Big Daddy needs to read something like "Signal to Noise" I'll send you a copy if you like...

 

But face it IST - you and I have have been trying to show Big Daddy the "light" for years now... to no avail.

 

And since we are discussing "mature works" i would venture to say that - BONE is a mature comic book.

In the same way that Punisher is not mature just because he swears, I think Bone is Mature and Rewarding on a sophisticated level, despite the fact that the hero is a fluffy forest animal (or um something).

 

Bone is the second best bait and switch piece of media I've ever seen. It starts out rated G and becomes just barely R fairly quick.

 

Best one is Full Metal Alchemist. God, that series is filled with innocent looking people and children.

 

Who later die, often in horrible ways. o_O Still quite good though.

 

But, yeah, comic books are still in the process of maturing... Too many works like Garth Ennis' version of Punisher still exist.

 

In the interest of being fair, I should note I've been told that earlier issues in his version weren't quite as bad as the TPB I read...

 

I still don't get the homophobia though. That one is a huge WTF to me.

Are you meaning to tell me that you pick up a book like Punisher and expect messages of "Tolerance"??

:lol

 

And actually from what I understand - Ennis's take on the punisher is pretty interesting, in that he treats him like a "serial killer" and all serial killers have their "fetish/target" so to speak and his just happens to be low level street thugs...

 

Which almost takes us back to the topic of the thread...

Is a character like Frank Castle/Punisher even a character Evil? If he is, is it right for Marvel to laud him as a "Hero"

Are Evil Heroes even possible?

 

Is children's entertainment even capable of defining these terms?

I mean its all very well to say G1-Megatron was EVIL because thats what Hasbro printed on the box... but what exactly did he do that was so bad?

 

He never killed anyone, sure he slapped his lackeys around abit, and stole "food" but what exactly did he do to make him truely evil?

 

It occurs to me now that - moral ambiguity is lacking in children's entertainment because it's deemed to complicated for their little minds, and yet... the black and white absolutes are not really that extreme either.

 

So you have the Heroic Autobots on the one hand and the Mildly Annoying Decepticons on the other...

 

But I guess that would look funny on toy boxes...

 

Hunter

Big Daddy needs to read something like "Signal to Noise" I'll send you a copy if you like...

 

But face it IST - you and I have have been trying to show Big Daddy the "light" for years now... to no avail.

 

And since we are discussing "mature works" i would venture to say that - BONE is a mature comic book.

In the same way that Punisher is not mature just because he swears, I think Bone is Mature and Rewarding on a sophisticated level, despite the fact that the hero is a fluffy forest animal (or um something).

This is what I'm getting at. Sophistication. Artistic maturity. I would put Bone in the same category as, say, Ratatouille or Avatar. Obviously they're primarily intended for kids, but they're handled with artistry and taste -- sophistication, basically -- in a way that provides genuine appeal to older people as well. (To me, Bone is reminiscent of Pogo and early Mad comics, about which I would say the same.) I have no problem with childlike, but I do have a problem with childish. And that has nothing to do with whether or not it's "for kids". You'll always be able to tell by what the artist has to offer. An immature artist will create immature art. And that is the reason why I find (again with the example) Gaiman and Moore unsatisfying to read. It's nothing that an eighteen-year-old couldn't have written.

 

Is children's entertainment even capable of defining these terms?

I mean its all very well to say G1-Megatron was EVIL because thats what Hasbro printed on the box... but what exactly did he do that was so bad?

 

He never killed anyone, sure he slapped his lackeys around abit, and stole "food" but what exactly did he do to make him truely evil?

 

It occurs to me now that - moral ambiguity is lacking in children's entertainment because it's deemed to complicated for their little minds, and yet... the black and white absolutes are not really that extreme either.

 

So you have the Heroic Autobots on the one hand and the Mildly Annoying Decepticons on the other...

 

But I guess that would look funny on toy boxes...

 

Hunter

 

That is a very good point.

Big Daddy needs to read something like "Signal to Noise" I'll send you a copy if you like...

 

But face it IST - you and I have have been trying to show Big Daddy the "light" for years now... to no avail.

 

And since we are discussing "mature works" i would venture to say that - BONE is a mature comic book.

In the same way that Punisher is not mature just because he swears, I think Bone is Mature and Rewarding on a sophisticated level, despite the fact that the hero is a fluffy forest animal (or um something).

 

Bone is the second best bait and switch piece of media I've ever seen. It starts out rated G and becomes just barely R fairly quick.

