Author and comics historian Tom De Haven retired from teaching creative writing (and comics) at VCU in 2018, but he’s hardly been idle. Currently at work on two novels — including one set in Richmond — the New Jersey native behind some of the greatest fictional works about comics and the comics industry, including “It’s Superman!” and “Funny Papers,” recently became a comic character himself in his favorite strip, “Dick Tracy.” We spoke to De Haven about the current state of comics.
Richmond magazine: Do you still read contemporary comics?
Tom De Haven: Yeah, but comics are so vast now. You can’t keep up with it all. I don’t read monthly comic books, but I’ll still buy an anthology or something by a creator I like.
RM: What strikes you about modern comics?
De Haven: We were talking the other day about how these young creators are doing self-publishing and doing things outside the traditional publishers. And they draw on screens. It’s another way of doing comics, very different from what I’m used to, working on Bristol board and pen and ink.
RM: A lot of today’s comics — and a lot of Richmond creators’ comics — are small-scale realistic stories.
De Haven: It started to get really autobiographical in the ’90s, to the point where it was being mocked as “navel-gazing” comics. Today’s autobiographical comics are much broader. ... It’s not just about a coming-of-age story, it’s about gender identity and racial identity, while it’s also very teenage- and young adult-oriented. But there’s also an explosion in horror comics. Very good horror comics, very sophisticated.
RM: You’ve done as much as anyone to canonize Superman. Was your novel "It’s Superman!" an attempt to demythologize the character?
De Haven: No, I wasn’t demythologizing at all. I just liked the Superman who couldn’t push planets around. I like the original guy, the one from the 1930s — he was a one of a kind. Now there are more superheroes out there than humans. [Laughs]
RM: You’ve now become a comic character yourself. How does that feel?
De Haven: Yes, the characters in my first book, “Funny Papers,” are going to appear in “Dick Tracy,” and they are going to actually cartoon me in the strip. I don’t think they realize the irony of that. It’s how I got involved in creativity in the first place, discovering Chester Gould’s “Dick Tracy” when I was 6.
