CSBG Archive
Another Friday at the Kids’ Table
Okay. So here we are again. To recap:
Last week I was talking about the comics that really hit me right between the eyes when I was a kid, and how they were emphatically not designed specifically as “kid’s” comics. That they were, in fact, a little hard for me to grasp here and there and part of the appeal was that I had to struggle with them a bit. And I wondered how many of you out there had a similar experience, if the things you read when you were young that hit you where you lived had been maybe a little over your heads. Quite a few of you chimed in with an affirmative.
So far, so good. Now here’s where we change it up a little bit. Because this all started with Joe Rice talking about Mike Kunkel’s new Captain Marvel book, which is clearly aimed at younger kids….
…and, as I said before, I absolutely approve of that. Can we get that out of the way up front? Yes, young readers absolutely should have comics they enjoy. I agree. So don’t start barking at me for saying “Publishers should only put out books I like.” Not saying that, not going there, calm down.
I had skipped the book– because, as I said, I understood clearly that I’m not the target audience for it!– but the furor here on the blog got me interested, especially when someone suggested it would be worth passing on to my students. So I went down to the comics shop and bought a copy.
It’s not bad. There’s a lot to like about the book; on the whole, I thought quite a bit better of it than Joe did. For one thing, I really like Mike Kunkel’s art. I enjoy his design sense, there’s something about the look of the characters that calls back to the old television cartoon studio output I remember from the early 60′s, that kind of antic Jay Ward vibe from stuff like Dudley Do-Right or George of the Jungle. Part of it is the way Kunkel’s using the panel — especially his trick of having a character appear multiple times in a panel to progress time. Apart from that, there’s an exuberance about his pages and a sense that he’s having a really good time doing it.
The problem is the format — the book is printed too small for the art, so even the pages that are designed well come off cramped, and often there are sequences that probably should have gone over two pages instead of one. At the same time the book is way too text-heavy, it’s as though they’re scared the visuals can’t carry enough of the load. There’s either way too much editorial interference here, or not nearly enough; whichever it was, the result is that there’s entirely too many words in the story. Overall, the whole comic feels like a size-seven foot jammed in a size-four shoe. Most of my issues with this book are with its format, as it turns out. But I’ll get back to that.
Already, I can see the line of annoyed commenters forming. Yes, of course, I’m not the target audience, so why would I like it? The thing’s not meant for me. I know that. It’s meant for kids. The only review question worth addressing is, will kids like it?
Despite the amount of anecdotal evidence from Mr. Rice’s commenters to the contrary, I’d have to say “Probably not.” I daresay I’m going to get dogpiled for this. But just as Joe looked at it and instantly knew his students would sneer, I looked at it and had exactly the same reaction. My students would probably sneer harder in dismissal than Joe’s would.
Which means that once again, a major publisher has put out a “kid’s comic” that its target audience isn’t going to be interested in.
Think it through before you start yelling, Cap lovers. Walk through this with me for a moment. What’s the key to successful marketing to an audience? Make them see your product, make them want it.
The problem is that this is a comic that is really best for very little kids, ones that are just starting to read. Four or five-year-olds. It’s ideally something a parent reads to a child, or with a child; that way, sure, it might very well be a gateway to reading for some kids. (At least if the text was pruned back to the point where it didn’t intimidate the hell out of them with its sheer mass.)
But where are those kids going to see this? Is it advertised anywhere OUTSIDE of comics and the comics press? How can it be an option if it’s invisible?
This is what I was getting at last week, about publishers getting it almost right and then completely screwing the pooch at the end. This book should never have been published as a standard comic. It would be pitch-perfect if it was an actual book, maybe something like the ones Whitman Publishing used to put out, say — a half-step up from a Little Golden Book.
If it had come out in that format, edited to that reading level, I would be applauding louder than anyone. Especially if it had shipped to places like Target or Wal-Mart or even big-box bookstores like Barnes & Noble. You know, places where a non-fan parent might actually see this, or have it shown to them by a child who wanted it. (They used to publish superhero stories like that, you know; hell, one of my first books was one of them.)
Unfortunately, it’s not designed that way. It’s packaged as a standard monthly comic book, something no four-year-old is ever going to be interested in unless his comics-geek parent thinks it’s a good choice for Junior’s First Pull List.
And there’s the problem with the whole Johnny DC — and to a lesser extent, Marvel Adventures — lines. It’s not a question of quality. (I love a lot of the Marvel Adventures books and I think they are terrific.) But as several of the creators working on them have lamented themselves, the books “don’t sell for shit.” The format, the presentation, everything, is completely askew from what the target audience is trained to look for.
These ‘kid’s’ comics are being published based on a false premise, as far as I can see. Judging from the format, the (almost non-existent) marketing and the (spotty) distribution, the success of these imprints hinges on a fan-nostalgia dream of some mythical wave of kids finding the stuff on their own and being initiated into the joy of superhero comics the way we all were.
Sorry, those days are gone. Not happening.
Joe got yelled at for saying this, so I am probably courting a lynching if I chime in too, but trust me on this — Joe’s been teaching in public school for six-plus years and I’ve been teaching there for fourteen, and damn it, we keep track of what our students like to read. And this Billy Batson book isn’t it. Generally, the Marvel Adventures and Johnny DC books aren’t really it. Hell, superheroes aren’t it. Haven’t been for years.
If there is anything that public school teachers (and youth librarians, too) pay attention to — you could almost say “obsess over” — it’s what our kids read for fun. Because anyone who’s ever taught or tutored or even helped with homework knows that literacy scores shoot up if you can persuade a kid that reading can BE fun. We’re always on the alert for what book, what genre, what kind of story we can use to get a wedge in there and somehow motivate the kid who’s a reluctant reader.
Comics are a hugely powerful tool for encouraging literacy, because teachers and librarians have known for some time that kids reading “trash” are still kids that are reading. I know it and I know damned well that Joe knows it too. In fact, Mr. Rice was actively using Captain Marvel as a way to get his kids to write stories at one point, if I recall. So I can’t blame him for sounding a little bitter and frustrated at having his hopes dashed about Billy Batson and the Power of Shazam.
There’s something extra-maddening when a publisher almost gets it right and then blows it over something as idiotic as format. Who’s Billy Batson aimed at? Very young readers. Do those readers have any experience of newsstand superhero comics as kids’ reading? Not very damn likely. Who does? Adult superhero fans. Does Billy Batson look like it would appeal to those regular superhero readers? No, they’re all about All-Star Superman or Secret Invasion. So who’s going to buy this thing?
As far as I can tell? Geeked-out parents, wanting to introduce their children to superheroes. Apparently that’s the target audience.
Not what you’d call a huge market, I imagine, but okay. Let’s say that IS the strategy, actually designed to reap a profit (instead of just a forlorn hope of financial survival at a break-even, subsistence level.) Which leads me to another facet of the problem.
Before I got this gig here, I was a columnist at a “youth magazine” that was distributed to schools and community centers and churches and so on. And the problem with that job, for all of us that wrote for the thing, was something that we never really figured out how to solve — see, as writers, we desperately wanted to tailor the material to the kids. We wanted to talk about the real stuff that they had to deal with in their lives. “You have to meet kids where they ARE, not where you think they should be,” was something our editor told us a lot.
