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Post by String on Apr 19, 2018 19:24:28 GMT -5
The target age range may have long ago changed (which is why I agree mostly with Slam, reading Golden Age books is hard for me, even some Silver Age DC and Marvel). But I can't fully agree with this idea because if the Big Two are so committed to their older, mature audience then why is there such a big hedge against marriage in their books?
If their audience is older, has a full-time job and adult responsibilities, probably more than likely they're even married with 1.5 kids. So why not show how their favorite heroes/characters face the same challenges of marriage too? Isn't that a better reflection of their audience that you all seem to favor and theorize? Instead, they cling to some idealized version of the character(s) that reflect more of their Silver Age (and perhaps even Golden Age) draws. Apparently it's easier to show making a deal with the proverbial devil than it is to show a struggling, maturing relationship that may be more indicative of what the older audience would be drawn to and be invested with.
For example, that's one of the best aspects of Superman Rebirth so far, that they've finally relented and shown Clark and Lois, married and raising a young son. Granted he can shoot heat vision like his father but still, seeing them face the same hurdles and questions in being parents, that's a game-changer and a bigger emotional investment for this older audience (for me at least).
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Post by wildfire2099 on Apr 19, 2018 23:46:34 GMT -5
The target age range may have long ago changed (which is why I agree mostly with Slam, reading Golden Age books is hard for me, even some Silver Age DC and Marvel). But I can't fully agree with this idea because if the Big Two are so committed to their older, mature audience then why is there such a big hedge against marriage in their books? If their audience is older, has a full-time job and adult responsibilities, probably more than likely they're even married with 1.5 kids. So why not show how their favorite heroes/characters face the same challenges of marriage too? Isn't that a better reflection of their audience that you all seem to favor and theorize? Instead, they cling to some idealized version of the character(s) that reflect more of their Silver Age (and perhaps even Golden Age) draws. Apparently it's easier to show making a deal with the proverbial devil than it is to show a struggling, maturing relationship that may be more indicative of what the older audience would be drawn to and be invested with. For example, that's one of the best aspects of Superman Rebirth so far, that they've finally relented and shown Clark and Lois, married and raising a young son. Granted he can shoot heat vision like his father but still, seeing them face the same hurdles and questions in being parents, that's a game-changer and a bigger emotional investment for this older audience (for me at least). That's actually a great question... I think the answer is marketing. While the COMICS are marketed at older guys, they are a drop in the bucket compared to the Movies, toys, apparel, etc that are what Disney and Time Warner actually care about. THOSE are marketed to kids, and thus the characters have to eternally youthful. |
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Post by coke & comics on Apr 20, 2018 3:11:04 GMT -5
I look for what I find to be good. Mostly I am finding that these days in publishers like Image.
But I'm on the lookout for good stuff from DC and Marvel. I do rather like superhero stories. Jason Aaron's Thor was really well-written I thought. I've more recently been led to check out Tom King's Batman and Saladin Ahmed's Black Bolt, without being disappointed.
Looking at the to-read pile on my nigtstand, I see new stuff from Oni, Boom, Valiant, Image. Classic stuff is Valerian and Breed. And two Marvel books. Waid's Black Widow and Ellis's Karnak. Why do I have those? I was at my old comic store in San Francisco, taking recommendations, and the proprietor put them in my hand.
