Remember, a Central Theme is not the same as An Aesop; a theme is a question, idea, topic, or concept that the text explores, while an Aesop is a conclusion the author reaches about the theme or a lesson they wish to impart to the reader. As such, you should try and avoid phrasing your examples as conclusions.
The following have their own pages:
Other Comic Books
- 300: No one man is above anyone else.
- Albedo: Erma Felna EDF: What could happen if you decide to give animals the same sentience, emotions, and quirks as shared by the human race? The answer is basically the animals will still do the same things the humans do, complete with wars, racism and even genocide.
- Also, War Is Hell, period.
- All Fall Down: Bad things happen. You deal with them, because they're not just going to fix themselves.
- Anya's Ghost: Know who your real friends are.
- American Born Chinese: Accept who you are. Don't try to change your heritage.
- This is very prevalent in Astro City in multi-issue story arcs.
- "Confession" is about doing the right thing regardless of the cost. Central character Altar Boy's late father treated anyone who needed help, even when the community and his own son scorned him for letting himself be financially taken advantage of. The Crossbreed proselytize despite being mocked, and they and the Astro City superheroes in general keep fighting the good fight after public opinion and the city government has turned against them. The secretly-vampiric Confessor wears a cross as a form of mortification, and performs a Heroic Sacrifice to expose the villains.
- "The Tarnished Angel" is about shame and the hold of the past. Main character Steeljack is haunted by regret for his supervillain past and for killing another kid in a gang fight. His criminal history and the steel skin he got during it also prevent him from getting an honest job. Kiefer Square, his home neighborhood, is trapped in a seemingly-inescapable rut of criminality, personified by a teenage aspiring second-generation supervillain. The villain is a disgraced superhero whose attempt to create a crisis he could publicly overcome failed miserably. Having obsessed over it for years, he's decided to try again, this time killing off the supervillains he involves so they can't expose him. Side character Donnelly knows about the previous but won't reveal it, because that would also reveal that he was fool enough that he hooked a great many people up with an employer who intended to kill them.
- "Lovers Quarrel" is about coping with and accepting the issues of old age, which is an especially debilitating problem for Badass Normals in Astro City. Crackerjack and Quarrel try different approaches to cope, such as semi-automated body armor and an assortment of liniments and salves. Their attempts end poorly, and at the end they have no other choice but to accept their condition and try to find new things in life to focus on.
- The Boys: The horrible ways in which corporate greed destroys everything by applying half-baked, poorly put together, but easily marketable and profitable solutions to complex problems and using corruption to make them first choice options instead of something that would actually work.
- Carl Barks' stories in the Disney Ducks Comic Universe, deal with several recurring themes:
- The stories surrounding Donald Duck often deal with luck, the fact that some are Born Unlucky like Donald, others are Born Lucky like Gladstone Gander. Many of the stories such as "The Magic Hourglass" or Scrooge's Number One Dime deal with the idea of lucky charms and whether these objects truly bestow luck.
- More broadly the stories deal with adventure. The treasure hunt plots as in "The Golden Helmet" come from wanting some yearning for adventure and excitement in the mundane everyday life but the adventure stories don't free you from day-to-day problems of work/family/friendship and rent. Likewise, daily life is often quite adventurous in its own right.
- Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles:
- The horrors of censorship against the arts and McCarthysm.
- The role of arts and "subversives" in shaping the culture they belong to.
- The challenges of being yourself in a world that shuns certain identities.
- From Hell:
- The fundamental interconnections that exist between everything and everyone, and how a serial killer is both a product of society and culture as a whole and something which goes on to shape that society further.
- The conflict between rationality and spirituality, masculinity and femininity, and chaos and order—and the idea that all three are just different shades of one single overarching conflict that pervades all of human history.
- Humankind's trade-off of passionate spirituality for coldly rational knowledge, and whether or not that trade-off is ultimately for the best.
- The role of violence in shaping human society, and how no great change can ever come without pain and sacrifice.
- Giant Days: How extraordinary supposedly mundane lives of people entering adulthood truly are.
- Global Frequency: The extraordinary things that ordinary people can do if given the chance and resources to do them. Also, how no skill or ability is truly worthless, and how even the most seemingly trivial or obscure forms of knowledge can, if applied in the correct setting, do amazing things.
- Irredeemable: How far a man has to go to become truly irredeemable?
- Incorruptible: What it takes to turn to the side of angels and stay on it?
- Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Who is more messed up? A serial killer or society too apathetic and stupid to stop him?
- Jonesy: Your actions have consequences and you can’t run away from them.
- Judge Dredd: The law, no matter how harsh, really is there for your protection.
- Alternatively, the extremes that unthinking, unyielding, and over-oppressive fascist law-enforcement can go to... and the kind of society that would need this kind of law enforcement in order to function.
- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Culture is both a reflection of the society and context in which it creates and an expression of its genius and ambition. Art is not only a product of life, but something which in turn shapes and influences society itself, and it's very bad when culture merely regurgitates old tropes and ideas out of empty nostalgia and lack of creativity.
- The Nemo Trilogy deals with the change in mores from 19th Century Science Fiction (centered on exploration, searching for new lands, filled with mystery and adventure) to 20th Century Science Fiction (centered on limits, horror of discovery, filled with doubt and fear).
- Lumberjanes: The power of female friendship and the importance of creating a space for all kinds of girls to thrive.
- Maus: How surviving a traumatic experience like the Holocaust doesn't shape just the survivor but affects everyone around them.
- Monstress: The evil of treating other people like tools.
- My Friend Dahmer: The consequences of ignoring a cry for help.
- Nemesis the Warlock: Humans can be bastards, but don't have to be.
- Paper Girls: We only have one chance at life, better not waste it.
- Phonogram: How art influences, inspires and changes but sometimes also destroys its consumers.
- Princeless – Raven: The Pirate Princess: Women creating a safe community for each other in a patriarchal society.
- Revival: Nothing in life can really prepare us for death.
- Rogue Trooper: War Is Hell
- Saga: Trying to maintain the semblance of normal life and happy family for your child in a world torn by war.
- Scott Pilgrim:
- Fighting for the one you love. It's tough, but it will be worth it.
- Admitting your mistakes and flaws in confronting them. Otherwise, you will keep making the same mistakes over and over again, even if the circumstances are different.
- Relationships are a two-way street, and sometimes so are break-ups. The end of a relationship can't always be blamed on the faults of one person, but rather both people involved, and to have a meaningful, long-lasting relationship, both partners need to put in some kind of effort.
- The consequences of infidelity.
- Tomboy: A Graphic Memoir: What defines a girl? And is there more than one way to be one?
- The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye: There's more to people than they appear. It's in the name. The Hidden Depths of many characters are brought to the forefront - Whirl, Brainstorm, Swerve, Ultra Magnus, Cyclonus, even friggin' MEGATRON.
- The Transformers: Robots in Disguise: Won the War, Lost the Peace - Autobots find the hard way that life-long soldiers may not be best suited for dissolving history of grudges and crimes on two sides and maintaining order. And that individuals that might've been ineffective in time of war can become much more dangerous during the peace, like, say, Starscream.
- The Wicked + The Divine: Accodring to Word of God, the relationship between art and its creator, how choices and compromises artists make influence their creations, their audience and their very lives.
