i'm not sure about the kids-liking-stories-about-kids part, either. when i was a kid, i actively hated anything about kids. loved Batman, hated Robin. loved the Transformers, hated Spike. loved Star Trek: TNG, hated Wesley. i hated the kids on sitcoms.
(OK, just after i wrote that, i have to say that i notice that all the kids i hated were sidekicks. maybe that's important. the sidekick is never cool.)
i also hated the watered-down, padded-for-safety aspect of kids fiction. specifically, i hated the fact that no one got killed. armies would clash on G.I. Joe but no one got killed. it seemed like i was being sheltered, or condescended to - being lied to.
i first got into comics specifically because people got maimed and killed and horrible things happened to them. it was like a rush of honesty, a breath of fresh air, a sense of consequences. it made me think back to my first love and most abiding love in terms of fiction, which was always Star Wars. in Star Wars, while it stays PG, serious shit happens. people get betrayed. people get redeemed, make heroic stands, take risks, get frozen in carbonite, get tortured and fed to monsters. people die. i mean, when i look at the final duel between Vader and Luke in Return of the Jedi, all the drama that leads up to that point, i can't help but understand why most other kids' stuff was lacking after that.
i think the Harry Potter books have something of that kind of sense of consequence and terror and wonder to them, but i'm not sure how much else in kids' media does the same. i think that might be an area where comics can excel, if creators can learn to understand that the goal is a sense of consequence, and not a sense of bleak nastiness for it's own sake. in other words, the death of Anakin Skywalker, not the rape of Sue Dibny. |
