A sincere question
Joe Snodgrass
Is "Watchmen" the most important story ever written?
Tom
> Is "Watchmen" the most important story ever written?
No and it's not even the most important comic book story ever written.
Tom
Ken from Chicago
"Tom" <drs...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:487a30c6-e694-4862...@df3g2000vbb.googlegroups.com...
Would that be MAUS?
What's the most important super hero comic book story?
-- Ken from Chicago (who leans toward SHOWCASE #4)
Ken from Chicago
"Ken from Chicago" <kwicker1...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:kf6dnaX2kLg_j7_T...@giganews.com...
For those who don't know, that intro'd the new FLASH, the beginning of the
Silver Age of comics, and he'd go on to famously intro DC's multiverse in
THE FLASH #123.
-- Ken from Chicago
--
Duggy
wrote:
> "Tom" <drso...@aol.com> wrote in message
> > On Jul 16, 3:07 pm, Joe Snodgrass <joe.s...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> Is "Watchmen" the most important story ever written?
> > No and it's not even the most important comic book story ever written.
I'd say Action Comics #1.
===
= DUG.
===
Tom
Ditto... we had to start with something.
Tom
Tom
wrote:
> "Tom" <drso...@aol.com> wrote in message
I'm having flashbacks of Star Trek time travel stories... if there
wasn't Superman in Action Comics #1, would there have been Maus?
My head's spinning...
Tom
KalElFan
"Tom" wrote in message
news:ef8099b0-9716-488f...@q5g2000yqj.googlegroups.com...
> On Jul 16, 7:30 pm, Duggy <Paul.Dug...@jcu.edu.au> wrote:
>
>> I'd say Action Comics #1.
>
> Ditto... we had to start with something.
Double Ditto, Three of a Kind, and Apropos.
Ken from Chicago
There were plenty of comic books before ACTION COMICS.
-- Ken from Chicago
Ken from Chicago
"Tom" <drs...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:c4963597-cfd2-4daa...@y16g2000yqk.googlegroups.com...
There were plenty of comic books before ACTION COMICS.
What's the link from ACTION COMICS to MAUS?
-- Ken from Chicago
KalElFan
news:4ZSdnfNEYMzwy7_T...@giganews.com...
> There were plenty of comic books before ACTION COMICS.
"Importance" doesn't automatically mean "first" sequentially.
Without the first Superman story, Superman never becomes
the success it did and maybe neither do comics. None of the
other heroes were such breakout hits. Even Batman, the 60s
series, may never have been made because all of the prior
successful Superman incarnations would never have been
made, in particular the 50s Reeves series. Comics may never
have sold millions to baby boomer kids in the 60s and so on.
Without Superman 1978 and its about Top 5 All-Time status,
same thing. Marvel may never have become the success it
was eventually able to become, in comics and movies, were
it not for Action Comics #1.
Comics would still have existed I'm sure, and movies based
on comics. "Artistically" one can also argue anything and it's
impenetrably subjective. But if "importance" is the standard
I think the first Superman story in Action Comics #1 is a slam
dunk.
Tim Turnip
Surely the relative importance of Action #1 doesn't have to be
explained to you.
And the question was, what's the most important (superhero) comic book
STORY. I would argue that Action #1 is where superhero comics first
began to tell actual stories that would resonate as such down through
the years.
>What's the link from ACTION COMICS to MAUS?
Action #1 was the first significant comic of the superhero age; Maus
was the last.
(Even though Maus gave way to a number of fine, important yet personal
stories, some of which I list below.)
My list of most important SUPERHERO comics stories would be:
1. Action #1 (that was a good pick, Dug)
2. Showcase #4
3. Wonder Woman #1
4. Detective #33 (the origin of Batman, which I would argue is more
important to him than his first appearance)
5. Amazing Fantasy #15 (for Spidey of course)
6. Giant-Size X-Men #1
7. Crisis On Infinite Earths
8. Watchmen
9. John Byrne's Man of Steel #1-6
10. GL/GA's 1971 "Speedy on heroin" story
Non-superhero:
1. Maus
2. From Hell
3. Will Eisner's A Contract With God
4. Palestine
5. EC Comics' "Judgement Day" (1953)
6. Fax From Sarajevo
7. Stuck Rubber Baby
8. Persepolis
9. EC Comics' "Master Race" (1955)
10. The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation
trotsky
He'll change his tune when the Smurfs movie comes out.
Michael
> Is "Watchmen" the most important story ever written?
Just to throw my $.02 out there, no, Watchmen is not the most important
story (comics or otherwise) ever written. It was good. It was
well-done. But not the most important comics story ever writen.
And I don't have the foggiest idea what *IS*.
Michael
Ken from Chicago
"KalElFan" <kale...@yanospamhoo.com> wrote in message
news:98fvgj...@mid.individual.net...
> "Ken from Chicago" wrote in message
> news:4ZSdnfNEYMzwy7_T...@giganews.com...
>
>> There were plenty of comic books before ACTION COMICS.
>
> "Importance" doesn't automatically mean "first" sequentially.
<snip>
Agreed. But you snipped what I was responding to, which was a reply that we
had to "start" with something, which is a matter of sequentiality.
-- Ken from Chicago
Ken from Chicago
"Tim Turnip" <timt...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:lql5271lcnvpabgqi...@4ax.com...
> On Sat, 16 Jul 2011 22:27:33 -0500, "Ken from Chicago"
> <kwicker1...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>"Tom" <drs...@aol.com> wrote in message
>>news:c4963597-cfd2-4daa...@y16g2000yqk.googlegroups.com...
>>> On Jul 16, 5:37 pm, "Ken from Chicago" <kwicker1b_nos...@comcast.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>> "Tom" <drso...@aol.com> wrote in message
>>>>
>>>> news:487a30c6-e694-4862...@df3g2000vbb.googlegroups.com...
>>>>
>>>> > On Jul 16, 3:07 pm, Joe Snodgrass <joe.s...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>> >> Is "Watchmen" the most important story ever written?
>>>>
>>>> > No and it's not even the most important comic book story ever
>>>> > written.
>>>>
>>>> > Tom
>>>>
>>>> Would that be MAUS?
>>>>
>>>> What's the most important super hero comic book story?
>>>>
>>>> -- Ken from Chicago (who leans toward SHOWCASE #4)
>>>
>>> I'm having flashbacks of Star Trek time travel stories... if there
>>> wasn't Superman in Action Comics #1, would there have been Maus?
>>>
>>> My head's spinning...
>>>
>>> Tom
>>
>>There were plenty of comic books before ACTION COMICS.
>
> Surely the relative importance of Action #1 doesn't have to be
> explained to you.
Not for superhero comics. Altho in a way the popularity of ACTION COMICS #1
and commercial success of subsequent superhero comics in America was a
hindrance to MAUS in that the masses associated comics with superheroes and
vice versa. They made non-superhero (or non-action, non-sf) comics less
popular. Publishers started to gravitate more toward superheroes. Before
ACTION COMICS #1 there was a greater variety in comics.
> And the question was, what's the most important (superhero) comic book
> STORY.
Yes, I was the one who asked that question. The OP asked if THE WATCHMEN was
the most important story. The first reply said no, that it wasn't even the
most important comic book story. I then asked what would be the most
important superhero comic book story.
Sure, ACTION COMICS #1 would be the obvious answer, tho I favor SHOWCASE #4,
in part because Barry Allen's The Flash is my childhood favorite superhero
and with it was the dawning of the Silver Age of superhero comics, showing
it wasn't just a fad that died off with the Golden Age. Plus Barry was the
Columbus of the Multiverse (and like Columbus, not the first to discover it,
but would do so in so public a way that it would put the Multiverse on the
map, pun not intended).
I would argue that Action #1 is where superhero comics first
> began to tell actual stories that would resonate as such down through
> the years.
>
>>What's the link from ACTION COMICS to MAUS?
>
> Action #1 was the first significant comic of the superhero age; Maus
> was the last.
How are you defining "superhero age", considering MAUS was first published
in 1972? That's well beyond the Golden Age ended or even when the Silver Age
began.
> (Even though Maus gave way to a number of fine, important yet personal
> stories, some of which I list below.)
>
> My list of most important SUPERHERO comics stories would be:
>
> 1. Action #1 (that was a good pick, Dug)
Is it ACTION #1 or ACTION COMICS #1?
> 2. Showcase #4
GMTA!
> 3. Wonder Woman #1
Interesting choice over ALL STAR COMICS #8. Why so?
> 4. Detective #33 (the origin of Batman, which I would argue is more
> important to him than his first appearance)
Interesting
> 5. Amazing Fantasy #15 (for Spidey of course)
Plus the Marvellites would get furious if Marvel got excluded from the top
5.
> 6. Giant-Size X-Men #1
> 7. Crisis On Infinite Earths
> 8. Watchmen
> 9. John Byrne's Man of Steel #1-6
> 10. GL/GA's 1971 "Speedy on heroin" story
I think you might bump Byrne's MAN OF STEEL to make room for Gaiman's
Sandman, considering Moore and him are considered to have written the top 2
superhero comics.
