What happened to comics for kids? Hell, what happened to COMICS?
In central London, there’s a giant-sized superheroes, space ’n’ science fiction shop. Among the pricey objects on offer – £479.99 for a replica Alien egg, for example, or £152.99 for a Star Wars dart board – there are action figures, t-shirts, books, DVDs and - even now - comics. On packed shelves of glossy colour mags, we have …
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Re: Dying on its arse
@David Evans:
The problem you're talking about is that anglophone comics publishers have for some reason ignored Sturgeon's Law (90% of everything is crap from any given perspective) and decided to stick almost all their eggs in one or, at best, two genre baskets. They also didn't consider that, if each of the bigger of those publishers are publishing over a hundred issues every month, then they would quickly hit a point where they've published so much that they start re-treading old ground. Especially when they need to keep the same characters/sets of intellectual property prevalent for merchandising purposes.
It also doesn't help that Forbidden Planet is a god-awful tat-bazaar modelled on US specialist shops selling collector-oriented shiteware rather than comics. Go to Orbital or Gosh! instead, they're much better at selling actual comics.
Image are doing some great stuff lately (Who Is Jake Ellis, Strange Talent of Luther Strode, Saga, and Prophet for a few examples), as are Dark Horse, and if you look to the likes of Cinebooks you can get English-language translations of a good selection of Franco-Belgian stuff. Viz Media do a whole load of translated manga and manwha too.
Re: Dying on its arse
Ha ha, The Boys is the only thing I've bothered with in the last few years, apart from 2000 AD. Mostly because I don't really like superheroes much.
When I was a kid, the only reliable source of Thrill - Power in Manchester was Magazine & Poster Centre under the Corn Exchange, later Odyssey 7 (it's not there now, a victim of the bomb, the new one is now a Forbidden Planet). The bottom 4 shelves were all comics of every shape and size, but the top shelf was full of porn mags. A bit of an eye-opener I can tell you as it catered for everything. (I used to go to a comic shop in Leeds that did the same thing can't remember it's name though).
It was a bit like shoe repair shops that also cut keys. Perhaps they should start doing that again.
Re: Dying on its arse
@Smallbrainfield
I grew up in Spain, and one of the things I found hilarious is that in Spain, in the 80s, a very obvious result of the death of Franco was a positive rejoicing in all the decidedly immodest things that had effectively been banned under his dictatorship. This meant that there was porn in all sorts of places, and indeed until a year or two ago there were still at least two monthly mainstream (ie sold in newsagents) porn comics published regularly. I think one of them has since gone bust. There were also lots of european hardcore porn comics on sale all over the place, which meant that younglings looking for comics in less-than-discerning/organised newsagents often found that beneath the latest issue of Wolverine or Mortadelo y Filemon was a very graphic eyeful.
(That still doesn't beat the experience I had a couple of years ago on a trip to Bruges, where I popped into a great comic shop whose name I forget - in one room they had a row of shelves on the floor full of hardcover books which I assumed to be nice and expensive republished collections of old comics. So far, so good - what I wasn't expecting was the eye-wateringly-graphic nature of the porny content featured in all of them. Presumably they were on the floor to avoid straining shelves with the weight, but it still makes me laugh that they put the porn below everything else...)
Well, I miss...
... Fat Freddie's Cat, but Viz is nothing like as funny as it used to be.
But Oglaf makes me laugh, even if it's seriously deranged...
Re: Well, I miss...
> Fat Freddie's Cat
Yeah, but no-one has potted ferns or headphones any more :-)
Vic.
Re: Well, I miss...
And don't forget Dimensional Transmogrifiers- they turn 3d kittens into 2d kittens.
Don't forget the marvellous Tales of the Trigan Empire from Look and Learn - beautifully drawn by Don Lawrence, each page a work of art!
Latter
It was Jim Steranko, not Steve Ditko, who had a stellar run on Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D..
Oh, incidentally, I was left cold by some odd issues of Trekker that I had, but now that it's out as a webcomic, being able to catch the whole run from the start let me appreciate it more. Halo Jones probably needs the same thing.
"Halo Jones probably needs the same thing."
If you want the whole run, The Ballad of Halo Jones is available as a single volume containing all three books.
Something I wonder ..
Why it's more difficult sourcing a toy gun than a real one.
Re: Something I wonder ..
"Why it's more difficult sourcing a toy gun than a real one."
