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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Jun 8, 2022 11:47:32 GMT -5
I appreciate the detailed synopsis and opinions on Preacher. Perhaps I could give it a try then again. Especially if I can read the rest of it from our local library like I did Sandman some years back.
Mostly with grim & gritty it's the actual portrayal of said violence that takes place. I'm the person that buys violent mature rated games but turns on the gore filter. I am not object to violence, as it's been in comics even with the comic code. I'm just not wanting to realistically see said violence. And in the case of Preacher, Glenn Fabry was a little too good at it for me.
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Post by commond on Jun 8, 2022 18:24:14 GMT -5
There is a lot of graphic violence in Ennis' work. He's especially fond of gore, and loves to use black humour. It seems in every Ennis story there's a character who gets their penis mutilated. If that type of thing makes you wince, then don't finish Preacher. It's not worth it. The reason I think he's a great writer isn't because I like twisted dick jokes. It's because of beautiful stories like the Hellblazer one shot, Heartland. The violence and humour can actually be a turnoff for me too, as it was in his first Punisher mini-series. The thing about Ennis is that where other writers will imply something terrible has happened off panel, Ennis will reveal it in a huge close-up. He loves those shocking grotesque panels. i knew Preacher would have a few squirmy moments since its one of Ellis' hallmarks, but the character work won me over. It became a bit of a trend among 90s writers to have a lot of dialogue between characters, and a lot of conversations. I believe you can directly trace this to Tarantino's influence on 90s pop culture. It wasn't just Tarantino either. A lot of sitcoms like Seinfeld and Friends were mostly characters sitting around talking. Preacher has a lot of this too, and for my money, Ellis is extremely good at dialogue. Much better than Robinson, whose dialogue was full of name dropping and pop culture references, as though the only parts of Tarantino that registered with him were the geekier aspects. Starman is considerably less violent than Preacher. In fact, they don't really compare. I absolutely love the central dynamic between Jack and his dad, as well as his relationships with other people like his brother and mother, and the friendships he makes. Ennis is just as good at this if not better, and he managed to do it with more than one series to boot.
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Post by badwolf on Jun 8, 2022 19:02:28 GMT -5
There is a lot of graphic violence in Ennis' work. He's especially fond of gore, and loves to use black humour. It seems in every Ennis story there's a character who gets their penis mutilated. If that type of thing makes you wince, then don't finish Preacher. It's not worth it. The reason I think he's a great writer isn't because I like twisted dick jokes. It's because of beautiful stories like the Hellblazer one shot, Heartland. The violence and humour can actually be a turnoff for me too, as it was in his first Punisher mini-series. The thing about Ennis is that where other writers will imply something terrible has happened off panel, Ennis will reveal it in a huge close-up. He loves those shocking grotesque panels. i knew Preacher would have a few squirmy moments since its one of Ellis' hallmarks, but the character work won me over. It became a bit of a trend among 90s writers to have a lot of dialogue between characters, and a lot of conversations. I believe you can directly trace this to Tarantino's influence on 90s pop culture. It wasn't just Tarantino either. A lot of sitcoms like Seinfeld and Friends were mostly characters sitting around talking. Preacher has a lot of this too, and for my money, Ellis is extremely good at dialogue. Much better than Robinson, whose dialogue was full of name dropping and pop culture references, as though the only parts of Tarantino that registered with him were the geekier aspects. Starman is considerably less violent than Preacher. In fact, they don't really compare. I absolutely love the central dynamic between Jack and his dad, as well as his relationships with other people like his brother and mother, and the friendships he makes. Ennis is just as good at this if not better, and he managed to do it with more than one series to boot. I like how halfway through your post Garth Ennis turned into Warren Ellis. I used to get them mixed up too, since they both wrote Hellblazer for a time.
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Post by zaku on Jun 9, 2022 6:47:32 GMT -5
I suppose that we are talking about super-hero comics right? Because this particular sub-genre is virtually the only one where people lament the loss of innocence. I think no one ever complained that Valérian and Laureline is becoming too much grim & dark.
