How can we stop with the sterotype of "Comics are for children." [Archive]

Dennis

05-24-2009, 07:22 PM

Comics are for teen boys. Comics don't have ads for viagra, life insurance, metamucil...they still have ads for toys, video games, don't smoke pot messages, soft drinks, metal bands, the Navy. I can see how comics can still be attractive to the 12 year old.

The average age of the video gamer is supposedly 35 or something. I dunno know about that, I played some fps games online recently and they all seem like high school or college kids. I'm always hearing "Gotta go, I got finals to study for." And the screen names...

comicsmetal

05-24-2009, 07:30 PM

Gilda Dent

05-24-2009, 07:31 PM

Tentacle porn comics.

In digest size, loaded into those Wal-Mart and supermarket checkout stand booklet racks, like you see with Archie and Disney digests.

Also, put colorful cartoon characters on the front to attract the really little kids.

Parents would soon be disabused of the notion that comics are for kids.

Also, Playboy: The comic. The same content, but with the explicit nudes drawn instead of photographed.

Dennis

05-24-2009, 07:35 PM

:confused: I do not see them at the comic shops.I see people over the age of 20.

Yeah, same here. But real adults have kids, mortgages. When you have to pay for your kid's braces, then you're a real adult. I feel like I'm around 14 years old.

comicsmetal

05-24-2009, 07:42 PM

Yeah, same here. But real adults have kids, mortgages. When you have to pay for your kid's braces, then you're a real adult. I feel like I'm around 14 years old.

:biggrin: You sound like a grumpy person,alot of them have kids I bet they just be careful on how much they spend on comics. Oh bye the way there is no such things as real adults just becuase you can pay for your kids braces and mortgages does not make you a real adult.They are people who can do those things but are more immature then any comic buyer.Just because you follow the worlds rules does not mean you are a grow up(actually nothing really changes form your teen years.)

Edit:It is more about how you act around people and the things you do to people that make you an adult.The things you buy or wear is a personal choice and no one should tell you what you can not do.I was having dinner last night in a resturant and this guys who was maybe in his early to late 20s was so loud and rude(talking about how he bought two mortgages as Dennis thinks that is what a real adult)I was sitting down having my dinner and I felt alot more adult then him.Even when I was wearing my Batman t-shirt and necklace bacause I was not loud or rude and respected others that made me fell that I was more grown up then the person who said he bought two mortgages.

Crowforge

05-24-2009, 07:45 PM

Next time there's a comic controversy call your congressman and curse him or her out.

comicsmetal

05-24-2009, 07:45 PM

bartl

05-25-2009, 06:17 AM

Also, Playboy: The comic. The same content, but with the explicit nudes drawn instead of photographed.
Penthouse beat you to it, in the late 90's. From memory, one of the top people in comics division got hooked on cocaine, screwed up everything, and committed suicide.

One of their editors (who I am not naming in this post for various search engine reasons) used to be pretty regular in this group (or at least Grant's previous group). I hope he still follows the group, and will chime in with the details.

comicsmetal

05-25-2009, 01:55 PM

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ptitlerax1116nu5ji?from=Main.WhatDoYouMeanItsNotFo rKids
Look at this as well.

Steven Grant

05-25-2009, 02:02 PM

Penthouse beat you to it, in the late 90's. From memory, one of the top people in comics division got hooked on cocaine, screwed up everything, and committed suicide.

Save for the moneymen, the top guy, George Caragonne, who is now notorious in comics circles where tales of insane self-destruction are told. The joke was that he always wanted to make a big splash on Broadway, and finally did.

- Grant

comicsmetal

05-25-2009, 02:36 PM

:biggrin: Seams like no one is taking this thread seriously.Oh well i do not care what people think but it will be good if the stereotype goes away.

Crowforge

05-25-2009, 11:33 PM

I was serious

Inkthinker

05-29-2009, 02:00 AM

I don't think it's nearly as bad a problem as it used to be. This is a generational issue, as Grant has said in the column before. There's far more mainstream acceptance of comics today than there was 20 years ago, and I expect 20 years from now it won't be an issue at all... people will recognize, they already recognize, that comics is a method for telling stories for any audience.

king mob

05-29-2009, 07:28 AM

:biggrin: Seams like no one is taking this thread seriously.Oh well i do not care what people think but it will be good if the stereotype goes away.