However, kids didn’t buy the magazine. Their parents and teachers did, and then it it was distributed to the kids free as part of a class or a youth-group meeting or something. So the editor also was tasked with trying to back us away from dangerous topics, to make sure that we put out a book that looked “safe” (for the adults spending the money) to bring into their homes and schools.
Not to ride this hobbyhorse into the ground (I know I’ve been harping on this recently) but remember, the financial consideration is always there. In publishing, it’s not just art. It’s also a business. You’re in it to make money.
How’d this play out at the magazine where I worked? It was a constant tug-of-war. Creatively we were always trying to push it beyond the safe place, terrified that we would bore our young readers. (Since all the arguments about Captain Marvel back-and-forth the last couple of weeks seem to be anecdotal, I will just throw in here that I have never, ever, lost as a writer or as a teacher when I gambled on kids being smarter than I assumed. They will rise to whatever level you need them to, if given the chance. That’s my anecdotal experience.)
But editorially we were always getting pushed back, because of terror that adults wouldn’t buy the book for those young readers. “Parents don’t want their kids reading this.”
You know why those old AfterSchool Specials always ended up so preachy and toothless? This is why. Because writers almost never win that fight.
And I think this is my problem with the new Billy Batson, too, and really with the Johnny DC and Marvel Adventures books in general. Those books are not packaged for kids. They’re packaged for the adults who buy them for kids. Look at all the winks and call-outs to the original Captain Marvel in the new Billy Batson. Those aren’t for the kids. Those are for adult fans.
Just as an aside, I showed the book to Julie, too. As it happens, my bride works at a community-center mission office in the poor part of town. She sees a lot of young people forced out on their own, and you know what jumped out at her?
“Why is it fun and cute that these kids are orphaned and alone?”
She was really bothered about the casual way that came off, especially Billy’s faking out the principal by masquerading as his own parent. Seeing as how helping orphans and homeless youth is a big part of her job, Julie’s gut reaction was that Billy and Mary’s orphan status shouldn’t be just a source of cute sitcom slapstick, but should be a central issue of the book. It should have been less fun and more of an actual plot problem, the focus of the story. How are these kids coping on their own?
Boy, did I feel like a tool stuttering that this was just the way Cap was in the 40′s and it was a tradition, paying respect to the original, the kids being on their own isn’t what Captain Marvel’s focus is really about. I knew it was a stupid answer the second I said it, it was just the automatic fan response. “Why is it like that? Because that’s how Captain Marvel is supposed to be.”
Which is, again, not a crime or anything. But it brings that creative tug-of-war into it that I was talking about above. Because creatively, the more I consider, the more I think Julie’s right. For modern audiences that is a much better hook to hang it on, all the mangas that grab my students are built on that idea. So is most of children’s classic adventure literature. So is Harry Potter.
But Captain Marvel fans would pitch a fit, as we always do anytime the character gets too far away from the version of the 40′s and 50′s. We stand firm in our belief that Captain Marvel as a concept should NEVER need to change. Just do it right, and it will work fine, kids will love it, we proclaim. And I’m sure that Mike Kunkel took that as his mission statement when he sat down to do Billy Batson and the Power of Shazam. The only thing that is ‘updated’ as far as the plot and premise are concerned is making Theo Adam a teenager and aggressively designing it to be for kids. But — here’s where it all comes together, this is the point I got so carried away with that I spent all last week’s column on it — kids don’t want the stuff adults think they should want.
They can tell the difference between comics that are ‘good for them’ and comics that are just good. Moreover, the things that jumped out at us when we were kids generally are not the things that jump out at today’s kids.
Here’s where the Big Two publishers make the basic mistake with their young-readers lines: Superheroes are not a default kids’ genre any more.
It’s an adult, fan, specialty thing now. Just the fact that it’s a superhero comic doesn’t guarantee interest or a closer look from kids. That only happens with fans. If I put a superhero book, even one ostensibly aimed at young readers, even one based on the new hot Marvel or DC movie, next to a manga digest on the table in my classroom, I’ll bet you a year’s pay against a stale bagel that the kids all will lunge for the manga first.
And that’s been true for as long as I’ve been teaching, all the way back to the pilot program at Gatzert Elementary.
Just observing my students over the last decade and a half I can tell you what grabs their attention, some of the common factors I’ve picked out here and there. Here you go, publishers. Free of charge.
They want it to look like manga, at least superficially. I don’t know why. They just do. Manga is their thing, it’s what they go to on their own. The same way my eye’s been trained over thirty years to automatically stop when it sees a cape or a chest emblem. It’s that ingrained. Even just at first glance, even if it’s just the big doll eyes — if it looks like it’s done in manga-style, they’ll stop and look. Anything else — even stuff they’ve liked a lot — I’ve had to show them, point it out, make a big deal over it. You want them to look on their own, it has to be manga.
They want stories about other kids. Ideally, kids that are put into positions of adult responsibility and make it work. I see a lot of mangas like that.
Naruto. Bleach. Young protagonist has to make it on his or her own in an adult world. Sometimes maybe with sidekicks or a wise old mentor, but the young person’s definitely the focus and the hero.
The students are all over that stuff. Ironically, Julie had it right — that part of the Captain Marvel premise probably would be a great hook for young readers. But in Billy Batson it’s presented as a fait accompli, just a subplot gag.
They want bulk. The most successful kids’ comics out there right now? Manga, obviously. Archie digests. Shonen Jump. Those are big honkin’ bunches of comics. Next to those, the Johnny DC books look like brochures. Marvel Adventures are doing a little better — sometimes in a convenience store I’ll see a slightly larger and thicker Marvel magazine. (But these comics sightings are fleeting, the books never are a regular feature in the store like the Maxim or IN Touch display.) Why the big two have such a terror of getting away from the 22-page stapled-booklet format, I have no idea. It sort of made sense when the primary distribution outlet for comics was a spinner rack of predetermined size. But today? Digests, book-sized comics, manga, are where the kids are. Meet them there. Hell, Archie, the U.S. publisher that’s managed to successfully sell comics to kids for decades, seems to have a handle on this idea, and they’re even experimenting with a manga look lately.
What happened to the old tradition of U.S. comics publishers shamelessly stealing ideas from each other? Archie’s on to something here, you know. That’s a lead worth following.
(Note: After I wrote the first draft of this, Mike Gold put up this interesting yet depressing piece over at ComicMix. Turns out this isn’t even the first time U.S. comics publishers did something this dumb. It’s been going on since 1948.)
I feel very strongly that Marvel and DC are right in the middle of making the same mistake now that Mike Gold suggests publishers made back then, of not following the packaging trend that the market is clearly asking for. A huge factor in the depressingly low sales of kids’ comics today is price and format. Figure a child’s discretionary income or allowance comes in chunks of $5, or maybe even $10. Apply that to standard U.S. comics versus most any other kind of young people’s entertainment– even superhero entertainment– and simply in terms of unit cost, standard monthly comics suck. I can get a DVD of Fleischer Superman cartoons at Wal-Mart for $1.99 for Chrissake. To a ten-year-old that’s a WAY better deal than a $2.99 Superman comic that probably is part four of a nine-part story. (And I can’t find a Superman comic at a Wal-Mart to save my life most days, anyway; if I could, $5 would not cover two of them.)
