Alan Moore on Superhero comics

[TekMoney]

Did anyone else here actually read the article? He isn't mad at people for liking kids stuff, he's mad at them for taking concepts that are joyous for children and warping them so that they are more suitable for adults.

Which is a pretty weird complaint coming from the guy who wrote The Killing Joke.

He also wrote Watchmen which helped start the shift, but there's a difference between doing a one-off re-imagining of a character/situation and thinking a whole entertainment type should change. In a similar way, I doubt the Bronies that create rule 34 level fan art would think the series would be better if made for adults with an R rating.

Well he wrote Killing Joke after Watchmen. So he was definitely still willing to play with those traditional super hero toys. He had also planned to do a big DC crossover around that time too. His career was made on reinventing characters that were "for kids" and doing adult stories with them. Long before there was Watchmen and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, there was Captain Britain and Swamp thing. And a bunch of Green Lantern and Superman stuff too.

Alan Moore loves being antagonistic. And I'm not entirely sure he believes that it's a bad thing to do super hero comics for adults. And if he does, then you've got to wonder why he wrote a story like The Killing Joke. Which is about the least kid friendly Batman story that exists.

 

[Zoe Castillo]

The reason George Orwell wrote animal farm in allegorical form instead of the more upfront dissection that was 1984 was to appeal to children . not to say adults cant appreciate it but when Orwell decided to seriously approach the subject of fascism he didn?t feel the need to write it as a story about ducks .

if you want to have superheroes and fun action then that?s fine but you cant demand those things to grow up with you?? as much as I like the christopher nolan batman movies I have to admit the premise alone is fucking retarded .

 

[Axolotl]

It's amazing how many people are willing to make comments that show they clearly haven't read the article they're commenting on.

It's like a bunch of Daily Mail readers getting their allotted ten minutes of outrage over some out of context quote from an EU official.

 

[drummond13]

The original Avengers comics were aimed at 12 year olds. The movies are not. Just because that's what the characters were created to be doesn't mean they haven't changed, both in tone and complexity.

I greatly admire the work of Alan Moore, but this would be like calling someone childish for liking the Toy Story movies.

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

I counter that with "adult" entertainment is centered around cheating, murder, lying, drugs, tearing each other down, and general horrible stuff like that. How many crime solving shows are out there now that are always about someone getting murdered? Breaking Bad is about a man slowly losing his humanity as he becomes a ruthless killer. I remember watching the intro to a crime show where a man broke into a dorm house, tied up the four cheerleaders, sexually assaulted each one, then slit their throats one by one. One of them managed to survive, and that was the mystery of the episode.

So I'm sorry, but I'll take "Kid" entertainment like The Avengers that leaves me with a smile on my face over "adult" entertainment that makes me sick to my stomach.

Perhaps, but there are also adult entertainment like Ghost in the Shell that is less murder and lying and more exploration of humanity and technology. And there are stuff like Spongebob that makes me sick with it's stupidity

The point should be that we look media that helps us grow as people and allows us to have fun.

To comment though, sometimes, people need to experience some sicking moments to grow as people and learn that the world is not a place of pure fantasy.

 

[MrGonzales]

The original Avengers comics were aimed at 12 year olds. The movies are not. Just because that's what the characters were created to be doesn't mean they haven't changed, both in tone and complexity.

I greatly admire the work of Alan Moore, but this would be like calling someone childish for liking the Toy Story movies.

Not quite. It would be like calling someone weird and silly for making Toy Story 4 a dark deconstructive movie with brutal violence, gratuitous swearing, and frequent fanservice and sex scenes. Which is how comics are: they used to be pure, unashamed children's stories, but now writers felt the need to make them more grown up by adding the blood, language, and sex that "mature" stories have.