 

Best one is Full Metal Alchemist. God, that series is filled with innocent looking people and children.

 

Who later die, often in horrible ways. o_O Still quite good though.

 

But, yeah, comic books are still in the process of maturing... Too many works like Garth Ennis' version of Punisher still exist.

 

In the interest of being fair, I should note I've been told that earlier issues in his version weren't quite as bad as the TPB I read...

 

I still don't get the homophobia though. That one is a huge WTF to me.

Are you meaning to tell me that you pick up a book like Punisher and expect messages of "Tolerance"??

:lol

 

And actually from what I understand - Ennis's take on the punisher is pretty interesting, in that he treats him like a "serial killer" and all serial killers have their "fetish/target" so to speak and his just happens to be low level street thugs...

 

Which almost takes us back to the topic of the thread...

Is a character like Frank Castle/Punisher even a character Evil? If he is, is it right for Marvel to laud him as a "Hero"

Are Evil Heroes even possible?

 

Is children's entertainment even capable of defining these terms?

I mean its all very well to say G1-Megatron was EVIL because thats what Hasbro printed on the box... but what exactly did he do that was so bad?

 

He never killed anyone, sure he slapped his lackeys around abit, and stole "food" but what exactly did he do to make him truely evil?

 

It occurs to me now that - moral ambiguity is lacking in children's entertainment because it's deemed to complicated for their little minds, and yet... the black and white absolutes are not really that extreme either.

 

So you have the Heroic Autobots on the one hand and the Mildly Annoying Decepticons on the other...

 

But I guess that would look funny on toy boxes...

 

Hunter

 

You know what I'd like to see in a Punisher comic? An examination of his hypocracy, and whether or not he's actually doing good or is just getting revenge for his family's murders a billion times over.

 

That would require he put the gun down and not shoot people, however, so that won't ever happen.

You know what I'd like to see in a Punisher comic? An examination of his hypocracy, and whether or not he's actually doing good or is just getting revenge for his family's murders a billion times over.

 

That would require he put the gun down and not shoot people, however, so that won't ever happen.

This has been well-trodden ground ever since Dumas published The Count of Monte Cristo. The character of the Punisher simply wasn't conceived to be capable of adult-level examination. (I mean, he's wearing a costume for God's sake.)

 

I just think that stuff like this, which was created on a sort of adolescent pulp level, can only be "adult-ified" so much before it hits the ceiling. It's just inherently limited by what it is.

I think that if you take the Punisher and Adultify it, you end up getting:

Bernie Goetz

 

who really wasnt that interesting... perse.... and he also only had one adventure so to speak...

 

or maybe you could get "Falling Down" but I hesitate to say that this even qualifies as adult.

I think that if you take the Punisher and Adultify it, you end up getting:

Bernie Goetz

 

who really wasnt that interesting... perse.... and he also only had one adventure so to speak...

:tflaugh

 

I was thinking of Death Wish, though the Punisher is probably more entertaining.

It's five on the default settings...

Still, a rediculous amount of time to be spending debating something so sickeningly trivial...

Aw, damnit Ive posted in this thread twice. I must suck at life too :(

Maybe it's time for an "IMO" here, but I think the medium is inherently targeted towards an adolescent demographic. Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman included.

V For Vendetta? Watchmen? Signal to Noise? Just a few off the top of my head.

 

Not every comic is aimed at the adolescent audience, and if they (the ones mentioned above and more) are, then the writers are severely overestimating the attention span and and attitudes of adolescents.

 

But what I was talking about, regarding more complex TF stories, centres around (surprise!) Transformers comics.

Now the stories aren't Shakespeare by any means, but the writing's much more complex then that of the TF cartoons. The stories are more complicated, and the characters have more depth.

Two quick examples....

 

In Optimus' Spotlight he's unsure of himself, and seeks out guidance from Omega Supreme. Once he learns the truth about Nova Prime his faith in the Prime lineage and what the Prime title stands for is forever shaken.

 

In Megatron: Origins we see a Megatron who is very distraught over the fact that he took a life the first time he killed someone. Even once he gets to the point of being the big bad tyrant we know him as, he's still a complex character. He doesn't devise an "ultimate weapon," he doesn't seek power simply because he's power hungry. He sees a corrupt state that needs to be overthrown, and he realizes that he has an opportunity to make it happen.

