Are we too old for this?

[evilgenius]

It's interesting what you say about films like The Dark Knight and Iron Man being fair game for adults whilst comics are not. It does seem like a total contradiction.

[Bongo Jack]

Comics are in the same boat as videogames in that they are a product latterly supported through the disposable incomes of 20somethings and older consumers, and to dismiss either as 'kids stuff' is to show an inability to grasp the distinction between form and content.  I had a chap visit the shop floor at work who was oddly proud of the fact that he hadn't watched television, listened to the radio, or seen a film in over seventeen years, dismissing all of them as 'pointless crap'.  My reply was sadly more blunt than I'd hoped, but paraphrasing it roughly, it was along the lines of: "I'm not sure what you expect me to say to that - how would you react if someone told you they refused to read literature or look in art galleries because they once read Barbera Cartland or saw a big knob drawn on a wall?"  Thankfully, he didn't think to ask me why my mind immediately went to big knobs when fishing for an analogy.

Best advice I can give is to laugh it off if they're only asking politely.  Alternatively just laugh and tell them to grow up themselves - being judgemental of the quirks and tastes of others is rather playground at best, and rude at worst.

[Trout]

The question is based on the perception of comics are something for children. They are not.

If someone likes watching television, no-one assumes they're really into Postman Pat. It's a great tragedy that when comics are mentioned, people immediately think of stories for small children.

Sequential art is just another way of telling a story. As is often said, "comics" are a medium, not a genre.

The fact the question "are we old for this?" is even asked is a bit of a shame, IMO.

- Trout

[worldshown]

"Comics?!? Aren't you a bit old for them?"


Maybe the person asking the question is testing the water. Trying to see if anyone else would think it weird if they started reading comics.

As long as comics aren't the only things you read, I can't see what the problem is.

[Mardroid]

I'm 33 (34 next month), and I'm probablly more into comics now than I was as a kid.

I used to get the Beano and Nutty (and the Beano/Dandy comic libraries, of which I still have a fair collection) as a kid. Then I stopped as I thought I was growing out of them (and I probably was for those particular comics. That being said I read a couple of comic libraries the other day and thoroughly enjoyed them. I.e. even if it is predominantly aimed at kids, if you enjoy it, don't worry about it.) I used to swap my Beanos for my next door neighbor's Spider-man, but I never really got into them. Mainly because they were all continuing bits of stories here and there. (Thinking back I don't think I could be bothered arranging them into order, but I think there were gaps.)

I started subscribing to 2000 AD last year, and I get the Marvel Dark Tower series each month. (A prequel continuation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower novels.)  I can't afford much else, but I get plenty of other comics from the library, superhero and otherwise. Very occasionally I'll splash out on a GN.

I admit I feel slightly embarrassed about leaving them lying around though in case my Dad sees it. Not that he'd make an issue of it. He used to read my Beanos when I was a kid, and he liked Garth from the mirror. (Yes I still live at home. I guess I really am still a kid in some ways...)

[Cactus]

If I was asked I'd probably answer with "Err, no. Not really." Where it went from there would depend on who was asking and in what manner.

All my friends are geeks of one stripe or another, mostly gamers, some of whom read comics (rubbishy Marvel stuff on the whole, but there's some cross-pollination where they get me reading Fables and I foist 100 Bullets into their hands). I read my weekly prog on the bus to work every Wednesday morning and so far I haven't had a total stranger mention it.

Over the years I've probably got the most stick about comics from my mum, who seems to disapprove of the violent content. Even that was only a despairing sigh and a "You're not still reading those awful Judge Dredd comics are you?" back when I was about 16/17.

If you really can't convince someone that comics aren't just for kids, give them a copy of Maus by Art Spiegelman.

[JOE SOAP]

Put another way, if you knew an 80 year old who read 2000AD you wouldn't say "he's too old", you'd say "there's someone to admire & respect" and still has interest in having a stimulated imagination.

[Paul faplad Finch]

I take it as a challenge to change their minds. I tend to laugh it off to begin with then wage a subtle war on them. I've converted 3 or 4 guys at work aready. One guy is a huge Prison Break fan so I just happened to leave a Meg open to a Harry 20 reprint and hey presto. Another guy was won over by John Burns' Tsar Wars art and yet another by the sex and violence in Preacher. (not that proud of that one).
 I tried it on the new apprentice recently but gave it up as a bad job when he spied a copy of Dearly Devoted Dexter on my desk and asked if it was based on Dexters Lab. Figured subtleties might be lost on him.

[M.I.K.]

What you saying about Dexter's Laboratory?

[Paul faplad Finch]

More a comment on a grown man 18yr old who reads the tagline "serial killer or family man?" and thinks it might be based on a CN show. Now you mention it though I am more of a Phineas and Pherb man when it comes to toons.

[Ignatzmonster]

Set your mind at rest faplad.

I'm not talking about comics. There is no argument there and never has been. For the last eighty years there have always been, somewhere in the globe, good comics available to those willing to find them. And that is more true now than ever. Matter of fact, twenty years ago someone let me buy a copy of Love and Rockets. At that moment that comic was better than any TV show and movie I was watching, better than any book I was reading.

But you know what? Forget respectability. Let's talk comics as kids entertainment. Just the kids comics. Even if comics were just Carl Bark's Uncle Scrooge, Jack Kirby Comics, Caniff's Terry and the Pirates, Tin Tin, Asterix, Peanuts... Do you see where I'm going? There is no 'just.' They are serious bodies of work that those artists spent all of their creative energy on. And frankly all of the comics I just mentioned pay the adult reader back for his or her attention. Craft is craft.

Anyway, set your mind at rest. I did not start reading anything from 2000ad till I was thirty-three. Tooth has NO NOSTALGIC VALUE for me. It does not in anyway bring back happy memories of my childhood. It is just good comics with a great deal of mental power hidden beneath its pulpy exterior.

[House of Usher]

I do feel a bit like I'm too old for this, but it's more complicated than just juvenile entertainment vs. my chronological age. It has a lot more to do with the cost of comics vs. the entertainment value (a pretty poor ratio, except where 2000ad is concerned: a bargain at £1.90!), and my real lack of any sense of achievement or purpose, while I cling a form of entertainment I've depended upon for 30 years, and all the lovingly-stored, space-filling debris that goes with it.

[JOE SOAP]

To be honest, I probably only read 2000AD cos Wagner still writes Dredd. When Mills is good it's a bonus but not the reason.

[Dandontdare]

I think most "hobbies" are best suited for the very young, or the middle-aged upwards. From 18-30 you're generally out working, drinking, shagging, travelling (or alternatively, at home watching telly and worrying endlessly about your lack of these things), but thankfully a 2000ad sub can see you through and keep you connected until you reach an age when you have the disposable income and free time to buy loads of graphic novels and related merchandise, and to spend hours posting gubbins about it on t'internet!

It's generally easy to make anyone else's hobby sound silly if you try, and if they are of a similar age and don't have any hobby, ask them what the hell they DO all the time. (If the answer is still drinking, shagging and travelling, then just kill the smug bastards).

[Peter Wolf]

I watch a bit of Russell Brand on CH4 the other night .The humour was very crude and juvenile [trying very hard to be risque] at best and the audience seemed to be adults who found it all very funny.

Enough said.