graham Crackers

When we think about art, we tend to think about books and paintings. 

But to Michael Pellegrini and about 150 other online Comic Club members in the Plainfield area, comic books are the cultural crossroads of literature and art. 

And, regardless of rumors to the contrary, comic book culture is strong here in Plainfield and all around the Chicago metro area.  Baby boomers still connect with characters from their childhood like Archie and Richie Rich. Gen Y is into Walking Dead and Tron. 

Comic Club founder Jaime Graham owns at 16030 S. Lincoln Highway in Plainfield. He opened his first store in Elmhurst 28 years ago, and now there there are nine across Illinois.  

The Plainfield store is both a retail operation and the warehouse for Graham's Web-based business. Mid-afternoon Friday, customers were steadily shuffling through to see what Superman, Spider-Man and the Green Lantern were up to in that week's issues.

"Comic books are overlooked as an art form," said Pellegrini, a writer who stops by a couple times a week. "When you talk about classic art and classic literature, comic books are a combination of both." 

Pop culture 

There's a name for that.  

"Comic books are all about pop culture,"  said Joshua Kelly, who manages Plainfield's Graham Cracker Comics. 

We can think of pop culture as those art forms are remain once we determine what high culture is. Frequently, it's Father Time who draws the line. William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens were considered lowbrow in their day. 

Others see pop culture as the art of the people.  They foresee a future that doesn't make the distinction between high culture and popular culture.  

But there is one thing on which social scholars who hash out abstract concepts on the Internet can agree. 

"Popular culture and the mass media have a symbiotic relationship: each depends on the other in an intimate collaboration," analyst K. Turner wrote astutely -- and memorably -- in 1984. 

It's the most consistently quoted line in any "pop culture" Internet search. 

Comic connections 

That's exactly the win-win that's working for Graham Cracker Comics, Kelly says.  

Make that still working. People of a certain age can still picture the way "Batman," "Superman" and "The Incredible Hulk" morphed from comic book pages to TV and the big screen. 

"The movies really get people interested in the comics," Kelly said. 

Take the movie Tron, a 3D high-tech adventure released by Disney - which owns Marvel comics - that opened this weekend. Suppliers are loading Graham Cracker shelves with Tron titles such as Tron: The Betrayal, which chronicles what happened between the original Tron cult classic film released in 1982 and now. Console and online games and other products are coming soon, the official Tron Web site promises.  

Thor, Captain America and Green Lantern movies coming out in 2011 promise another profitable year, Kelly said. 

"Comic books are a lot like movies in that a lot of people have to get it right to make it work," Pellegrini said. "There are so many elements that have to coordinate – the ink for color, the editing and the writing." 

The comic habit

Comic books can run about $2 to $4 for recent releases up to $1,500 for coveted back issues. Hollywood has a hand in that, too. As Green Lantern and Wolverine characters head for the big screen, obscure issues spike from about $100 to as much as $1,500 in value, Kelly said. 

Pellegrini buys 10 or 15 comic books a week, he said. He shops for writers he likes – Warren Ellis, Grant Morrison and Ed Brubaker – more than for certain characters.

It takes about a half-hour to finish one volume if he takes his time to appreciate the drawings, Pellegrini said. Over his four years as a customer, he's become buddies with Kelly and the whole Graham Cracker crew, so he pops in a couple times a week "just to see what's going on."

Comic book fans are mostly men between about 16 to 36, Kelly said. But there are a few lines like "Anita Blake" and "True Blood" that are aimed at women.  

Kelly got hooked on comics in kindergarten. He spent so much time at the local comic book store, Nostalgia Inc. in Jackson, Mich., that the owner finally offered him a job. He's been with Graham Cracker Comics in Plainfield two years. 

Comics are fundamental

Some of my grade school friends had to hide their comic books because their parents "just didn't consider them to be productive reading," one told me.

But here's how the line between culture and high culture is blurring. Reading is Fundamental is soliciting old and used comic books for their National Literacy Project. Graham Crackers of Plainfield is one of 10 comic book shops across North America contributing books for the literary project.

Last year's first-ever donation drive collected 10,000 comic books and graphic novels for after- school programs all over the country. Reading is Fundamental is hoping to get 20,000 comics this month. 

"The goal is to get kids hooked on reading and clear your shelf space for more comics," the literacy project press release says. 

Gad-zooks, Graham Crackers! Looks like another Super Seller is falling in line.