> Non-superhero:
>
> 1. Maus
GMTA!
> 2. From Hell
> 3. Will Eisner's A Contract With God
Interesting, I have Eisner's at 2--and then drawn a blank at filling out the
rest.
> 4. Palestine
> 5. EC Comics' "Judgement Day" (1953)
> 6. Fax From Sarajevo
> 7. Stuck Rubber Baby
> 8. Persepolis
> 9. EC Comics' "Master Race" (1955)
> 10. The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation
-- Ken from Chicago
KalElFan
> Agreed. But you snipped... a reply that we had to "start"
> with something, which is a matter of sequentiality.
Well, okay. :-) But I doubt Tom meant he was literally
agreeing with Action Comics #1 because it was the first
comic book of all time. It was just the first of sufficient
importance to merit #1.
(And practically the second I started writing this post,
Rogers Cable / Galaxie Music digital music channel 713,
which is 90%++ mainly a current hit list, started playing
a rare older song and it happened to be Superman by
Five For Fighting. :-))
Tom
wrote:
> "Tim Turnip" <timtur...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:lql5271lcnvpabgqi...@4ax.com...
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Sat, 16 Jul 2011 22:27:33 -0500, "Ken from Chicago"
Huh? Maus first appeared as a three page strip in 1972. It was
lengthened in 1977 and published in its collected editions in 1986 and
1991. Volume 1 benefited greatly from the sales boon of the 1980s.
Superhero comics were definitely not a hinderence to Maus.
>They made non-superhero (or non-action, non-sf) comics less
> popular.
>Publishers started to gravitate more toward superheroes. Before
> ACTION COMICS #1 there was a greater variety in comics.
Without Action Comics #1, would all of those old, non- superhero
comics have survived much past the growth of the movie industry or the
advent of TV?
Tom
Joe Snodgrass
Everyone misunderstood my question. I meant "most important" in terms
of literary and thematic content alone, regardless of the history of
the medium.
Tom
Since you put it that way... no. I'd wager Ernest Hemingway, William
Faulkner, Homer and many others have a significant edge over Alan
Moore as far as importance of literary and thematic content.
Hell, the original Charlton Comics writers have an edge over Moore,
for the same reasons given in regards to your initial question.
Without the Charlton characters, what would Moore have used as a
template for his deconstruction?
Tom
Ken from Chicago
news:esCUp.28083$_b7...@newsfe22.iad...
> Joe Snodgrass wrote:
>> Is "Watchmen" the most important story ever written?
>
> Just to throw my $.02 out there, no, Watchmen is not the most important
> story (comics or otherwise) ever written. It was good. It was well-done.
> But not the most important comics story ever writen.
For what reasons do you disagree? What elements are lacking from THE
WATCHMEN?
> And I don't have the foggiest idea what *IS*.
>
> Michael
What qualities would you look for in "the most important comic book story"?
-- Ken from Chicago
Ken from Chicago
"Tom" <drs...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:f5fa8719-4d80-4aa7...@g16g2000yqg.googlegroups.com...
Yes. Plays survived the movies. The movies survived tv. Live concerts
survived recorded music. Calligraphy survived typewriters and word
processing. Painting survived photography. Broadcast tv survived cable. TV
survived online media. Single player video games survived online (massively)
multiplayer video games. One medium does not totally wipe out the previous.
It's the focus of the publishers on superhero comics that was the bigger
threat, and then the advent of the direct market that pushed comic books out
of the supermarkets and pharmacies and out of the mainstream.
> Tom
That said, one link I would see between ACTION COMICS #1 and MAUS is that
the former popularized superhero comics and eventually led to Marvel comics
in the 1960s being popular with the older teens and young adults of the day
thus making comics for adults more paletable to the (young) adult masses or
the counterculture and thus by 1972 then I could see MAUS being a comic
strip then comic book being possible (since the '60s ended with Watergate
scandal, which started in '72).
-- Ken from Chicago
Ken from Chicago
> "Ken from Chicago" wrote in message
> news:OfmdneghHKJCkr7T...@giganews.com...
>
>> Agreed. But you snipped... a reply that we had to "start"
>> with something, which is a matter of sequentiality.
>
> Well, okay. :-) But I doubt Tom meant he was literally
> agreeing with Action Comics #1 because it was the first
> comic book of all time. It was just the first of sufficient
> importance to merit #1.
Look at what Tom said:
--------------------------------------------------
From: "Tom" <drs...@aol.com>
Sent: Saturday, July 16, 2011 7:44 PM
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.dc.universe,rec.arts.movies.current-films
Subject: Re: A sincere question
> On Jul 16, 7:30 pm, Duggy <Paul.Dug...@jcu.edu.au> wrote:
>> On Jul 17, 8:37 am, "Ken from Chicago" <kwicker1b_nos...@comcast.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > "Tom" <drso...@aol.com> wrote in message
>> > > On Jul 16, 3:07 pm, Joe Snodgrass <joe.s...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> > >> Is "Watchmen" the most important story ever written?
>> > > No and it's not even the most important comic book story ever
>> > > written.
>> > Would that be MAUS?
>>
>> I'd say Action Comics #1.
>>
>> ===
>> = DUG.
>> ===
>
> Ditto... we had to start with something.
>
> Tom"
That's about sequence, not importance.
> (And practically the second I started writing this post,
> Rogers Cable / Galaxie Music digital music channel 713,
> which is 90%++ mainly a current hit list, started playing
> a rare older song and it happened to be Superman by
> Five For Fighting. :-))
I love that song. That group writes nice ballads, ala "100 Years" and "The
Riddle".
-- Ken from Chicago (who also liked Hootie and his band, The Blowfish)
Joe Snodgrass
OK, I'll give you Homer, but besides that, your reply mentions no
names of stories, only names of writers. Which specific Hemmingway or
Faulkner stories are better, and why? Personally, I think that a
frank discussion of paranoid schizophrenia, a la Rorschach, should
rank pretty high on such a list. When was a topic of that magnitude
ever discussed by Faulkner or Hemmingway?
Warewolf
news:QrqdnbaQatu50b7T...@giganews.com:
> What qualities would you look for in "the most important comic book
> story"?
Personally, I'd describe it as a story that not only makes the reader think
(differently) but has some influence on society's behaviour overall.
For example, there was a random Jughead story I once read that had him
chase away a vandal of Riverdale High only to be arrested for the crime.
When he tried to tell his side of the story, his friends brushed him off as
a common crimial. In the end, the police find the real crook but the
damage had already been done and a long-standing friendship was shattered
(until the next random story).
Another example appeared in an issue of Archie's Madhouse (along with one
of the digests) - Two male astronauts arrive to find a scientist has
created a machine that can give him anything he desires. After a quick
demonstration, the scientist explains that, after a while, people using the
machine became lazy and humanity eventually died out. Soon the scientist
becomes bored with his creations and they quickly disappear, including...
well, I'm sure you can imagine. ^_^U
And yet another Madhouse example involved many jobs in a random town being
filled by human-looking robots. Human teenagers stage a protest outside
their school and soon win their arguement...but not before it's revealed
that the machines have an insider among the protesters' ranks.
Stories that make you rethink the value(s) of politics, religion and
society overall can be powerful influences on one's (potential) way of
thinking. It's why I'm glad that comics aren't just for superheroes
anymore - there are a lot of powerful, if not outright hilarious or
educational, tales just waiting to be enjoyed.
And it's why I hope series like Archie's Madhouse, like The Adventures of
Captain Jack, like the adult comic Genus...can be collected for everyone
(old enough) to enjoy.
Here's hoping. ^_^
Signed,
Warewolf
who also hopes the aforementioned books' creativity will inspire current
and future talents.
Give us something besides torture porn, for corn's sake. 9_9
KalElFan
> Look at what Tom said
That's the very first thing I did when I saw your response the
*last* round. When I responded with the "Well, okay. :-)"
smiley, it was because I thought you were pointing out that
you'd made a grammar pun and I'd missed it. I still thought
you had to know what Tom meant -- i.e., that he was referring
to the first Superman story.* That's what Action #1 is known
for starting, not comics of any kind. But because of how Tom
worded it, it opened it up to your grammar pun about an
"obviously unintended" or alternate meaning.
* Of course only Tom can tell us for sure
[re the 'Superman" song by Five For Fighting]
> I love that song. That group writes nice ballads, ala "100
> Years" and "The Riddle".
The Wiki on "Five For Fighting" says it's the stage name of
the singer. But their web site mentions the (lead) singer
also giving some solo performances, so it concedes that
Five For Fighting is a group. I know Wikipedia has always
had problems and should never be taken as authoritative,
but it just seems like it's getting worse not better.
Tom
wrote:
> "KalElFan" <kalel...@yanospamhoo.com> wrote in message
>
> news:98giu2...@mid.individual.net...
>
> > "Ken from Chicago" wrote in message
> >news:OfmdneghHKJCkr7T...@giganews.com...
>
> >> Agreed. But you snipped... a reply that we had to "start"
> >> with something, which is a matter of sequentiality.
