well who doesnt like good guys and bad guys?
The truth is we do.
The other truth is that people like their twists and turns in stories as much as the best amusement parks have the best roller coasters.
I don't think capes should go the way of the dodo. The problem is the damn zoo/wildlife preserve/feral den/hunting grounds that's just made itself welcome in the room since 1996. I've already written about it in the Comicsgate thread. In fact, let me go and fetch it.
Is it that time again? Yes it is!! It's I Love Beef's US Comic Book Industry Spergouts!
[T}he 1996 US Comics Crash should be treated as the equivalent of a mass destruction incident on par with the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event or a global nuclear apocalypse, or if more down to earth, the sacking of Rome or the Peloponesian War marking the end of an empire. And I'm going to come out and say it: after the US comic giants having copped out to the censors and moralfags for years for the sake of its own bottom line, do you seriously think that they'd have any integrity left to save them after fucking killing Superman? Rock and Roll and Metal fought back against the morality in media fuckers, the fuck wasn't getting comics to do the same out in the Supreme Court? I only feel bad the same way some small time petty criminal gets fucking massacred being in the wrong place at the wrong time in business they have no way in hell they can deal with: what a disappointing waste of life.
If there's anyone, fucking anyone, who wants to make new comics here in the States, they'd best do something so revolutionary, so ground breaking and so influential that it can clear out the metaphoric wastelands of ruined cities, radioactive waste, and tainted scorched earth that composes the very foundation of the "rebuilt" comics industry after 1996, and compete head to head, not all fucking pussyfooted and petty punkass bitch, with the Japanese anime and manga industry and even the European comics industry. Remember, superheroes are only alive today because of movies these days, not the comics they're based on, and then there's the national stigma that comics and reading are for nerds, and then, we have the lovely problem of how comics about superheroes have problems with characterization and depictions of morality. And that's not even counting the other shit, like how no one is willing to face the truth that the industry fucked up and is pretending nothing fucking happened.
tl;dr You want to save comics? You'd best give a fuck enough to not do the same lackluster ignoramus hubris huffing pride jerking copium jenkem shit that's been repeated again and again blindly. Wannabes and halfassed glory seekers die burning out not knowing what the fuck hit them beyond this point. Don't say I didn't fucking warn you.
Now give me my hats, trash cans, and puzzle pieces, along with expert rebuttals. I'm done.
The other problem is the huge ass cultural stigma/image comics have unfortunately dug themselves into a hole with in the States. Even back in the 2000s when anime hit Cartoon Network and Barnes and Nobles were getting in on the craze, anime and manga wasn't simply getting popular because of it simply being from Japan, it was because anime and manga is the hands on realized equivalent of "what if animation and comics weren't bitchmade, belabored, and overly censored to begin with?"
Good lord, comics and animation with stories and variety like.... TV shows, movies, and music even? Holy shit! Sure, even back then fans still loved animeshit doused with the nerd flavorings we're all used to, but they provided some need human interaction and introspective than just full on beeline for saving the day. If you do truly ask me, it was video games that also provided the hugest opening. Probably because you weren't around back then, but Japan did rule the video games market, and that was how the people knew about anime over in the States mainly in the first place.
And we get to the real, nitty gritty here. Superheroes and comics already took a major hit with the Dark Ages of Comics, and there was already major Gen X disillusionment with "All American" stuff in general with this decade. With comics, Superman and superheroes were paramount with authority of "the man" and were even considered "child's trash" because of truth of how The Comics Code lorded over them leaked out, and this isn't even going over anti-heroes or Image or the Dark Age's contribution to the Crash. You had the LA Riots, the Japan Bubble Economy, post Nam', the Morality in Media guys running amok on anything that didn't fit their vision, people getting sick as shit about The War on Drugs and its hypocrisy, the Spurs Posse and OJ Simpson getting away scot free with rape and murder because they were athletes, the Waco Siege, that two man fucking brick shithouse arsenal armed robbery in LA in 1996 that made huge ass news coverage, all of that shit. Fuck, wasn't Mike Diana arrested for "lewd and obscene content" because the fucking USPS guys snooped around his incoming mail? Being close of all of that shit about "America's Failures" and why capes weren't doing anything about
that definitely left a really sour and bitter taste in everyone's mouths about superheroes. After the whole alt media boom, it's probably no surprise when you had anime fans talk huge shit about comics and animation from the States and dissing capes to Disney. There was definitely some sense of rebellion and stickin' it to the man back in the day when you were an anime fan in the coming of the Millennium, believe me.
Capes more or less still have this sort of stigma these days.
