• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

Photo

Mark Waid, a longtime writer for the comic book industry who has worked on major characters such

In Powell 228, the man responsible for the death of Captain Marvel sat among UCLA students, laughing. He is Mark Waid, comic author and now UCLA lecturer, at least for the hour, for English 88S, “Comic Books As Literature.”

On Tuesday, Waid, a veteran of over 20 years in the comic book industry and one of its premier writers, had a lot to say about the industry, the medium and the act of writing itself.

Over the course of his career, Waid has worked both sides of the comic spectrum, from Marvel Comics’ Fantastic Four and Captain America to DC Comics’ Batman, Superman and many more.

“I get up in the morning, I think about Superman and Batman, and I go to bed. This is me in a nutshell: not the art, not the actual word balloons,” Waid said. “I’m the guy that looks at the blank piece of paper and says, ‘We have nothing this month. What do we do?’”

The audience of 13 students asked questions ranging from how to break into the industry to the thematic structure of Waid’s “Kingdom Come.”

It is not every day a student gets a chance to grill the author of works studied in class, and the students took full advantage of this unique opportunity.

When asked what he felt was the weakest aspect of his work on “Kingdom Come,” a story that details Superman’s return from retirement to a future world where younger, less principled heroes run amuck, Waid answered bluntly.

“It has no humor, but that was my fault. It is an incredibly dour story,” he said.

Ed Melo, a third-year civil engineering student, was impressed with Waid’s candor.

“It’s hard to do (this) with other classes because you can’t really bring Shakespeare or Hemingway to an English class,” Melo said. “It was very hands-on. I’m learning something I value, opposed to something I have to learn.”

In the class, the students are assigned a different graphic novel to discuss each week. The class is a student-taught seminar under the Undergraduate Student Initiated Education program, now in its first quarter, which gives UCLA students the chance to study topics outside their major.

“We have people who’ve read comic books all their lives, and we have people just discovering them for the first time,” said Holly Schwartz, a fourth-year English and arts student who is the student-teacher for the class. “It’s opening up a wider experience for people.”

The relaxed atmosphere of having a student-teacher leads to a more relaxed environment, inviting participation.

“In each class, over half the people are talking, and in that aspect I think the seminar is immensely successful,” Schwartz said.

“Everyone wants to do the reading, and they do. And I think that’s what makes these seminars so enjoyable so far.”

For all the work that went into the seminar, Schwartz would still recommend the program to students and prospective teachers alike.

“It’s shaky, but it’s still great, and I think this sort of thing only proves it,” she said, referring to Waid’s guest lecture.

It was the similar enthusiasm of Geoffrey Patterson Jr., owner of the comic store Geoffrey’s Comics in Gardena, who helped make Tuesday’s event possible.

Not only did he help the class get their books at half-off, it was his friendship with Waid that paved the way for the guest lecture to take place.

For Waid, the chance to discuss his work with students was too good to pass up.

“I like doing this. I like going to classes and talking to students,” Waid said. “When I found out (they) were teaching ‘Kingdom Come,’ I thought I could, you know, defend the lamer parts of it.”