Nostalgia

[Shellhead]

I was reading a recent interview with Brian Michael Bendis at Avengers Forever...

http://www.avengersforever.org/interviews/

....and I was struck by this specific remark that Bendis made: "I just think that nostalgia is contempt for the future..."

Wow.

I am solidly middle-aged these days, so I do have a few decades worth of memories now, including many fond memories. But I do also enjoy new experiences, especially new music and new comics. So I don't think that I'm excessively nostalgic.

That said, I think that Bendis is way off base here, associating a common experience with a very negative way of thinking. Why can't nostalgia simply be fond memories of times past?

What does nostalgia mean to you?

[benday-dot]

I both agree and disagree with Bendis. Comtempt is not the word I would use. There is however something inherently impotent and static embedded in utter nostalgia. The nostalgic view can be the fossilized view. If it is purely the look back, without the acceptance of loss, that clear view that it is all over, if it loses the sense of the melancholy, that strangely vital feeling of transience... then nostalgia always seems reduced to a kind of fetish.

Rememberance, not quite the same thing-- having much more a sense of the creative, the reimagined and the wry-- honestly accepts the bitter with its sweet. Nostalgia sometimes seems falsely utopian (if thats not an oxymoron), whereas the rememberance of things past (to steal a more than famous phrase) can be all at once terrible, less than faithful, and altogether lovely.

Okay... I better stop now... and mention something random about Jack Kirby or whoever...like the fact that he not surprising was responsible for the first full page panel in a continuing comic way back in Captain America # 4 (now that's not simple nostalgia, thats damn exciting!)... yeah better mention something to do with nothing like that... before Sir Tim gives my rambling little input the boot. ;)

[Chris N]

Nostalgia can have negative consequences. It can be exploited (a la Johns) to tell stories that do nothing but try to jam classic characters in your face. It can lead to a failure of fans to accept new and exciting things (Bendis' Daredevil isn't quit classic DD but is very good; Bendis' Avengers isn't quite classic Avengers and, well, he should probably read a few and take notes)

There should be an appreciation for what came before though. That's the positve part of nostalgic thinking. A familiarity with what has gone before in order to learn from it and move forward. It actually can be tied very directly to the future.

[The Shadow]

As I said in the other thread:
It's not a matter of remembering the past fondly... it's a matter of continually revisting the past without moving forward. How can you fondly remember something if writers are, decade after decade, using the same characterisations, costumes etc.?

Frank Cho isn't fondly remembering Simon in his dorky safari jacket... he's making it the present and the forseeable future. That's not nostalgia that's lack of growth on Cho's part and the characters'.

To me nostalgia is going into a modern restaurant with a 1950's theme, playing 50's music where the waitresses wear poodle skirts and the music is Elvis, Ritchie Valens, Buddy Holly and Happy Days is playing on the TV.

But then you wak outside and get blasted by Evanesence, shows like CSI and 24 and modern clothes and re-join the real world. There's nothing wrong with enjoying the past and fondly looking back... but that's all it can and should be is a look back.

I LOVE my old comics... I love the old stories and costumes and interactions... but I don't want to read them 30 years later in new issues.

[Reptisaurus!]

Modern superhero comics are kind of a nostalgia market though, aren't they? Feeding memories of youth back to grown-ups. I don't see how Bendis is any different just 'cause he's writing the Avengers with a few new members.

Feels really "Hand that feeds me."

[The Shadow]

Modern superhero comics are kind of a nostalgia market though, aren't they? Feeding memories of youth back to grown-ups.

Only because they can't/won't/don't attract new readers.

[Scott Shaw!]

One thing's for certain. Nostalgia isn't nearly as much fun as it used to be.

Aloha,

Scott!

[MDG]

Modern superhero comics are kind of a nostalgia market though, aren't they? Feeding memories of youth back to grown-ups.
Often served up with with a strong seasoning of brutality or graphic violence or "mature themes" that smacks of a smug "they could never do this in the Silver Age."

MDG

[Karl O'Neill]

on another note, i think bendis ripped that quote from a movie, i don't know which one yet, but i'll find out.

Johns is gifted

[gentlesatirist]

...steeped in nostalgia since DC did the first JLA/JSA crossover back in 1961 or whenever. As soon as they said "The Greats of the Golden Age are Back!" it established the idea that a - There was a previous era and b - It might have been better than the current one.

Don't get me wrong, I love a lot of those characters - and DC's sense of history always has set it apart from Marvel - but it's been a backward-looking genre for more than 40 years.


- FE
Wickliffe OH