Why must comics be so angsty?

I was never a big comic book fan, ever, even though I have nothing at all against the idea of reading a story in comic form. Heck, I did enjoy Calvin And Hobbes compilations as a kid, and I also came across some Uncle Scrooge comics, which I loved, being a huge Duck Tales fan. I didn't even know that Ducktales was actually an adaptation of Uncle Scrooge, not the other way around.

But nearly all comics - at least in the US - are angsty, melodramatic and/or violent. I visited a comics group of deviantART, and pretty much all the comics being shown there were dark, often violent, and I just found them unappealing.

Seriously, there's no rule that says that drawings on paper must translate into angst. Cartoons don't. Novels don't. But "graphic novels" tend to. Why? If comics were more open and diverse, I might read them. I feel as though an entire medium is somehow dictated by a small sampling of genres, and it's severely limiting its potential appeal.

With the exception of a few original ideas like Bone (mixes slapstick comedy with epic fantasy) and Amulet (has cartoony art, but takes itself seriously), comics in the US are pretty much all the same. Violent heroes, dark artwork, Rated M for Manly.

Or are there, in fact, lots of original ideas, but they don't get exposure? It this an example of the "base" totally dominating the discussion and preventing those who think differently from getting their ideas in? Or are comics - or at least US comics - really 95% angst and 5% everything else?

Or have the people with the original ideas moved to Web Comics to express themselves, leaving traditional comics behind, thus creating the split?

Marvel and DC put out a LOT of similar stuff, and are the source of most of the poorly done angst...

If I had to recommend some stuff relatively angst-free, I'd say go with Sam And Max and Atomic Robo. The Goon and Scud The Disposable Assassin also have some heavy moments, but they're not as overbearing or poorly done as, say, "Identity Crisis". I hear Scott Pilgrim is good, but I've only read the first two volumes, So Yeah. Basically, leaf through some Indie comics that look good to you.

As for the cause... I remember reading a commentary that said people were still afraid of the stigma that "comics are for kids", so they try to introduce more mature ideas...but these aren't executed well enough, often enough, so we've reached the point where it's all "MATURE stories for MATURE readers such as myself" and we're afraid to have a silly or innocent character or element in the stories.

Speaking of which, is DC still forcing that indignity on Mary Marvel?

edited 14th Oct '10 8:34:51 AM by punchy

This is a major factor in the quality dive comics took in the 90s (or else the speculator crash would have been recovered from). It's this notion that writers either assume the readers want angst... or they want to write angst more than fun stories or hopeful stories.

Speaking of which, is DC still forcing that indignity on Mary Marvel?

Depending what you mean by "angsty" and "melodramatic," there are a ton of good options out there. Like Nextwave, Power Pack, Spiderman Loves Mary Jane (which is, yes, melodramatic in the sense of a soap opera, but couldn't really be called "dark"), or pretty much any of the DC's (Character): Year One books, Marvel's (Team): First Class books, or Marvel Adventures books. And that's just among the mainstream stuff.

Also, as Punchy said, you should be reading Atomic Robo. It's a print comic written by the guy that did Eight Bit Theater but has the pacing and presentational advantages of long-form comics and a professional artist.

edited 14th Oct '10 3:52:45 PM by Shadowtext

Do yourself a favor and check The Batman Adventures or any of its spinoffs. And the new BOOM! Darkwing Duck series.

I might be hard to find a copy nowadays, but I've been re-reading Garfield: His 9 Lives lately, and I highly recommend it. It consists of nine stories (plus a prologue), most of which are comedies.

It's very good to see that there are so many non-angsty alternatives.

In that case, why must angst dominate the US comic scene? It's pretty hard to deny that it does.

"In that case, why must angst dominate the US comic scene? It's pretty hard to deny that it does."

The writers and the base they are pandering to think that is what makes a good comic.

I agree about the base thing. I think hardcore bases ruin a lot of things that have wide appeal, by demanding only the elements they care about. It's disgusting to see them affect an entire medium.

And it's also the writers, and executives, that fiddle around with what they think makes a great comic, which just limits sales to that hardcore base.

This is Nextwave. This is Incredible Hercules. This is Mark Waid's The Incredibles comics. Your argument is invaild.

edited 15th Oct '10 5:14:40 PM by PrimoVictoria

Also Gray/Palomatti's run on Power Girl was pretty light hearted fun.

Then again I'm not sure what you mean by angst, because most of the books I read aren't angsty, they may have dark elements though.

The first comic I ever owned was the first Captain Marvel comic, so I'd like to say that there was a bit of a change in market there - not so much as you think though. Heck, Dick Tracy shot fuckers all the goddamn time.

Anyway, in the Golden Age, comics that were essentially Pulp Stories in picto form were common - as were horror comics. Sure, only EC published any horror comics worth reading, but what do you want? Of course, pulp heroes didn't have any of those icky emotions - what they were going for was the emotional tenor of Italian Spiderman.

Hmmm, I'm not very good at this. Why did the Dark Age begin? Business interests don't seem to be enough to justify it, after all no Grimdark superhero comic ever sold with Fawcett's Captain Marvel numbers. Perhaps someone who knows better can tell me. Overreation to the fall of the Comics Code, perhaps?

By the way, I inherited the Captain Marvel comic. I'm not old.

^The dark age started thanks in part to Watchmen. People saw all the financial and critical success it was getting and grabbed the completely wrong end of the completely wrong stick and decided it was loved because it was dark and realistic.

Independent artists, chafing at the restrictions of superheroes began making things like Spawn and Wildcats to prove that comics were for grown-ups by including blood and tits and death.

