Subversive?

[milstar]

My question was rather hypothetical, in the subverting nature of the topic. Ofcourse, teaching kids to be racists is horrible, but what to say then about those parents who successfully ejected CRT from a school in... Alabama? But I feel CRT deserves its own topic, so I'll stop here.

[Barrington Boots]

Bit of aside but that stuff about Dennis's dad being 80s / 90s Dennis is really interesting and cool. I had no idea and thats a beautiful evolution of the character right there.

[Funt Solo]

Bit of aside but that stuff about Dennis's dad being 80s / 90s Dennis is really interesting and cool. I had no idea and thats a beautiful evolution of the character right there.

I enjoyed reading that, as well.

[AlexF]

I often forget to check the Spoilers threads, and then I miss out on fascinating discussions like this one!

On the Beano, I met one of the top Beano bods at a book fair and he said there was a lot of discussion about updating the Bash St Kids, and their biggest sticking point was that they desperately wanted to get in some ethnic diversity, but couldn't work out how to do it without being offensive, e.g. if Fatyy is now Sikh, does that mean all Sikhs are fat? Or all Hindus are spotty? If Sid n Toots become Muslim, what style of dress would they wear - since it has to be the same every episode? Can you make a character Jewish without falling into some hideous facial stereotyping?

Changing the names seems like a fair place to start. I appreciate the call to rename Plug and Toots - but I remember having to explain to my kids what those names actually meant - any original concept of 'ugly' or 'girl' seems to have been long forgotten - they just took them as nicknames.

On the general topic of 2000AD as subversive, there's one thing I do still wish the Regened episodes would try, and that's to be more subversive with the art. Not that the artists aren't doing a great job, more that they don't seem to have the license - or perhaps the instinct - to draw things that are a) unpleasant to look at and b) things that teachers would still say 'eeer - you shouldn't be looking at that, you're not old enough'. Which includes gorey violence, but also sex and body horror and who knows what. I admit there's a huge bit of nostalgia in me saying this, the child who remembers lavishly copying that picture of Nostradamus's rotting face onto the inside of my school file.



I don't think Matt Smith gets enough credit for quietly allowing explicit nudity, swearing and sex (and talking demon-possessed dildoes) to creep into the Prog and Meg. Sure, it's always better when the stories are good, but that's the challenge of commercial art generally.

On the other hand, as someone else pointed out, if kids want to see horrible things (and they often do), then the Internet is their friend. Maybe it's better if a comic can be a safer place to retreat to than that...

[IndigoPrime]

I still don’t think the Bash St Kids is salvageable. It’s just too much of a relic. My daughter is constantly frustrated with the strip, because there aren’t enough girls, and that’s clearly never going to be addressed. As for the names, Plug is archaic, but Toots remains a sexist term. And even if it’s not in common use, does that make it OK?

The boys’ comic ensemble imbalance makes it a much trickier strip to deal with than, say, Dennis, which had a smaller cast that only needed relatively minor modification (along with some changes in direction in attitude for certain characters) to work very nicely in a modern comic.

As for art, the question is what kids want these days. In The Phoenix, there is some phenomenally icky stuff, but it’s mostly in the cartoon strips. (Jamie Smart does some really gross stuff sometimes.) But outright horror seems rare. Is there nothing like Nostradamus in children’s comics because no-one is making it or because no-one today actually wants it?

[pauljholden]

Make the new Bash Street kids the kids of the old Bash Street kids (it's the dennis the menace solution)- the adults having all met new and wonderful people of different ethnicities. Bring the parents in for strips where the school is doing events (opening up the storytelling possibilities). Start by closing the school down for a month (and event!) then open with the adults remembering what the school was like and seeing the new kids come in. Make Plug the headmaster (have a picture in his office of the old teacher, below it in a plinth, his old slipper that they can no longer use) (did Plug ever have a surname? if not make it Pluggerson)

[CalHab]

We need to get you across to Dundee as soon as possible.

[Proudhuff]

Make the new Bash Street kids the kids of the old Bash Street kids (it's the dennis the menace solution)- the adults having all met new and wonderful people of different ethnicities. Bring the parents in for strips where the school is doing events (opening up the storytelling possibilities). Start by closing the school down for a month (and event!) then open with the adults remembering what the school was like and seeing the new kids come in. Make Plug the headmaster (have a picture in his office of the old teacher, below it in a plinth, his old slipper that they can no longer use) (did Plug ever have a surname? if not make it Pluggerson)

We need a like button

[pauljholden]

Make the new Bash Street kids the kids of the old Bash Street kids (it's the dennis the menace solution)- the adults having all met new and wonderful people of different ethnicities. Bring the parents in for strips where the school is doing events (opening up the storytelling possibilities). Start by closing the school down for a month (and event!) then open with the adults remembering what the school was like and seeing the new kids come in. Make Plug the headmaster (have a picture in his office of the old teacher, below it in a plinth, his old slipper that they can no longer use) (did Plug ever have a surname? if not make it Pluggerson)

(Also: I'd make toots their teacher, kids can snigger calling her miss toots cus the keep pretending she farts a lot then you can have adventures where the old bash street kids get to reminisce about stuff they did while the new bash street kids do crazy new things. Have one of the old kids (smiffy?) be a digital billionaire determined to bring down the old school and put in place a new UK rocket hub, have the kids spend most of their time trying to raise money to buy back the school to defeat the plan... anyway, here endith my pitch for the bash street kids...)

[M.I.K.]

On the Beano, I met one of the top Beano bods at a book fair and he said there was a lot of discussion about updating the Bash St Kids, and their biggest sticking point was that they desperately wanted to get in some ethnic diversity, but couldn't work out how to do it without being offensive, e.g. if Fatyy is now Sikh, does that mean all Sikhs are fat? Or all Hindus are spotty? If Sid n Toots become Muslim, what style of dress would they wear - since it has to be the same every episode? Can you make a character Jewish without falling into some hideous facial stereotyping?

I still don’t think the Bash St Kids is salvageable. It’s just too much of a relic. My daughter is constantly frustrated with the strip, because there aren’t enough girls, and that’s clearly never going to be addressed.

They added two girls to the class last year,  Mandira "Mandi" Sharma and Harsha "Har Har" Chandra.

[M.I.K.]

(did Plug ever have a surname? if not make it Pluggerson)

His full name is Percival Proudfoot Plugsley.

[AlexF]

Incremental changes good!
But those pitches foran all-new Bash Street strip are fab, too.

[sheridan]

I don't see what about the premise of a primary (?) school in an inner city Victorian building makes it difficult to update to the modern world - there's quite a lot of schools like that around where I live!

[Proudhuff]

(did Plug ever have a surname? if not make it Pluggerson)

His full name is Percival Proudfoot Plugsley.

An other famous Proudfoot!!!

[The Legendary Shark]

There can be only one...