For me, the superhero genre is inherently violent. I don't mean just physical violence, but the contrast between someone who wants to do something (the bad guy) and the one who wants to stop him/hewr (the good guy). Sometimes s/he uses her/his fists, sometimes her/his intelligence and cunning, but the point is always the same: an irreconcilable clash of intentions.
Now, you can tell a story in a more or less light way, but the point is always the same. If you want to put a little realism into the stories, then you have to deal with the effects of violence in a realistic way. If someone dies in a story, then it is fair to show how this death affects the lives of others. Otherwise it ends up as "Murder, She Wrote", where after each hideous murder there is a final freeze frame where everyone laughs.
Of course not all stories have to be Grim & Dark, but I think a modern reader, if he saw Batman and Commissioner Gordon slapping each other on the back laughing after the Joker did a massacre (or nearly succeeded) would think: "WTF! ??"
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Post by Cei-U! on Jun 9, 2022 9:26:08 GMT -5
Some of us would argue that Joker shouldn't be committing massacres in the first place. The occasional one-off murder, sure, but once he crosses over into mass murder, I'm out. No court in the land would simply send him back to Arkham and its revolving door. Bill Finger had Joker executed back in the mid-'40s for a reason (yes, he survived but he also didn't successfully kill anyone again until O'Neil and Adams' "Joker's Five-Way Revenge.") Letting him live to kill again after a massacre, in my opinion, is far less believable than his antics in the '50s and early '60s. Gordon's cops would be ordered to shoot him on sight.
Cei-U! Bored with the character since 1986!
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 9, 2022 9:55:36 GMT -5
Some of us would argue that Joker shouldn't be committing massacres in the first place. The occasional one-off murder, sure, but once he crosses over into mass murder, I'm out. No court in the land would simply send him back to Arkham and its revolving door. Bill Finger had Joker executed back in the mid-'40s for a reason (yes, he survived but he also didn't successfully kill anyone again until O'Neil and Adams' "Joker's Five-Way Revenge.") Letting him live to kill again after a massacre, in my opinion, is far less believable than his antics in the '50s and early '60s. Gordon's cops would be ordered to shoot him on sight. Cei-U! Bored with the character since 1986! Which comes back to my position that all super-hero comics are inherently silly. And the idea that "realistic" superhero comics are in any way realistic is ridiculous. There's a spectrum of ways to do superheroes and any of them are fine and you can legitimately like any take. But NONE of them are realistic. Non-powered superheroes are the least realistic of all.
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Post by Cei-U! on Jun 9, 2022 10:10:29 GMT -5
Some of us would argue that Joker shouldn't be committing massacres in the first place. The occasional one-off murder, sure, but once he crosses over into mass murder, I'm out. No court in the land would simply send him back to Arkham and its revolving door. Bill Finger had Joker executed back in the mid-'40s for a reason (yes, he survived but he also didn't successfully kill anyone again until O'Neil and Adams' "Joker's Five-Way Revenge.") Letting him live to kill again after a massacre, in my opinion, is far less believable than his antics in the '50s and early '60s. Gordon's cops would be ordered to shoot him on sight. Cei-U! Bored with the character since 1986! Which comes back to my position that all super-hero comics are inherently silly. And the idea that "realistic" superhero comics are in any way realistic is ridiculous. There's a spectrum of ways to do superheroes and any of them are fine and you can legitimately like any take. But NONE of them are realistic. Non-powered superheroes are the least realistic of all. Right! "Realistic superhero" is an oxymoron. The best creators in the genre are those who either embrace the absurdity or aim for verisimilitude, not realism.
Cei-U! I summon the difference!