I must use that line in a conversation. I'll even add my own question mark.
Comics aren't for kids as most kids can't be arsed to look past their X-box these days.
That's why a lot of them are written for grown ups; most of the audience are old buggers like me. 2000 AD is a classic example, it's readership gets older every year as a block of (currently 35-45 years old I would guess). Downloadable versions are a step in the right direction though. I still get 2000 AD (Marvel and DC never held my attention for long, soap operas in spandex. Meh.) and my attic is groaning under the strain of progs going back to about 400 (ish).
The current 2000AD run of Judge Dredd has been fucking awesome and the prog 1708 was a wonderful and unexpected surprise. I love that they can still do something totally unexpected after all this time.
Also, Carlos is King!
Re: Comics aren't for kids as most kids can't be arsed to look past their X-box these days.
> "currently 35-45 years old I would guess"
44 here: my cousins got me hooked with their cast-off issue 4 back in the day. I remember spending years trying to track down issue 1: I eventually found it in some bonfire kindling! I still have it somewhere though it's in poor condition given the somewhat questionable paper quality of early issues. Well, that and being rolled up and stuffed into a bonfire.
Dandy, Beano, 2000 AD to Mad Magazine
Ah, back to my youth as a "barracks brat" growing up wherever my father's REME unit decided to post us.
Every Saturday off to the NAFI in Mönchengladbach, [West] Germany to buy my Dandy, Beano and a few others like Whizzer and Chips and of course Sparky
As I got older, we were posted to Hong Kong and I was blessed with 2000 A.D. and that soon replaced the comics I read when I was younger.
Let's not forget those legendary all black and white "Battle" and "Air Ace" comics that focussed on gripping WW2 stories, a must for every growing lad!
As I got older, I started buying the Mad Magazine, which is still in print, to this day I still pop to the shop at the end of the month to collect my Mad Magazine, the "comic" for old and young IMO
Re: Dandy, Beano, 2000 AD to Mad Magazine
There is a big comic divide between UK and US. You'd never get any of the UK comic characters in a high budget film
Re: Dandy, Beano, 2000 AD to Mad Magazine
"You'd never get any of the UK comic characters in a high budget film"
Except for Judge Dredd, eh? Twice.
Re: Dandy, Beano, 2000 AD to Mad Magazine
Modesty Blaise has appeared in a few films, though I don't suppose any are really "high-budget".
Re: Dandy, Beano, 2000 AD to Mad Magazine
In the 1950/60s there were also the boys' story "comics" - like "Valiant" and "Victor"? Considered somewhat up-market because they were all words - not picture strips. Eventually they evolved into only picture strip content - but with the same moralistic stories viz "Roy of the Rovers" and "Wilson". Had a stack of them from edition #1 stored under my bed in a plastic bag. Think they were thrown out when my parents retired to the seaside.
My bookcase has a collection of "Asterix the Gaul" in several languages - and some of the French adult "Lauzier". Some "Fat Freddy's Cat" too - and the headphones reference earlier was my first thought. Probably reinforced by the activities of the neighbour's cat in my recently planted flowerbeds.
Re: Dandy, Beano, 2000 AD to Mad Magazine
My father was the Chief Electrician at the Fleetway printing works in Gravesend that printed all the Valiant, Lion, Tiger, Hurricane, Whizzer and Chips, Smash, Battle, Action (the one they banned!) and eventually Starlord and 2000AD - yes I had the complete run of early 2000ADs WITH the attached toys! My wonderful mother of course threw them all away when she moved back to Scotland in 1980...
I have a complete collection of Lion Annuals from 1952 up to the 1980s - that was my personal favourite - well apart from Countdown which was published Polystyle and not my Dad's company, that was all Dr Who (Jon Pertwee), UFO, Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet. That eventually evolved into TV Action with The Persuaders, Mission Impossible and Cannon!
Re: Dandy, Beano, 2000 AD to Mad Magazine
Damn, I wonder how many who even *know* of Modesty Blaise realise she started life as a strip in the Evening Standard?
And O'Donnell was also a contributor to Garth in the Mirror.
Re: Dandy, Beano, 2000 AD to Mad Magazine
Ah, back to my youth as a "barracks brat" growing up wherever my father's REME unit decided to post us...
So, you're an old Army brat, too, huh? Right on.