No it won't because it means that the comics audience will shrink if kids don't read comics & understand how comics work, from an early age.

There's 'adult' comics & there's adult comics, but the truth is that comics are for everyone, regardless of age. Trying to assume that American superhero comics (which is what I assume you're on about) should be for adults is simply bizarre considering these are superhero comics.

Brenz

05-29-2009, 08:37 AM

To be honest, I think more kids' comics are what we need.

If we can't do that, let's at least stop the illusion that superhero comics are for kids, since they're chock full of swears and Batman crotch-stomping heroin dealers.

T Hedge Coke

05-29-2009, 08:56 AM

The comics medium is for everyone. Individual comics are a little more your mileage may vary.

The thing is, even in comics fandom, there seems to be some reflexive-repressive urge to limit what counts as comics. Nonsuperhero comics aren't comics, or what comes in a newspaper isn't comics, comics that were originally published in a language not my mother tongue are not comics, and so forth. And when a comic is particularly good or has a unique appeal, somebody trots out that it "transcends the medium" which it doesn't (nothing transcends its medium... that isn't multimedia, I guess).

And too much of journalism and academia seems incapable of separating genre from medium in a functional way (journalism also seems, frequently, to be incapable of distinguishing timeframes, so that a story on contemporary-work X is always compared to works from forty years earlier, be that comics, novels, or fine art).

But, if the enthusiasts aren't going to treat comics as a whole, than we can't really expect journalists, theorists, archivists or the average person in the checkout stand at the grocery to, can we?

rorshach1982

06-02-2009, 01:49 PM

:biggrin: Seams like no one is taking this thread seriously.Oh well i do not care what people think but it will be good if the stereotype goes away.

You're certainly a different kind of fellow aren't ya.

I'm wondering if we even have hard numbers on reader demographics. I remember, vaguely, hearing that female readership in the early 90s was somewhere in the 30%, but never once saw the hard numbers. Who, if anyone, in the industry is doing actual reader studies? And if it's big companies like DC and Marvel doing market research, are those findings available?

I'm not actually sure I want the stereotype to go away. I used to, but the more I look at comics as a business, I gain a different perspective. As long as it stands in place, it encourages parents to buy comics for their kids, for children's libraries to stock comic books, and it makes comic book properties seem more attractive to Hollywood, who know that material that spread over a wide age range has a better chance of making buckets of cash. It doesn't matter that none of this is technically true. The newest Wolverine game has more blood and gore than Grand Theft Auto 4, but people might buy it for their kids because it's linked to a PG13 movie (I like to think at least) and that makes more money for the industry. I am assuming no one looks at ratings for the games of course.

I do actually see children of various ages in my local comic shop, accompanied by parents who read much of the time, but sometimes there are people in the shop with their kids doing what I remember doing; dragging/begging their parents to take them to a comic book store, despite their parent's lack of interest.

What's the benefit of losing the stereotype?

comicsmetal

06-02-2009, 07:13 PM

You're certainly a different kind of fellow aren't ya.

I'm wondering if we even have hard numbers on reader demographics. I remember, vaguely, hearing that female readership in the early 90s was somewhere in the 30%, but never once saw the hard numbers. Who, if anyone, in the industry is doing actual reader studies? And if it's big companies like DC and Marvel doing market research, are those findings available?

I'm not actually sure I want the stereotype to go away. I used to, but the more I look at comics as a business, I gain a different perspective. As long as it stands in place, it encourages parents to buy comics for their kids, for children's libraries to stock comic books, and it makes comic book properties seem more attractive to Hollywood, who know that material that spread over a wide age range has a better chance of making buckets of cash. It doesn't matter that none of this is technically true. The newest Wolverine game has more blood and gore than Grand Theft Auto 4, but people might buy it for their kids because it's linked to a PG13 movie (I like to think at least) and that makes more money for the industry. I am assuming no one looks at ratings for the games of course.

I do actually see children of various ages in my local comic shop, accompanied by parents who read much of the time, but sometimes there are people in the shop with their kids doing what I remember doing; dragging/begging their parents to take them to a comic book store, despite their parent's lack of interest.

What's the benefit of losing the stereotype?

It gives comics a chance to be respected in the world .It also help when the people who read them because most of them are not kids.The medium can not stick to one demographic it needs to expand.I do not say kids should not buy comics but when the sterotypes only protrades the industry as children entertainment.Which is not true.