>
> > Well, okay. :-) But I doubt Tom meant he was literally
> > agreeing with Action Comics #1 because it was the first
> > comic book of all time. It was just the first of sufficient
> > importance to merit #1.
>
> Look at what Tom said:
>
> --------------------------------------------------
> Sent: Saturday, July 16, 2011 7:44 PM
> Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.dc.universe,rec.arts.movies.current-films
> Subject: Re: A sincere question
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Jul 16, 7:30 pm, Duggy <Paul.Dug...@jcu.edu.au> wrote:
> >> On Jul 17, 8:37 am, "Ken from Chicago" <kwicker1b_nos...@comcast.net>
> >> wrote:
>
> >> > "Tom" <drso...@aol.com> wrote in message
> >> > > On Jul 16, 3:07 pm, Joe Snodgrass <joe.s...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> > >> Is "Watchmen" the most important story ever written?
> >> > > No and it's not even the most important comic book story ever
> >> > > written.
> >> > Would that be MAUS?
>
> >> I'd say Action Comics #1.
>
> >> ===
> >> = DUG.
> >> ===
>
> > Ditto... we had to start with something.
>
> > Tom"
>
> That's about sequence, not importance.
Actually, it's about both.
Tom
Tom
Man, Joe, you're tough to answer because you keep changing the
question... I'm not going to do a treatise on my experiences in
English and American lit from college... Hemingway, Faulkner, et.
al. ... throw a dart at the stacks in the library and you'll hit a
story/novel with more importance than Moore could ever dream.
The Razor's Edge by Maugham is better than Watchmen... it's better
written, is a better story and it, along with Maugham's other works
influenced the Beats... if Moore influenced anyone as significant as
Jack Kerouac, I'm stumped to come up with a name.
As for a frank discussion of schizophrenia... read I Never Promised
You a Rose Garden, just about anything by Kurt Vonnegut, "Sanity
Plea..." by Lawrence Broer... while not specifically about
schizophrenia, I also suggest Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness by
William Styron.
Finally, I'm not going to argue whether the subjects of stories/novels
by history's literary giants were more or less important than
schizophrenia. I'm not sure if I answered your questions to your
satisfaction (I hope I have), but I'll close with this... Moore is
good, often very good at what he does in the comics medium. He's less
than a minor talent when compared to the great writers of the past or
present.
Tom
Tom
> "Ken from Chicago" wrote in messagenews:NJqdnXKw2b5ezL7T...@giganews.com...
>
> > Look at what Tom said
>
> That's the very first thing I did when I saw your response the
> *last* round. When I responded with the "Well, okay. :-)"
> smiley, it was because I thought you were pointing out that
> you'd made a grammar pun and I'd missed it. I still thought
> you had to know what Tom meant -- i.e., that he was referring
> to the first Superman story.* That's what Action #1 is known
> for starting, not comics of any kind. But because of how Tom
> worded it, it opened it up to your grammar pun about an
> "obviously unintended" or alternate meaning.
>
> * Of course only Tom can tell us for sure
You did a good summary...
Tom
Tom
Agreed... one medium doesn't eliminate it's predecessor. However, the
popularity of the preceeding medium is greatly reduced. If we didn't
have Action COmics #1 and Superman, would comic books about Fu Manchu
have kept the medium alive into the 21st century?
>
> It's the focus of the publishers on superhero comics that was the bigger
> threat, and then the advent of the direct market that pushed comic books out
> of the supermarkets and pharmacies and out of the mainstream.
And that's why we got Maus. The comics Maus appeared in would never
have seen the light of day on a spinner rack.
>
> > Tom
>
> That said, one link I would see between ACTION COMICS #1 and MAUS is that
> the former popularized superhero comics and eventually led to Marvel comics
> in the 1960s being popular with the older teens and young adults of the day
> thus making comics for adults more paletable to the (young) adult masses or
> the counterculture and thus by 1972 then I could see MAUS being a comic
> strip then comic book being possible (since the '60s ended with Watergate
> scandal, which started in '72).
>
> -- Ken from Chicago
OK, but I sense some over- thinking in the above explanation.
Tom
RVG
>
> Is "Watchmen" the most important story ever written?
No, why ? It's certainly the best comic book of the 80s, but there's
been some seminal comics in the previous decades, starting with Little Nemo.
IMO the greatest story ever told is Tolstoy's War and Peace.
As in the realm of comic books, I think Moebius and Hugo Pratt have
created some wonderful worlds back in the 70s, and Alan Moore certainly
knew them and they inspired him to go a step further.
What strikes the reader of Watchmen is the formal perfection and details
that cover the (small) imperfections of the book.
With Watchmen Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons invented modern comics the
same way David Lynch and Mark Frost invented modern TV fiction with Twin
Peaks.
--
The imagination is not a State: it is the Human existence itself."
William Blake
http://rvgmusic.bandcamp.com/
http://www.jamendo.com/fr/user/RVG95
http://bluedusk.blogspot.com/
Joe Snodgrass
Not regular schizophrenia, *paranoid* schizophrenia.
Duggy
wrote:
> "Tom" <drso...@aol.com> wrote in message
>
> news:ef8099b0-9716-488f...@q5g2000yqj.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Jul 16, 7:30 pm, Duggy <Paul.Dug...@jcu.edu.au> wrote:
> >> On Jul 17, 8:37 am, "Ken from Chicago" <kwicker1b_nos...@comcast.net>
> >> wrote:
>
> >> > "Tom" <drso...@aol.com> wrote in message
> >> > > On Jul 16, 3:07 pm, Joe Snodgrass <joe.s...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> > >> Is "Watchmen" the most important story ever written?
> >> > > No and it's not even the most important comic book story ever
> >> > > written.
> >> > Would that be MAUS?
> >> I'd say Action Comics #1.
Sure. And there were plenty of cars before Henry Ford.
===
= DUG.
===
Duggy
wrote:
> Agreed. But you snipped what I was responding to, which was a reply that we
> had to "start" with something, which is a matter of sequentiality.
No one said it was the start of comics or the start of superhero
comics.
It was the start of the success of Superhero comics.
===
= DUG.
===
Duggy
wrote:
> "Tom" <drso...@aol.com> wrote in message
>
> news:c4963597-cfd2-4daa...@y16g2000yqk.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Jul 16, 5:37 pm, "Ken from Chicago" <kwicker1b_nos...@comcast.net>
> > wrote:
> >> "Tom" <drso...@aol.com> wrote in message
>
> >>news:487a30c6-e694-4862...@df3g2000vbb.googlegroups.com...
>
> >> > On Jul 16, 3:07 pm, Joe Snodgrass <joe.s...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> >> Is "Watchmen" the most important story ever written?
>
> >> > No and it's not even the most important comic book story ever written.
>
> >> > Tom
>
> >> Would that be MAUS?
>
> >> What's the most important super hero comic book story?
>
> >> -- Ken from Chicago (who leans toward SHOWCASE #4)
>
> > I'm having flashbacks of Star Trek time travel stories... if there
> > wasn't Superman in Action Comics #1, would there have been Maus?
>
> > My head's spinning...
>
> > Tom
>
> There were plenty of comic books before ACTION COMICS.
>
> What's the link from ACTION COMICS to MAUS?
Action Comics developed an industry that allowed MAUS to happen.
===
= DUG.
===
Duggy
wrote:
> Not for superhero comics. Altho in a way the popularity of ACTION COMICS #1
> and commercial success of subsequent superhero comics in America was a
> hindrance to MAUS in that the masses associated comics with superheroes and
> vice versa.
In some ways yes, in others, no.
> They made non-superhero (or non-action, non-sf) comics less
> popular. Publishers started to gravitate more toward superheroes. Before
> ACTION COMICS #1 there was a greater variety in comics.
Than there is now. Action Comics #1 didn't kill variety. A number of
things did. Horror was killed off by Wertheim not Action Comics #1.
> Yes, I was the one who asked that question. The OP asked if THE WATCHMEN was
> the most important story. The first reply said no, that it wasn't even the
> most important comic book story. I then asked what would be the most
> important superhero comic book story.
> Sure, ACTION COMICS #1 would be the obvious answer, tho I favor SHOWCASE #4,
> in part because Barry Allen's The Flash is my childhood favorite superhero
> and with it was the dawning of the Silver Age of superhero comics, showing
> it wasn't just a fad that died off with the Golden Age. Plus Barry was the
> Columbus of the Multiverse (and like Columbus, not the first to discover it,
> but would do so in so public a way that it would put the Multiverse on the
> map, pun not intended).
Ah, so the question was what was the most important story for you
personally? Why didn't you say that?
===
= DUG.
===
Duggy
wrote:
> "Ken from Chicago" <kwicker1b_nos...@comcast.net> wrote in messagenews:kf6dnaX2kLg_j7_T...@giganews.com...
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > "Tom" <drso...@aol.com> wrote in message
> >news:487a30c6-e694-4862...@df3g2000vbb.googlegroups.com...
> >> On Jul 16, 3:07 pm, Joe Snodgrass <joe.s...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >>> Is "Watchmen" the most important story ever written?
