iFanboy - Episode #239 - Comic Book Tone: Dark vs. Light

Comic books? they aren?t for kids anymore! They sure aren?t, and they haven?t been for years. But is that a good thing? Comic books started as a medium for children and is now almost solely the province of adults. But now, with an audience of adults who demand gritty realism in their superhero comic books, is there any room left for comics that appeal to all ages or to, gasp, kids? How did it get this way and is it healthy for an industry to focus solely on dark and gritty superheroes? This week, the iFanboys discuss the state of the tone of current superhero comic books.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• batman
• brave and the bold
• spawn
• watchmen
• alan moore
• frank miller
• daredevil
• ec comics
• x-men
• jason aaron
• comics

[ottertube]

The end of lessening of the code in the early 70s is more of the benchmark rather than 1986. Tomb of Dracula is brutal and darker than many comics currently printed. Today the troublesome trend is sexuality.

[edenscancer]

You guys are assuming that the artists are following their own trends rather than comic companies picking up and pushing what the public wants. "happy" comics don't sell anymore because the majority of people can't relate.

[darkinertia2]

sounds to me that comics are going through the similar thing that video games are. theres this point (like right now in video games) that its all about dark and bloody and tons of guns and brown, everyone loves shooters and thats all you see, yet back in the day there was a lot of unique,all age games. its getting to that turning point right now, thanks to indie games, where ppl want something unique and fun and getting back to the roots with a twist...idk anything thoi just got into comics lol

[SSJ2VEGEROTRULES]

I really love the Brand New Day Run of Spider-Man and only a few of the stories in it are "dark", but for the most part it's really light. Spider-Man is a relatively high selling light toned comic, especially Dan Slott's run right now.

[ntripp]

I don't buy any comic that doesn't feature someone dying on the first page. ;) ... oh I mean uh >:[

[GraphicNovelKid92]

i gotta admit when i was very young in the 90s and went into a store i would always be drawn to the comics which had blood and bodies all over the cover or had some form of violence on the cover rather then the bright, colourful ones. even now some of my favourite graphic novels like 30 days of night, watchmen, kick ass, year one etc are all dark in tone. but i still purchase comics like all star superman to contrast the dark, gory stories to the bright, light hearted stories.

[johnnybrown1026]

I do prefer the darker tone stories, but as long as it's a good well written story. it doesn't matter to me

[jueshua148]

Comics are certainly more expensive than what most people are willing to pay. I'm surprised that comics are even being sold in stores. I would have thought that comic books would have become 100% digital. When artists use use computers to allow fans to somehow be apart of the comics, many fans will jump on i believe. Imagine being able to custom create a character online digitally and using that same character in realistic dark stories where the self characters becomes a part of the story told.