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Post by Cei-U! on Apr 20, 2018 8:00:38 GMT -5
The target age range may have long ago changed (which is why I agree mostly with Slam, reading Golden Age books is hard for me, even some Silver Age DC and Marvel). But I can't fully agree with this idea because if the Big Two are so committed to their older, mature audience then why is there such a big hedge against marriage in their books? And yet in the Silver Age, marriage was rather common at DC: Aquaman, Hawkman and Hawkgirl, Flash, Elongated Man, Elasti-Girl and Mento, joined in the Bronze Age by Atom, Adam Strange, Metamorpho, Wonder Girl, and Jonah Hex.* So maybe the problem today isn't about a more mature audience but a less mature editorial outlook. Cei-U! I summon the men-boys! * Not to mention all the married JSAers: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern (twice!), Atom, Hawkman and Hawkgirl, Dr. Fate, Hourman, Black Canary, and Earth-S's Bulletman and Bulletgirl. |
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Post by sabongero on Apr 20, 2018 8:27:18 GMT -5
The target age range may have long ago changed (which is why I agree mostly with Slam, reading Golden Age books is hard for me, even some Silver Age DC and Marvel). But I can't fully agree with this idea because if the Big Two are so committed to their older, mature audience then why is there such a big hedge against marriage in their books? And yet in the Silver Age, marriage was rather common at DC: Aquaman, Hawkman and Hawkgirl, Flash, Elongated Man, Elasti-Girl and Mento, joined in the Bronze Age by Atom, Adam Strange, Metamorpho, Wonder Girl, and Jonah Hex. So maybe the problem today isn't about a more mature audience but a less mature editorial outlook. Cei-U! I summon the men-boys! I wonder what the editorial outlook was in each decade regarding certain things are approached in a superhero's life. Like outlook on marriage, and other varying human affairs. |
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Apr 20, 2018 8:32:46 GMT -5
The target age range may have long ago changed (which is why I agree mostly with Slam, reading Golden Age books is hard for me, even some Silver Age DC and Marvel). But I can't fully agree with this idea because if the Big Two are so committed to their older, mature audience then why is there such a big hedge against marriage in their books? If their audience is older, has a full-time job and adult responsibilities, probably more than likely they're even married with 1.5 kids. So why not show how their favorite heroes/characters face the same challenges of marriage too? Isn't that a better reflection of their audience that you all seem to favor and theorize? Instead, they cling to some idealized version of the character(s) that reflect more of their Silver Age (and perhaps even Golden Age) draws. Apparently it's easier to show making a deal with the proverbial devil than it is to show a struggling, maturing relationship that may be more indicative of what the older audience would be drawn to and be invested with. For example, that's one of the best aspects of Superman Rebirth so far, that they've finally relented and shown Clark and Lois, married and raising a young son. Granted he can shoot heat vision like his father but still, seeing them face the same hurdles and questions in being parents, that's a game-changer and a bigger emotional investment for this older audience (for me at least). That's actually a great question... I think the answer is marketing. While the COMICS are marketed at older guys, they are a drop in the bucket compared to the Movies, toys, apparel, etc that are what Disney and Time Warner actually care about. THOSE are marketed to kids, and thus the characters have to eternally youthful. I think this might go back to escapism. Not everyone wants something they can relate too. Hell I play violent video games and I go out of my way to not kill most insects that get in my house. But what male, no matter age, doesn't want to play a badass? Maybe that would explain why FF struggled harder in modern times to retain the nuclear family in a time when (even when I was young) an increasing amount of children where raised by a single parent or separated/divorced parents, or a grandparent or aunt/uncle. (It's even worse now from my sons' friends' accounts.) I think there is a demographic for most. And maybe the relateable comics go more towards the younger readers and teenagers because they are at a susceptible age where things need to be familiar and appeal to something that they can perhaps achieve or work towards. Because they are maturing and growing and changing as an individual. Most of us here are set in our ways. Personally, I don't care to read about hero's marriage woes. I have to work through my own. Also at the same time, I don't care to read about the perfect marriage like old FF's with Reed and Sue. What I do like to read is fantastic stuff that's never going to happen to me in my life, but I can still relate on a level of "hey if I was Batman I'd kick that dude's ass into the wall for hitting that gal". (No wonder I like Marv so much in Hard Goodbye.) That's enough for me to enjoy the story. |
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Post by rberman on Apr 20, 2018 9:01:04 GMT -5
That's actually a great question... I think the answer is marketing. While the COMICS are marketed at older guys, they are a drop in the bucket compared to the Movies, toys, apparel, etc that are what Disney and Time Warner actually care about. THOSE are marketed to kids, and thus the characters have to eternally youthful. I think this might go back to escapism. Not everyone wants something they can relate too. Hell I play violent video games and I go out of my way to not kill most insects that get in my house. But what male, no matter age, doesn't want to play a badass? Maybe that would explain why FF struggled harder in modern times to retain the nuclear family in a time when (even when I was young) an increasing amount of children where raised by a single parent or separated/divorced parents, or a grandparent or aunt/uncle. (It's even worse now from my sons' friends' accounts.) I think there is a demographic for most. And maybe the relateable comics go more towards the younger readers and teenagers because