Enter X-men artist Rob Liefeld. He wasn't very good, but his style was distinct and unique and led to popularity which many artists were pressured to imitate. To top it off, Spider-man started a saga called the clone saga that was genuinely interesting after the depressing bore Spider-man had been at that point. Because of falling profits, the Marketing department ordered the saga to be extended which ended up culminating in a multiple year arc that could only be solved by bringing Norman Osborn back to life and just saying 'Well he's an evil genius so that's why everything went the way it did!'

To top it off, comic companies were trying to capitalize on the collector's market by releasing special editions, variant covers, foil covers, restarting the number order of comics for new number one issues, and all sorts of overproduced gimmicks that never panned out for speculators because they were so overproduced and led to more copies not being sold in the end.

Eventually in the end, the industry imploded upon itself and in 1997 Marvel filed for bankruptcy.

In my opinion, the dark age ended when Grant Morrison started his run of JLA which played old school silver age tropes straight while still maintaining a strong sense of intelligence to the story.

That said, the Dark Age wasn't -all- bad. Keep in mind that this age resulted in artists and writers getting creative control and some of the most critically lauded comics out there, like Sandman and Preacher, came out of this era.

edited 15th Oct '10 6:47:43 PM by Malkavian

Yes, poor management. Makes sense.

Thanks.

"This is Nextwave. This is Incredible Hercules. This is Mark Waid's The Incredibles comics. Your argument is invaild."

What? Who were you replying to? This is why we note those things.

If you mean the general thread, that only proves exceptions, not invalidating an entire argument.

The Dark Age Of Comic Books is a pretty good place to go to get more information on why comics went Darker and Edgier. Although the "gritty" trend started during The Bronze Age Of Comic Books where some of the restrictions of the Comics Code started to loosen up. The Punisher appeared back then, and the Joker's personality reverted from a Villainous Harlequin to the Monster Clown that we all know an love. Note that I said "revert", the Joker was quite a monster in the Golden Age, even Batman carried a gun and killed people back then.

Another influence was the way that Marvel Comics portrayed their characters from the start of the Silver Age. In the DC Universe it was pretty awesome to be a Super Hero- you were super-rich (bummer about your dead parents though) or you had awesome Deus ex Machina powers that could fix every situation. In the Marvel Universe, being a superhero was a little less fun. Some were flat broke, others had monstrous transformations, and yet others had to protect a world that flat-out wanted them dead. This was considered a radical departure, and enjoyed a lot of success that was emulated with various amounts of success.

Anyway, in the late 80's and early 90's someone decided that comic books needed to be more mature. Now, there are two ways that you can convey maturity. One is with a deep psychological introspection of the medium that leaves the reader with a greater understanding of the human condition. The other way is with sex and violence. Since the latter version has boobs, and boobs always win, by the transitive property of... just show the boobs already. And thusly many Nineties Anti Heroes scampered across the land, shooting everything in sight and generally being twoone-dimensional copies of each other.

And then Kingdom Come happened, and for a brief moment of sanity people realized that there was a lot of Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy going around. Even some of the former Nineties Anti Heroes were rehabilitated, like Cable and Deadpool, when they were given to more skilled writers. So things got slightly better, and then a new group of creators gained popularity. These guys decided that they wanted the world of comic books to be like it was when they were growing up in the Silver Age, but they wanted it to be more mature. Now, let's go back up the our maturity choice above and guess which... KILL! BOOBIES! KILLER BOOBIES!!! And that was the inspiration behind Identity Crisis. Ever since then, any large event (especially at DC Comics) has to have a larger death count to be considered "serious"; such as the Infinite Crisis, Sinestro Corps War, and Blackest Night. Notice that Amazons Attack wasn't in that list? That's because no one could possibly take it seriously.

So there you have it, one man's very jaundiced and opinionated guide to why comics are the way they are. To summarize: True Art Is Angsty and boobs and guns rule. Please don't take it too seriously. Or take it seriously at all.

Oh, that post is far more accurate than you are giving it credit for.

edited 16th Oct '10 3:09:47 AM by DragonQuestZ

Marvel actually seems t make quite an effort to vary their efforts: They have the Marve Adventures line, various minis, and soe individual stuff like the Incredible Herc run that are far more light-hearted.

DC has... Tiny Titans and the Brave and the Bold tie-ins?

Well, the current Matt Fraction run on Iron Man is not angsty. It's deals with serious themes, like WMD, trying to start over with your life, addiction to technology, etc, but the tone is very close to the movie's. There is a bit a drama and UST, but everything is done with a healthy dose of humor. It's not Silver Age fantasy and it doesn't have any gorilla, but it's not ansgty either. It's more like an action movie.

In fact, if all you know about Iron Man is the movies, then start with The Five Nightmares TPB and make your way from there. This comic was designed from Day 1 to get you into the comic worl starting with what you know from the movies. I recommend it if you want something that is serious but not ansgty.

edited 19th Oct '10 5:29:15 AM by collex

I really dig pretty much all of Fraction's stuff. His X-men stuff was pretty awesome. Have you tried out his Thor run?

I'm surprised no one has mentioned PS 238. It is a superhero comic by Aaron Williams (creator of Nodwick) about a public elementary school for superhuman children. It is mostly funny, but also has serious story arcs that I think overshadow most of the stories by DC and Marvel in terms of intrigue and creativity. PS 238 both parodies and celebrates superhero comics. The comic is online at Williams' site, but it is way behind the print comic.

As for webcomics, check out Phil and Kaja Foglio's Hugo Award Winning Girl Genius (for both two years in a row).

Because the target audience is teenagers.

^^^I must admit I did not read anything by Fraction except Iron Man. i heard good things about his Thor run, and less good things about his x-men run. I did read the FCBD Iron Man/Thor team-up he did. They are on the moon!

His X-men run would have been great if they had kept Greg fucking Land away from the art. It's a classic case of a good writer being brought down be a shitty artist.