The Rise and Fall of Comics vs cartoons.

[dannyannimus]

Not specifically TF, but they are an example.

When most of us were young, we had great cartoons, with even greater UK comics. In retrospect, the cartoons weren't all that great really, with inconsistent story and art. The comics however, still hold up as great storytelling, which didn't dumb down to our innocent sensibilities.

In comparison, the modern day versions of our childhood cartoons are vastly superior, in storytelling, art and consistency. We might not like all elements of them, but they hold together a lot better. Today's kids comics are little more that cheap toys with a side order of ropey story with no continuity.

I was just wondering when the change over happened from average cartoons and great comics to great cartoons and appalling comics.

[Death's Head]

In terms of cartoons, i think the tide began to turn certainly with the introduction of batman: tas.whilst it wasn't the first cartoon to have consistently strong storytelling (ulysses 31, jayce and the wheeled warriors) it was perhaps the first to keep some continuity going without being hamstrung by it.the adorementioned ulysses 31 had no continuity at all despite all the episodes forming part of a larger narrative. Jayce, on the otherhand had continuity but came a cropper when the show was cancelled.batman was probably the first western cartoon with some depth to it too.all its characters were well rounded individuals.the enormous success of the burton film was no doubt a heavy contributing factor too.on top of that,this was likely a conscious attempt to make kids sit up and take notice and draw them away from videogames. The latter is key - more traditional childrens media outlets suddenly realised it wasn't acceptable to put out any old rubbish and so you get these more sophisticated cartoons coming out that match the complexity of games.in terms of the actual look of a lot of cartoons,one can't rule out the wider exposure to quality japanese animation as the likes of akira made their mark and made western studios demand more from the japanese animation studios they teamed up with.

Where comics have gone wrong -and this is in the uk really-is by failing to compete with videogames in any meaningful way.whilst teenagers are well served by 2000ad and others now long gone (crisis,revolver) nothing came along to step into the market once transformers and its ilk passed on.the collapse of the uk comic market and subsequent folding of marvel uk then had publishers targetting exclusively the one market that has repeatedly sustained sales : the nursery market. As a result, comics start to become more infantile - the most amusing example of which would be the terminator comic pitched at 5 year olds. The addition of free gifts has always seen a spike in sales and publishers foolishly thought that if they kept adding gifts then they would be able to sustain readers.sadly thats not the case - the beano now sees a leap in its cover price whenever 'gifts' (no longer free) are attached to the cover.

Another daft thing about the uk comics market is that any comic aimed at the 7 -11 age gap is frequently put on the top shelf of newsagents along with all the porn mags which instantly gives off the wrong impression about the content. We're an odd country like that - there's the perception that comics are only for children and that anything that doesn't look suitably 'kiddy' must be on a par with viz!