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Post by zaku on Jun 9, 2022 10:15:20 GMT -5
Some of us would argue that Joker shouldn't be committing massacres in the first place. The occasional one-off murder, sure, but once he crosses over into mass murder, I'm out. No court in the land would simply send him back to Arkham and its revolving door. Bill Finger had Joker executed back in the mid-'40s for a reason (yes, he survived but he also didn't successfully kill anyone again until O'Neil and Adams' "Joker's Five-Way Revenge.") Letting him live to kill again after a massacre, in my opinion, is far less believable than his antics in the '50s and early '60s. Gordon's cops would be ordered to shoot him on sight. Cei-U! Bored with the character since 1986! This is another interesting subject. I am personally against the death penalty, but I don't think even the most ardent supporter of it would use "We must kill criminals because otherwise they would risk escaping and killing again" as a motivation. Because it would be like saying that the whole judicial system has failed and capital punishment is used as an emergency solution. But in the DC universe it is mathematically sure that the Joker and Zsasz will escape from Arkam to make another massacre. Even the most fervent opponent of the death penalty would find it difficult to support his positions. The only sensible one would be: "It is useless to condemn them to death because sooner or later they will return. We might as well lock them up because at least we know where they are".
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Post by MDG on Jun 9, 2022 12:31:59 GMT -5
Which comes back to my position that all super-hero comics are inherently silly. And the idea that "realistic" superhero comics are in any way realistic is ridiculous. There's a spectrum of ways to do superheroes and any of them are fine and you can legitimately like any take. But NONE of them are realistic. Non-powered superheroes are the least realistic of all. Right! "Realistic superhero" is an oxymoron. The best creators in the genre are those who either embrace the absurdity or aim for verisimilitude, not realism.
Cei-U! I summon the difference!
True. One thing that Watchman pointed out was that the existence of just one superhero would change everything, especially in terms of world politics.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Jun 10, 2022 12:16:04 GMT -5
Some of us would argue that Joker shouldn't be committing massacres in the first place. The occasional one-off murder, sure, but once he crosses over into mass murder, I'm out. No court in the land would simply send him back to Arkham and its revolving door. Bill Finger had Joker executed back in the mid-'40s for a reason (yes, he survived but he also didn't successfully kill anyone again until O'Neil and Adams' "Joker's Five-Way Revenge.") Letting him live to kill again after a massacre, in my opinion, is far less believable than his antics in the '50s and early '60s. Gordon's cops would be ordered to shoot him on sight.
That's exactly why I won't read Joker stories anymore. And while I'm still against the death penalty … he's killed enough cops that, come on, sooner or later he ought to 'accidentally get shot while trying to escape custody' and I'd not exactly cry crocodile tears when that happened.
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Post by tonebone on Jun 15, 2022 9:43:37 GMT -5
Which comes back to my position that all super-hero comics are inherently silly. And the idea that "realistic" superhero comics are in any way realistic is ridiculous. There's a spectrum of ways to do superheroes and any of them are fine and you can legitimately like any take. But NONE of them are realistic. Non-powered superheroes are the least realistic of all. Right! "Realistic superhero" is an oxymoron. The best creators in the genre are those who either embrace the absurdity or aim for verisimilitude, not realism.
Cei-U! I summon the difference!
Exactly, that's why Dark Knight Returns is so good, and so misunderstood. It's often seen as more "realistic" when really it goes further in the other direction.
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Post by chadwilliam on Jun 15, 2022 11:37:16 GMT -5
I think if either approach can be classified as "romantic nostalgia" it isn't the material from the Golden/Silver Age but the "Grim and Gritty" era - a period borne out of an aging fanbase not wanting to let go of a medium which was designed for kids (I'm speaking of superhero comics here) but expecting it to provide some reason for them to continue reading stories meant for a younger audience.
Now, when I say "designed for kids" that is no way meant to denigrate the artform. Something can be created for kids and still be brilliant (Jack Cole's Plastic Man, Carl Barks, MAD magazine, EC's horror line, etc.), touch upon adult ideas (for all the silliness of Silver Age Superman, it still often presented nuanced personalities in the form of, say, Luthor being forced to decide how close he wanted to get to 'irredeemable monster' territory all in the name of his feud with Superman), be inspiring, be fun, and be so creative that I would argue that the sheer originality of whatever ideas are being presented approaches something which almost transcends brilliance into something which owes it inception to no previous formula but to something channeling ideas never before dreamed of.
