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Keith Thomas
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 06 April 2009
Location: United States
Posts: 3082
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| Posted: 01 August 2010 at 11:25am | IP Logged | 1
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That would be so absurd that I want to see it done now! Heh. I wish it had been done when Liefeld was popular so we could now laugh at the absurd amount of praise it would have garnered.
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Joe Hollon
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 08 May 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 13704
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| Posted: 01 August 2010 at 11:53am | IP Logged | 2
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The Liefeld/Moore talk reminded me of their collaboration....JUDGMENT DAY!!
Remember that?
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Tim Farnsworth
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 July 2010
Posts: 817
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| Posted: 01 August 2010 at 11:53am | IP Logged | 3
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Ian M. Palmer wrote:
| Costumes or distinctive appearance, sometimes super-powers, and a willingness to die to protect the general public. Pretty much everything the superhero genre is about. The first fits most of the characters in Watchmen, the second fits Dr Manhattan and, in the sense of unusual prowess (such as possessed by Batman) fits most of the other characters, and the third fits Dr Manhattan and Rorshach. Nite Owl only gives up when he realises he can't win. It's pretty clear that some of the other characters, like the first Nite Owl, would have opposed Ozymandias given information and opportunity. |
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You get a pretty broad spectrum of rationales for adventuring in Watchmen and I always thought the aligned reasonably with what you might get if somehow it happened in real life. The hardest thing to buy is that it could ever be a concerted movement in the first place, but if it was the rationales work. Comedian is a sadist, Silk Spectre II is pushed into it by her mother ala child actors/modesl, Nite Owl II is trying to capture an excitement he can't find in his prosaic, intellectual life, Manhattan seems to be coasting on a general humanistic (and maybe patriotic?) intertia (at least for a time), and so on. When I read it in high school, I think there was a certain "cool" element to its subversiveness. Whoa, Rorscach kills people! But lord knows I didn't think it was cool that Nite Owl II was somewhat pathetic. I did find it interesting, though, and very empathic. That's what ended up staying with me over the years, the sense of very human individuals - all of them interesting in their own way - trying to muddle their way through extraordinary circumstances. When I re-read Watchmen these days, I don't think much about it subverting superheroes at all. It's more like reading a fascinating story about a group of individuals belonging to any larger-than-life career. That is, the stressors the characters experience remind me of those of any career that provides a lot of power/fame/money/public spotlight. Politicians, Hollywood actors, sports stars, etc. I admit the use of superheroes is part of my interest - it's a "career" I'm familiar with through decades of reading! - but It's the individual stories that interest me much more than any subversion. There's something to relate to in every character in the book, even the Comedian. And I find any story with a depth of humanity to it intrigues me.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 01 August 2010 at 11:59am | IP Logged | 4
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In WATCHMEN, Moore inverted -- I might say perverted -- pretty much everything the superhero genre is all about.++ Costumes or distinctive appearance, sometimes super-powers, and a willingness to die to protect the general public. Pretty much everything the superhero genre is about. •• That's no more what the superhero genre is ABOUT than Westerns are about cowboy hats. Superheroes are about HOPE. And that is what Moore perverted in WATCHMEN.
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Tim Farnsworth
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Joined: 01 July 2010
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| Posted: 01 August 2010 at 12:19pm | IP Logged | 5
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John Byrne wrote:
| That's no more what the superhero genre is ABOUT than Westerns are about cowboy hats. Superheroes are about HOPE. And that is what Moore perverted in WATCHMEN. |
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Speaking of Westerns gets me thinking...
For a few decades they were about justice and righteousness, but they were subverted too, ultimately. And to much fanfare. I suppose Stan Lee's subversiveness might be the equivalent of Shane or High Noon. Green Lantern/Green Arrow is Sergio Leone's Westerns. And Watchmen is...Unforgiven?
Okay, the analogy might fall down in the specifics, but what do you think otherwise? Did Unforgiven "pervert" the Western? I know my brother-in-law, who grew up with the classic westerns, thinks so. He really begrudges High Noon as the catalyst. But for many, perhaps most, High Noon is considered a classic. And I think most of Watchmen's fans approach it on a similar level. It's a subversive classic, but it doesn't hinder their enjoyment of a more traditional western like Tombstone (to pick something modern). It just sits apart from it.