Also it lets Artist and comic book writers a chance to put Intelligant and thoughtful comics.

Steven Grant

06-03-2009, 01:36 AM

What's the benefit of losing the stereotype?

I suspect the stereotype now lives on, to any great degree, only in the minds of defensive comics fans. Really, I haven't had anyone even remotely suggest that in years when they found out what I do for a living. Most people just consider comics another branch of entertainment now, whether they read them or not, think "graphic novels" when you say "comics" and think all graphic novels are adult-themed.

You'd be surprised how many people now think comics are no longer being published and graphic novels have supplanted them. From their lips to God's ears...

- Grant

Steven Grant

06-03-2009, 01:38 AM

It gives comics a chance to be respected in the world .It also help when the people who read them because most of them are not kids.The medium can not stick to one demographic it needs to expand.I do not say kids should not buy comics but when the sterotypes only protrades the industry as children entertainment.Which is not true.

Also it lets Artist and comic book writers a chance to put Intelligant and thoughtful comics.

Like I said in the column, respect ain't worth the paper it's printed on, but that aside, I'm confused. When did it turn into 1980 again? You're talking about a world that in my experience has been dead for nigh on a decade now, at least.

- Grant

comicsmetal

06-03-2009, 01:53 AM

Like I said in the column, respect ain't worth the paper it's printed on, but that aside, I'm confused. When did it turn into 1980 again? You're talking about a world that in my experience has been dead for nigh on a decade now, at least.

- Grant

:confused: But my mother got on my case one day about them.Also Animation is still going through that stereotype.

Pól Rua

06-03-2009, 04:57 AM

As we know it Comics for the past decade have gotten alot more adult and people who read comics are not kids but in north america some people still believe it is for kids.

Do people have any solution or just like animation will it be part of that stereotype for years to come.

Hard core porn and free heroin with every issue sold.

Pól Rua

06-03-2009, 05:00 AM

:confused: But my mother got on my case one day about them.Also Animation is still going through that stereotype.

Give her Persepolis or Fun Home or Acme Novelty Library or Maus or Blankets or Nat Turner or It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken or Death Of Speedy or any number of intelligently-written non-tights 'n' fights comics to read.
Problem solved.

Dennis

06-03-2009, 08:23 AM

:confused: But my mother got on my case one day about them.Also Animation is still going through that stereotype.

My dad was the same but this was when I was a teen. He probably thinks it's still for kids but I guess he just gave up and forgot about the whole thing. This happened because I wasn't living up to his expectations (bad grades). There are a lot of parents upset their kids are always on the xbox (and they know those games have adult content). How old are you?

bartl

06-03-2009, 09:26 AM

What's the benefit of losing the stereotype?
People don't think you're a dork when they find out you read comics.

Gilda Dent

06-03-2009, 11:48 AM

People don't think you're a dork when they find out you read comics.

Absolutely.

People know I'm a dork long before they find out that I read comics.

king mob

06-03-2009, 12:01 PM

It gives comics a chance to be respected in the world .

They are respected. Look at most of Europe & Asia where comics are as common as novels or newspapers, regardless of the genre. British newspapers were full of articles about Alan Moore and the complexity of comics like Watchmen back in March.

Comics are doing just fine, though there seems to be a greater stigma about certain genres of comics in North America.

Also it lets Artist and comic book writers a chance to put Intelligant and thoughtful comics.

There's loads of such comics out there, but if you're looking in the superhero market then don't expect much in the way of well thought out, entertaining comics.

Steven Grant

06-03-2009, 12:11 PM

People don't think you're a dork when they find out you read comics.

Jeez, people already think I'm a freakin' god for writing them. Surely you readers can put up with a little denigration just to balance things out...

- Grant

rorshach1982

06-03-2009, 12:22 PM

People don't think you're a dork when they find out you read comics.

Never really had that problem. Maybe it's just a generational thing.

comicsmetal

06-03-2009, 12:48 PM

My dad was the same but this was when I was a teen. He probably thinks it's still for kids but I guess he just gave up and forgot about the whole thing. This happened because I wasn't living up to his expectations (bad grades). There are a lot of parents upset their kids are always on the xbox (and they know those games have adult content). How old are you?

