It was Batman’s 75th birthday in 2014 and to commemorate the event, a local Barnes and Noble bookstore in Southern California held a contest for fans and families, a trivia showdown where the questions would be all about comic book history, creators and characters and which would encompass at times obscure knowledge about the genre’s long history.
As a comic book nerd and aficionado, I thought to myself “I am more than up to the challenge” and signed up for the contest. I was placed into a team with another four other fans and the contest was between several teams to see who could answer the most questions correctly over the course of several rounds.
What I recall most about that day five years ago is how, despite being warned by moderators not to use their cell phones to Google answers, I saw some people still cheating from time to time. “Put that thing away,” I said to one of my team members who was trying to be clandestine and attempting the same illicit tactic, “I am a comic book historian, you won’t need it.”
Although the questions got harder as the contest progressed, I think I only missed two or three of the more obscure ones and our team won easily. Some folks were surprised that I kept shouting out answers faster than they could cheat by looking them up on their phones. I have often thought that if there is ever an alien invasion, as chronicled by the plethora of sci-fi and monster invasion movies, all the invaders would have to do to conquer the human race is knock out all the cell towers and internet hubs and blow up Google’s headquarters, thus rending a bulk of the population completely powerless, ingorant and lost.
One disturbing set of literary news recently in the wake of ATT purchasing Time Warner which happens to own D.C. Comics, is that they have announced a new line of comic books featuring all new characters replacing the classic superheroes like Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman.
The company also announced that readers will still be able to read the adventures of these classic fan-favorite characters, but with a catch. They will be printed in prestige formats of high quality books priced at $7.99 each because the books are expensive to make and not selling well at lower price points. When I was a boy growing up in Los Angeles, comic books helped me to learn to read and exposed me to some great writers with incredible imagination and skill. Contrary to the popular belief that comics are all lowbrow and somehow an inferior form of fiction, I think they helped a generation of fans improve their literacy skills, so I find it a shame that along with the brick and mortar bookstores, comic book shops are closing all around the country, a situation attributed to young people no longer reading comics, or any books for that matter.
The brick and mortar store where this trivia contest was once held is no longer there, either a victim of high rent, a lack of foot traffic from consumers purchasing books online or both. I am not sure, I do know that I found it quite disturbing to watch a news report recently where college students interviewed at a major university campus were unable to answer simple questions about literature and history, unable to identify the author of Moby Dick, for example, or even unable to answer which side won the Civil War! How did these people even make it to college?
One positive side effect to the recent PG&E power shut offs most of us experienced last month in Lake County and other parts of Northern California is the lack of electricity forced a number of families to get together and find alternative forms of entertainment. One byproduct of our over reliance on technology is a decrease in interaction with our fellow humans. Another is apparently, and sadly, the fact a lot of people are ignorant or just plain stupid bereft of Google or Siri.
In the meantime, Batman has had five more birthdays and although he, along with the other superheroes, is seemingly more popular than ever in other media such as streaming services and film, I think it’s a sad state of affairs that we as a society are no longer reading as much and that comic book stores may one day soon disappear.
Ariel Carmona Jr., a 15 year veteran of the journalism industry, is the managing editor of the Lake County Record Bee.