>
> >> No and it's not even the most important comic book story ever written.
>
> >> Tom
>
> > Would that be MAUS?
>
> > What's the most important super hero comic book story?
>
> > -- Ken from Chicago (who leans toward SHOWCASE #4)
>
> Silver Age of comics, and he'd go on to famously intro DC's multiverse in
> THE FLASH #123.
Action Comics #1 famously introduced the Golden Age without which
there would be no Silver Age.
===
= DUG.
===
Duggy
> Everyone misunderstood my question. I meant "most important" in terms
> of literary and thematic content alone, regardless of the history of
> the medium.
Then you don't understand the word important.
Which comic book is the greatest literary achievement?
Probably Maus, but I'm going by other's opinions.
===
= DUG.
===
Duggy
> Hell, the original Charlton Comics writers have an edge over Moore,
> for the same reasons given in regards to your initial question.
> Without the Charlton characters, what would Moore have used as a
> template for his deconstruction?
It's said he originally used the Red Circle characters, changed it to
Charlton to sell the idea to DC who then decided they'd rather
integrate them into the DCU leading him freer to deconstruct them than
he originally planned.
===
= DUG.
===
Duggy
wrote:
> >> I'd say Action Comics #1.
And sometimes the reason for the importance is the sequence.
I'd say that the most important Post-Crisis Superman story was Byrnes'
Man of Steel mini because it defined the character for so long. Part
of the reason for that was that it was first.
===
= DUG.
===
Duggy
> OK, I'll give you Homer, but besides that, your reply mentions no
> names of stories, only names of writers.
Homer was a writer (or a number of writers or whatever the vogue
theory is now) and is known for 2 stories... which do you feel was his
important one?
===
= DUG.
===
Ken from Chicago
"Duggy" <Paul....@jcu.edu.au> wrote in message
news:1e550a55-07dc-4f83...@g5g2000prn.googlegroups.com...
> On Jul 17, 8:44 am, "Ken from Chicago" <kwicker1b_nos...@comcast.net>
<snip>
>> > What's the most important super hero comic book story?
>>
>> > -- Ken from Chicago (who leans toward SHOWCASE #4)
>>
>> For those who don't know, that intro'd the new FLASH, the beginning of
>> the
>> Silver Age of comics, and he'd go on to famously intro DC's multiverse in
>> THE FLASH #123.
>
> Action Comics #1 famously introduced the Golden Age without which
> there would be no Silver Age.
>
> ===
> = DUG.
> ===
True, but there were plenty of subgenres of comics, from westerns, to war to
classics to detective and crime, etc., but SHOWCASE #4 showed that
superheroes wasn't just another passing fad.
IOW, what was the Silver Ages of the non-superhero comics?
-- Ken from Chicago
Tom
I had no idea... thanks for that... it's pretty interesting.
Tom
Ken Arromdee
Tom <drs...@aol.com> wrote:
>Agreed... one medium doesn't eliminate it's predecessor. However, the
>popularity of the preceeding medium is greatly reduced. If we didn't
>have Action COmics #1 and Superman, would comic books about Fu Manchu
>have kept the medium alive into the 21st century?
I would suggest that if we didn't have Action Comics #1 and Superman, fairly
soon someone else would have come up with another superhero who became as
popular. It was inevitable. The combination of action hero (which is
already popular), the month to month nature of the medium, and the fact that
visually distinctive characters work well in comics, would lead to something
that we would call a superhero today, regardless of whether they have capes or
secret identities.
--
Ken Arromdee / arromdee_AT_rahul.net / http://www.rahul.net/arromdee
Obi-wan Kenobi: "Only a Sith deals in absolutes."
Yoda: "Do or do not. There is no 'try'."
Duggy
wrote:
> True, but there were plenty of subgenres of comics, from westerns, to war to
> classics to detective and crime, etc., but SHOWCASE #4 showed that
> superheroes wasn't just another passing fad.
I'm not sure that a single issue of any comic can prove anything
isn't a passing fad.
The success of The new Flash in that issue, the later success of GL,
etc proved that it wasn't a passing fad. Showcase #4 didn't *prove*
that.
> IOW, what was the Silver Ages of the non-superhero comics?
Well 1954 pretty much saw the death of Horror comics with the
introduction of the CCA leading to Superheroes returning to fill the
gap. So 1954 would have been the silver-age of horror comics in terms
of them being cancelled, comedy-horror or toned down...
===
= DUG.
===
Duggy
> In article <d612ccd2-1a01-47cf-8ced-dc5842a05...@x12g2000yql.googlegroups.com>,
>
> Tom <drso...@aol.com> wrote:
> >Agreed... one medium doesn't eliminate it's predecessor. However, the
> >popularity of the preceeding medium is greatly reduced. If we didn't
> >have Action COmics #1 and Superman, would comic books about Fu Manchu
> >have kept the medium alive into the 21st century?
>
> I would suggest that if we didn't have Action Comics #1 and Superman, fairly
> soon someone else would have come up with another superhero who became as
> popular. It was inevitable. The combination of action hero (which is
> already popular), the month to month nature of the medium, and the fact that
> visually distinctive characters work well in comics, would lead to something
> that we would call a superhero today, regardless of whether they have capes or
> secret identities.
Sure, and other people would have flown if the Wright Bros didn't and
someone else would have set foot on the moon in if Neil Armstrong
didn't.
Maybe someone else could have come up with another superhero and maybe
it would have be just as or more successful. But in this universe
Action Comics #1 is that comic.
===
= DUG.
===
KalElFan
> I would suggest that if we didn't have Action Comics #1 and Superman,
> fairly soon someone else would have come up with another superhero
> who became as popular. It was inevitable.
I don't think it would have been anywhere near inevitable. If you
look at all the other heroes of the era and since, I don't see a single
one of them that would have caught on as Superman did. What
may well have happened was comic books would have remained
a small niche, while the news strips, pulps, and books for kids,
and serials and later television and so on remained or became
the initial vehicles for iconic storytelling.
Hercules, King Arthur and Merlin, Robin Hood, Zorro and so on
did not require comic books. Nor did science fiction, which is
also a key part of Superman's success. The works of H.G Wells
or Jules Verne, even fantasy like Alice in Wonderland or the
Wizard of Oz, none of those had or would ever have needed
comic book origins. There was nothing inherent in comic
books that made them a more likely place to start great new
fantasy or mythology or SF. In fact perceptions have and
probably always will handicap the medium. Newspaper
strips I would separate out, because there the newspaper
vehicle, if you will, gave the material more legitimacy and
breakout potential (e.g., Dick Tracy, Buck Rogers, Flash
Gordon).
Had it just been Batman, Spider-Man, X-Men, Green Lantern
and the like, it would have been worse than Greek Mythology
without its Hercules. At least the Greeks had Zeus. With no
Zeus and no Hercules equivalent, comic books probably never
get to break out.
Superman -- the name was key too -- may well have been the
only character ever seen as worthy of translation to other
media AND capable of succeeding in those media. Even then,
it wasn't until Superman 1978, and I'd add its key romance
element, that the genre was legitimized beyond comics. The
50s series with Reeves was viewed as strictly for kids and
the 60s Batman series was a comedy.
KalElFan
> There's this tendency for some fans to be anti-superhero snobs and to
> insist that having an industry full of superheroes means that we're in a
> low probability timeline. Nonsense.
There are three different issues in this subthread and I don't think
they're necessarily linked to one another. One was whether there
would have been more superheroes in comics had Superman never
been written. Clearly the answer is yes. A second issue is whether
there would have been another hero as successful as Superman. I
think the answer is clearly no, not 100% no because no one can
prove a negative but it's very doubtful any of the other heroes
would have been able to break out as Superman did.
A third issue is what would have become of comic books, if
Superman hadn't almost immediately broken out into other
media. Pretty clearly I think, there would have been less impetus
to emulate that success. My guess is that comic books may have
gone more SF for a while than it did superheroes, but there again
it would have needed a Superman-caliber hit to break out. Flash
Gordon and Buck Rogers and other newspaper strips would have
been more what some original comics may have tried to emulate,
but even those two "franchises" have never had the lasting success
Superman did. Instead of heroic character based SF, comic books
may have focused more on SF story/mythology perhaps, a graphic
version of SF pulps.
I suspect the highest probability timeline would have been comic
books just never breaking out at all. They'd be a niche market even
more than they are now at 40,000 copies a month, with far fewer
TV series and movies based on them than has happened with the
superheroes who followed in Superman's wake. The first and
second Reeve movies were key, because they led to Burton's
Batman success in the 80s and then to Marvel's great run starting
up a decade later.
Joe Snodgrass
> On Jul 18, 3:56 am, JoeSnodgrass<joe.s...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Everyone misunderstood my question. I meant "most important" in terms
> > of literary and thematic content alone, regardless of the history of
> > the medium.
>
> Then you don't understand the word important.
Don't quit your day job, pal. Importance is subjective, not objective.
