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Lars Johansson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 04 June 2004
Location: Sweden
Posts: 6113
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| Posted: 23 October 2005 at 12:39pm | IP Logged | 1
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There was a Watchmen hype here in Sweden. I never like comics/movies/TV series where there is so much hype.
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Flavio Sapha
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: Brazil
Posts: 12912
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| Posted: 23 October 2005 at 12:42pm | IP Logged | 2
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About DKR:
The way I read it, the government clamped down on the super-heroes, but
that was not necessarily known to the public, who wondered about the
whereabouts of Batman AND Superman both, not to mention all the others.
Batman seems to have resisted the pressure THEN Jason died, and he
caved in.
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Jason Schulman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 08 July 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 2473
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| Posted: 23 October 2005 at 12:42pm | IP Logged | 3
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OK, Jon, now you're confusing me. Hellblazer and Sandman aren't superhero comics. And how did Morrison's runs on Doom Patrol and Animal Man "darken" anything? They weren't "dark" so much as they were surreal. If there's one thing Morrison hasn't been interested in, it's "realism."
(A note about Maximortal and Brat Pack:
yeah, they were dark and revisionist -- they were also Rick Veitch's
way of saying "fuck you, DC Comics" after Jeanette Kahn torpedoed his
previously-approved Swamp-Thing-meets-Christ issue of Swamp Thing. One should always keep this in mind when reading those stories.)
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Darragh Greene
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 March 2005
Location: Ireland
Posts: 1812
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| Posted: 23 October 2005 at 12:44pm | IP Logged | 4
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Thomas Mets: Calling "Maus" a work of fiction would be very
controversial.
**********************************
Maus is a work of fiction. There's no rule stating you can't
write a beast-fable based upon the Holocaust. Art is the criticism of life,
afterall.
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Thomas Mets
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 05 September 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 898
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| Posted: 23 October 2005 at 12:47pm | IP Logged | 5
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Not if I'm reading a superhero comic. That's the suspension/acceptance
one must have of their disbelief if they are to enjoy superhero
comics. Once you start injecting what we in the real world would think
about a guy in a Bat-suit or a Spider-costume running around town,
you've pretty much pegged yourself as someone who should move on to
other things.
********************************************************** *************
1. Stan Lee's been showing average people's reactions to superheroes
since J. Jonah Jameson decides Spider-Man was corrupting the nation's
youth.
2. Is there any reason that a creator can't tell a story about the type
of people who would actually put on costumes & fight crimes?
Especially since Watchmen was a one-off story.
3. Readers are capable of enjoying Lee & Kirby Fantastic 4, and Watchmen at the same time.
Maus is a work of fiction. There's no rule stating you can't
write a beast-fable based upon the Holocaust. Art is the criticism of life,
afterall.
********************************************************** ****************
I've gotten into surprisingly vicious arguments over whether, or not
Maus is fiction. The good people who put it in the New York Times
bestseller list as a nonfiction work, and put it in the nonfiction
section of libraries would disagree. Based on what I've read in
interviews (& his letter to the editor of the New York Times), Art
Spiegelman would not want Maus on any best nonfiction lists.
Edited by Thomas Mets on 23 October 2005 at 12:50pm
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Shaenon Garrity
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 July 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 83
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| Posted: 23 October 2005 at 12:47pm | IP Logged | 6
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I don't think Watchmen is even the best Alan Moore comic
-- From Hell is both more ambitious and more successful at
reaching its ambitions, plus it's got Eddie Campbell's art* -- but it
might be the best superhero comic. Every time I flip through it
again, something new interests me. It's just a shame that the only
lesson many comic-book writers took away from it was that grim,
gritty, "relevant" superheroes are cool. There's so much more going
on in Watchmen.
Another nice quote from Alan Moore in the article: "I originally
intended Rorschach to be a warning about the possible outcome of
vigilante thinking. But an awful lot of comics readers felt his
remorseless, frightening, psychotic toughness was his most
appealing characteristic--not quite what I was going for."
*Not that I'm putting down Dave Gibbons; in fact, I think he's often
unfairly underrated. But Campbell is, in my opinion, one of the
dozen or so best artists in comics, one of the few guys I'll pick up
just to look at his art.
