Prog 2336 - Thrills set to stun!

[nxylas]

I think it really began with the huge success of Harry Potter. Following that, the YA market boomed. With regard to the chicken and egg question, it's probably impossible to answer definitively, and I don't think it really matters. The genie is out of the bottle, and I don't think one can simply go back to the way things were. Although MCU and Star Wars films seem to do OK with adult protagonists. So who knows?

[Jim_Campbell]

Jim - calm down, would you. You have an opinion. I was talking around it - not even disagreeing with you. Laying out the all-caps JESUS shit, and all that for the umpteenth time jazz - it's pretty aggressive, and it's incredibly patronizing. There's just no need.

Forgive my self-evident frustration at typing the same damn thing to the same damn people every three months. I don't have an opinion, I'm stating a fact. I'm sorry you don't like it, but here we are. I'll refrain from commenting on any more threads on this subject, because it's clearly a waste of time.

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

Although MCU and Star Wars films seem to do OK with adult protagonists. So who knows?

Yeah, but MCU is over a decade old now so most of the kids who enjoyed Iron Man can probably buy alcohol now. *Quick google* Every Marvel movie in the MCU combines for a run time of 6787 minutes, just over 113 hours or 4 days and ~17 hours. The number of kids willing to commit to that is probably rapidly diminishing.

Star Wars is now almost exclusively aimed at (for lack of a better term) Grown-Ups. I quite liked Andor, but my 11 year old nephew though it was boring. Something has gone horribly awry when they make a Star Wars that bores an eleven year old boy.

Having said all that, Star Wars has shown they'll just reboot rehash and probably even remake these properties for new generations for as long parents drag their kids to they thing they liked when they were young, and for as long they make money.

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

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Star Wars is now almost exclusively aimed at (for lack of a better term) Grown-Ups.
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OK, I forgot about all the cartoons, so I will adjust that to some Star Wars is aimed at "Adults".

[Funt Solo]

Jim - calm down, would you. You have an opinion. I was talking around it - not even disagreeing with you. Laying out the all-caps JESUS shit, and all that for the umpteenth time jazz - it's pretty aggressive, and it's incredibly patronizing. There's just no need.

Forgive my self-evident frustration at typing the same damn thing to the same damn people every three months. I don't have an opinion, I'm stating a fact. I'm sorry you don't like it, but here we are. I'll refrain from commenting on any more threads on this subject, because it's clearly a waste of time.

I agree. It's the old adage: "if you don't have anything nice to say..."

The idea that youthful protagonists are more appealing to youthful people is just an opinion, though. Not a fact. You haven't proven whether it was the market or the marketers that created the current sales dynamic. Shouting people down and screaming "FACT" at them doesn't make it so. Sorry.

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

I think there's the broader problem of treating a group, in this case  "young people", "the yoof market" or "weans" as a monolthic entity. They're a diverse group. I refuse to live in a world where we defer to feckin' coked up marketing people.

And Harry Potter is a load of twee middle class shite. Granny Weatherwax would completely dismantle Hogwarts without even thinking about magic.

[13school]

Thinking back to my misbegotten youth (in the 70s), there was definitely a sense of YA being a genre - my local library even had a section for it between the children's and adult fiction. But that section was a mix of older books (often fantasy and science fiction) that had aged enough to be now seen as "kids stuff", and books about and starring teenagers - which pre-teen kids like me devoured, because everyone wanted to be reading something that told them what life was going to be like when they were a little older.

Wanting to read stories with protagonists my own age was definitely a thing, but it also depended on what kind of story I wanted to read. If I wanted to read fantasy or "real life", then books starring me had a big advantage, but if I (for example) wanted to read war stories, I wanted adult protagonists because they were more realistic and plausible.

Even as I kid I knew kids didn't belong in some stories, while other stories were improved if the focus was on people I could closely identify with. The worst of both worlds were stories about adults with kid sidekicks, so a lot of US comics held zero appeal until a): I grew up and b): kid sidekicks finally went out of style.

[BPP]

The idea that there was little to no kid-focused kid-protagonist material in the 70s and 80s is laugh out loud funny. The Red Hand Gang, Tripods, Grange Hill, Box of Delights, Chronicles of Narnia even down to kid-focused dramas at the end of schools programming such as Words & Pictures.

As I kid I thought they were mostly lame and much preferred being 'allowed' to watch Blake's 7.