Even we fans, the hardcore Wednesday faithful, are walking away from a $2.99 price point. Why would a kid ever bother with that in the first place? Even the Johnny DC stuff at $2.25 is way too high for the value when you’re a kid with an allowance that probably will only cover ONE thing. That one thing has to have a lot of bang for the buck, and superhero comics aren’t it. Certainly not compared with manga or even an Archie digest. Why are Marvel and DC clinging so stubbornly to the idea that if they only make the right 22-page booklet kid’s superhero comic, all will be as it was?
Let it go, guys. Ask yourselves, what formats are the other youth publishers succeeding with? (Not comics publishers — youth publishers.) Whatever the common thread is, I can say with total assurance that it’s not an overpriced 22-page booklet.
They want the stuff that’s important to them. I have a little bit of an edge here because I have been watching ten and eleven and twelve-year-olds making their own comics for a decade and a half, and when it comes to subject matter, the same things inevitably come up. They may get disguised under different genre material — ninjas, science fiction, shoujo — but the same ideas are always there. Whether it’s a mermaid or a wizard having the problems, the problems are invariably about school and friends and peer pressure. Especially, the stories come back to the idea of getting taken seriously, not being laughed at, proving oneself to people that were laughing before, etc.
The hell of it is, Mike Kunkel scores anywhere from a B-minus to an A on most of these things as far as the plot of Billy Batson is concerned. But he is being sabotaged by the comic-book format and the fannish expectations of the adults who have the purchasing power. His heart’s in the right place. It’s almost there, in a lot of ways.
Sadly, “almost” isn’t going to cut it. Not if Marvel and DC are serious about getting kids interested in their comics again.
Something else we used to talk about a lot when I was working at the magazine was this: the competition wasn’t other kid’s magazines. It was cable TV and video games and anime and the millions of other things that engage a young person’s attention today. A kid’s spending power isn’t focused on comics… not the way we fans focus on them. We think in terms of which comics we want, how a particular comic book rates our specific attention.
But kids think in terms of “What am I going to buy with my allowance?” Whether it’s a DVD or a paperback book or a CD or a game cartridge or whatever. That’s the competition. You have to beat THAT if you want their attention. Period.
Sure, Mike Kunkel is doing a Captain Marvel that’s a hell of a lot better than other crappy revamp attempts DC has made over the years. Props to him.
But so what? That’s not the job. The job is to engage kids so forcibly that they will want to put down the XBox and read the comic. Just redesigning a classic isn’t going to do that. Not Captain Marvel, not Tiny Titans, not even Scooby-Doo. Kids want their own things, not nostalgia-driven revamps of ours, especially if the revamp is presented in a format that only we are attracted to.
It’s not impossible to do it. Naruto and Harry Potter have shown that it can be done, that kids will respond in huge numbers if they are genuinely engaged.
Give young people something that is tailored to the things they are interested in — not the things WE are interested in — and don’t talk down. Make them reach for it a little. More than anything else, that’s what’s been successful, over and over again.
Marvel and DC want kids to come back to comics? Then their comics have to go where kids are. Not where they — or we — think they should be.
See you next week.
36 Comments
Bernard the Poet
July 11, 2008 at 4:08 am
Excellent article, well done. The only thing I take issue with is the notion that it isn’t “fun and cute that these kids are orphaned and alone”. Of course, it’s fun and cute.
Okay, maybe it doesn’t seem very “fun and cute” if you work in a community-center mission in the poor part of town, but I find that most pre-adolescents don’t.
Starting with the earliest folk tales, on through Roald Dahl and continuing to Manga, all the best children’s fiction has been about orphans or boarding school (or in the case of Harry Potter both). Kids have a secret wish to be free – or at least, not have parents watching their every move and stopping them from having adventures.
One of the key strengths of Captain Marvel is his independence, and having him masquerade as his own father is inspired.
red-Ricky
July 11, 2008 at 4:24 am
You know,
I kind of saw this post comming a week ago and decided to wait until now to voice my opinion. And my opinion is two fold:
— The first thing concerns last week’s column; and that is… that what worked with our generation, as far as getting us hooked on comics, won’t necessarily work on the i-pod generation (or whatever we are calling the next-gen kids, now.)
–The other thing that kind of annoys me is the fact that this has become a hot topic… now. That is, as opposed to five years ago, when the actual idea “of writing Comics for Kids, that the parents buying the comics, will approve” happened.
In fact, so much time has passed that I’ve come to terms with it.
And since you made some excellent points, I’ll just cut and paste from your thread and say what I want to say.
I agree, but… I can see why this was done. You see, I consider myself somewhat an expert on DC’s animated universe line (now called Johnny DC). I’ve been reading them since they first started coming out in 1992; and they were better than good, they were excellent! All those Batman Adventures, and Superman Adventures, and Batman & Robin Adventures… on any given month, they would run circles around “the monthlies”. The quality was top notch. They were cheaper. And they were self-contained stories that always had an excellent twist to them. When the regular Batman comics were drowning in “Contagions”, “Cataclysm” and “No Mans Land” stories (that were both repetitive and didn’t go anywhere) the Batman Adventure comics were churning out quality stories. Pound for pound, they were the best Batman book around.
And Mark Millar’s Superman Adventures wasn’t too shabby either. The only sour spot was Hillary Bader’s Batman Beyond and that was because her stories could be more “miss” than “hit”.
Over at Marvel, Kurt Busiek was writing Spidey’s Untold Tales with a price set at 99¢ in an era where comics where selling for $1.50 and some were already going for $1.95.
My point you ask?
Well, my point is simple… at a time when quality was HIGH and books were accessible and intelligent, and the best thing going… they “sold for shit!”
You guys weren’t buying them and they certainly weren’t being bought “for the kids”.
So I can see why in 2003, DC launched a Teen Titans: Go series that was intended for pre-schoolers and very young kids.
Gone were the days of Mad Love (even though we still had a “Gotham Girls” mini); the future was “knock-knock jokes” & Teen Titans “manga style” chibis on page borders.
So basically,
I’m sorry that Billy Batson wasn’t up to Monster Society standards. Not many DC books are anyway; but I also don’t think that it misrepresented itself in any way.
The Johnny DC line stopped being “about trying to get kids hooked on comics” a long time ago. Now it’s about providing their current customers (adults approximately 32 years old) with comics they can give to their 5 & 4 year olds.
I mean, the current “hot” Johnny DC comic is Super Friends!
It’s based on a Mattel toy made for children in between 2 & 4. How many of your school kids would play with these?
Do you see my point?
Billy Batson is what it is, because the whole Johnny DC line is just like that.
For better or worst, DC has figured out that any kid that wants to read Batman or Hulk, will pick up “the adult” Batman & Hulk comics version… and he won’t get carded or told he is too young to do so!
So yeah, you and Joe are both right; but guess what… DC already knows this.
I agree.
