A svelte man in his early 40s, Chris Irving pulls from his bag a vintage copy of “The Great Comic Book Heroes.”
The robust book from the 1960s, edited by Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist and satirist Jules Feiffer, is the source of his passion for comic books and their creators.
It was a gift from Irving’s father, and it’s clear from the tattered dust jacket that the compendium has seen years of constant love.
Irving speaks passionately of the tales behind the dozens of signatures across the various comics in the worn omnibus. I recognize only a few of the esoteric industry greats whom he rattles off as ones he’s interviewed — names such as Eisner and Ditko. But the icons they created are familiar, from the Flash to the Green Lantern to Spiderman.
Through the years, Irving has compiled his interviews with these legends into a website (nycgraphicnovelists.com) and book (“Leaping Tall Buildings”), establishing himself as an expert on comics, their creators and history.
It also presents an ideal background for Virginia Commonwealth University students, because he’s their new instructor of comic book history.
In his second semester teaching the subject, Irving holds court in a fourth-floor classroom of one of the university’s Franklin Street buildings. There, his students follow the history of the creators, discussing the nuances of their art and techniques, the effect that their lives and surroundings had on their work and their influence on future artists.
In the class I sit in on, the turbulent life of Jack Cole is on display, from over-the-top visual slapstick to illustrations for Playboy to his suicide. For Irving, the focus of his class is less on dates and facts, and more on how a creator’s life affects the work.
So why is comic history worthy of study? It doesn’t take long for Irving to convince me of its merit. After all, colleges and universities across the country have had courses in film history for years.
“Comics is the most malleable and varied storytelling medium that we’ve seen,” he says. And with television and movies, he adds, its history is more relevant: “We’re a more visual culture nowadays.”
More acutely, comic books provide an almost unadulterated perspective on their times. A visceral storytelling medium, the serialized nature of comics meant they needed to make the transition from idea to print with blistering speed, unlike more polished art forms such as movies or novels. Through that lens, Irving says, we can better understand the nuances of a particular zeitgeist.
As one of only a handful of institutions of higher learning to boast this course, VCU is one of the schools at the vanguard of this new cultural study. Its library’s special collections section boasts one of the top five largest comic book collections in the nation. And it’s open to researchers, students and the public.
But informal browsing isn’t allowed, cautions Cindy Jackson, curator of this collection. Patrons must specifically request items, although several options for perusing VCU’s Libraries Comic Book Database are available.
VCU, and Richmond more broadly, has comic books in its DNA. It was Mike Wieringo, VCU alumnus turned “The Flash” illustrator, who brought Irving here.
With our interview ending, I throw a few more questions at Irving.
What underappreciated or obscure superhero should have its own movie? The Blue Beetle, he says. How do graphic novels fit into this genre? Just code for “large comic book,” he replies. And if he could be any superhero, who would he be?
After some hemming and hawing about the inherent issues that plague these ubermen — the survivor’s guilt of Superman and the excruciating impatience the Flash must suffer — he says he hopes that his own position as professor might suffice.
After all, what’s more heroic than helping poor college students conquer their fear of writing that nigh-impossible 10-page paper? S
Note: A photo caption has been edited to reflect that this is not VCU’s first history of comics class. Style regrets the error.