But "inspired", "creative", "fun", "imaginative" and so forth are words often used to describe kids things, hence why for all the praise heaped upon the post-1986 superhero scene, you're unlikely to hear those superlatives being employed to describe them. And this is crazy to me. At some point, it was decided that you couldn't have guys running around in their long johns, operating out of secret hideouts, using gadgets named after them getting into bizarre cases fighting flamboyantly over the top bad guys despite this being pretty much the medium these sorts of ideas were meant to embrace.
We've had over 35 years of a grim and gritty Batman praised for the notion that with his introduction we can now get realistic, believable superheroes, but let me ask this (and genuinely too, though I think I already know the answer) - has there been a single story - just one - where Batman comes across as a three-dimensional character? As believable, relatable, bound to any kind of logic which would be familiar to us readers in our world? Other than "my parents are dead and I'm in a war" does he have any personality traits whatsoever? Strangely, for all the talk of this more believable Batman (and I'm just using Batman as an example) it's actually the guy who fought aliens during the daytime who comes across as a more believable and adult character. Don't believe me? Which Batman can you see having interests which go beyond punching serial killers in the face all evening? Which one doesn't seem like his maturity was stunted the night his parents were killed? Which one can probably cook for himself if he had to?
Anyhoo...
Put me in the construction camp for superhero comics and as far away from the deconstruction side as you can get. Seeing Alan Moore or whoever destroy and break down a previous era does have a certain perverse fascination to it when you're a teen-ager, but it's the period which did all the building and other hard work which gets my respect.
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Post by tonebone on Jun 15, 2022 12:33:45 GMT -5
I think if either approach can be classified as "romantic nostalgia" it isn't the material from the Golden/Silver Age but the "Grim and Gritty" era - a period borne out of an aging fanbase not wanting to let go of a medium which was designed for kids (I'm speaking of superhero comics here) but expecting it to provide some reason for them to continue reading stories meant for a younger audience. Now, when I say "designed for kids" that is no way meant to denigrate the artform. Something can be created for kids and still be brilliant (Jack Cole's Plastic Man, Carl Barks, MAD magazine, EC's horror line, etc.), touch upon adult ideas (for all the silliness of Silver Age Superman, it still often presented nuanced personalities in the form of, say, Luthor being forced to decide how close he wanted to get to 'irredeemable monster' territory all in the name of his feud with Superman), be inspiring, be fun, and be so creative that I would argue that the sheer originality of whatever ideas are being presented approaches something which almost transcends brilliance into something which owes it inception to no previous formula but to something channeling ideas never before dreamed of. But "inspired", "creative", "fun", "imaginative" and so forth are words often used to describe kids things, hence why for all the praise heaped upon the post-1986 superhero scene, you're unlikely to hear those superlatives being employed to describe them. And this is crazy to me. At some point, it was decided that you couldn't have guys running around in their long johns, operating out of secret hideouts, using gadgets named after them getting into bizarre cases fighting flamboyantly over the top bad guys despite this being pretty much the medium these sorts of ideas were meant to embrace. We've had over 35 years of a grim and gritty Batman praised for the notion that with his introduction we can now get realistic, believable superheroes, but let me ask this (and genuinely too, though I think I already know the answer) - has there been a single story - just one - where Batman comes across as a three-dimensional character? As believable, relatable, bound to any kind of logic which would be familiar to us readers in our world? Other than "my parents are dead and I'm in a war" does he have any personality traits whatsoever? Strangely, for all the talk of this more believable Batman (and I'm just using Batman as an example) it's actually the guy who fought aliens during the daytime who comes across as a more believable and adult character. Don't believe me? Which Batman can you see having interests which go beyond punching serial killers in the face all evening? Which one doesn't seem like his maturity was stunted the night his parents were killed? Which one can probably cook for himself if he had to? Anyhoo... Put me in the construction camp for superhero comics and as far away from the deconstruction side as you can get. Seeing Alan Moore or whoever destroy