Are we dumbing down comics for today's kids?

[Raven]

I'm surprised you pick manga as an example of depthless and undetailed comics

I should have mentioned that my ownly exposure to Manga is through Shonen Jump and a few other comics of the same genre. The strips I saw didn't appeal to me at all, they seemed to be just one stereotype after another. I am told that these are among the highest selling, hence my comment. But I accept that manga is a huge field and there is probably something for every taste.

I think Shonen Jump is specifically aimed at younger boys and mainly features action/super powers stories, so it's probably similar to looking at more conventional US superhero stuff.

[Peter Gray]

I didn't like Ratz this week...poo joke wiping botom with clothes..yuck..it crossed a line for me...

[LauraH]

Heh heh, sorry Peter, got to put my hands up and take responsibility for writing that one! I try to avoid too much gross-out humour but sometimes I can't fight the urge. For what it's worth, I'm personally more comfortable with the threat or the implication of something gross happening, like that, than actually being confronted with the deed (like Bea farting right in Dad's face a few pages beforehand.) But, each to their own...

[Kashgar]

It's quite comforting how comics have veered towards the scatalogical in order to remain edgily cool. In the 'dark ages' when I was a lad it was quite OK for comics to have kids playing with fireworks or electrocuting their Dad and for the generation before mine to look on the prankful glee that could accompany the discovery of a deceased animal 'Wow! Look! A dead cat!' So it's comforting to now that in sixty years of comic evolution and trying to elevate the minds of kids to some sort of safer, higher ground all we've come to are fart jokes and a world awash with poo and snot. Kids! Don't you love 'em!

[Steve Bright]

Give me paternal electrocution any day, Kash!

[Peter Gray]

http://petergraycartoonsandcomics.blogs ... ers-2.html

Eric Roberts did some great over the top comic action....
Health and saftey be warned its not real no kids were hurt or eaten...
Comics should not always be real life......let the naughty kids drive a bus crashing into the ice...

[SH]

I saw a kid holding Huck n Fin in a book store! how about that!
It isn't the kids.It's what you put infront of them. They still read as well as any generation did. Unless the parents don't encourage it of course. Which unfortunatly is true in a lot of cases. Sure they will sit on there little bums all day playing xbox if we don't encourage other options. I for one will be encouraging the read of a good book or comic when my little un learns to read. I wont stop her from playing xbox either though. It's all about options but good ones, good ones!
If comics have dumbed down then that's just a bad choice by the editors in my opinion.
Shake the pot and put something incredible out there and it will be bought and read. If advertised well enough to compete with game systems of course
Kids are NOW reading books like the spiderwick etc and they eat it up because it's good material. So there is no reason for comics to be DUMBED down.Comics don't have to be any diffferent. If Editors just stick with what they think kids like, then sure nothing will change. They should get out there door to door and ask kids what they would like to see in a comic? Crass humour has it's place but so does the other stuff too. I personally as a kid laughed my cheeks off at any trumps in a strip but also got lost and hooked into any well done Adventure story, like Asterix or Tiger comic stories etc . I feel there is a change in the air though. Just look at what the DfC is trying to do. They are giving it a go because they want to bring that magic spark back that has long since been missing in comics.That is all it takes, someone with the passion and the want too.

[SH]

And big bucks

[Captain Storm]

Good points made there SH and perhaps valid ones that we overlooked in our many debates about nostalgia clouding our thinking on bringing comics of yore back.Kids read all the Harry Potter books,the Spiderwick books and even the Golden Compass books,so there is great potential readership out there if only it can be tapped into.As D.C. Thomson is the only extant major publisher of comics left in the U.K. I can't believe they don't give it a try and launch something fresh and new along the lines of what we savored as kids.I know the format will need updating(cut out WW2 and Ballerinas)but given the right advertising and production values I really truly believe it can be accomplished!I know we went over this before but the facts speak for themselves.Kids are not dumb,the media moguls are!

The Cap!

He's Back(Oh No!)

[felneymike]

and there was definitely implied c-word ("Nicky Hunt, The Lying Person" if I recall correctly).

That's hilarious! it's odd that the funniest Macc Lads song (they are a very rude joke band from the 80's and 90's) is the one with very few swear words, and the singer suddenly veering off when he could swear, such as

"I, I, I love Macclesfield, the cut and jodrell bank
I, I, I love Macclesfield, it's a great place for a wa-lk!"

I find it strange that 300-page, 3-6 panels to a page Manga are called a "quick read" when our home-grown 64-page, 2-3 panels to a page Commando's are not! I know i could'nt read one of those on a tube journey.

Also let's not forget the "comics" of 100 years ago had 'rather' more text than thier counterparts in the 50's-70's, which seems to be the era most members here hark back to. Personally i beleive a combined storypaper/comic (in th style of the very first Beano and Dandy but updated) could do decently well, as we do have kids reading 800-page Harry Potter books after all (something that would have been considered "laughable" and "utopian" before the HP boom kicked off). Of course it could never happen with current business practices and, if we are to be honest, pessimism and conservatism*

*-in the "it works, don't change it!" way

[davey_r]

Talking of not-quite-swearing, there was a Joker strip in Buster once which featured a bag of manure with the partially obscured label HORSE SH
I always thought that was a bit off..

[Peter Gray]

Ratz and Johnny Bean were good this week...enjoyed it...
nice to see new ideas in The Beano. Robbing your Dad..

[Peter Gray]

After the jolly japes of the one joke farting elephant in The Dandy Extreem...the giggles and smirks of the bogeys next time...oooh goodo' what a wheeze.

Theres so much humour to get out of the bogeys. This strip will run and run!!

[LauraH]

And no toilet humour in sight in either Ratz or JB, Peter

Interestingly, Bogies appears to have migrated over from TOXIC - unless it's a different strip with exactly the same subject matter, title and art style - ! We shall see when it starts in the Dandy, I suppose.

[Kremmen]

Talking of not-quite-swearing, there was a Joker strip in Buster once which featured a bag of manure with the partially obscured label HORSE SH
I always thought that was a bit off..

HORSE SH... OVELLINGS?