Our family was stationed in Germany twice in the '60s -- the first time, around 1961-63, and the second time from 1969-late 1970. The second time around was much more fun; I was about thirteen and able to get around more. It was also cooler in the sense that I got to check out what the European comics scene was up to. I was into Tintin and Asterix The Gaul long before they became popular in the States. When I was in college in the late '70s, reading the French and British comics in Heavy Metal was like deja vu, like picking up where I'd left off when the Army shipped us home from Germany.
Re: Dandy, Beano, 2000 AD to Mad Magazine
"And O'Donnell was also a contributor to Garth in the Mirror."
When reading Modesty Blaise novels in the 1970s the image of the Daily Mirror Garth was always conjured up by Willie Garvin's role. The only Garth story I remember is a parallel universe one - where mechanical transport vehicles were replaced by literally organic evolution. Think that's the same one where Germany ruled the world.
Re: Dandy, Beano, 2000 AD to Mad Magazine
V For Vendetta??? Shit film, but still based on a UK comic character
Re: Dandy, Beano, 2000 AD to Mad Magazine
I've long been a huge fan of the 1960s Fleetway pocket-size comics. Brilliant storytelling. Art rather standardized, but often surprisingly good. Writing always strong. The later stuff you mention was great too, of course - but I found even 200AD pretentious compared to those unassuming, uniquely British books, that wanted nothing more than to provide solid entertainment and a bit of moral uplift. I treasure the few issues I still have - I fear that not many now survive.
Tons of great comics out there, mainly for adults as kids don't have the patience to sit and look at still pictures these days. The one and only reason I wanted a tablet, just to read online comics, perfect for it.
Just a couple of my favourites...
Lady Mechnica, a bit like a steam-punk variation of Lara Croft
Wonderland series, more busty ladies than you can shake a cacky shit at!
Lock and Key series
Alien
Look past your own noses and preconceptions of what comics were and start poking around the comic forums for ideas and links to publishing houses, you can find bucket loads of stuningly well drawn comics covering all sorts of genres and tastes.
Elephantmen
The best comic in years! Some of the tragic stories almost had me in tears they were so moving. HipFlask is a genuine comic hero with a heart of gold, ha ha!
"Battle" and "Warlord" were my comics of choice when I was a kid. 2000AD sort of passed me by until my teens. Bit of a shame really as Rogue Trooper and Halo Jones are just brilliant.
Can you get any of the above on an ipad?
Johnny Red
http://www.falconsquadron.sevenpennynightmare.co.uk/
Scroll down for 10 years worth of Johnny Red from 'Battle'
Something missing?
No mention of Jamie Delano's classic Hellblazer or Neil Gaiman's superb Sandman? Not even a mention of Dave McKean? Lordy.
"No mention of Hellblazer or Sandman?"
This is an article about comics for kids. I don't think two books that feature body horror, full frontal nudity and multiple rapes qualify somehow.
(And before you mention Watchmen and TDKR - they were mentioned only in the context of how they made it so comics weren't for kids any more.)
Re: "No mention of Hellblazer or Sandman?"
To be fair, Hellblazer and Sandman are both titles which established DC's ability publish quality mature-audience material (rather than infantile material with added Boobs, Swears and Gore) and which in turn prompted many a "BIFF! POW! WHAM! COMICS AREN'T JUST FOR KIDS ANYMORE"-titled load of condescending nonsense from non-comics-oriented publications about the sudden onset of maturity in a medium "for kids" (that of course managed to ignore things like Eisner's The Spirit or A Contract With God, or Windsor McCay's Little Nemo, or essentially all of the US underground alt comix stuff, not to mention tons of FrancoBelgian or Japanese stuff).
In an article decrying the perceived move of "comics" away from their "intended" kiddy audience, mentioning some of the most highly-acclaimed titles of the time that helped not only cement that move but also heralded the idea of British Writers = Next Big Thing In Comics would have made sense...
Oh, how the ghost of you clings
There's a reason that comics got darker and edgier and complex... those kids who read in the 70's and 80's are now into the 30's and 40's as am I.. and I'm a bigger comic fan than I was back then. However I've found my tastes have grown much broader, I can only take so much of the Bronze Age storylines which still maintained some of the wackiness of the Silver Age which I go out of my way to avoid (Adam West Batman worked for me as a kid, these days I need Christian Bale Batman if I'm going to retain interest).