24 years old.But I live in a Persian family so they are a bit backwards in what is popular nowadays.Also like you dad they wanted me to be like all the other persian kids(get good grades(which I tried to get but my lazyness got to me) dress up all the time( I do not mind wearing nice clothes but that is at nice events,not all the time)) anyway whatever right they might not change me. Maybe I should just not listen to them anymore.

bartl

06-03-2009, 08:50 PM

Jeez, people already think I'm a freakin' god for writing them. Surely you readers can put up with a little denigration just to balance things out...
There is a difference between reading them and writing them.

dancj

06-04-2009, 06:41 AM

People don't think you're a dork when they find out you read comics.
.... until they find out that you frequent a comic message board....

comicsmetal

06-04-2009, 12:29 PM

There is a difference between reading them and writing them.

There is no difference,I bet you alot of people think someone writing in the comic industry is very childish.Well tell them to screw off because that is what you love to do.

comicsmetal

06-04-2009, 12:29 PM

.... until they find out that you frequent a comic message board....

So,that is his interests ,nothing wrong with frequently going to you favoirte site and taking about who you enjoy which in this case is comics.

comicsmetal

06-04-2009, 02:04 PM

People don't think you're a dork when they find out you read comics.

Also what is wrong with being a dork,I prefer to be a dork or a geek then A big loser that wants to screw everything that walks.

Really if we let the superhero genre dominate the NA market for long then that maybe a reason why people think comics are for kids.

comicsmetal

06-04-2009, 04:58 PM

http://www.batman-on-film.com/opinion_anti-comicbook-sentiment-part1_markhughes_4-20-09.html

I found a opinon slightly on this subject.

dancj

06-05-2009, 05:54 AM

comicsmetal I think you need to calm down a bit.

No-one's saying there's anything wrong with geeks. I'm a bit of one myself - and I have no shame about it.

comicsmetal

06-05-2009, 12:22 PM

comicsmetal I think you need to calm down a bit.

No-one's saying there's anything wrong with geeks. I'm a bit of one myself - and I have no shame about it.

Sorry ,I am getting ahead of myself.

dancj

06-08-2009, 05:38 AM

No problem.

Actually I'm not convinced that rather than comics are becoming less of a geeky domain rather than geeks becoming more accepted.

Steven Grant

06-08-2009, 10:30 AM

No problem.

Actually I'm not convinced that rather than comics are becoming less of a geeky domain rather than geeks becoming more accepted.

Chicken farmers sure like 'em...

- Grant

dancj

06-09-2009, 05:46 AM

Chicken farmers sure like 'em...

- Grant
I think maybe you have to be American to get that joke.

Steven Grant

06-09-2009, 11:22 AM

Maybe I should just not listen to them anymore.

Well... pick and choose... You don't have to stop listening to them entirely...

- Grant

Steven Grant

06-09-2009, 11:29 AM

I think maybe you have to be American to get that joke.

You have to know carny, anyway. A "geek" is the guy in a traveling freak show who sits around in his own filth and bites the heads off live chickens for the entertainment of customers. Traditionally, a carny didn't have a regular geek, they'd just hire the town drunk from the next town over, keep him drunk and pay him in booze.

To the extent it has spilled over into common culture, "geek" means someone who's irredeemably and socially-unconscionably freakish and too dumb to know it or be embarrassed by it.

So technically, you ain't geeks. You're only nerds. Nerds are just social klutzes.

We who create comics, we're the geeks.

As for other etymologies, I don't know that "nerd" has one outside of use on the HAPPY DAYS TV show. I grew up in Wisconsin, had a lot of contact with Milwaukee and never heard that term when I was growing up. While it's possible it was in use in the '50s, a little before my time, and quickly died out, I suspect it was invented for the show so they could have a put-down term with no external connotations.

A "dork," by the way, is a penis that when fully erect is still short and chubby.

What other slur terms we got?

- Grant

comicsmetal

06-09-2009, 12:34 PM

Well... pick and choose... You don't have to stop listening to them entirely...

- Grant

:biggrin: No ,I choice not to listen them entirely.I am getting too old for bunch of people form the country of gayran(Gay+Iran-the I =gayran).

Steven Grant

06-09-2009, 02:40 PM

:biggrin: No ,I choice not to listen them entirely.I am getting too old for bunch of people form the country of gayran(Gay+Iran-the I =gayran).

I don't get it...

- Grant

comicsmetal

06-09-2009, 04:11 PM

I don't get it...

