Comics review: A Touch of Silver

Originally published June 13, 1997, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1230

Back when Image Comics first started up, I expressed the opinion in these pages that I felt, personally, a little disappointed over the choice of superheroes for the subject matter of the line. My point (and, as Ellen DeGeneres says, I do have one) was that other comic creators had broken away from Marvel and DC to produce comics that were wildly away from the norm of “the Big Two.” And that I felt an opportunity was being missed to expand the horizons of comic book readers who thought that guys in tights were the be-all/end-all of what comics could provide.

This sentiment was attributed all sorts of misinterpretations and (naturally) evil ulterior motives, when all it was was one dope with a column saying, in essence, “Gee, I’d just liked to have seen something different, that’s all.”

One of the first Image creators to butt heads with me over my opinions was Jim Valentino, creator of Shadowhawk. This, combined with my disembowelling of Rob Liefeld a year or so later over the concept of credit, led to some ill feelings. But time has passed. Feelings have cooled. Image continues. Obviously critical comments of mine caused such creations as Spawn to vanish into obscurity, and the attendant creators to spiral into bankruptcy and oblivion.

And in the meantime, Image is now producing stuff that’s different from the superhero norm… which is all I was asking for in the first place. In the forefront of that movement is the same Valentino with whom I butted heads years ago (well, not exactly the same: He’s lost some weight, gotten a haircut, and looks pretty sharp, ladies.) And I figure I owe it to him to take a look at his marvelous series, A Touch of Silver, of which Jim has sent me the first three complete issues plus photocopies of issues four and five which are in various stages of completion. I don’t usually do comic book reviews in this column, leaving that in the realm of Maggie Thompson or Tony Isabella. But I reason that I owe it for two reasons:

First, since I was the one opening my big yap about Image creators doing something other than guys in tights, I feel some obligation to play it up since it’s actually being done.

And second, I tortured Jim’s assistant.

Not whips and chains or racks or thumbscrews or anything like that. Just… harassed the poor woman. Just a little. Just for fun.

The unfortunate female called me in my sanctum one day, endeavoring to get my address so that she could send me the package of material. I answered the phone and she said, “Hello, I’m calling from Shadowline Studios. I’m calling for Jim Valentino.”

And without hesitation, I said, “I’m sorry. Jim Valentino’s not here.”

She paused a moment. I think she was trying to determine whether I was kidding, or just stupid (keep in mind that one doesn’t preclude the other.) Then she said, “I know he’s not there.”

And adopting my best paranoid tone–which is not all that far removed from my normal speech pattern—“Well, if you know he’s not here, why did you call?” She laughed at that, and I knew we were on the same wavelength, so I ratcheted up the performance level and started shrieking, “You’re one of them, aren’t you! Calling me day and night, harassing me, asking for other people! What kind of sick, twisted game is this? Why won’t you leave me alone?!?”

At which point she was laughing louder, in a manner that indicated that either she really thought I was funny, or she was figuring that she’d better play along, else I might turn violent and show up on their doorstep with an Uzi and an attitude. So I dropped the act, we chatted, and she sent me the stuff.

And I’m glad she did, because it’s tres nifty. (Use that for a pull quote, Jim, I dare you. “Tres nifty!” says Peter David of But I Digress.)

(Actually, I do this kind of thing to phone solicitors all the time. And they never get that I’m joking. Citibank reps in particular are good targets for this. They call me up, say, “Hello, I’m calling for Citibank,” and I’ll reply, “I’m sorry, Citibank isn’t here.” They don’t laugh. They just switch emphasis. “No, I’m calling for Citibank.” And I’ll say, “Look, I already told you, Citibank isn’t here.” At which point they’ll usually say, “I’ll call back,” and hang up. Which is fine by me. But I digress…)

A Touch of Silver chronicles the life of a young boy by the name of Tim Silver, beginning with the slow disintegration of his life in October of 1962. “Tim” of course rhymes with “Jim,” making one wonder how much, if any, autobiographical viewpoint we’re getting here (a problem that never arises when your name is Peter.) Set in Westminster, California, we experience Tim’s life with a sense of very real identification. Consequently, Tim’s story, his environment, has resonance for us because many of us have been in the same mindset as he.

For Tim is a comic book fan, you see. Moreover, he is the classic comic book fan. Small, uncertain, unpopular, seeing the world as a place where parents and bullies hold all the power. The only place where Tim can find escape is the realm of comic books, where virtue guarantees eventual triumph. Where heroes can leave unpleasant circumstances simply by vaulting skyward, and nobody messes with them except supervillains, who invariably get trashed anyway.

What’s particularly attractive is the subjective manner in which Valentino as writer and artist–ably abetted by the lettering of Tami Doll (a name which cries out for a 1950s doo-wop song all its own)–puts across the subjective manner in which Tim views the world. Or, if you want to take it a step beyond that, how an adult Tim recalling his childhood might give emphasis to certain aspects of his life.

Adults, for example, when getting particularly strident, switch from standard word balloons to big open block lettering. His mother and father, when getting particularly irate, go from Valentino’s stylistic norm to wild-eyed, slavering caricatures that look like something that wandered in from a Peter Bagge comic. It makes sense from a child’s perspective: Who among us doesn’t remember being screamed at by a parent whose open and shouting mouth seemed suddenly to constitute about three quarters of the face?

