from a Tintin comic
Comic books are a form of comic that I didn't relate to as well growing up as a kid. I have never really been interested in superhero comics, which made up the majority of the comic books I had access to as a kid, and I never read the Archie comic books, either. Actually, the only comic books I ever read as a kid were the Archie Sonic the Hedgehog comic books, which...well... it is what it is.
Sonic and Tails are fighting!
Anyways, I'm not proud of it, but there you go.
Even as bad as they were, I think reading the Sonic comics when I was younger really helped fuel my fire as far as being interested in comics goes. I loved all the character designs, colors and worldbuilding they had going on, and it made me want to create my own stories and design my own characters-- which I did, and for a really long time that was one of the things I loved to do most. I have tons and tons of bins filled with old weird character designs and story notes that I was all trying to turn into comics (none of them made it to the finished product, of course, but coming up with the stories was really my favorite part anyways).
In class we passed around some comic books, and I got my hands on a couple of war comics. Now, I'm not that into war comics at all, and especially not war comics done in the style of an action-hero comic book. I think my favorite war comic that I've ever read was Notes for a War Story, by Gipi.
Anyways, this comic was pretty interesting in the way that it was clearly not intended for children. The subject matter was extremely heavy and the content was pretty violent and definitely not kid friendly at all. I could tell that it was intended for an older audience, maybe even an audience that is at the age where they have relatives or even they themselves can relate to a war environment. I think this is one of my favorite things about comic books is that they can be made for people of all ages-- just like regular books can!!!
All and all I acknowledge and appreciate the appeal of comic books and their ability to tell longer-form stories, but I think the majority of the genres represented in Western comic books are just not the kind of genres that I am interested in (which is why I enjoy manga a lot more than most western comics books).
I completely agree - I wasn't interested in super heroes as a kid because they just didn't seem realistic nor admirable - they were only cool because they were super, or in Batman's case, rich. I preferred stories about people and events rather than stories fueled by "super-people". In class I also appreciated the western/adult comics, but also didn't get a whole lot of out of it personally. In the grand scheme of things, I think they're important, but that comics now have taken a very nice turn into being more about the story, and less about the marketability of the main character.
ReplyDelete- Joanna Murray
I used to read the Sonic comics when I was a kid, as well! It's just great to see your favorite character outside their game and learn more of their story. It's interesting that you were inspired by it. Not in a bad way at all, but how the comics influenced your passion for character design. In a way, the comics were more interesting than the game stories (and the horrible new age ones that started in the 2000s) --- It was a lot darker and included new and old characters through out the times. And it's still going.
ReplyDeleteI love that you pointed out your distaste in the war comics but still found the good in it. It's true that some comics aren't for everyone. Some of us love the darker or historical comics and/or graphic novels while others love cute, cartoony ones. The same goes for manga, as there are the dark ones like Death Note to the lighter Slice of Life (sometimes light... they bring me to tears) like Ao Haru Ride. Nice points you make.