they are at a susceptible age where things need to be familiar and appeal to something that they can perhaps achieve or work towards. Because they are maturing and growing and changing as an individual. Most of us here are set in our ways. Personally, I don't care to read about hero's marriage woes. I have to work through my own. Also at the same time, I don't care to read about the perfect marriage like old FF's with Reed and Sue. What I do like to read is fantastic stuff that's never going to happen to me in my life, but I can still relate on a level of "hey if I was Batman I'd kick that dude's ass into the wall for hitting that gal". (No wonder I like Marv so much in Hard Goodbye.) That's enough for me to enjoy the story. Stories about parenting are much less common than adventure stories, regardless of the medium. It's true of novels, film, TV, and certainly comic books. Saga comes to mind as a comic book that incorporates marriage and family well, particularly (and despite) all the space opera heroics exploding around the central characters. Mark Millar's Jupiter series has some as well. FF always had Franklin hanging around the periphery but rarely was actually about parenting. |
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Apr 20, 2018 10:15:52 GMT -5
I think this might go back to escapism. Not everyone wants something they can relate too. Hell I play violent video games and I go out of my way to not kill most insects that get in my house. But what male, no matter age, doesn't want to play a badass? Maybe that would explain why FF struggled harder in modern times to retain the nuclear family in a time when (even when I was young) an increasing amount of children where raised by a single parent or separated/divorced parents, or a grandparent or aunt/uncle. (It's even worse now from my sons' friends' accounts.) I think there is a demographic for most. And maybe the relateable comics go more towards the younger readers and teenagers because they are at a susceptible age where things need to be familiar and appeal to something that they can perhaps achieve or work towards. Because they are maturing and growing and changing as an individual. Most of us here are set in our ways. Personally, I don't care to read about hero's marriage woes. I have to work through my own. Also at the same time, I don't care to read about the perfect marriage like old FF's with Reed and Sue. What I do like to read is fantastic stuff that's never going to happen to me in my life, but I can still relate on a level of "hey if I was Batman I'd kick that dude's ass into the wall for hitting that gal". (No wonder I like Marv so much in Hard Goodbye.) That's enough for me to enjoy the story. Stories about parenting are much less common than adventure stories, regardless of the medium. It's true of novels, film, TV, and certainly comic books. Saga comes to mind as a comic book that incorporates marriage and family well, particularly (and despite) all the space opera heroics exploding around the central characters. Mark Millar's Jupiter series has some as well. FF always had Franklin hanging around the periphery but rarely was actually about parenting. Yeah FF was mostly about the marriage. I never really liked anything done with Franklin, in at least modern (90's and forward the time I was reading) FF. But the marriage then and before was put to the forefront a lot as the motivating factors for both Reed and Sue and for drama as well. And then Johnny being her brother, he'd get into the mix too. Then, while I know it wasn't the first time, the whole General Hospital drama with Sue and Namor, and I had about enough of the FF at the time. Again, lets just kick Doom's ass. I mean its fine if Reed and Sue make kissy face, or they have non action issue where they go on a date or something. But using a marriage in comic books rarely works to show it realistically when at the same time, the situations aren't mostly realistic. Or you could have just made a bad choice and settled for MJ cause the best girl for you died. *cough*Peter*cough* |
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Post by rberman on Apr 20, 2018 10:57:30 GMT -5
Stories about parenting are much less common than adventure stories, regardless of the medium. It's true of novels, film, TV, and certainly comic books. Saga comes to mind as a comic book that incorporates marriage and family well, particularly (and despite) all the space opera heroics exploding around the central characters. Mark Millar's Jupiter series has some as well. FF always had Franklin hanging around the periphery but rarely was actually about parenting. Yeah FF was mostly about the marriage. I never really liked anything done with Franklin, in at least modern (90's and forward the time I was reading) FF. But the marriage then and before was put to the forefront a lot as the motivating factors for both Reed and Sue and for drama as well. And then Johnny being her brother, he'd get into the mix too. Then, while I know it wasn't the first time, the whole General Hospital drama with Sue and Namor, and I had about enough of the FF at the time. Again, lets just kick Doom's ass. I mean its fine if Reed and Sue make kissy face, or they have non action issue where they go on a date or something. But using a marriage in comic books rarely works to show it realistically when at the same time, the situations aren't mostly realistic. Or you could have just made a bad choice and settled for MJ cause the best girl for you died. *cough*Peter*cough* If you can't be with the one you love... (because you snapped her neck with sudden deceleration after a super villain threw her off a bridge) Byrne did a thing for a while where Reed and Sue moved to the suburbs and had secret identities and tried to live as normal Americans, but there was no great payoff from it; it was just a change of pace. Kurt Busiek has had good success in writing some family oriented stories including some issues of Astro City as well as Superman: Secret Identity. |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Apr 21, 2018 0:47:34 GMT -5
Some of it is that either love triangles or "will they or won't they" are a staple of fiction - If you marry off your protagonist in a committed relationship you lose your two most common/easiest to write sources of soap-opera drama.