Bill Steele
arro...@rahul.net (Ken Arromdee) wrote:
>
> The question was whether Fu Manchu comic books would have kept the industry
> alive, or more generally, whether non-superhero books would have kept the
> industry alive. So that was my answer: without Action #1 the industry would
> still have been ruled by superheroes.
>
> There's this tendency for some fans to be anti-superhero snobs and to
> insist that having an industry full of superheroes means that we're in a low
> probability timeline. Nonsense.
Timeline reminds me. I've said this before, but I associate the ebb and
flow of superheroes to public mood. In the late 30s and 40s the world
was a mess, with dictators and wars dominating the news. the ideal
escape was to imagine larger-than-life heroes who would rescue us. (Not
just in comics: We had Zorro, Captain Blood, Roy Rogers.) After WWII we
were filled with optimism. Science and technology would cure our ills
and make everyone prosperous. We'd have flying cars; we wouldn't need
flying people. So Johnny Thunder became a cowboy, All-American Comics
became All-American Romance or some such. They used the trademarks they
had.
Then came the Cold War and the threat of atomic destruction. Yikes! We
needed help again, and the Silver Age was born. Since then the threats,
and the popularity of superheroes, have steadily increased together.
Winston
Most of the replies reflect U.S. / western success of comics. Japanese
anime and the related comics are more popular (by percent of population)
there (so I've heard) than comic books in the U.S., and while the stories
have heroes, their super-powered characters are either demons, highly
skilled people, or technology-enhanced, not Superman / mutant types. Once
the space age came along and the question of life on other planets became
popular, I would think beings from another planet that can do things most
humans can't would certainly have appeared, even without Superman in
particular. From there, it's not hard to image someone creating a friendly
being from another planet who chooses to be a hero.
Of course, one of the things that made Superman stand out was having
a whole range of powers -- better sight, greater strength, near
invulnerability, etc. -- all in one person, making him quite formidible,
whereas most others only have one or two powers.
-WBE
KalElFan
> ... Once the space age came along and the question of life on
> other planets became popular, I would think beings from another
> planet that can do things most humans can't would certainly have
> appeared, even without Superman in particular. From there, it's
> not hard to image someone creating a friendly being from another
> planet who chooses to be a hero.
Right, but consider Mon-El as one example, or even Kal-El if Siegel
had gone that route. It just wouldn't have broken out like the name
Superman did.
> Of course, one of the things that made Superman stand out was
> having a whole range of powers -- better sight, greater strength, near
> invulnerability, etc. -- all in one person, making him quite formidible,
> whereas most others only have one or two powers.
Right, but again it demonstrates the series of creative decisions that
led to Superman. Jerry Siegel's SF background, the evil trial and error
version, the Clark Kent human identity, the love interest Lois Lane,
the powers, then the costume, Krypton, being sent to Earth as a
baby, and then the whole thing still probably flops without the
Superman name and that Action cover where he lifts the car.
Take the Action cover where he lifts the car and name him Hercules,
or Alf or Mork or Ultra-Zod or Mega-Man, and again no one cares.
The "super" prefix had broad enough appeal and the "man" made
him more than just an alien. I think the importance of how it *all*
uniquely came together is not easily dismissed. If it was easy, we
ought to have seen more Fleischer cartoons, serials, radio shows,
and 50s TV series as successful as Superman, and there were none.
Nowhere close, and still in the 60s when Batman shows up it's just
for laughs. Superman again has to do the breaking out to films
with the Reeve series before Batman becomes the second hero to
do it with Burton's movie.
Ken Arromdee
It's clear that manga and anime have a lot of popular genres other than
superheroes.
But it's *also* clear that some of the most popular ones *are* the equivalent
of superheroes. Naruto runs around beating up bad guys using super powers.
While he doesn't have a costume, per se, he's certainly got a brightly
colored, distinctive outfit. And Naruto is aimed at the same audience that
superhero comics used to be aimed at.
And I don't think Superman had to exist before we could get Naruto. It's
basically an independent invention of the superhero.
Ken Arromdee
Winston <w...@ubeblock.psr.com.invalid> wrote:
> Of course, one of the things that made Superman stand out was having
>a whole range of powers -- better sight, greater strength, near
>invulnerability, etc. -- all in one person, making him quite formidible,
>whereas most others only have one or two powers.
Let's see. Naruto can create clones, walk on water, get power from the
demon fox, throw a Rasengan, as well as use powers that most ninjas have
such as the ability to walk on water.
Ken Arromdee
KalElFan <kale...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>There are three different issues in this subthread and I don't think
>they're necessarily linked to one another. One was whether there
>would have been more superheroes in comics had Superman never
>been written. Clearly the answer is yes. A second issue is whether
>there would have been another hero as successful as Superman. I
>think the answer is clearly no, not 100% no because no one can
>prove a negative but it's very doubtful any of the other heroes
>would have been able to break out as Superman did.
Um... Batman?
>Flash
>Gordon and Buck Rogers and other newspaper strips would have
>been more what some original comics may have tried to emulate,
>but even those two "franchises" have never had the lasting success
>Superman did.
I'd think that Superman--or a character with enough of Superman's traits
to achieve the popularity that Superman got--would have been invented sooner
or later.
And back to the manga/anime comparison, the only reason why superhero-like
manga and anime properties don't achieve the lasting success of Superman
is that they're creator-owned and stop when the creator stops. They're
immediately replaced by other superhero-like properties (remember? Before
Naruto was popular, we had Dragonball), and in the rare case where they are
franchises (Super Sentai), they do last quite a while.
Duggy
> In article <98of7dFgl...@mid.individual.net>,
>
> KalElFan <kalel...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >There are three different issues in this subthread and I don't think
> >they're necessarily linked to one another. One was whether there
> >would have been more superheroes in comics had Superman never
> >been written. Clearly the answer is yes. A second issue is whether
> >there would have been another hero as successful as Superman. I
> >think the answer is clearly no, not 100% no because no one can
> >prove a negative but it's very doubtful any of the other heroes
> >would have been able to break out as Superman did.
> Um... Batman?
Batman was created as a result of Superman being created.
> >Flash
> >Gordon and Buck Rogers and other newspaper strips would have
> >been more what some original comics may have tried to emulate,
> >but even those two "franchises" have never had the lasting success
> >Superman did.
> I'd think that Superman--or a character with enough of Superman's traits
> to achieve the popularity that Superman got--would have been invented sooner
> or later.
Probably. Maybe not.
===
= DUG.
===
Duggy
Depends on the context.
===
= DUG.
===
Tom
> On Jul 17, 10:12 pm, Tom <drso...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Jul 17, 5:01 pm, Joe Snodgrass <joe.s...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Jul 17, 3:07 pm, Tom <drso...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> > > > On Jul 17, 12:56 pm, Joe Snodgrass <joe.s...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > > > > On Jul 16, 8:30 pm, Duggy <Paul.Dug...@jcu.edu.au> wrote:
>
> > > > > > On Jul 17, 8:37 am, "Ken from Chicago" <kwicker1b_nos...@comcast.net>
> > > > > > > >> Is "Watchmen" the most important story ever written?
> > > > > > > > No and it's not even the most important comic book story ever written.
>
> > > > > > I'd say Action Comics #1.
>
> > > > > of literary and thematic content alone, regardless of the history of
> > > > > the medium.
>
> > > > Faulkner, Homer and many others have a significant edge over Alan
> > > > Moore as far as importance of literary and thematic content.
>
> > > > Hell, the original Charlton Comics writers have an edge over Moore,
> > > > for the same reasons given in regards to your initial question.
> > > > Without the Charlton characters, what would Moore have used as a
> > > > template for his deconstruction?
>
> > > Faulkner stories are better, and why? Personally, I think that a
> > > frank discussion of paranoid schizophrenia, a la Rorschach, should
> > > rank pretty high on such a list. When was a topic of that magnitude
> > > ever discussed by Faulkner or Hemmingway?
>
> > Man, Joe, you're tough to answer because you keep changing the
> > question... I'm not going to do a treatise on my experiences in
> > English and American lit from college... Hemingway, Faulkner, et.
> > al. ... throw a dart at the stacks in the library and you'll hit a
> > story/novel with more importance than Moore could ever dream.
>
> > The Razor's Edge by Maugham is better than Watchmen... it's better
> > written, is a better story and it, along with Maugham's other works
> > influenced the Beats... if Moore influenced anyone as significant as
> > Jack Kerouac, I'm stumped to come up with a name.
>
> > As for a frank discussion of schizophrenia... read I Never Promised
> > You a Rose Garden, just about anything by Kurt Vonnegut, "Sanity
> > Plea..." by Lawrence Broer... while not specifically about
> > schizophrenia, I also suggest Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness by
> > William Styron.
>
> > Finally, I'm not going to argue whether the subjects of stories/novels
> > by history's literary giants were more or less important than
> > schizophrenia. I'm not sure if I answered your questions to your
> > satisfaction (I hope I have), but I'll close with this... Moore is
> > good, often very good at what he does in the comics medium. He's less
> > than a minor talent when compared to the great writers of the past or
> > present.
>
> Not regular schizophrenia, *paranoid* schizophrenia.