Again, you make an excellent point and I would like to add that…
The whole “internet blogging community”, as well as DC & Marvel, seem to think that the only variable involved in selling comics is “content”. They have this “if you built it, they will come” mentality that seems to suggests that if a story is good… “new readers” will magically appear.
Come on. That’s like playing “rock, paper, scissors” and concentrating on making “the best rock possible” with your little fist.
New readers, or a generation of new readers, won’t materialize until two other variables are addressed:
1- Affordability — In the old days, if I had three dollars, I could buy 4 comics. That meant that I could buy around 16 comics a month. In today’s market, 16 comics will run you close to $50 dollars a month. How many students are out there willing to spend fifty dollars in comics… a month? Wouldn’t they rather buy 2 used video games for $19.99 a pop?
2- Accessibility — When I was a kid, I could walk to the nearest pharmacy, supermarket and/or 7-11 and buy my comics. I didn’t need an adult “to drive me” anywhere. If I want to buy comics now, I have to either drive to the Comic Book Store; or buy them online. If I were a kid, I would be screwed. If I had to depend on my parents in order to get to the store on wednesdays, I would never be able to buy my comics every week. In other words, I would never get hooked.
And that’s it. That’s my thesis.
I do want to say that I also agree with you about Manga. Kids love that style. The problem is that our generation hates it. The consensus, as I see it (and this doesn’t reflect my preferences) is that we don’t want our comics to look “too cartoonish” or “too japanese”. Again, that’s the impression that I get from the internet; and since we are the ones paying the bills, I doubt DC or Marvel are going to go “manga style”.
The other thing is that Manga fans prefer Borders & Books’a Million to our Comic Book Shops. To them, we are our own culture, and they are their own. We tolerate each other at Conventions and stuff; but we don’t mix that well.
Again, that’s just my opinion based on my own observations. The exception to the rule was Tate’s Comic Book store in Ft. Lauderdale. Manga Freaks and Comic Book Geeks happened to mix very well at that store… (but I don’t know how or why that happened.)
edc
July 11, 2008 at 5:47 am
howsabout some ben ten comics being given a big push?
‘man of action’ could publish their own stories, free from WB censors.
who knows.. they could work ben into actual continuity.
Greg Hatcher
July 11, 2008 at 6:13 am
*I* bought them, dammit. And gave them to students, even. In fact, Brandon Hanvey, our own Comic Critics artist, sent a bunch of the DC Adventures books up here for the kids too. Joe set up an entire classroom of students with their own copies of Monster Society, and I think he must have had to do it out-of-pocket or persuade a comics shop to go in on it with him, because I am sure the district wasn’t paying for it.
Also, while he’s not ‘on staff’ here at CSBG, frequent commenter Perry Holley has sent my students a bunch of comics, including about 4 years’ worth of Marvels’ Ultimate line.
Kids’ reaction overall? They enjoyed them, but not enough to go get more of them on their own. They simply don’t get ‘hooked’ on superheroes the way we did. What they get on their own is manga. Which is a basic ‘duh’ fact known to teachers and youth librarians all over the country, but, for whatever reason, somehow Marvel and DC seem to be in deep denial over it.
Anecdotal, yeah, but the anecdotes tend to add up after a while.
Anyway, I just wanted on the record that some of ‘us guys’ are TRYING. I just wish the big two were giving us better material to work with. They could meet educators quite a bit closer to halfway on this stuff. It’s not a question of Billy Batson vs. Monster Society or Jeff Smith vs. Mike Kunkel. It’s a question of, why are Marvel and DC not interested in doing even basic marketing and research on this demographic that has such huge potential for them?
Greg Hatcher
July 11, 2008 at 6:17 am
On the whole, I think Julie agrees with you. Her idea was more that the seriousness of it and the challenges involved should be brought forward a bit more, that the sitcom attitude trivializes it.
The reason I brought it up was mostly just to point out the blinders we as fans have on about how this stuff looks from the outside.
Alex Cox
July 11, 2008 at 6:59 am
“Her idea was more that the seriousness of it and the challenges involved should be brought forward a bit more, that the sitcom attitude trivializes it.”
As far as the Orphan thing goes, we have to consider that these popular orphan characters are always incredibly resourceful- they don’t NEED adults.
Billy in the forties was a boy reporter- he was essentially grown up, at age ten. Everyone treated him that way.
What’s creepy about the current Orphan Billy is that he lives in destitution, looks like he’s five, and is seemingly an urchin waif… played for laughs!
It’s a far cry from Harry Potter.
Nessor Sille
July 11, 2008 at 7:40 am
Yeah, Harry Potter played emotional abuse for laughs, not poverty. We’re supposed to sympathize with Harry, but one can’t forget that it’s five whole books before the author even bother explaining why the lead character has to go back and live with people who try their best to break him in “funny” ways. That’s partially the reason why my own kid brother quit the series by book 3. The contrived situation grew too painful for him.
I’m not so sure it’s “Kids don’t like super-heroes like they used to” so much as “other media currently do the job of super-hero thrills BETTER.” I know too many kids who devour every episode of “Ben 10″ and “The Batman” and went to see the “Iron Man” movie multiple times. It’s not a genre they disdain, it’s just most comic book attempts to make “kids” super-heroes have no idea what excites an actual kid.
Pitr
July 11, 2008 at 7:45 am
“Starting with the earliest folk tales, on through Roald Dahl and continuing to Manga, all the best children’s fiction has been about orphans or boarding school… Kids have a secret wish to be free”
I think it might be worth mentioning that, as far as I can tell, most of those stories (Harry Potter notwithstanding) do portray a child’s desire to be free, but that usually once that wish is granted, it proves to be more of a curse. They also frequently end with a return to traditional family units and domestic satisfaction. Hansel and Gretel run away from home, realize life in the woods means getting eaten, go home to their parents and promise to be good. Matilda’s experience at boarding school is horrific, and even her empowerment and self-image boost ends with her being adopted and having a real mother.
Now, I’m not saying that Billy’s story necessarily HAS to be about him finding parents or a family, but… well, actually, I guess I sort of am. It is called “the Marvel family” after all, either Shazam or the Captain himself can be seen as father/big brother figures, Jeff Smith did very well with the Mary/Billy sibling bond, and so on. I don’t really see a literary tradition of purely fun and adventure filled orphan stories; kids want to have adventures on their own, but they want parents to come home to at the end.
Rene
July 11, 2008 at 8:39 am
Interestingly enough, manga has a lot more violence and sex than American comics. I’m not sure how violent and intense Naruto ane Bleach are, though.
Greg Hatcher
July 11, 2008 at 8:53 am
About on a level with the stuff I was talking about last week, Batman and Manhunter.
I know manga’s not a GENRE. Danielle will scold me. But it just gets tiresome typing “shonen manga and shoujo manga” over and over, especially when I was already trying to be so careful to make it clear when I was talking about U.S. comics, that I meant SUPERHERO comics as published by DC AND MARVEL.
doron
July 11, 2008 at 9:18 am
can you afford a stale bagel on a teacher’s salary? I kid I kid, very good article
Chunk McFat
July 11, 2008 at 9:45 am
I volunteer at an elementary public school in SF and i’ll tell you what’s the number #1 book in terms of popularity: The Bone series by Jeff Smith. It’s not even a question. All volumes are instantly checked out and rechecked out. Some have even bought their own copies and shared with other students (which warms my heart to no end).