His time in school is depicted in panels that have ziptones, scratch marks and such that obscure them… indicating either that one day of blah school experience tends to blend into the next and the next, shapeless and indistinguishable… or, equally possible (particularly since the same motif occurs during a birthday party for Tim to which virtually no one comes), it’s as if Tim is there in body, but not in mind. Tim, whose interest in writing and drawing his own comics quickly becomes one of the series’ focal points, withdraws from situations which he finds tedious or unpleasant, his mind awhirl with various half-formed images that will eventually coalesce into stories of–naturally–superheros. Stories that will help him escape from the tedium and unpleasantness of his life.

Artistic touches and subjective riffs aside, the first three issues of Silver stick safely to territory that’s been covered by everyone from Leave it to Beaver to Jean Shepherd. There are hints dropped that all is not well in Silver land: His parents’ marriage is troubled, his father is shown in a dalliance with another woman and later making efforts to placate Tim’s mother by spending more, quality time with his kids.

But most of the tale stays safely within Tim’s immediate sphere of influence, and touches on all the childhood fears and difficulties which lend a commonality to growing up–particularly growing up a comics fans. Issue #1 focuses on the aforementioned disastrous birthday party. Issue #2 has Tim’s first, tentative experience with the opposite sex (doesn’t get easier, kid.) And #3 puts Tim in conflict with the school bully. This one had particular identification value for me, because Tim uses stunts he picked up from reading comic books to take down the bully, as did I when I faced off against the school thug back in fifth grade.

In short, the stories are nicely constructed, well told, and emotionally appealing. Hardly groundbreaking, though. With an adult voice-over narration and a bit more whimsy, you’d have credible episodes of The Wonder Years.

But beginning with issue #4, we see Valentino’s true vision for the series. Having laid the groundwork for Tim Silver’s life in the first three issues, Valentino then tears the kid’s life completely apart. The previously established cracks suddenly rip apart—almost without warning—into full-blown crevices, as the Silver parents’ marriage turns into a domestic Vesuvius.

The first rule of a splintering marriage is: Keep the kids out of it whenever possible. In the early parts of the issue, we see the devastating effect that parental bickering has upon children. Tim, old enough to understand, tries to find solace within his comics, penciling a fight scene in which assorted heroes slug it out with the hideous Daddy monster. Tim’s younger sister, meantime, is in quiet denial, playing tea party with her doll and complaining about the “rude and uncouth” neighbors. You just know this kid’s got “therapy” writ large in her future. Like kids growing up in a home with smokers, they choke on the poisonous exhaust given off by a marriage in flames.

But that’s nothing compared to what happens next. Pardon the phrasing of the following since I don’t want to give away everything: The argument reaching a crisis point, one of the parents decides that he or she is leaving, and they explode into the boy’s room, demanding that Tim choose between them.

It’s a hideous sequence—hideous in that you have a feeling that, if little sister is destined for a psychiatrist’s couch, big brother might end up on top of an office building rearranging people’s chest cavities with a high-powered rifle. What we’re seeing here is nothing less than a child being scarred for life. “Who do you love more?!” is the explosive question with which Tim is hammered. He stammers out a name, and you get the sense that it’s hardly the name of the parent he feels a closer bond to, but rather the parent who he’s more afraid of upsetting. Or perhaps Tim was simply trying get out a sentence that would be a plea to his folks not to put him in this ghastly predicament, and he never managed to get beyond the first word of the sentence before being snatched away.

Issue #5 gives us something of a respite from the emotional shellacking that Valentino puts us and his protagonist through, as Tim tries to adapt to a new life, bereft of one of his parents. It’s by far the most involved comic book tie-in, as Tim projects his wish-fulfillment self into a story that beautifully evokes the style and substance of typical 1963 comics (DC-style, Marvel-style, and Alan Moore-style.) Tim, feeling isolated and unwanted, conjures up a daydream in which his alter-ego, Silverboy, is sought after by teams evocative of the Legion, the Fantastic Four, and the Justice League (right down to the classic JLA-style shot that has them running towards camera with their names in captions.) Symbolically recreating his parents’ struggle for his affections, the three teams go at each other in a physical battle to capture Silverboy’s loyalties. And Silverboy–in the mindset of a child who just wishes his life could be normal–desperately wants all the teams to just get be friends with each other instead of battling. Fighting over him is anathema. Deep down, we sense that Tim–like most kids who are victims of divorce–believes that he is responsible for the break-up of his parents’ marriage, and that he and he alone can somehow bring them together.

Would that life were as simple as a 1963-era comic book.

Displaying inventiveness and a deep-seated love for the genre that I haven’t seen from Valentino since normalman, A Touch of Silver goes light-years beyond that in terms of being a personal and important piece of work. Comics parody is one thing. Silver gives us the life of a young boy wherein comic books become not only his hobby and then his love, but also his link to sanity. Like Howard the Duck, Tim Silver is trapped in a world he never made, and comics are his means of survival. In the comics world, he can work out the difficulties in his life that he otherwise would not have the emotional tools to express. Tim is about as far removed from the view of a fan with a bloodless collector’s mentality as one can get.

The characters are multidimensional, the situations achingly real, and the emotional palpable in every pen stroke on the black and white page.

I would highly recommend this series even if I hadn’t tortured Jim Valentino’s assistant. (There. That’s an even better pull quote.)

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705. You could write to Jim Valentino there as well, but that would be silly, because he’s not there.)