 

Consider that these comics are "parallel" to the G1 cartoon of the 80's. In fact, IIRC, both Dreamwave and iDW described their respective Transformers series a "retelling" of G1. So you look at the stories we saw in G1, and then you look at the comics of G1 (even the original Marvel comics were great story-wise, all though I never got into them). There's no comparison when it comes to the level of writing.

So no, I wouldn't call the TF comic books "cartoons without time restraints" (heck, Megs' metamorphosis in Origins happened as quickly as it did because they only had four issues to work with). The level of writing in the TF cartoons can't compare to the level of writing in the TF comics. Yeah, the comics aren't masterpieces in story telling, but they do feature very complex characters and story arcs, especially considering the source material.

I would disagree strongly with the notion that you can find grown-up characters in comic books. Comics are just cartoons without time restraints.

I would disagree with that when it comes to Transformers.

 

As I've been saying all along, generally speaking the Transformers were pretty one-dimensional black and white archetypes in the G1 cartoon, but this was often not the case in the G1 (and G2) comics where characters were written at a higher order cognitive level (particularly on Furman's part).

 

The problem with the G1 cartoon is that it went backwards in terms of engaging a maturing audience. Okay, Bumblebee was pretty much this "mascot" character who was the human's buddy and was by no means the 'coolest' (re: kick-ass) character around... the complete opposite of say Grimlock, but at the same time Bumblebee was an actual character and didn't necessarily insult the audience's intelligence. Wheelie on the other hand is more caricature than character and frankly including a poorly written caricature like that into the G1 story was intellectually insulting. Compared to Bumblebee, Wheelie was a severely dumbed-down (re: retarded) mascot "character."

 

On the other hand the G1 comics went forward in engaging a maturing audience. There were some dodgy stories in the earlier issues, but things improved as the series progressed with some of the best stories coming later. Look at how the evolution of the Creation Matrix - it started off being this power that could create new Transformer life (and in humans, allow them to psychically control machines). That was pretty much it. Later on it was further explained at the Matrix was a divine artifact forged by their God, Primus - and that it was the greatest threat to Primus' ancient enemy, Unicron. And that the Transformers, as a species, were created as a final line of defence against the Chaos Bringer.

 

And the comic books were able to get away with doing a lot more than the cartoons as they weren't bound by the same level of censorship as the cartoon. People freak out when Transformers die in the cartoon - kids bawled when Optimus Prime died in Transformers The Movie. In the comics, Transformers were dying all the time! It was a war and soldiers fell... and Furman is widely recognised by fans at being particularly nasty at randomly slaughtering characters en masse (something which he admits to). There were numerous story arcs from both Budiansky and Furman which were just kill-fests! The Underbase Saga, Target: 2006, the Time Wars et al.

 

And although we never saw humans being directly killed, we often saw them nearly being killed and at times, permanently traumatised as a result of contact with the Transformers. Sparkplug was abducted by Decepticons (although he managed to successfully sabotage them) later on Buster was abducted too and used as a hostage to keep the Autobots at bay and a political gimmick to deceive the humans. He wasn't thrilled about Spike binary bonding himself to Cerebros/Fortress Maximus and suffered a heart attack as a result of the stress he endured from his contact with the Transformers. Then there was Josie Beller who was nearly killed when Shockwave attacked her workplace, but as a result it broke her spine and left her a paraplegic and (remember, this is a Marvel comic book) it gave her super powers that allowed her to fry circuitry, thus becoming the anti-Transformer vigilante Circuit Breaker (who had a very scantily clad costume long before Witchblade ever came along, eheheheh). ;) Then there was Dr. Biggles-Jones who was captured by Megatron who spoke about wanting to extract her brain (he admired her brilliant mind but saw no need to keep her body). We never saw what happened after that but considering that we never saw her again it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that he actually did it! Eeww!

 

Optimus Prime mourns as Scorponok heroically dies in battle

 

Bag out the maturity (or lack of) in the G1 cartoon all you like. But don't be dogging the comics!

Bag out the maturity (or lack of) in the G1 cartoon all you like. But don't be dogging the comics!

But I already did.

 

As I've said, maturity doesn't come from "mature" subject matter, but in how you present your subject matter, no matter what it is. Also keep in mind that "adolescent" doesn't mean "completely without value", it just means "adolescent". That said, I have two nephews who are 12 and 15, and I guarantee that neither of them would ever pick up a comic book (my nine-year-old son reads them, though). They're too busy talking with girls and playing sports and video games. But maybe the comic books were for the kids who didn't do that stuff. :tflaugh

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(caveat emptor: a quick check of my age + the fact that I'm here will confirm that I was in that second category )