NOTE: I’m deleting and repurposing the earlier entry, here.
(I don’t feel like I got it quite right at the time, so here’s this:)

Now, there’s sort of a hidden backstory here, in that after I got to the States, and after reading American comics, I became a pretty much long-time, loyal DC/Marvel fan until I noticed that they just… I dunno… kept recycling their content, and kept using their characters as resurrectionist puppets?

For example-- they’d make a huge song & dance about killing off a character, only to later bring them back perfectly intact via whatever bullshit excuse, some issues later? (sometimes even needing to create alternate worlds for them to exist in!)

Point is-- it pretty much hammered home the idea that all these characters were just licensed properties ™, and not representative of remotely approaching real characters.

Dense as I was, it did become clear as a comics reader that my needs just weren’t being met anymore, suggestible teenager as I was. That’s roughly around the time that I started exploring American-indie/alt comix, such as Cerebus the Aardvark, Love & Rockets, and several others.

What can I say? I just lost total interest in bullshit fantasy, and got WAY more interested in Euro and Alt / Indie stuff, and in truth, I’ve rarely looked back.

Now here’s the great Dave Cooper:

-----> https://imgur.com/a/dave-coopers-bizzaro-world-super-dumped-xi144QU <-----

EPILOGUE? Uh… I guess just that Euro-comics… at bare minimum, they suggest to me how your day went, and what little (but crazy) challenges you went through that day. That’s some real stuff, to me.

  • Voyajer@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    22 days ago

    They’ve pretty much turned into stock characters, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing in itself, but it does make having a clean timeline pretty much impossible.

    • JohnnyEnzyme@lemm.eeOPM
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      edit-2
      22 days ago

      I mean… stock characters go back to… the age of Greek Tragedy, right? And that’s cool!

      But I mean, either way… there has to be a compelling story, or way of relating, or something that rises us up and connects us, right?

      EDIT: I’ve lightly edited in a clarification, above, hopefully that makes sense.

  • JohnnyEnzyme@lemm.eeOPM
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    22 days ago

    Oh, and Exhibit B, sometime:

    Our family drove up to MontReal when I was around 8yo, and while there, our family-friend gave me some funny picture-albums, “Ma Dalton” and “Asterix au Egypt”…