This has been bugging me, so I did some research... (aside from
rereading Watchmen, for which I don't have time)... I found no mention
of Rorschach having schizophrenia, either paranoid or any of the four
other subtypes.
It is implied in the DC Comics wiki that he had multiple personality
disorder and Rorschach became the dominant personality.
That said, please don't take my word for it. I'm still not sure what
you're after in this thread, tho.
Tom
Duggy
> In article <58ff1375-871b-49ce-b3b2-285e32621...@j9g2000prj.googlegroups.com>,
>
> Duggy <Paul.Dug...@jcu.edu.au> wrote:
> >> I would suggest that if we didn't have Action Comics #1 and Superman, fairly
> >> soon someone else would have come up with another superhero who became as
> >> popular. It was inevitable. The combination of action hero (which is
> >> already popular), the month to month nature of the medium, and the fact that
> >> visually distinctive characters work well in comics, would lead to something
> >> that we would call a superhero today, regardless of whether they have capes or
> >> secret identities.
> >it would have be just as or more successful. But in this universe
> >Action Comics #1 is that comic.
> alive, or more generally, whether non-superhero books would have kept the
> industry alive. So that was my answer: without Action #1 the industry would
> still have been ruled by superheroes.
Probably. Maybe not.
Certain things hit together to make Superman.
There are a lot of Harry Potter-like stories that never became huge,
some of which deserve it more than Harry. Same with Twilight. Same
with Star Wars.
Not having genre defining name, a geeky secret ID, pick the wrong
power set, have worse distribution than National? had at the time, be
buried in issue #21 of something, be a back up story rather than the
lead, miss the exact moment that the idea sparks, have a writer and
art that doesn't work as well for the readers... change some of these
things and it could have killed the replacement for Superman.
> There's this tendency for some fans to be anti-superhero snobs and to
> insist that having an industry full of superheroes means that we're in a low
> probability timeline. Nonsense.
I don't understand.
===
= DUG.
===
Ken Arromdee
Duggy <Paul....@jcu.edu.au> wrote:
>There are a lot of Harry Potter-like stories that never became huge,
>some of which deserve it more than Harry. Same with Twilight. Same
>with Star Wars.
To use Twilight as an example: if Twilight never became huge, there may not
have been a popular story specifically about vampires who sparkle. But
paranormal romance is an existing genre. Sooner or later the genre would
have something break out, because sooner or later *every* genre has something
break out.
And I don't think it would take long for superheroes. Using the manga/anime
comparison again, I don't think the popularity of Dragonball Z, Naruto,
or Super Sentai depended on Superman, and yet they managed to break out to
various degrees (though Super Sentai stayed a kids' show).
Bill Steele
"KalElFan" <kale...@yanospamhoo.com> wrote:
> With no
> Zeus and no Hercules equivalent, comic books probably never
> get to break out.
You've hit on a key point. Superheroes are about wish fulfillment, and
the biggest wish most kids have is to be strong, to not be pushed around
by the bullies on the playground or adults in general. Superman just
flying wouldn't have succeeded like Superman picking up a car. Ditto
Captain Marvel, who outsold Superman because they carried the wish
fulfillment a step further.
Anim8rFSK
arro...@rahul.net (Ken Arromdee) wrote:
> In article <98of7d...@mid.individual.net>,
> KalElFan <kale...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >There are three different issues in this subthread and I don't think
> >they're necessarily linked to one another. One was whether there
> >would have been more superheroes in comics had Superman never
> >been written. Clearly the answer is yes. A second issue is whether
> >there would have been another hero as successful as Superman. I
> >think the answer is clearly no, not 100% no because no one can
> >prove a negative but it's very doubtful any of the other heroes
> >would have been able to break out as Superman did.
>
> Um... Batman?
>
> >Flash
> >Gordon and Buck Rogers and other newspaper strips would have
> >been more what some original comics may have tried to emulate,
> >but even those two "franchises" have never had the lasting success
> >Superman did.
>
> I'd think that Superman--or a character with enough of Superman's traits
> to achieve the popularity that Superman got--would have been invented sooner
> or later.
Well, given that Superman is a direct lift of Doc Savage, I'd say
invented 'earlier'
--
"Please, I can't die, I've never kissed an Asian woman!"
Shego on "Shat My Dad Says"
Anim8rFSK
<d5f663da-6cec-48c1...@r28g2000prb.googlegroups.com>,
Duggy <Paul....@jcu.edu.au> wrote:
> On Jul 21, 8:36 am, arrom...@rahul.net (Ken Arromdee) wrote:
> > In article <98of7dFgl...@mid.individual.net>,
> >
> > KalElFan <kalel...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > >There are three different issues in this subthread and I don't think
> > >they're necessarily linked to one another. One was whether there
> > >would have been more superheroes in comics had Superman never
> > >been written. Clearly the answer is yes. A second issue is whether
> > >there would have been another hero as successful as Superman. I
> > >think the answer is clearly no, not 100% no because no one can
> > >prove a negative but it's very doubtful any of the other heroes
> > >would have been able to break out as Superman did.
>
> > Um... Batman?
>
> Batman was created as a result of Superman being created.
And as a result of Zorro already existing.
Warewolf
news:j09ei3$7us$2...@blue-new.rahul.net:
> To use Twilight as an example: if Twilight never became huge, there
> may not have been a popular story specifically about vampires who
> sparkle.
Hmmm, I wonder why...?
http://brokenteapot.deviantart.com/art/How-Edward-can-sparkle-183206745
And while we're at it...
http://brokenteapot.deviantart.com/art/Dracula-vs-Edward-189364434
So many jokes, so little time. ^_^
Joe Snodgrass
Do you know what paranoid schizophrenia is?
Tom
>
> - Show quoted text -
Yes. Do you?
Tom
KalElFan
the issue of Superman's appeal specifically. Also why he became
iconic almost from Day 1, while it took decades for other comic
book characters, and even then only in Superman's footsteps,
to break through in a big way to other media.]
"Bill Steele" wrote in message
news:ws21-0DA365.1...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu...
> In article <98of44...@mid.individual.net>,
> "KalElFan" <kale...@yanospamhoo.com> wrote:
>
>> ... With no Zeus and no Hercules equivalent, comic books
>> probably never get to break out.
>
> You've hit on a key point. Superheroes are about wish fulfillment,
> and the biggest wish most kids have is to be strong, to not be
> pushed around by the bullies on the playground or adults...
I'll snip and adapt your quote a bit, to this for starters:
"... the biggest wish most kids have is to be... adults..."
With boys primarily, the "strong" is also a big factor, hence the
affinity for strong superhero characters, or huge Transformer
robots that can act as their proxies. They don't want to be an
alien, or a "Doc Savage" or even a "Bat-Man" though. They want
to remain human, but be a man not a boy. In reality, a policeman
or a fireman or a G.I. Joe perhaps, or whatever job their father
has. In their SF fantasy, the one character that aced it was a
Superman who also had an ordinary job like a newspaperman.
"I want to be Captain Marvel," not so much at all and nowhere
near Superman-level.
The Lois Lane character was also hugely important from Day 1,
for the 7-to-12-year-old boys the comic books were targeted at
from 1938 through to the late 60s. Boys know their orientation
by that age, but there's peer pressure and societal pressure that
they can't really do anything about it until their teens. Either
it's "Ewww... girls" and/or it's just not practical until they're in
high school.
So the idea that this was a Clark Kent who was really Superman
with that S on his chest under the suit, with Lois Lane pining
after him or in a sense waiting (perpetually) to learn that he
is Superman, was perfect. He has a regular job, but really he's
the super-strong character with all kinds of other powers who
gets or will get the girl. In 1938 and for the next decade or
more when there's no TV, and beyond that when there's no
video games or Internet, Superman was able to break out as
an iconic character because he was pretty much perfect for
that destiny.
It worked for adults too, both male and female, in the first
and to a lesser extent the second Reeve movie. That first
movie was seen by far more adults than kids at the evening
showings, packed showings with groups of women in some
cases, and the romance element was a huge part of its success.
Responding to Ken, Duggy already alluded to Batman being
a follow-up character to Superman but I'll just add a cite to
that here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman#Creation
"In early 1939, the success of Superman in Action Comics
prompted editors at the comic book division of National
Publications (the future DC Comics) to request more
superheroes for its titles. In response, Bob Kane created
"the Bat-Man."[6]
And even with Superman being a big success and leading
the way, Batman was never able to break out like Superman
did during those first 25 years or so. No Fleischer cartoons,
no radio series (he guested on Superman's), no movie that
leads to a 50s TV series. He had a few serials, but again not
successful enough to progress beyond that to the movie and
very successful 50s TV series as Superman did.
Eventually , because Superman had the 50s series, Batman
gets the spoof TV series in the 60s. Then the Burton movie
because the first Reeve movie was such a huge success, the
latter substantially because of the romance element.
Ken also mentioned manga and Naruto, a character I'd
never heard of. Anim8r had cited Doc Savage of all things.
More power to anyone to like what they like, but the idea
that any of these characters would have flourished like
Superman is absurd and lacking perspective. Same for
the manga characters are creator owned excuse.