I think if you're an adult looking for something to get from comics, looking back to Silver and Bronze age is completely the wrong place. I would recommend learning to appreciate well written, real or imagined stories that respect and utilize the comic as an art-form, rather than a kids entertainment vehicle.
For self-contained real stories try reading Maus (Spiegelman) or Blankets (Thompson); if you want heartwarming/good vs evil then read Zot (McCloud), We3 (Morrison) or Midnight Nation (Straczynski); Non-zombie apocalype? Y-The Last Man (Vaughan), Girls (Luna); for genre deconstruction try Iredeemable (Waid) or Astounding Wolfman (Kirkman) to name a few...
If you're after something more current and still ongoing then there's plenty of genre deconstruction in Invincible (Kirkman), genre mashup in Saga (Vaughan) or alternative horror Rachel Rising (Moore).
There's plenty of simple but compelling stories being written and told, just not by Marvel or DC. The main irritating problem I find with Marvel and DC these days is this insistence on maintaining a 'multiverse' and trying to rope in every single character they've ever created - regardless of it breaks continuity. I just won't read their comics anymore (Civil War and Planet Hulk were good I admit).
It's gotten so ridiculous that older fans pick up an X-Men comic or Superman and just don't recognize it at all - but the solution is not to go back to nostalgia - it's to seek out originality elsewhere.
Re: Oh, how the ghost of you clings
> Adam West Batman worked for me as a kid
He's a mayor now, you know... :-)
Vic.
Re: Oh, how the ghost of you clings
Upvoted for the choice of title - it threw me for a second, and then brought a smile to my face when I placed it :)
Re: Oh, how the ghost of you clings
I also recommend Kurt Busiek's Astro City series for a novel look at the superhero genre, where the stories are mainly told from the point of view of the man in the street facing the end of the world every couple of months.
Re: Oh, how the ghost of you clings
Of course there are reasons why comics "got darker and edgier and complex." But there is a downside. The kind of light entertainment that comics provided from the 1940s through the early 1990s has now essentially vanished. Too many comics today, even some of the better ones, are too much *work* to read. Maus is a great example... I honestly don't *want* to experience the Holocaust as re-enacted by rodents. (Call me shallow if you like.)
Yes, I did very much enjoy 'Y The Last Man.' I see this series as a real ray of hope. Vaughan knows how to spin an entertaining yarn, even while dealing with darker themes. Previously, I was equally impressed with Bendis' 'Alias,' a series that managed to be adult while dealing with superheroes (in the Marvel Universe, no less), and entertaining while working through reasonably mature storylines.
But what I really miss is my monthly fix of Nexus or Zot!. The Lee/Ditko Spider-Man (which still holds up as fiction, amazingly enough). Fun, superhero stuff, with good art and a bit of brains. Today's comics are what the movie business would look like if it consisted entirely of formulaic Twilight films on the one hand, and turgid Angst Lee drah-mas on the other. You need a few James Camerons, Peter Jacksons, John Carpenters, Roland Emmerichs... creators who can churn out fast-paced entertainment that hangs together well enough to keep the brain from shutting down entirely.
It can't be just an either-or choice between Sergei Eisenstein or Uwe Boll.
The Phoenix is Rising
Very surprised no-one has mentioned The Phoenix yet - check out a free sampler http://www.thephoenixcomic.co.uk/free-digi-phoenix/ . It's a good, honest, comic with a wide variety of different stories and styles with the focus on quality instead of marketing toys and sweets to kids and charging for a rubbish cover mounted toy. I got a subscription for my kids (at least that's what I tell them anyway)
I'd also back the other comments about 200AD - it's surprisingly still as good as ever
Re: The Phoenix is Rising
I mentioned it more than once, and I agree that it's bloody great :)
I disagree
Comics about sexy vampires or zombie attacks are not written for adults, they are written for teenagers who (the publishers think) are obsessed with Twilight, etc. Teenagers are still children, despite their protests to the contrary.
There are still decent comics out there but as always you need to look past the dross for the great British story tellers - Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman, Jamie Delano, Garth Ennis, etc.
Great article- couldn't agree more. My eldest son is 11 and several times over the years we've raided Dad's comic collection but the 90's stuff is simply a no-go area in terms of suitable content. Although I loved some of the Vertigo stuff, I have to admit much of it was pretentious twaddle. Then the change from newsprint to glossy- don't get me started. What HAS worked is the oldies like Commando, old 2000AD, etc. I pity my son because more often than not, he can't quite get past the black & white thing. It has a language all of it's own and adds so much to the 'directness' you're talking about. A simpler time perhaps but in the case of war stuff, I think if you create a link between that and say- Airfix model buliding, etc then you're really onto something. So far it's worked for a while in our house but no matter how hard you try- kids always seem to default to the Xbox/iPad or phone for their entertainment fix. I'll not give up on them though!
