| Posted: 02 July 2015 at 7:44am | IP Logged | 8
|
|
|
Whoa! Talk about false equivalency! Neither of those properties were created as All-Ages and "darkened."++ I don't want to misrepresent what you're implying, so I'll ask: are you saying that particular properties or mediums shouldn't ever change beyond their original audience? That the tone, content and target audience of say Superman circa 1930s should remain roughly the same 80 years later? •• That's two different questions. The "tone" of Superman (to pick one example) was a lot more rough and tumble in the early days. He beat up wife beaters, tossed bad guys over the horizon. But as his popularity (as a publishing entity) grew, he "settled down" and became less of a vigilante. In fact, like Batman, he became a duly deputized member of various law enforcement agencies. This is not "change" so much as it is a shaking out period. Superman as originally presented in ACTION COMICS 1 needed a little polish. He got it, and that brings us to the second question. The model then locked in, virtually unchanged, for the next fifty years. (When there was felt a need for a radical change, an "imaginary story" was presented. The death of Superman wasn't "real" in those days.) So, yes. Once the groundwork is laid, it should remain constant and consistent. A reader in 1956 should find the same Superman as was found by a reader in 1946. Artistic styles change, fashions change, attitudes change -- but the character(s) remain recognizable. ============= Also, do you agree or disagree that audience expectations, for better or worse, have changed? •• The expectations AND the audience has changed. Or, more correctly, the audience itself has NOT changed. Shortly after I started working on Superman, there was much hoopla up at DC. A study had come in showing that there were more older readers. The people in charge were thrilled. The product was appealing to a wider range of consumers. Then someone pointed out that those "older readers" were the SAME readers -- they might be thirty years old, but they weren't new. They'd been reading since they were eight. And a shift began. Not deliberate. Not conscious, at first. But the books started playing more and more to those "older readers" who were, in the wider analysis, the LAST people we should have been playing to. The new blood was forgotten, even driven away.
|
Topic Closed)