Edited by Shaenon Garrity on 23 October 2005 at 1:12pm
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Matt Reed
Byrne Robotics Security
Robotmod
Joined: 16 April 2004
Posts: 36181
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| Posted: 23 October 2005 at 12:55pm | IP Logged | 7
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Thomas, you're debating from the "either/or" camp. I never said that people couldn't enjoy both WATCHMEN and FF. Don't put words in my mouth or add to my debate something I never said.
JJJ's reaction to Spider-Man isn't the same as people in the MU saying the man who puts on a Spider-costume is "more crazy" than them. JJJ has a very personal vendetta against Spider-Man, and he also wants to sell newspapers. That's totally different than showing the populace of a mainstream superhero world thinking anyone who dons a costume is crazy. In other words, I think it's totally cool to examine the genre in a comic divorced from mainstream superheroes, but the instant a fan asks that it be examined in the MU or DCU proper (asking any of a number of questions like "why don't the Gotham police arrest Batman", or "just how many times can Spider-Man fight the Green Goblin", or "shouldn't the normal people of these universes think every costumed hero is just a little bit crazy?") then I think it's time for them to move on to other forms of entertainment and leave mainstream superhero comics to those who love them for what they are, not demanding from them what they aren't.
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Joe Smith
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 29 August 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6686
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| Posted: 23 October 2005 at 12:56pm | IP Logged | 8
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In 1987, I was mesmerized by Watchmen.
I was a high school senior.
I understood NOTHING.
The art was tremendous.
The easter eggs were thrilling.
The violence and soft porn aspects were titilating.
I could not WAIT for the next issue.
I still have an original bloodied smiley shirt on black.
I re-read it every year, and it got deeper to me as I got smarter.
Then, as I passed it by and learned its message, if there was one,
I began to look deeper into the creators' efforts, looking at every page and panel,
and being 'taught' what I like and didn't like about comics.
I like Dave Gibbons.
I like Alan Moore's tenacity for writing and his imagination. (back stories)
I like Alan Moore's versatility, and his changes mid stream to the Charlton characters.
I like the fact that DC was WAY behind the product.
I like the fact that it taught me a bit about Caniff.
I like that I was absolutely absorbed in this Rorshach character.
I thought the Silk Spectre was sexy, and liked the mole.
It was a valiant effort that some may think failed,
maybe even Alan and Dave, but I'd say it was a success.
wasn't there a novel that came out in the 70's called 'Super Heroes'
or something that was an adult take on the genre?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133855
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| Posted: 23 October 2005 at 1:17pm | IP Logged | 9
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If someone got into a colorful costume, and started
fighting gangsters, pimps, and mobsters, you'd think
he's more likely to be crazy than the average
individual.
*****
Why are you even here?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133855
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| Posted: 23 October 2005 at 1:22pm | IP Logged | 10
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Another nice quote from Alan Moore in the article: "I originally intended Rorschach to be a warning about the possible outcome of vigilante thinking. But an awful lot of comics readers felt his remorseless, frightening, psychotic toughness was his most appealing characteristic--not quite what I was going for." ***** Suddenly, everything Alan Moore has ever written makes perfect sense to me! He's not from our Earth at all! He's from a parallel universe in which characters like Wolverine never even existed, let alone predated WATCHMEN by about 10 years.
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Steve Horton
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 3574
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| Posted: 23 October 2005 at 1:28pm | IP Logged | 11
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What if...Wolverine was never created?
The comics market would be quite different without Wolverine! Frank Miller would have never done that groundbreaking limited series (which may have possibly led to him doing Sin City, though I think the ninjas in Daredevil were an influence too) There would never have been that one breakout star in X-Men. No "Bub", "Snikt" or "The best there is at what I do"!
Maybe the comics market wouldn't have collapsed as a result. I blame Wolverine.
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Hugh Cherry
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 10 September 2004
Posts: 1397
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| Posted: 23 October 2005 at 1:31pm | IP Logged | 12
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Joe Smith wrote:
wasn't there a novel that came out
in the 70's called 'Super Heroes'
or something that was an adult take on the
genre? |
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That was Super Folks by Robert Mayer.
An interesting read.
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