Nor does Doc Savage get big props for being a Superman
antecedent. Hercules was the original iconic antecedent and
Siegel & Shuster aced it with Superman as the modern iconic
version of Hercules.
Duggy
> Well, given that Superman is a direct lift of Doc Savage, I'd say
> invented 'earlier'
Savage + Gladiator.
===
= DUG.
===
Duggy
> <d5f663da-6cec-48c1-92f7-32ac28840...@r28g2000prb.googlegroups.com>,
>
>
>
> Duggy <Paul.Dug...@jcu.edu.au> wrote:
> > On Jul 21, 8:36 am, arrom...@rahul.net (Ken Arromdee) wrote:
> > > In article <98of7dFgl...@mid.individual.net>,
>
> > > KalElFan <kalel...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > >There are three different issues in this subthread and I don't think
> > > >they're necessarily linked to one another. One was whether there
> > > >would have been more superheroes in comics had Superman never
> > > >been written. Clearly the answer is yes. A second issue is whether
> > > >there would have been another hero as successful as Superman. I
> > > >think the answer is clearly no, not 100% no because no one can
> > > >prove a negative but it's very doubtful any of the other heroes
> > > >would have been able to break out as Superman did.
>
> > > Um... Batman?
>
> > Batman was created as a result of Superman being created.
>
> And as a result of Zorro already existing.
Yes. But without Superman, Bob would not have been asked to create
Batman.
So saying that if Superman didn't exist Batman would have made
Superhero comics what they are today is nonsense.
===
= DUG.
===
Duggy
> Duggy <Paul.Dug...@jcu.edu.au> wrote:
> >There are a lot of Harry Potter-like stories that never became huge,
> >some of which deserve it more than Harry. Same with Twilight. Same
> >with Star Wars.
>
> To use Twilight as an example: if Twilight never became huge, there may not
> have been a popular story specifically about vampires who sparkle. But
> paranormal romance is an existing genre. Sooner or later the genre would
> have something break out, because sooner or later *every* genre has something
> break out.
Not, really, no.
Most do. Not all.
> And I don't think it would take long for superheroes.
Probably, maybe not. And who knows, they may have broke on radio or
serials first and bypassed comics all together.
I've been saying: Probably, maybe not.
Why are you dealing in absolutes?
===
= DUG.
===
Ken Wesson
> I'll snip and adapt your quote a bit, to this for starters:
>
> "... the biggest wish most kids have is to be... adults..."
>
> With boys primarily, the "strong" is also a big factor, hence the
> affinity for strong superhero characters, or huge Transformer robots
> that can act as their proxies. They don't want to be an alien
Note that.
> or a "Doc Savage" or even a "Bat-Man" though. They want to remain
> human, but be a man not a boy. In reality, a policeman or a fireman or
> a G.I. Joe perhaps, or whatever job their father has. In their SF
> fantasy, the one character that aced it was a Superman who also had an
> ordinary job like a newspaperman.
Except for one minor little problem: Superman was not from this planet!
Duggy
> Except for one minor little problem: Superman was not from this planet!
That can be ignored for purposes of being big and strong.
The previous comments about alien, I think, were "don't want to be an
outsider".
Big and strong was loved by kids and by soldiers after all, that what
they were trying to be, too.
Kids and soldiers is was sold comic in that day.
===
= DUG.
===
Tim Turnip
<kwicker1...@comcast.net> wrote:
>"Tim Turnip" <timt...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>news:lql5271lcnvpabgqi...@4ax.com...
>> And the question was, what's the most important (superhero) comic book
>> STORY.
>
>Yes, I was the one who asked that question. The OP asked if THE WATCHMEN was
>the most important story. The first reply said no, that it wasn't even the
>most important comic book story. I then asked what would be the most
>important superhero comic book story.
Well, I was stressing the singular word "story" from the OP -- meaning
I was considering actual runs of stories ineligible for the question
(cf. Sandman below).
>>>What's the link from ACTION COMICS to MAUS?
>>
>> Action #1 was the first significant comic of the superhero age; Maus
>> was the last.
>
>How are you defining "superhero age", considering MAUS was first published
>in 1972? That's well beyond the Golden Age ended or even when the Silver Age
>began.
I'm defining "superhero age" from 1938 to about when superhero comics
started to decline as a viable medium unto themselves, which depending
on who you ask, was the late '60s, the 1970s, '80s or now. (There may
be some optimistic souls who think comics will still one day rebound
and return to their 1940s-1960s glory days when they sold far more
issues than today, but I am performing last rites on the medium itself
even though the spinoff movies are still making money.)
>> My list of most important SUPERHERO comics stories would be:
>>
>> 1. Action #1 (that was a good pick, Dug)
>
>Is it ACTION #1 or ACTION COMICS #1?
Action Comics of course, I was just trying to be succinct.
>> 3. Wonder Woman #1
>
>Interesting choice over ALL STAR COMICS #8. Why so?
Because while WW may have been introduced in All-Star, her longterm
berth was her eponymous solo title, and without that, she may not have
survived the 1940s.
>I think you might bump Byrne's MAN OF STEEL to make room for Gaiman's
>Sandman, considering Moore and him are considered to have written the top 2
>superhero comics.
A Sandman story would definitely be in my top 20 though I would
consider the entire run to be ineligible to be considered a single
story. If forced to pick, I would probably go for The Doll's House,
the second Sandman arc and the first to be collected. (In these days
of compiling virtually everything, it's difficult to believe that the
beginning eight issues of Sandman went uncollected until the follow-up
storyline caught everyone's eye.)
Bill Steele
"KalElFan" <kale...@yanospamhoo.com> wrote:
Near and above Superman level in sales. The appeal of Captain Marvel was
that you didn't have to wait to grow up. He was a kid to begin with.
You're right about the romance; Cap was, in fact, uncomfortable when
approached by women. Perhaps he appealed to a slightly younger crowd.
Joe Pfeiffer
Something I've always found interesting about Superman and Batman is
that Superman (the space alien) really is Clark Kent, the small-town kid
who puts on the blue suit as a costume to fight evil, while Batman (the
human) really is Batman, who puts on street clothes to masquerade as a
normal person.
KalElFan
> ... Superman was not from this planet!
For all intents and purposes he was, having been sent here as
a baby. He grows up as Clark Kent and becomes the reporter.
Duggy used the word "outsider" as the negative context that
might be invoked instead of "alien," and that's another way
to look at it. The romance element in Superman is another
way. He may have been born on Krypton, but he's perceived
as "one of us" and/or "on our side" in every way. Even the
7-to-12-year-old boy reading it got that, and the "Superman"
name reinforced it.
From 1963-1966, there was a "Mighty Hercules" animated
series that even emulated Superman's romance element
with a character named Helena instead of Lois Lane. She
may have evoked Helen of Troy with her name but mainly
she was the girlfriend or love interest,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mighty_Hercules
"Hercules' friends and allies are his main sidekick, Newton;
the helpful boy centaur who has a bothersome habit of
repeating himself every time he spoke; Helena... Hercules'
girlfriend..."
As a 6-to-9-year-old boy at the time, that was a fun show
and Helena, just like Lois, was part of the package. :-)
Arthur Lipscomb
I've heard it the other way, at least in regards to Clark Kent and
Superman. I can see it both ways.
Joe Pfeiffer
I suppose it depends on the era (and what I read in this newsgroup a
little while ago seems to say the newest version will indeed be about an
alien trying to fit in). But it's worked best for me in the times it's
been about the "big blue boy scout", especially in the stories with both
of them.
Quadibloc
> From 1963-1966, there was a "Mighty Hercules" animated
> series that even emulated Superman's romance element
> with a character named Helena instead of Lois Lane.
On the other hand, Hercules and Daedalus, while very much like
Superman and Luthor, or Captain Marvel and Dr. Sivana, were - to a
limited extent - derived from the original Hercules legends.
Which, of course, is one DC defense against the Siegel and Shuster
estates...
I've already noted that one possible, if extreme, DC maneuver would be
to switch to publishing Captain Marvel comics (titled, of course,
Shazam, thanks to Captain Mar-Vell) - Hercules is another option, I
suppose.
John Savard
William George Ferguson
wrote:
Basically, when Superman first appeared, his personality as Superman was
the 'real' him and his personality as Clark was an act. This remained true
until the Byrne revamp, although it needs to be said that throughout those
decades Clark/Supes was always human by nurture, and didn't really build
the false persona for Clark until he went to Metropolis.
As a major part of the Byrne revamp, the emphasis was changed, and Superman
became a persona that Clark adopted, rather than the other way around.
That's remained true up until the present.
Supes as an alien trying to masquerade as a human appears to be where their
going with the upcoming revamp, but that was never true in the past. The
character who filled that slot was J'onn J'onzz, the Martian Manhunter
well, among others).
--
I have a theory, it could be bunnies
Anim8rFSK
Arthur Lipscomb <art...@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
It's been both ways; that's one of the things Byrne reversed in his
dreadful reboot.
