Week 2 - Che Crawford - Tintin

Do you think comics are a children's or adult genre/media?

Both. Much like 2D animation, I think comics can be dismissed and shoved aside as something that is childish, or for geeks. I think this is largely for two reasons. Comics can often consist of a sort of ‘silly’ humor that children enjoy and adults can sometimes find pointless. And also having ‘pictures’ with a story can be automatically sorted into the same category in our minds as children’s picture books. That is, something for beginner readers.

In 1837, "The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck" was published by Rudolphe Töpffer and it is considered the earliest known comic book. In 1842, "The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck" became the first comic book published in the United States.

In the comic, Mr. Vieux Bois encounters a seemingly overweight young woman and instantly falls in love. His initial attempts at courting are ignored, followed by short periods of his desperation. He attempts suicide by falling on his own sword and then by hanging himself. Both attempts fail.

The comic story is told humorously and Töpffer described comic books as a medium appealing particularly to children and the lower classes but the story achieved widespread popularity in the United States and its original Switzerland amongst readers of all ages.

I’m wondering if people’s first run-ins with comics are usually the short humorous strips found in newspapers such as Garfield. I’m wondering if before people even get a chance to explore this medium of storytelling, they’ve already decided that comics can’t be something more serious and ‘adult.’ At least the Western world. But if people take the time to explore the genre, past Garfield, they will find some serious, or interesting stories on going stories that could be viewed as a more adult story. That's not to say that Garfield isn't an adult story. I just mean that comics can be more then strips now. They can be entire graphic novels.

If we look specifically at manga, that is Japanese Comics, we can see many examples of these types of stories. While some people in the Western world view comics as for children, manga stories have always catered for all ages. Their stories range from ongoing episodic stories about Ninja’s like Naruto, which is beloved by children, teengers and some adults, to love stories, to ‘adult’ stories, to fantasy etc.

Another version of comics largely enjoyed by adults are webcomics. Webcomics are updated daily, or weekly etc portraying whatever the artist wants to talk about. Sometimes having ongoing characters, or themes. The most popular ones earning enough views to allow their authors to take on web-comic writing as a full time job.

But of course comics are largely enjoyed by children too. I think we might find more and more these days that stories, comics, movies etc can be enjoyed by a large variety of people and ages, each getting different things from the story that is relevant to them.

I certainly have enjoyed a large range of comics, starting with Asterix and Obelix to more recently a personal favourite, the webcomic called 'Looking for Group."