When I did legal stuff relating to publishing back in the 90s the rule of thumb was everything is mostly consumed by the age group below it's target market - just 17 was read by 12-15, Cosmo was read by 15-20, vogue was read by 19-30. All well below their target markets. Now adults have more leisure money and disposable income the impact of nostalgia and eternal-youth syndrome means CW shows (30 year old actors pretending they are early 20s) are mainly watched by 40-50 year olds. Meanwhile kids reading manga are au fair with pretty much full on BDSM and kink because adults haven't a clue what's in the vast spectrum of manga. Does regened have a market? Well obviously as it's still with us but what that actual market is age wise I doubt very much is going to drive future 2000ad readers.

But like I've said it's 4 issues a year, have at it rebellion - how you've kept the Prog going gives you a lot of kudos in my books.

[IndigoPrime]

It's not that there was no kid-focussed media when we were growing up (for a given 'we', given that I imagine there's a range here, probably peaking during the mid-70s to mid-90s). But there is these days more effort paid to aligning age groups with protagonists that are of a similar age. So with that, Regened is arguably doing the right thing. That's not to say everything should be like that – variety and pace are good things.

As for:

Star Wars is now almost exclusively aimed at (for lack of a better term) Grown-Ups. I quite liked Andor, but my 11 year old nephew though it was boring. Something has gone horribly awry when they make a Star Wars that bores an eleven year old boy.

I don't really see that myself. Instead, I see a property trying to appeal to a diverse range of viewers. However, it's also extremely messy and in some series tonally all over the shop. (Personally, I loved Andor. The best Star Wars thing I've seen. But then it also didn't need to be Star Wars. It almost just happened to be set in that universe. Then there's stuff that's directly tied in, like Obi-Wan, which I found risible. The other series sit somewhere between, which Mando at the top, despite its penchant for blacksmith porn and largely inconsequential nature, and Boba Felt with its bizarre teens-on-bikes from another movie somewhere below. But I could see kids flipping that to Boba > Mando >>>> Obi >>>>>>>>>>>> Andor.)

[broodblik]

Disney destroyed Star Wars. Star Wars always catered for everyone. Their is stuff kids can enjoy and stuff that grown-ups can enjoy.

Maybe I am not a good example but when I grew up I preferred the non-youth characters.

[scrotnig]

I preferred adult characters too, but I'm not sure I gave it any conscious thought. It was more a case of how good the story was.

I did like Grange Hill, and also The Famous Five and Secret Seven!

It was just "is this a good story?", if it was then I enjoyed it, and the age of the characters didn't seem to matter.

Obviously I am likely an outlier, and even if not, it being common then doesn't mean it's common now. I don't have children and wouldn't haven't a clue what motivates younger audiences today.

[broodblik]

I did like Grange Hill, and also The Famous Five and Secret Seven!

I was also a big fan of Hardy Boys and please do not mention the following to my school buddies: I enjoyed Nancy Drew as well

[Richard]

It was just "is this a good story?", if it was then I enjoyed it, and the age of the characters didn't seem to matter.

I mostly agree with that. But sometimes the age of the characters can make the story seem too implausible, like two teenage cadets running around Mega-City One fighting crime without adult supervision. All fiction requires a certain degree of suspension of disbelief, but some stories demand too much.

On another angle, do any parents here know whether children ever feel condescended to by children-protagonists-only fiction, in a "you're too young to read stories about grown-ups yet" sort of way?

[Funt Solo]

On another angle, do any parents here know whether children ever feel condescended to by children-protagonists-only fiction, in a "you're too young to read stories about grown-ups yet" sort of way?

My kiddo is 11, but quite short for their age group - so they often feel condescended to by grown-ups who don't realize how competent they are. As regards reading fiction - they have such a wide selection to choose from, and such freedom to choose, that they filter out non-appealing things.

I'll ask them later about your specific question. (They did tell me yesterday that they don't consciously care about the age of protagonists - what they care about is whether or not the story is interesting.)

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Granny Weatherwax would completely dismantle Hogwarts without even thinking about magic.

Something we can all agree on!

[scrotnig]

I did like Grange Hill, and also The Famous Five and Secret Seven!

I was also a big fan of Hardy Boys and please do not mention the following to my school buddies: I enjoyed Nancy Drew as well

I definitely did not read "The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Meet Dracula".

Nope. Never.

I don't even know what it is.