and break down a previous era does have a certain perverse fascination to it when you're a teen-ager, but it's the period which did all the building and other hard work which gets my respect. I think your critique of Batman (just an example, I understand) is a pretty over-generalized one. I think there have been MANY good Batman stories where he comes across as three-dimensional AS HE NEEDS TO BE. He's an archetype... a mythological hero. He's no more relatable as a normal Joe as any other archetypical hero. I also can't imagine Han Solo, Indiana Jones, James Bond, Darth Vader, Diana Prince, Steven Strange, or a whole host of other characters cooking for themselves, or collecting baseball cards, or watching ALF. The death knell of archetypical heroes is often when the storytellers make them more like us... for instance, getting married and having a family. Giving Darth Vader a backstory seemed like a good idea, and, in my opinion, ruined the character. For the longest time after the prequels, I could only see him as whiny Anakin, in a Darth Vader costume, whereas he was a total badass in the originals. Now, I am almost forced to drum up a sort of sympathy for him, right from his first appearance, instead of it being a catharsis when he "returns" after killing the Emperor and saving Luke. Same with Wolverine. One of the coolest scenes with Wolverine was during the Byrne run, where they land in Japan, and they are all astonished he can speak Japanese. That is a THOUSAND times more engaging than learning about James Howlett and seeing his childhood troubles. MY version of his childhood, and YOUR version of his childhood are both probably more interesting. I think the reason the Mandalorian is so gripping is that he is so "two dimensional". You can literally hang your own foibles and weaknesses on him, since they are undefined. You know he has weaknesses, and pain, and interests, and are on the edge of your seat for them to be revealed, and sometimes that never comes. There was that Kevin Smith story a while back where Batman reveals he pissed himself. I think Smith's intention was "Hey he's really just a human... just a guy, like me"... but all he really accomplished was a diminishing of the character... temporarily, and easily dismissed, sure... but a diminishing, nonetheless.
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Post by commond on Jun 15, 2022 17:52:51 GMT -5
I don't understand the Batman argument at all. The guy experienced a hugely traumatic event as a child witnessing the brutal murder of his parents right in front of his eyes, and has spent the rest of his life focusing on an unhealthy obsession. The guy has issues. That's why so many writers have gone down that route. It's not as though some punk upstart writer decided to screw with Batman's origin and really mess him up. The cornball stuff was messed up. If you don't want to read about a character who's unbalanced, and borderline unhinged, read some Superman. I get that the dark, moody stuff can wear on you after a while, and I can also understand why some people might want to read stories where Batman is being a detective and solving mysteries instead of brooding over every little thing, but for goodness sakes, if he was a well-rounded, normal, mature adult, he wouldn't be dressing up in a bat costume fighting crime each night.
Sorry if I'm being rude, but I don't get it.
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Post by chadwilliam on Jun 15, 2022 18:08:01 GMT -5
I don't understand the Batman argument at all. The guy experienced a hugely traumatic event as a child witnessing the brutal murder of his parents right in front of his eyes, and has spent the rest of his life focusing on an unhealthy obsession. The guy has issues. That's why so many writers have gone down that route. It's not as though some punk upstart writer decided to screw with Batman's origin and really mess him up. The cornball stuff was messed up. If you don't want to read about a character who's unbalanced, and borderline unhinged, read some Superman. I get that the dark, moody stuff can wear on you after a while, and I can also understand why some people might want to read stories where Batman is being a detective and solving mysteries instead of brooding over every little thing, but for goodness sakes, if he was a well-rounded, normal, mature adult, he wouldn't be dressing up in a bat costume fighting crime each night. Sorry if I'm being rude, but I don't get it. Superman lost his planet, his biological parents, and his adoptive parents. He's an orphan of an extinct planet. Superman should be 100 times as unbalanced and borderline unhinged as Batman is who himself should be 100 times as unhinged as Spider-Man was who was an unwitting accessory in the brutal murder of his Uncle (and who is so crazy that he's actually has been known to crack jokes when fighting the same type of sleaze who killed his Uncle). No way am I going near any of those whackjobs.
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