They're For Kids...Who Cares?

Carl Barks and Tarzan legend Burne Hogarth at the 1982 San Diego Comic-Con. Surprised so many legends could fit in one room!

"A little nonsense now and then is cherished by the wisest men." 

-Willy Wonka

Fans of cartoons and comics unfortunately have the tendency to overdefend their interests, usually claiming they were not "made for kids", and so they really aren't immature reading about them, or caring about them. But first, a quick personal story:

I was ten when The Dark Knight Rises came out. By then I had been introduced to the Caped Crusader through the video game LEGO Batman, which concurrently introduced me to comicbookdom (I have not been cured). I remember staring at that flaming poster with anticipation (I later saw it from Redbox the next year). After being spoiled by the crime/thriller straight-believable interpretation of Christopher Nolan, I decided, at that tender age, that superheroes were better that way. I even rejected the term "superhero" as too goofy; I liked "vigilante" better.

Others have this mentality. I remember a review of Rob Liefeld's Youngblood saying it felt like it was written for 12-year-olds. uUh, did he know the audience? 12-year-olds! Yes! (Critics have blasted Liefeld's work for being too "unrealistic"--as if comic books are "realistic". They were never meant to be, and i like them that way. Also but I am a superfan of his out-of-this-world extreme drawing. Sue me.)

Another example is the term "sequential art", coined by the inimitable Will Eisner. Presumably "comic book" sounds too childish, so they invented this tortured word. 

I changed later as I got older, oddly enough. Now I've noticed that I like superheroes better gimmicky and silly. Unfortunately, "serious superherodom" opens up some uncomfortable questions about the genre, but that will be discussed some other time. I am not putting down the Nolanverse, since I am a big fan, but with movies you have a certain degree of fantasy an audience simply will not swallow. 

One odd variant of this is the type that prefers one type to another. This is in Mike Barrier's case. He ha always resented the hatred of comic books within literary academia. But with all respect to him, I resent his contempt of superhero comics. For example, when speaking of his 2016 trip to Comic-Con, he speaks of Pogo fans: "Everyone on the panel loved Kelly's work, but with an adult sort of love that would probably baffle devotees of, say, Harley Quinn." And when referring to the 2012 release of The Avengers:

I think all superheroes—and thus all superhero comic books and movies—are inherently frivolous. Whether they're frivolous in an enjoyable way, or simply shallow and childish, is up to the people writing and drawing the comic books or making the movies. Shallow and childish wins almost all the time, with the occasional remarkable exception like Bird's Incredibles.

He only makes a debarment for the aforementioned Will Eisner, who is, of course, one of comicdom's greatest geniuses. But this is like saying Westerns are only good when they're directed by John Ford, or noir when directed by John Huston, and everyone else just sucks. Eisner--and Ford, and Huston--are sui generis.

However, Barrier is crazy about Carl Barks and Walt Kelly, which he touts as "superior" to that flashy Stan Lee stuff he flippantly attributes the junkyard too.

It is attitudes like that that feed the hating machine. Why be such a purist? Since I draw animal comic characters, I may now be more partial to those--Kelly especially. But I still love the superhero stuff. I don't have the time I used to too to keep up with them like I did a decade ago, but I still am a fan, and they are still influential on my artistic thinking.

But there's a deeper question they should be asking: Who cares? 

So what if we like something for kids? We live in an age far better for the grown-men-who-like-childish-things crowd, myself with them. But we lie to ourselves needlessly. Even if they are for children, or look like it, or seem like it, it's much better than watching smut, like porn or splatter. We are much better off happy.