Stereo Comics   +  story

Gene Simmons is a special kind of comics historian.

I love DESTROYER as much as the next half-wit, but I read this quote from the latest issue of MOJO and slap my head in dismay.

"You've been into comic books longer than music. At what point did you think of fusing superheroes and rock?
American comic books. It's the idea that there aren't any rules. "This is the culture," but America didn't have a culture because it's a pastiche. In England the upper classes created art and style but in America it's the underclass - blues, rock'n'roll - and that's why comic books were invented in America. Their heroes are without limits. They fly through the air and are invulnerable and have alter egos. That's the American ideal. I mean, look at us. If you look at us as a historical sort of thing, you can't quite put your finger on where the visuals come from. The closest perhaps is Greek mythology; perhaps this is our present Greek gods. But the rules are out of the window. It's like the Wild West - even more so than ever before. And money is the reward for your entrepreneurship."

Does this sound like a recognizable history of the artform to anybody? Were comic books invented in America? Is the UK comic-scene secretly infiltrated by the posh? Is Tharg an Old Etonian?