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Long before he was Matthew J. Smith, B.A., M.A. or Ph.D., he was just Matthew J. Smith, 106 N. 8th St., Wheeling, W.Va.
But even then, he was being published in his field of study.
“For those of us who are fortunate enough to have endearing parents like the Kents,” he wrote in 1990, “seeing the love of Jonathan and Martha triumph over the brainwashing of the Eradicator was a thrill.”
This was no academic journal, though.
It was “Action Comics” No. 657. The letters page.
Almost 20 years later, Smith still bags and boards every issue of Superman’s “Action,” but as chairman of Wittenberg University’s communication department, comic books have become something more.
He sees them as a legitimate form of human expression encompassing sociology, history, economics and, of course, art.
They are, in other words, a perfectly valid field of study.
But as you’d expect from a guy with a B.A., M.A. and Ph.D., Smith ain’t no dummy.
He didn’t exactly waltz onto campus back in 2001 as a new professor and propose a course on comic books — or, rather, “comic arts studies.”
He waited to ask.
“After tenure,” he confessed.
“There’s no denying there’s still a stigma to comic arts studies,” he added.
But tenure is to Smith what a yellow sun is to a Kryptonian — empowering.
His Comic Books as Culture class will be offered this fall for the third time.
“It’s filled every time I’ve offered it,” he said, “with a waiting list for students.”
But what’s more, the Springfield resident stands to be regarded as a pioneer in the field of comic arts studies with the July publication of “The Power of Comics: History, Form and Culture” — the field’s first textbook.
“To the best of our knowledge,” Smith said. “That’s how we’re marketing it.”
He co-wrote the book with Randy Duncan, a professor of communication at Henderson State University in Arkansas. Paul Levitz, president and publisher of DC Comics, provided an introduction.
“You don’t write an academic text to make money,” Smith said. “You do it to make a contribution.”
For Smith, that’s the legitimization, once and for all, of his passion.
“Culture has done such a good job convincing us it’s just for kids,” Smith said, “that it’s become an unexamined truism.”
Culture is coming around.
Just look at the mainstream media hubbub now surrounding the annual Comic-Con International in San Diego.
For the third year, Smith took students to not only see it for themselves, but to present at the Comic Arts Conference, a related symposium co-founded by his co-author, Henderson State’s Duncan.
At the inaugural Champion City Comic Con — Springfield’s first con in eons, to be held Sept. 12 at Wittenberg’s Shouvlin Center — Smith will lead one panel on the history of comics scholarship and another on comics journalism (yours truly will be participating in that one).
For a guy who once authored an essay on Wonder Woman and neocolonialism — that is, the stripping of her ethnic identity — Smith is in his prime.
“People can’t think twice about it,” he said, “if they’re not confronted with it.”
Enter “The Power of Comics.”
“It took us two years to write the book,” Smith said, “but one year to get permission for all the images.”
The current rights holder of Richie Rich wanted $500 for his image. (Smith and Duncan wisely passed but, egads, how much would Baby Huey have run them?!)
The way Smith sees it, they’re “riding the crest of a wave that’s about to come crashing down.”
Hollywood’s interest in comics has made students curious about them, he said.
But in academia, there’s been a slight hangup.
“If I go to Wittenberg University and say I want to teach film studies,” Smith said, “there are 20-some competing textbooks.”
But with comic arts studies?
“If there’s not a book,” he said, “there must not be a field.”
There is now.
Comic arts studies has its “Action Comics” No. 1.
Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0352 or amcginn@coxohio.com.
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