But what about the Beano, Dandy, etc.
Some interesting stuff in the comments (I really must give 2000AD another go - several years since I even looked at a copy), but no one is really addressing the issue of what went wrong for the old-style UK kids comics.
Take the Beano - it was fairly clear picking up an issue even 10 years ago that this wasn't really a comic - more of a magazine with a few strips. Why did that change? Once would assume that it was economic necessity, but I'm not sure where the necessity came from. Both my kids will happily read old Beano annuals, so why did kids stop buying kids' comics?
Mind you, there are still authors having great fun...
Girl Genius is and will probably remain a classic - highly recommended, if only because it works on so many levels. One page every couple of days - so it's never going to fill a weekly - but the detail and the complex storylines are most impressive.
Re: Mind you, there are still authors having great fun...
ah, the story that's going nowhere and taking ages to get there. Populated by identical characters but with different hairstyles. All available in 3 emotions (but mainly angry).
does anyone remember?
a comic, early/mid 70's, about a cyborg whose human and machine halves constantly argued with each other? The character was a vigilante and I seem to recall the comic had a title similar to "The Punisher" but was definitely not that. Been trying to remember the correct name for years.
other mainstays from that time period were "Weird War" and "Superboy and the Legion of Superheroes."
Re: does anyone remember?
Possibly:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deathlok
Re: does anyone remember?
dingdingdingding. Winner! That's the one. Many thanks.
excerpt from wiki - 'He verbally communicates with his symbiotic computer, to which he refers as the abbreviated "'Puter". '
Secret Oranges
Steve Cooks blog, secret-oranges.blogspot.co.uk is well worth a subscribe. He was at the heart of 2000AD when it mattered and is always scanning cool stuff in from waaaaay back.
Great article, Ian
Liked your musical analogy, too. I've always dug Yes, King Crimson and Pink Floyd ever since high school, and yet I also get a huge charge out of the Ramones, Slade, early Clash and those good old mid-60s garage whompers. I grew up in the era of stereo recordings, but I could totally dig where Saint John was coming from when he wore his "Back To Mono" button.
Same deal with comics for kids vs. comics for adults. When I was first learning to draw, as a young boy in the mid '60s, I was copying the work of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee (maa-aan, that old Nick Fury cover sure takes me back). When I first got serious about being a cartoonist and illustrator in high school, I was starting to dig comics for adults -- Gilbert Shelton, Vaughn Bodé, Frank Frazetta and those great Moebius pieces in the old Heavy Metal magazine. Then, in my early '30s, a British expat artist friend of mine turned me on to The Watchmen and Dan Dare. Jeezus, Dan Dare was awesome; I loved how he piloted those big-assed spaceships while still wearing his old RAF uniform, looking like he'd just climbed out of his old Spitfire.
I guess the point is that it's not necessarily an either-or choice; I can enjoy all those old Nick Fury and Silver Surfer comics I loved as a kid while still digging The Watchmen, V For Vendetta and the original Batman Dark Knight series... but, still, I totally agree with your point about how a lot of comics for adults tend to get a bit full of themselves these days -- and expensive as hell. Whenever I stop by a comics shop these days, the eleven-year-old inside me has a fit when he gets a look at the prices. Cripes, man.
I seem to remember reading a strip in the 1960s about "The Spider" who was a criminal 'mastermind' and the hero character. That one got pretty dark at one time, IIRC he was more than happy to 'bump off' awkward characters, but later on became rather bizarre in the style of the later Emma Peel Avengers stories on TV. Made SpiderMan look pretty wimpy, but unlikely to ever be considered suitable as the basis for a film.
I also remember reading the text comics like Rover & Wizard; lots of Indiana Jones type stories in those, again with minor characters meeting grizzly deaths described in loving detail.
Ah, the simple pleasures of childhood..
For us old farts
Ah, Modesty Blaise, how I miss thee and Willie.
Steve Canyon? Terry and the Pirates?
Even in photography, it's generally true a well-crafted black & white photo has more emotional power than a color photo of the same subject.
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