- Grant
:biggrin: Never mind ,just be happy that you are born in a North American family.Hey at lest you could have a chance to wear what you want and have a better life then I have.

My life is so boring because of them.

NatGertler

06-09-2009, 04:18 PM

Oh, "nerd" is legit. Newsweek was reporting on its use in the early 1950s (and goodness knows, that's where all the hep cats go for their slang, daddy-o.) At the time, it was more in line with "square" than with the sort of overly-focused socially awkward souls it's used to describe today.

dancj

06-10-2009, 05:59 AM

I like "drapes" from the John Waters film, Cry-Baby

Pól Rua

06-10-2009, 06:54 AM

I think the problem is not the stereotype of "Comics Are For Children" as much as it is the stereotype of "Comics Are For Repressed Shut-In Adults With Arrested Development Who Keep Insisting That Literature Aimed At Children Caters To Their Whims Rather Than Read Something Else."

This is not to say that all comics should be aimed at children, but rather that adults who insist that comics about brightly coloured musclemen in rainbow coloured tights using their magic powers to fight monsters should be 'gritty and realistic' are probably the problem rather than the solution.

Which is fire.

badMike

06-10-2009, 12:44 PM

:biggrin: Never mind ,just be happy that you are born in a North American family.Hey at lest you could have a chance to wear what you want and have a better life then I have.Yes, because all people who are born into North American families never have any problems or difficulties.

comicsmetal

06-10-2009, 07:13 PM

Yes, because all people who are born into North American families never have any problems or difficulties.

:cool: No, but you have a chance to have different looking lifestyles.you can wear dress in punk fashion ,metal fashion or others.

Most Iraninan kids are dosh bag kind.

comicsmetal

06-10-2009, 07:14 PM

Nitz the Bloody

06-10-2009, 08:17 PM

So no adults can enjoy superhero comics.

I personally found this much easier to handle on an individual level by simply being confident in what I enjoy reading and why I enjoy reading it, without having to apologize to anyone when I mention that I read comics. On a cultural level, this is much more complex, but I think that the same principle holds ( for example, writers should not feel obligated to explain the origins of Barry Allen's tie )...

Pól Rua

06-10-2009, 09:47 PM

:confused: So no adults can enjoy superhero comics.

No, adults can enjoy superhero comics. I do, I love superhero comics, and I'm in my late 30's. However, if I want to read something more mature, I'll read 100 Bullets, or Walking Dead, or The Goon, or Criminal...
I don't even have a problem with mature readers Superhero comics (I loved 'Sleeper', for instance), but I preferred them when they were the exception, rather than the rule.

My problem is the folks who enjoyed, say, 'Amazing Spider-Man' when they were twelve get older and want to read something more mature. But rather than read something else, insist that 'Amazing Spider-Man' should cater to their tastes.
So we end up with a series about a guy with spider-powers which isn't suitable reading for a twelve year old.

Ideally, the average superhero comic should be like a Bugs Bunny cartoon - suitable for kids while being entertaining for people of any age.

comicsmetal

06-10-2009, 09:52 PM

No, adults can enjoy superhero comics. I do, I love superhero comics, and I'm in my late 30's. However, if I want to read something more mature, I'll read 100 Bullets, or Walking Dead, or The Goon, or Criminal...
I don't even have a problem with mature readers Superhero comics (I loved 'Sleeper', for instance), but I preferred them when they were the exception, rather than the rule.

My problem is the folks who enjoyed, say, 'Amazing Spider-Man' when they were twelve get older and want to read something more mature. But rather than read something else, insist that 'Amazing Spider-Man' should cater to their tastes.
So we end up with a series about a guy with spider-powers which isn't suitable reading for a twelve year old.

Ideally, the average superhero comic should be like a Bugs Bunny cartoon - suitable for kids while being entertaining for people of any age.

:smile: Oh I see ,I have the same view as you .

:wink: Actually for the most part I usally read Batman because I do not like Superheros with superpowers.Anyway.

dupont2005

06-17-2009, 08:30 AM

i don't think non-comic readers perceptions of what the average comic is will change any time soon. it doesn't bother me though. i could go out of my way to explain to people that what i am reading is not a story about a guy with heat vision wearing his underwear on the outside of his pants, but i don't think it matters. is one comic less "nerdy" than another? not unless hollywood makes one trendy for a short while