Frankly, i’m going to get a few copies of Kunkel’s book and see how it does with the kids I work with.
Graeme Burk
July 11, 2008 at 9:59 am
I agree with you Alex. For my tastes it was even creepier in the Jeff Smith series–where Billy actually was beaten by adults–than in Kunkel. But, even while I see the universality of being an orphan to storytelling, I do think it’s out of whack here.
Ordway, to his credit, dealt with the struggling side of Billy’s existence a lot better (and Billy acted more grown up; he was also portrayed as being something like 10 or 12). Alex Ross followed the cue of a lot of ‘realistic’ styled Shazam! artists and made Billy a teenager. And at least Kunkel has Billy working at WHIZ.
Graeme Burk
July 11, 2008 at 10:02 am
I always thought the best way to do Captain Marvel today is to do it as manga-styled as you can. The character seems tailor-made for that.
I thought your article was great Greg.
Teebore
July 11, 2008 at 10:04 am
Well written and very thought provoking, Greg. I definitely think you’re right in saying that DC and Marvel’s “kids” comics aren’t so much aimed at the kids themselves as at the already-comic fan parents who want something to give their kids as an introduction to the format.
I also think that Nessor Sille is on the money in saying that kids today are very much “fans” of super heroes, even if they’re not fans of “American super hero comics.” Heck, even when I was a kid, before I started reading comics, I knew all about Superman, Batman, Spider-Man and the X-Men just because they were part of the pop culture zeitgeist (movies, cartoons, toys, books, costumes, pillow cases in addition to comic books) and nowadays that’s even more true, especially in light of all the super hero movies.
The key, as you said Greg, is making the transition from “I like this character because I saw him in a movie/cartoon/video game” to “I think I’ll read a comic book about him” easier, and that absolutely requires a change in format and marketing, not just creating a new iteration of the character in the same style and format, sold in the same place as the existing iterations, so that parents who are already fans can hand it to their kids.
That type of product absolutely should exist, as it fills a need in the market. It’s just that DC and Marvel need to realize it doesn’t fulfill the market’s need for a comic that kids nowadays will pick up on their own.
Alan Coil
July 11, 2008 at 10:13 am
Manga is a genre.
Superheroes is a genre. Cops and robbers is a genre. Manga is a genre. Plus it’s made by foreigners. (That last part is a joke. Honest. Some of my best friends…never mind. I only know one person from a land other than Canada and Mexico, and I seldom see him.)
Greg Hatcher
July 11, 2008 at 10:46 am
It’s really not. It’s a form. Saying it’s a genre is like saying “books are a genre,” or “TV is a genre.”
Evan Waters
July 11, 2008 at 10:58 am
Given the nature of this blog, and the question it asks up top, shouldn’t “is it a good comic?” really be the only question?
Whether it’s financially viable or not, let the market decide that. Nobody can predict this with any certainty. The BILLY BATSON book isn’t meant to be THE magic bullet that gets kids liking superhero comics again, it’s meant to be another entry in the Johnny DC line. If it doesn’t work there will be other chances, and though it could be argued that Johnny DC has made a mistake replacing something like JLU with something like SUPER FRIENDS and leaving a gap where genuine adventure for under-13s should go, I don’t see how it’s fair that this title carry the burden of fixing everything that’s wrong with mainstream comics’ approach to child audiences.
Skemono
July 11, 2008 at 11:48 am
Manga is a genre.
No, manga is more a medium than a genre.
Mordy
July 11, 2008 at 11:51 am
I’m sure I wasn’t a kid more recently than the majority of readers of this blog (I’m twenty-four today, started reading comics when I was around twelve). But there was a moment – around Superman’s wedding and Batman the Animated Series – when people my age started getting into comic books. And it wasn’t just the low price tag that was pulling us in. My pull list for two years were the four superman comics (that formed an ongoing weekly storyline), Peter David’s Supergirl (not that I knew the writer back then) and the two Superboy comics (Superboy and Superboy + the Ravers). That’s seven comic books a month. The local mall had a comic book shop that pulled those titles for me, and every time my mother took me to the mall (about once a month), she bought me my stack of comic books. And then I read them on the floor of the Macy’s anchor store while she browsed for clothing.
I also watched Batman the Animated Series weekly (along with Animaniacs and Gargoyles and some other contemporaneous cartoons) and discussed them with friends. This was the moment before, or just when Power Rangers were beginning to become popular (just to set the moment in its proper chronology). The reason I bring up this history is to show that comics still have the power to acquire new readers. Even superhero comics. After all, the 90′s weren’t that long ago. With superhero films invading theaters (I went to the Metropolitan Superhero costume exhibit and the place was flooded with kids pretending to be Iron Man) there’s no reason why kids shouldn’t be picking up comic books. Which is to say, I agree with the criticisms of Billy Batson (if, as a twelve-year-old, I had seen that in the comic book store, I would’ve passed it over for something else — but then again, I never really liked Cpt Marvel), but don’t think we’re facing a comic book apocalypse.
(Rereading this, I’m not sure if I made much of an argument, but sometimes I feel like comic book youth narratives become focused on the golden age + silver age of comic books, and plenty of adults today got hooked on comics in the late 80′s and 90′s, and soon to be 00′s. Nostalgia is a bitch, particularly when it ignores whole swathes of history in order to make its argument.)
Skemono
July 11, 2008 at 11:52 am
Also…
(And I can’t find a Superman comic at a Wal-Mart to save my life most days, anyway; if I could, $5 would not cover two of them.)
Something that really struck me where I live (near a small town in Indiana)–if you go to the grocery store, Jay-C (and probably in Wal-Mart, too), they actually sell Shonen Jump amidst all the other magazines. In fact, I think there were a couple other magazines about anime / manga (although they weren’t digests of manga).
But there aren’t regular DC & Marvel superhero comics.
Mike Loughlin
July 11, 2008 at 11:58 am
Price & availability keep kids away from Marvel Adventures & Johnny DC comics. What would make them seek out American super-hero comics? When I was a kid, the soon-to-be-Image artists stood out. Their work had a forward thrust to it, as well as cool looking pin-up shots. Manga art seems to have a greater urgency than the art found in most Marvel Adventures & Johnny DC comics. The average MA comic looks kind of dull. I like the MA Avengers because it’s well-written, but the art doesn’t have the kineticism of manga. The Johnny DC art looks like it’s made for little kids.
( No, I don’t know if kineticism is a word. If it isn’t, it should be, goldangit! )
Greg Hatcher
July 11, 2008 at 12:13 pm
No argument on that point. My frustration stems more from my opinion that the entire Johnny DC and Marvel Adventures lines are operating on a fundamentally flawed premise, and I’ve done my best to lay out that opinion point-by-point, above. The Captain Marvel thing Joe started was just the jumping-off place for all this.