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Matthew McCallum
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 03 July 2004
Location: Canada
Posts: 2711
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| Posted: 01 August 2010 at 12:37pm | IP Logged | 6
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And Watchmen is...Unforgiven?
Actually, in terms of subversion of the genre, I'd suggest Watchmen is more akin to Dances With Wolves or Brokeback Mountain.
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Tim Farnsworth
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Joined: 01 July 2010
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| Posted: 01 August 2010 at 12:41pm | IP Logged | 7
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Interesting, interesting.
Haven't seen either of those two, but I keep meaning to getting around to them.
Maybe Dark Knight is The Wild Bunch?
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Andrew W. Farago
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Joined: 19 July 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 4079
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| Posted: 01 August 2010 at 2:07pm | IP Logged | 8
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QUOTE:
| Where you see an optimistic display of children embracing the medium, I see less than a tenth, arguably more, of the the number of kids now that like them than even two decades ago when you were around their age. Sorry, but I can't be optimistic about a medium that has shrunk at such an alarming rate in so short a period of time. |
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There were three kids in my grade at school who read comic books in high school, and only a handful more than that read comics in junior high. However, I knew plenty of kids who read newspaper comics, and I know that's still the case. Garfield still sells well, kids who were born years after Calvin and Hobbes left newspapers absolutely devour the books, and pre-teen and teenage girls, an audience that had been largely ignored by mainstream comics publishers for decades turned manga from a fringe thing into a major part of contemporary youth culture.
Kids still read comics, there are still widely popular comics (what American comic ever had an initial print run of five million copies?), kids who read BONE sometimes read other comics, and it's just about impossible to walk into a library today and not find at least 20 different comic and cartoon collections on the shelves (Ultimate Spider-Man, Naruto, BONE, Death Note, Calvin and Hobbes, Mutts, Zits, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, MegaTokyo...), and any teen librarian will tell you that those are some of the most highly circulated books in the library. Kids might not be reading comic books, but they're absolutely still reading comics.
I can't be pessimistic about a medium that's branching out in so many new and exciting ways just because the superhero arm of publishing isn't as influential as it was from the 1970s through early 1990s. (And keep in mind that nothing sells like it did on the newsstand 20 years ago. Mad Magazine is bi-monthly now, after going a year as a quarterly publication, and even Playboy has had to cut back to 11 issues a year.)
But comics are diversifying again, and it's not just about superheroes anymore, which is a good thing. We'll never see a newsstand again with the variety of monthly comics seen on that photo that was posted earlier, but we've got all of those genres represented again through graphic novels, webcomics, manga, comic strips and monthly comics.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 01 August 2010 at 2:37pm | IP Logged | 9
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Uhm, guys? My reference to Westerns was not intended as a one-to-one analog.
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Tim Farnsworth
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Joined: 01 July 2010
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| Posted: 01 August 2010 at 2:50pm | IP Logged | 10
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Oh, I didn't take it as such. It just got me to thinking that maybe there is an analogy to be made. The classic westerns maybe weren't quite so all-ages as superhero comics, but many were and many presented a morality that lines up with superhero books.
I'm just trying to figure out why it's common to accept subversive westerns like Leone's or Eastwood's, but subversive superhero stories are such a sticking point. Or ARE subversive Westerns a sticking point for any of you guys? Does Once Upon a Time in the West bother you as Watchmen does?
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Matthew McCallum
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Joined: 03 July 2004
Location: Canada
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| Posted: 01 August 2010 at 2:56pm | IP Logged | 11
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Uhm, guys? My reference to Westerns was not intended as a one-to-one analog.
Nor was that my intent.
Both these critically acclaimed movies are considered Westerns because they have horses and cowboy hats, but they aren't proper Westerns in any sense of the word. And Brokeback Mountain is not exactly a gateway to the works of John Wayne or Glenn Ford.
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Joel Tesch
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Joined: 19 May 2006
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| Posted: 01 August 2010 at 4:31pm | IP Logged | 12
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Both these critically acclaimed movies are considered Westerns because they have horses and cowboy hats, but they aren't proper Westerns in any sense of the word. Why in the world would Brokeback Mountain be considered a western?
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