ALL GROWN UP COMIC-BOOK FANS ARE NOW IN CONTROL AND TRANSFORMING POP CULTURE.

Byline: David Kronke Staff Writer

Consider the once-lowly comic book. Long considered the domain of gibbering animals, planet-saving musclemen in ridiculously revealing tights and the silly teens of Riverdale High, comics came of age more slowly than ``Archie'' and his pals.

In the '80s, Frank Miller's ``The Dark Knight Returns'' grimly reimagined Batman, and Art Spiegelman's landmark ``Maus'' deconstructed Nazi Germany as a literal cat-and-mouse game and became the first illustrated novel to win a Pulitzer Prize. Still, these were the exceptions - the vaguely pretentious term ``graphic novel'' was often received with a smirk, and sentient adults knew to keep their affection under wraps.

But times have changed.

The year's most ecstatically received film - by critics and audiences alike - is ``Spider-Man 2,'' praised for characterizations and nuances rare in summer movies. Even the stately New York Times took notice, dedicating a cover of its Sunday magazine to the phenomenon.

Much of the reason comics are in vogue can be attributed to the fact that writers and filmmakers who grew up on them are now of an age where they can dictate cultural values, whether they are filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez and Bryan Singer or highly regarded writers like Michael Chabon and Jonathan Lethem.

``People are in their 30s and 40s and can say, 'This influenced me,' and there's work to back it up,'' says Glen David Gold, who hit the trifecta this summer - in addition to essays in the collection ``Give Our Regards to the Atomsmashers!'' (Pantheon; $24.95) and the McSweeney's quarterly, he contributes a story to ``The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist'' (Dark Horse; $17.95), itself a comic spinoff of Michael Chabon's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about comic writers in the '30s and '40s, ``The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,'' which itself is being made into a movie.

``The acceptability of comics has really made great strides,'' notes Sean Howe, editor of ``Atomsmashers,'' which offers appreciations of comic books by authors such as Gold, Lethem, Aimee Bender, Gary Giddins and Greil Marcus. ``People say it's cool to like comics, but it's one thing to talk about them on message boards, and another thing to bring them up on first dates.''

Like many, Marjane Satrapi never gave comics much thought - they simply didn't exist in Iran, where she grew up. ``I had the same idea that everyone else did - they were superhero stories with everybody running in all directions,'' she recalls, on the phone in Paris. Then she read ``Maus.''

``It became obvious - oh, you can talk about other stuff. Everything is possible. All the possibilities of this medium are kind of unknown. You can talk about everything, even complex subjects. It's the best combination of words and image,'' she said.

Satrapi wrote and illustrated last year's best-selling ``Persepolis,'' essaying her experiences growing up during the Iranian Revolution of the 1980s; it won Spain's Fernando Buesa Blanco Peace Prize. ``Persepolis 2'' (Pantheon; $17.95), due later this month, concerns her rebellious teen years in Vienna and her return to Iran, where she takes art classes - but is forbidden to gaze upon the male figure she's supposed to be drawing.

``Persepolis 2'' is part of a summer that is seeing a radical reappraisal of the comic book. Joining ``Atomsmashers,'' the literary quarterly McSweeney's ($24) has dedicated a handsome volume to the form, lovingly edited and designed by Chris Ware, whose meticulously illustrated and bittersweet ``Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth'' (Fantagraphics; $17.95) makes him currently the most celebrated practitioner of the art.

The pulpy paper and Ben Day dots of '60s comics have given way to creamy quality stock and expressive painted panels. Just as comics themselves went through golden and silver ages, today might be the golden age of comic-book appreciation. In a manner more pronounced than ever, the culture is acknowledging comics' influences beyond Roy Lichtenstein's canvas pastiches, and doing so without irony.

``There's a generation that took them for granted as part of the pop-culture landscape, so this moment is interesting,'' says Lethem, whose most recent novel, ``The Fortress of Solitude'' (out later this month in paperback from Vintage; $14.95), was praised for its depiction of two Brooklyn kids united in their love of tales of superhero derring-do; he pursues the theme further in November's short-story collection, ``Men and Cartoons'' (Doubleday; $19.95).

``Many younger readers for whom the first Pulitzer Prize-winning thing they read was by Art Spiegelman won't realize why we had to feel humiliated or, now, self-congratulatory,'' he added.