But certainly, if people like Billy Batson, more power to them. I just think it could be formatted, edited, and presented a hell of a lot better, if it really is meant for kids.
However, I said a couple of weeks ago that it’s really impossible to critique comics intelligently without at least being aware of the business side of things. Should it figure into a review? Well, if you’re talking about what it looks like the book’s TRYING to do, I think it’s fair game for a critic to assess whether or not it was successful. But mileage varies.
Bill Reed
July 11, 2008 at 4:54 pm
I await the day when the blogosphere takes over the comics industry.
Evan Waters
July 11, 2008 at 5:07 pm
I’m not quite sure what the Marvel Adventures line is supposed to be doing wrong. On the contrary, they seem to have the whole “family entertainment” thing right- the stories aren’t dumbed down, they’re just straightforward superhero stories that don’t have anything too adult.
edc
July 11, 2008 at 5:26 pm
“I await the day when the blogosphere takes over the comics industry.”
then matt fraction and eddie bru can don tights and thump bloggers back into submission, once again making the universe safe from dweebs an their list of reasons why star wars is better than galactica!
Jono11
July 11, 2008 at 5:54 pm
I agree with the majority of what you say, but towards the end, you seem to suggest that existing, established superheroes CAN’T be adapted for kids. Kids “don’t want revamps of our stuff.” You don’t think it’s possible to do an intelligent young-adults superhero comic-book that takes into account your suggestions about format and content, and also happens to be about the Teen Titans, or Captain Marvel/Billy Batson, or the Young Avengers, or the Runaways?
Greg Hatcher
July 11, 2008 at 6:08 pm
POSSIBLE? Sure. Why aren’t Marvel and DC actually doing it? That’s what I want to know. I do suspect that if they did manage to do it, kids would only be lukewarm. But that’s just my hunch.
Content-wise, they are indeed awesome. But I really do feel that they are designed from an adult Marvel fan’s point of view; there’s an inability to see beyond repackaging the same old stuff. What I keep seeing is an approach that looks like, “if we keep doing superheroes, first this way, then that way, we will eventually luck into something the kids will respond to.”
My question is, if Marvel and DC are genuinely interested in getting the kids back to their books then why are they so obsessed with recycling superhero stories from decades ago? Doing it well or doing it badly doesn’t matter — this simply isn’t the kind of comic today’s young people respond to. Certainly not the way they respond to Naruto or Harry Potter –or Bone, as someone pointed out above.
What the Marvel Adventures line is doing ‘wrong’ is putting great stories out there — but doing it in a format kids don’t care for, in a genre that they are only mildly interested in.
red-Ricky
July 11, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Yeah, I know. I even caught it when I was editing myself. But I was too tired. And a jab here and there sometimes generates traffic. I mean, looking at Joe’s post I don’t think it would have generated that much debate if he had done the “cool & calm nice guy” constructive criticism.
In any case, I have been singing the praises of the Batman Animated line going back to when CBR was known as “envisionweb” or kingdomcome message boards… or whatever, I forget.
But it really hasn’t done the book any good.
Right now, Dark Horse has 3 or 4 Indiana Jones books out. The best one, by far! is Indiana Jones Adventures. It’s solid in story, price & availability. It’s been out for at least 3 weeks now and the only review I’ve seen was at Silver Bullets (which gave it like 5 or 6 stars/bullets).
Maybe I missed it, but as far as I can tell there was no *peep* from CBR, CSBG, Newsarama or IGN. So, you know… are we going to bury Billy Batson for being “too cheesy” for kids, but forget to praise Indiana Jones for doing it right? Or is Indiana Jones Adventures not that good either?
I wonder if they’d like them in the “manga format”. And by that I mean…
If Marvel took Wolverine’s Enemy of the State, reprinted it as a Black & White collection in a 5.5″ x 8″ “digest size” format; making it very cheap on account that it’s a reprint… and it’s black & white.
And then, what if they distributed through “other channels”. Not by Diamond; but by “whatever means” manga is currently being distributed to drugstores and such.
Would it sell?
Is it an experiment worth doing?
Or do we need to consinder the possibility that Naruto is better liked than Batman & Wolverine (among kids) because they just are. (Or maybe they just are… the popular thing on TV right now.)
Well, regardless to your answer to that last one, I think it’s a experiment worth conducting and one that the Powers that be should consider on their next Free Comic Book Day. It could definitely settle the argument of format vs. content of the current manga lovin’ kiddie generation, once and for all.
Lynxara
July 11, 2008 at 11:13 pm
I sort of doubt it. Manga tends to be the product of a particular cultural viewpoint and industry system so different from the American industry that it very much has its own feel. Even beyond the art, the writing tropes and layout philosophy is amazingly different. If you did reprint comics arts in manga’s tankoubon-esque format with no color, you’d still have something that felt like American comics. Some kids would bite, but a lot would pass it over for something else. I see kids in our Barnes & Noble give this treatment to OEL stuff and Korean manwha published in manga format all the time.
Bright-Raven
July 12, 2008 at 12:24 am
Greg:
“This all started with Joe Rice talking about Mike Kunkel’s new Captain Marvel book, which is *clearly* aimed at *younger* kids….”
Well, I dare say this isn’t book is aimed for younger readers at all. I think it’s aimed for superhero readers who want a “clean” superhero story without all the garbage that permeates postmodern superhero comics. I don’t think age consideration truly factors into it at all. (They may claim it, but just saying it’s so, doesn’t MAKE it so.)
One could made a sound argument that the DCU animated books historically have been the best written versions of the DC characters since Bruce Timm and Paul Dini started doing them in the early 1990s. And part of the reason for that is because by and large, they’re writing ‘clean’ stories. You don’t have to worry about characters being raped and / or graphicly murdered (Sue Dibny, Kyle Rayner’s girlfriend), heroes – or heroes’ friends / loved ones – going insane and turning on everyone (Jean Loring, Hal Jordan), in-joke parody versions of the mainstream characters (Apollo and Midnighter in AUTHORITY), ultraviolent borderline psychotic versions of the characters (Batman), etc.
That’s what makes the Johnny DC books potentially appealing. Not the damn “kiddie art”. Sadly, as nice as the DCU Animated style is, it can be pretty stagnant looking on the page. Both kids and adults alike want more sophisticated art. And that’s something DC doesn’t get. You put those writers on board with the top gun artists (without the writers going “adult”), and start telling clean stories again, with an *occassional* darker toned story aimed for more mature audiences, SOLICITED as being for mature audiences as separate series, and maybe DC (and Marvel, for that matter) will actually have books worth reading again.
But back to BB&TPOS. Here Billy is, evading adult supervision and concerns (his nosy neighbor, his principal) in manners that in all honesty are as simplistic and unrealistic as a boy his age would come up with, and in that respect, Kunkel is actually doing a brilliant job of it. He’s writing it from the kid’s perspective, and you as a reader have to put yourself in the mindset of the character, not as an adults working at community shelters or as teachers acutely aware of the real world situation facing the character. There will be consequences for Billy’s actions, and I’m sure Kunkel will address them. I fully expect “Uncle” Tawny to show up as the surrogate parent before too long. I don’t think anybody needs to hit the panic button just yet.