Ken Arromdee
KalElFan <kale...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Ken also mentioned manga and Naruto, a character I'd
>never heard of. Anim8r had cited Doc Savage of all things.
>More power to anyone to like what they like, but the idea
>that any of these characters would have flourished like
>Superman is absurd and lacking perspective. Same for
>the manga characters are creator owned excuse.
Ah, you never heard of Naruto, but you're able to say he couldn't have
flourished without Superman? How exactly did you figure this out if
you never heard of him? It's like saying that Star Wars would never have
flourished without Superman--since you don't give any reasoning, how could
anyone rebut it?
For sales in Japan see this:
http://forums.mangafox.com/threads/238728-Oricon-has-released-their-figures-for-manga-sales-in-Japan-for-the-first-half-of-2010
Individual One Piece volumes beat 2 million and Naruto 1 million.
KalElFan
> In article <98rn1b...@mid.individual.net>,
> KalElFan <kale...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Ken also mentioned manga and Naruto, a character I'd
>> never heard of. Anim8r had cited Doc Savage of all things.
>> More power to anyone to like what they like, but the idea
>> that any of these characters would have flourished like
>> Superman is absurd and lacking perspective. Same for
>> the manga characters are creator owned excuse.
>
> Ah, you never heard of Naruto, but you're able to say he
> couldn't have flourished without Superman?
No, I'm saying he didn't flourish at all on the scale of success
we're talking about, and neither did Doc Savage, EVEN_WITH
the success of Superman proving it can be done. That Naruto
is big in Japan I don't doubt, but Godzilla is Japan's biggest
contribution to SF and I wouldn't call the critter a superhero.
While we're on manga, and again apologies to those who love
it, I also think it's not what the industry needs in terms of the
style of art. Likewise most of what I'm seeing with the reboot
from DC, but it's always been thus for 25 years or more now. I
don't know why the clear, crisp art we saw from Curt Swan in
his heyday disappeared.
Bill Steele
Joe Pfeiffer <pfei...@cs.nmsu.edu> wrote:
>
> Something I've always found interesting about Superman and Batman is
> that Superman (the space alien) really is Clark Kent, the small-town kid
> who puts on the blue suit as a costume to fight evil, while Batman (the
> human) really is Batman, who puts on street clothes to masquerade as a
> normal person.
A topic explored in the Smallville series, where it was suggested that
Kal-El was the real guy and Clark Kent the disguise.
Bill Steele
> > "... the biggest wish most kids have is to be... adults..."
Another somewhat silly example: When Sailor Moon transforms, one of the
first things she gets is...nail polish.
Dano
======================================
Of course that's the way it always was. That's why they call CK his "secret
identity". That's the original mythology as I knew it growing up. That's
the shield he uses to keep his "real" identity (Superman or Kal-El) hidden.
He discards his "disguise" whenever he sheds his outer suit and tie.
Oh...and the glasses of course.
Super-Menace
Steele <ws...@cornell.edu> wrote:
It goes back much farther than that.
" .. and who, disguised as Clark Kent, a mild-mannered reporter for a
great metropolitan newspaper ... "
Goro
Dano
news:250720111426010502%fort...@arctic.com.invalid...
=====================================
Some of these young whippersnappers think the series was originated with
Chris Reeves...
Ronald O. Christian
wrote:
As an old phart who watched the George Reeves series as a kid, I still
have to say that isn't quite fair. It's true, the "Clark Kent as the
real guy" is a more recent interpretation, but that doesn't make it
any less interesting. I'm quite enamored of the idea that Clark is
the adopted son of Martha and Jonathan, and Superman is a disguise he
assumes when he wants to do good. That may not be the original
interpretation, but it's still an interesting take on the character.
Ron
-
2003 FLHTCUI "Noisy Glide"
http://www.christianfamilywebsite.com
http://www.ronaldchristian.com
Super-Menace
Christian <ro...@europa.com> wrote:
Yes, it was. This new idea of Kal-El as lonely outsider, though, has
never really been tried. He's always been hero-worshipped, and he's
always had people around him, both as Superman and as Clark.
I've gotten the idea from the previews for Action Comics that the
younger Superman is hiding the fact that he's an alien; I guess he's
pretending to be a human mutant or something, or he's allowing people
to assume so.
Joe Pfeiffer
Interesting. I'm just younger than the George Reeves series (born 1957)
but grew up on reruns of that series and Silver Age Superman comics.
That's absolutely how it always came across to me.
As for Batman, it didn't seem like they really had the courage to
portray him as bat-shit (ha ha) crazy until the late 1970s, so the
extent to which he's really Batman pretending to be Bruce Wayne seemed
to me more like finally getting the character right.
Len-L
<fort...@arctic.com.invalid> opined:
Yes, the original Clark Kent was just that: a disguise. Several writers
played around with the idea, but it wasn't till Byrne's Superman in 1987
that DC tried the idea of Clark being the real person and Superman as
the "uniform."
Both approaches can make for good (and awful) stories.
Anim8rFSK
Super-Menace <fort...@arctic.com.invalid> wrote:
Isn't "didn't figure out he was an alien 'til he was all growed up" from
the dreadful Byrne reboot?
Dano
=========================================
Actually...they were BOTH real persons. The idea of a "secret identity" was
a device designed to protect those close to Superman from the reach of his
enemies that would see their very existence as a "weakness", since he had
such limited vulnerability.
Bill Steele
> As an old phart who watched the George Reeves series as a kid, I still
> have to say that isn't quite fair. It's true, the "Clark Kent as the
> real guy" is a more recent interpretation, but that doesn't make it
> any less interesting. I'm quite enamored of the idea that Clark is
> the adopted son of Martha and Jonathan, and Superman is a disguise he
> assumes when he wants to do good. That may not be the original
> interpretation, but it's still an interesting take on the character.
And that's pretty much how it was in the Golden Age comics. There was no
Jor-El around to give him a lot of history and he had no "destiny." He
just decided to be a good guy.. He knew he was an alien, because he came
in a spaceship, and that was it. His mother made him the suit and he put
on the glasses and "mild-mannered" demeanor because they recognized that
he had to hide the fact that Clark Kent was special.
Strong parallel with Zorro. Don Diego didn't start to act wimpy until he
got off the boat from Spain.
Harry Potter, OTOH, was a lot happier with who he really turned out to
be.
Super-Menace
wrote:
And yet Lois was well-known as Superman's girlfriend, while Jimmy Olsen
was famous as Superman's pal (he even had his own fan club, with
sycophants who bought red wigs and fake signal-watches to wear to their
monthly meetings), and their very public friendships with Superman got
them into trouble with crooks all the damn time.
I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying much of went on during the
Silver Age didn't make any damn sense at all.
As for both Clark Kent and Superman being real people: There's an
interesting bit in one of Elliot S! Maggin's Superman novels (I think
it's in Miracle Monday) that demonstrates how Superman constructs
Clark's identity. In this case, I remember a reference to Superman
having Clark become a collector of odd TV commercials, which he would
play on his VCR for friends. The commercials thing was intended by
Superman to be slightly eccentric, a little endearing, and completely
boring -- just like Clark, I guess. At that time, in the hands of that
very skilled writer, Clark was merely a construct, a fake, but (as
Maggin goes on to say) he is completely necessary for Superman's mental
health. Superman needs a place not to be Superman. That's one of his
weaknesses, as the book makes clear.
Super-Menace
Anim8rFSK <ANIM...@cox.net> wrote:
It is, for us, but it wasn't the first time they did it that way.
Readers always knew that Superman was from Krypton. However, the
Golden Age Superman himself didn't know it until "Superman Returns to
Krypton," in Superman v1 061 (Nov-Dec 1949). In this one, Superman
finds himself weakened by a red piece of costume jewelry and traces its
origins through time and space back to pre-kablooey Krypton. DC's
rules of time travel then required Superman to be a phantom when he
visited his own past, so he watches as Jor-El and Lara (who are
strangers to him) load an infant into a rocket, etc., etc. Superman
follows the rocket to Earth, and only twigs that's it's actually he in
the rocket when the Kents show up. FWIW this "red kryptonite" acts
exactly like green. Also FWIW this was published six years after
kryptonite had been introduced on the radio show.
Now I don't know how all of this lines up with what the Golden Age
Superboy might or might not have known about his own origins, but
consistency was not DC's strong suit. For instance, Superboy would run
into green K all the time.
During the Silver Age, Superman had super-memory and was able to
remember most of his life on Krypton, so his origin was no mystery to
him. Further, his life's story was tweaked so that he was sent to
Earth as a toddler and not an infant, which allowed Mort Weisinger to
assign stories about Kal-El that took place on Krypton.
The Byrne reboot restored the Golden Age Superman's lack of knowledge
about his origin, but resolved the matter a lot more quickly. In the
course of things, Superman refers to Martha Kent thinking he might have
been a baby sent into orbit by the Russians, and this is done in a way
that suggests Superman hadn't thought it was impossible.
Anim8rFSK
Bill Steele <ws...@cornell.edu> wrote:
Bruce Wayne didn't start acting wimpy until he came back from schooling
abroad ...