The worth of comic books isn't an issue in other countries, like Japan, noted Gold, who also points to Terry Zwigoff's award-winning documentary ``Crumb,'' about the underground comic veteran Robert Crumb. ``It lent legitimacy to things - you see this guy, how he's driven, how his work comes straight from his soul, how he got that way. ... A lot of people think they know what comic-book movies are - filled with stupidity, no moral relativism, just bright, shiny surfaces. That might describe the political system these days, but it's not what makes a good comic.''

Frank Miller is perhaps film's most influential comic artist. Filmmakers cribbed relentlessly from his ``Dark Knight Returns'' in forming the 1989 ``Batman,'' and now, director Robert Rodriguez (``Once Upon a Time in Mexico,'' ``Spy Kids'') brought Miller on to co-direct an adaptation of his comic ``Sin City,'' about a violent town with a corrupt police force, starring Jessica Alba and Bruce Willis.

Rodriguez, speaking recently at San Diego's Comic-Con International, exulted of Miller, ``He was making the best movies never seen on a big screen - already drawn.''

Many of the comics inspiring this renaissance, however, come from a more modest, private place. ``About 10 years ago, a bunch of kids in their 20s approached the comic art thing as if it really was art,'' notes Gold. ``They used the comic form as self-expression - it wasn't about contracts, money or superheroes.''

Chief among these was Ware, whose work references a veritable history of comics, from George Herriman's '30s icon Krazy Kat to the cheesy ads in '60s comics, while maintaining a distinctive tone. ``Jimmy Corrigan'' juxtaposes the heart-wrenching tale of an estranged father and son's visit with comic-book fantasies; like ``Maus,'' it took awards usually given to novels.

Recalls Gold, whose first novel was ``Carter Beats the Devil,'' ``We were both up for the Guardian First Book Award, and 'Carter' got its ass kicked. And I thought he deserved it. He's changing the art form.''

Of the McSweeney's effort, which features Ware's spectacular fold-out book jacket evoking old newspaper Sunday comics pages, Howe is equally effusive: ``It's amazing.''

Altadena's Steven Seagle also melds the personal with flights of fantasy. His new book (with painted illustrations by Teddy Kristiansen), ``It's a Bird'' (Vertigo; $24.95), concerns his twin challenges of finding relevance in the Superman mythos while confronting his family's dark legacy of Huntington's disease.

``People see the themes first instead of the comic book,'' Seagle says. ``It shouldn't be the black sheep in the media family. What I appreciated most was that DC (Superman's publisher) really protects their franchise trademarks, but they saw that Superman could take what I could throw at him. This book really asks a bigger question - does a fictional character have resonance in real life? That he has endured for so long suggested that he does.''

Joining ``It's a Bird'' on bookstore shelves this summer are other ambitious graphic novels. The political satire ``Birth of a Nation'' (Crown; $25) by cartoonist Aaron McGruder (``The Boondocks''), filmmaker Reginald Hudlin (``House Party'') and illustrator Kyle Baker concerns the disenfranchised town of East St. Louis seceding from the United States. And Art Spiegelman, whose ``Maus'' started it all, offers in September ``In the Shadow of No Towers (Pantheon; $19.95), his charged take on Sept. 11.

Clearly, comics have proven they can tackle any issue any other medium can. But can their newfound respect endure?

Gold says, ``I'll believe it when the newspaper story's headline doesn't read, 'Pow! Zap! Comics aren't just for kids.' ''

David Kronke, [phone]

david.kronke(at)dailynews.com

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6 photos

Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- cover -- color) ON THE COVER: Jessica Alba plays one of the denizens of ``Sin City,'' the film shooting now, based on Frank Miller's gritty comic books. A page from one of Miller's stories features Alba's character at a younger age.

(3 -- color) ``It's a Bird,'' by Steven Seagle of Altadena, explores both the Superman myth and the Huntington's disease prevalent in the author's family.

(4 -- color) Marjane Satrapi's ``Persepolis'' recounts her upbringing in Iran.

(5 -- 6 -- color) ``Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth,'' above, by Chris Ware, has left many readers in awe of its artistic scope and depth of emotion. At left, Steven Seagle provides a deconstruction of the man of Steel, from ``It's a Bird.''