I understand what you’re saying about it being too small, but I don’t think an oversized format would be the answer, nor do I think that making it a storybook as you suggest would necessarily work, either. Retailers (bookstores, comics shops, Wal-Mart / K-Mart / Target, I don’t care who) wouldn’t know what to do with it. None of them know what to do the manga as it stands now, for crying out loud. (Sorry, but SHONEN JUMP doesn’t belong next to SEVENTEEN magazine, necessarily. Nor do most of the mangas belong displayed directly across from the Dr. Seuss section of the kid’s books area. This is not uncommon store placement, unfortunately. Unless the store’s putting the manga over with SF/ Fantasy or in its own Graphic Novels section, which neither works for reaching kids – I NEVER see kids over in these sectors of any book store today.)
And I think that’s a key problem here. Nobody knows what format to work in, or how to market comics today. They don’t know what content, format, or how to educate mainstream society about the medium. Moreover, I honestly don’t think anyone working in comics particularly cares to try to figure it out and actively do anything to fix said problem. American society on the whole still thinks comics died out 25-30 years ago, because the product is actively out of sight, out of mind.
************
RE: Marvel Adventures –
I’m personally non-plussed about them, but they don’t ‘suck’ as badly as the mainstream Marvel product. To me it’s recycled content from earlier eras with the creators trying to ‘modernize’ the content. I don’t feel that it works. They’re not *bad* comics, mind you. Just that I have a sense of “been there done that” when I read them and I’m not really clicking with the art styles of today.
I think half the problem with them is that the creative teams are more unknown commodities with no market presence and since Marvel’s already got umpteen books with these characters, the general fanboy audience doesn’t give a damn, and Marvel (just like DC) isn’t smart enough to market their product “outside the box” so to speak. By no means does that mean put *fill in superstar name here* on the books. What it does mean, is learning to say “THIS is the book we as a publisher want you retailers promoting to your new readers, NOT our crossover events. You can get readers into the larger commitment stories once you’ve got them interested in our characters to start.” Which we all know they’re not going to do, because it’s counterproductive to the marketing and publishing structures both they and the retailers operate under.
**********
“Just the fact that it’s a superhero comic doesn’t guarantee interest or a closer look from kids. That only happens with fans. If I put a superhero book, even one ostensibly aimed at young readers, even one based on the new hot Marvel or DC movie, next to a manga digest on the table in my classroom, I’ll bet you a year’s pay against a stale bagel that the kids all will lunge for the manga first.”
Well, duh. Do I want 22 pages of chapfic or 150 to 200 pages of a story? If you had NARUTO or BLEACH or POKEMON strictly in 22 page increments monthly instead of digest TPBs, do you really think your kids would be gaga over manga, Greg? I don’t. I can remember when manga first hit the industry in the 1980s and practically nobody was buying it. Why weren’t they, Greg? 1) Format. Nobody wanted black and white Japanese comics when they could get color comics for cheaper (remember in the eighties, most B&W titles were still $1.50 to $3 while Marvel / DC were .75 to $1). 2) More importantly, Anime / Manga was not yet a common pop cultural mainstay in America.
Nobody was getting it pounded into their brains daily with six hour blocks of Anime cartoons in the 1980s. Keep in mind we were still in the era of Marvel – Sunbow / DiC dominating the US market for animation. Sure, kids of the 80s dug Voltron and Thundercats and Silverhawks and Bionic Six and Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers. But we also got He-Man / She-Ra and Bravestarr from Filmation, we still got the Marvel / Sunbow GI JOE, JEM, SPIDEY / HULK, we had Ruby/Spears with the Kirby and Toth stuff like THUNDARR. Hanna-Barbera was still going strong. You had *variety*.
Today, you’re pretty much stuck with whatever Time-Warner offers and a slew of anime-slanted styles on TV, regardless of the character property. So of course your kids who have been raised in this environment are going to want what they’ve been exposed to. That only makes logical sense.
You might stop me there and ask, “Wait a minute, if that’s true why didn’t the DCU animated stuff fly off the shelves during the Batman: The Animated Series when it initially broke out in the early nineties?” Because the comics industry was too busy promoting crossover events, gimmick covers, the Image creators, everything BUT that sort of content. By the time someone at Time-Warner FINALLY tapped DC on the shoulder and they started doing something in the late 90s, that ship was long gone. That market had to be sold to in 1992-94, when it was fresh in everyone’s minds. What was DC promoting in that time, eh? Look back. Death of Superman. Knightfall. Emerald Twlight. War of the Gods. Darkstars because it had Travis Charest doing his Jim Lee impression.
What was the industry on the whole promoting then? Spawn. WildC.A.T.S. Youngblood. Deathmate. X-Tinction Agenda. Infinity this, that and the other thing. Valiant. Sin City. Watchmen. V For Vendetta. Dark Knight Returns. We were still “comics have grown up!” mode. And in fact, we still are. Arrested attitude much?
Do we really need to wonder what happened?
“Why are Marvel and DC clinging so stubbornly to the idea that if they only make the right 22-page booklet kid’s superhero comic, all will be as it was?”
Sad to say, the wrong people working in upper management both as publishers and as media companies. The comics are loss leaders to keep the properties out there, but ultimately, Greg, if Marvel and Time-Warner could shut down comics entirely and just make TV shows / movies out of these properties, they would. And that’s not to say that the people working in these positions aren’t capable, they just don’t seem to know how to get out of their own way or around those who impede the necessary progression (and by no means is this an easy feat).
“Give young people something that is tailored to the things they are interested in — not the things WE are interested in — and don’t talk down. Make them reach for it a little. More than anything else, that’s what’s been successful, over and over again.”
And isn’t that the crux of the key problem in the comics industry, today, Greg? That we’re stuck with a bunch of ‘writers’ and ‘editors’ who are basically fanboys writing to their own interests and tastes, instead of writing content that can speak to a true mass audience?
Rene
July 12, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Bright-Raven, I don’t mean to single you out, but this is something I hear a lot, and I’m not sure I agree. The DCU animated being the best version of the characters because they’re “clean”. Sometimes it seems to me they’re so good *despite* being all-ages, not *because* they’re all-ages. Timm and Dini managed to get to the essence of the characters, without having to worry with chronology, and they were exceptional storytellers. Being an exceptional storyteller has little to do with how much or how little “cleanness” there is.
The Batman Animated is very noir in feeling, in tone, in mood. The stories would flow more naturally if the writers were allowed to go a bit more mature. Not much, but just a bit. You don’t need anything graphic, but a character dying now and then, would be just a natural progression to many of the scenes and a natural fit too to the world Timm and Dini created for their Batman. I mean, many of the episodes are real gritty police dramas, and you can pratically SEE Timm and Dini struggling to do them as dark as possible within the limitations imposed by television.
I’m not talking about things such as rape, obviously. But just an example. An episode already shows the Joker as a quite scary would-be killer, targeting helpless bureaucrats with his Joker venom, it actually shows the victims getting their faces distended and discolored. And then you have Batman applying an antidote and making a comment that the victims will eventually recover. Just because they can’t show a murder on kid TV. Isn’t it silly? They’re already showing all the scary parts, just editing out the bit where Batman says the victims will recover would make the cartoon unacepptable to kids?