And I don't want to say that married people are boring, but - in general - happily married couples are more stable, which means less potential for easy drama.
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Post by rberman on Apr 21, 2018 7:06:59 GMT -5
Some of it is that either love triangles or "will they or won't they" are a staple of fiction - If you marry off your protagonist in a committed relationship you lose your two most common/easiest to write sources of soap-opera drama. And I don't want to say that married people are boring, but - in general - happily married couples are more stable, which means less potential for easy drama. Indeed, many writers seem to have difficulty maintaining stable marriages, especially in the crazy world of Hollywood. So they may not have much personal experience with the kinds of dramas that can happen in a marriage, besides infidelity and divorce. |
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Apr 21, 2018 8:26:42 GMT -5
Some of it is that either love triangles or "will they or won't they" are a staple of fiction - If you marry off your protagonist in a committed relationship you lose your two most common/easiest to write sources of soap-opera drama. And I don't want to say that married people are boring, but - in general - happily married couples are more stable, which means less potential for easy drama. This is very true. And I'm most happy to say this is the state of my marriage. And with that I don't think I could ever (or have ever) written infidelity in fiction because I wouldn't even begin to understand the mindset that would lead to someone doing that. |
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Post by String on Apr 21, 2018 10:42:15 GMT -5
And I don't want to say that married people are boring, but - in general - happily married couples are more stable, which means less potential for easy drama. Lazy, you mean. I'm not looking to comics for some form of marriage counseling rather just some familiarity with which I may better invest in these characters as an adult rather than as a young kid. Silver Age marriages are fine and dandy but I would think such arrangements, for those young readers, would be more in line with showing them a stable parental unit instead of any potential trouble in paying the mortgage that month. There is no such thing as 'happily ever after'. Even stable marriages have their occasional ups and downs brought on by the rigors and stress of daily life. A talented writer could find ways to incorporate such stress into a hero's married life without it becoming overwhelming or distracting. |
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Post by hondobrode on Apr 23, 2018 0:25:03 GMT -5
Why do I love mainstream i.e. comics ?
The concepts.
An alien refugee with god-like powers that's more human, and perfect, than most of us.
An abandoned child with unlimited wealth who's driven and becomes the pinnacle of human perfection to exact vigilante justice on the criminals that escape The System with bizarre villains.
Outcast people with bizarre powers that separate them from the rest of us because they were born that way ? Gosh, that could have almost been me maybe.
Acne-faced, broke, down on his luck Parker trying to make ends meet, get the girl, not worry Aunt May, put up with J Jonah Jameson and stop Doc Ock and still go to high school
The concepts
Time travel, alternate dimensions and worlds, energy weapons powered by will power if you want it badly enough, gods of mythology, an incredibly strong monster who's really not bad that just wants to be left alone and gets stronger the more angry he gets...
Who doesn't love those ideas ?
I'm a kid now SHAZAM ! I'm the world's mightiest mortal !
shrinking shrinking shrinking the the sub-atomic world of protons, electrons and quarks and traveling through phone lines, or the internet ! with size / weight controls
Doom is the ruler of an entire country, basically making him untouchable, and oppresses his people but takes care of their every need. How do I feel about that ? and yet here he's trying to top Reed for the accident back to State U that scarred his face (the vanity)
Superheroes have fascinating concepts at their core.
They're easily identifiable and larger than life.
I remember last time Batman fought Penguin, but now Tony Daniels has him in a floating iceberg casino. Nice. Let's see how this works.
That for me is the key.
We're familiar, but things are constantly tweaked with different creators, different ideas, sometimes new concepts or something crazy like, what the heck is Tor doing in Doom Patrol ? Gotta read this.
They're fun.
We're familiar and things are the same but constantly changing.
Wow ! There's another Robin.
Oh ! Looking forward to seeing how they spin The Demon diffently this time from the last time I saw him.
Cool ! The Black Knight has his own series. I've always liked that character.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Apr 24, 2018 23:12:02 GMT -5
Maybe the big one for me -
So mainstream comics are limited in story structure and construction (eg: This is a superhero comic so there has to be a fight scene in every issue) limited in terms of pages, and I never get the sense that most of the audience *cares* if they're any good. (Oddly, the last part doesn't seem to change as the audience gets older.)
But people still manage to do challenging, personal, smart, and layered work in a creative climate that doesn't reward those things. Like I look at the breadth and depth of, say, Steve Gerber's work and how it transcended the medium... there's something really inspirational and life-affirming about that.
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