Or when a character is apparently falling to their death, but then they show a convenient river for the character to fall into. Would it make the show so much more mature if the character simply died and they cut before the person hits the ground?
I’m saying all that because I am currently re-watching the Batman Animated Series episodes, and they’re really quite “mature” in many respects (atmosphere, scary villains, ultra-sexy Catwoman and Talia, psychological density, etc.) that it feels silly when they make such artificial concessions to the all-ages format.
Bright-Raven
July 12, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Rene:
Yes, many of the stories of the DCU animated series are mature themed. Mostly because often they are adapting late 1960s, 1970s and 1980s pre-Crisis materials (Particularly B:TAS, but also Superman and Justice League). You can find a good 70% of that stuff or more of what you refer to in the old Detective and Batman comics by Denny O’ Neil, Steve Englehart, and Doug Moench among others between 1968-1982. And the B:TAS comic is still in that vein, thematically.
But ever since THE KILLING JOKE and DARK KNIGHT RETURNS (and I guess add Tim Burton’s BATMAN films into the equation as well), that really has not been who Batman is in the regular titles.
The current mainstream Batman comics are not noir. The character is an ultraviolent, overly obsessed borderline psychotic vigilante who has repeatedly alienated those whom he’s trained and worked with over the years. The villains are far more *graphically* violent than they were in the past. (And there is no dire need for it,. As you rightfuly pointed out with the Joker from the cartoon, Many of whose stories are verbatim lifted from the 70s comics by Denny O’Neil and Steve Englehart, you can get the message across very easily, and keep in mind the cartoon showed MORE than the comic.)
Today’s Batman is so paranoid he develops contingency plans as to defeat all of his fellow superhuman heroes and then apparently is so stupid as to allow an opponent to gain access to those plans (see the Grant Morrison story in JLA that got adapted into a JUSTICE LEAGUE episode as memory serves). He’s constantly guilt ridden and withdrawn, whereas the Batman of the B:TAS / the Pre-Crisis era, while always sad for losing his parents, is at least somewhat well adjusted as Bruce Wayne, not constantly hiding behind the mask and not tripping over himself with survivor’s guilt all the time. The stories in B:TAS were about the adventures and the mysteries and the crimes. Not an obsession with the fractured psyche of the character. If that’s all you really want to write about – and that’s been a large aspect of how the character’s been approached by the majority of writers post 1986 – you really don’t “get” this character, as far as I’m concerned.
Today, the character is so obsessed with the “mission” and the notion that only HE can do it, that he seldom if ever calls in aid. (See KNIGHTFALL – am I really supposed to believe that Batman is so damn stupid that when Akham has a major breakout and many if not all of his major enemies are running loose, he’s not making a call to Nightwing asking for Titans assistance? Or the League? Or the Outsiders? Oh no, he’s the by goddamn BATMAN, and he’s going to go solo and kick everyone’s ass until the plot says he’s too tired to continue and Bane can break his back. *rolls eyes* Okay, So Bruce is obssessive bad ass. So what? Even then, am I supposed to be so ignorant as to believe that Alfred won’t make the call? Or that the League or Nightwing or someone won’t become aware of the situation on their own and realize he needs help and come running? Sorry, but no. Bad plotting, bad writing that broke all the conventions of the character for the sake of getting from Plot Point A to Plot Point B. By company directive, certainly, but still a failed work. And what’s worse, is that it *didn’t have to be*.)
And admittedly, while at times Batman acts this way in the B:TAS cartoon as well, it’s often presented as a sense of protecting / preserving those he cares for, than the deathwish “I’m the only one who can do this” attitude. And that DOES make a significant difference in perception and acceptance of who and what this character is.
As the years have progressed over the 22-24 years since DKR and TKJ, the character has become far less intelligent and more violent. Far less “Batman the Dark Knight Detective” and more “Batman the Bad Ass Vigilante”.
This is not typically the case in the animated style comics, or the occassional stories that used to be featured in LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT, which were often referred to as flashback stories to “an earlier era” in his career, and were widely dismissed by fans, because it didn’t “jibe” with the postmodern vigilante version that DC / Time-Warner has been cramming down our collective throats for the past two and a half decades.
But this is not singularly about Batman. This is about the entire industry, and speaks of the overall approach to superhero comics in the postmodern era. Writing “mature” / “adult” content does not automatically mean ultravolence, mean-spirited parody, self-destructive behaviors, excessive graphics to shock the reader when the point can be presented visually more eloquently and truthfully more dynamically without the shock value, the pseudo self-psychoanalysis posing as ‘characterization’, or obsessive referencing to continuity (in as much to one’s own personal tastes / interests) or pop culture reference. And these practices apply with many of the characters, at both of the Big Two.
I find the creators who rely on these tactics to be producing lesser work than their predecessors or other creators in the business who do not excessively use such crutches in their work. Regardless of the respective popularity or expectation of segments of the audience who have become accustomed to it. That doesn’t mean they’re not capable, just that we’re not demanding it of them. (Or that at least not enough of us are.)
Joe Rice
July 13, 2008 at 8:54 am
While a lot of people wrote Batman like that for a very long time, Morrison and Dini and company are making him more like what he once was; a father figure that puts together a large family. (Mark Waid wrote the betrayal story you mention, by the way, not Grant Morrison.) Your complaints, BR, though once valid and may be again one day, are dated now.
Bright-Raven
July 13, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Joe Rice:
“Mark Waid wrote the betrayal story you mention, by the way, not Grant Morrison.”
My apologies for being incorrect on the credits for the ‘Betrayal’ story. I thought it was during Morrison’s JLA, but since I only borrowed the trades out of the library (and then quite some time ago), I didn’t have the contents on hand to check. Thank you for the correction.
“While a lot of people wrote Batman like that for a very long time, Morrison and Dini and company are making him more like what he once was; a father figure that puts together a large family.”
I agree that Batman has been more encouraging and supportive of his allies as of the OYL storyline to current. But I still can’t see him as a ‘father figure’ or the cast as any sort of “family” because of how dysfunctional and destructive many of his supporting cast members are to themselves and to one another. To me it’s more “Bruce Wayne’s Rehabilitation Center For Screwball Teenage Assassins and Wayward Heroes”.
gentlesatirist
September 12, 2008 at 8:11 am
Have to respectfully disagree with Greg’s original contention – on the classic comics board – that the DC Animated line has been written for the adult fans who are buying the comics for their kids.
I’ve been buying titles like Batman Adventures, Teen Titans Go and Justice League Adventures for my kids for years now. My daughter is now 11 and my son is 8. Lately, my daughter’s been leaning more toward the Archie comics, but she had read the others as well. My son now enjoys the new Super Friends and Tiny Titans comics.
In the past, I’ve tried to get my kids into books or toys I enjoyed as a kid. Some of these efforts failed. However, the DC animated comics were a successful way for me to get my kids interested in comics.
Maybe my family is an exception, but I wanted to point this out to Greg, who clearly has spent much time on the subject.
- Frank Esposito
Wickliffe OH