Why Golden Age Rules !!!

[goldust40]

This was great. More bizzare than this to my memory was when D.l.C.K TRACY was after the BROW.

The BROW leaps from a window and lands on a flagpole.

The weight of his body impales him on the flagpole, and he slides down the pole to the ground.

The next day (monday) shows the police standing at the flagpole trying to decide how they want to remove the body.

 

They decide to pull up the flagpole to get the body off.

 

Pretty nasty!

 

Sure it would've been a lot easier to chop the body up

 

 

Not that this thread was ever going to be wholesome, but it just took a turn for the worse...

 

Seriously, most Pre-code horror was about allusion and implication - the people responsible for the best stories understood self-censorship and how to maximize shock, and that meant using gore sparingly. Granted, there were exceptions (most notably Fight Against Crime and Weird Chills).

 

The horror (mostly the independent stuff) that has been around since the '80s has often gone way beyond the parameters of PCH. Not so much shocking as emetic.

[Ogami]

. Nowadays the evil guy is a hero in his own right and could never be killed off cuz he represents dollars to the publisher.

 

 

very good point.

 

 

also, some of the Vertigo stuff is intentionally crass and tasteless, Preacher being a prime example.

[Comicdey]

another classic

 

thanks for sharing

[Lebowski]

Sandor, who has stuffed and mounted the largest of mammals, got his just desserts!

 

That was fun.

 

Mind you, with today's primarily adult comic readership I think it's safe to say that more boundaries are crossed now than in the GA. Not in Spider-Man maybe, but how many GA books feature a giant demon dog bum-raping an adolescent boy (Hellblazer #11)? Or an aged pervert making love to a human effigy constructed of pork, beef and chickens (Preacher)?

 

I have to go wash my brain now.

 

Yeah, sounds like some GREAT writing there for sure. Probably won a pulitzer for those lovely images. Must take a genius to come up with stories like that.

Some boundaries are better left not crossed.

 

Well, when's the last time a comic won a Pulitzer?

 

And indeed, I would call Preacher a genius book. A black comedy with action, horror, shock, and grit that tackles some big issues. I loved the entire series. I fully understand if it's not everyone's cup of tea. Hell, the intelligence-insulting, tepid, overwrought, banal writing present in so many other comics is what I find truly insulting.

 

I would rather read a comic that challenges my intelligence and my boundaries than read a luke-warm, reheated story about a superhero who saves the day again, all the while spewing idiotic line after idiotic line that a person would never say in real life. Yawn.

 

 

[goldust40]

Well, when's the last time a comic won a Pulitzer?

 

Maus, in 1992.

 

As a Preacher and Hellblazer fan, I ain't arguing, though.

 

 

[Lebowski]

Well, when's the last time a comic won a Pulitzer?

 

Maus, in 1992.

 

As a Preacher and Hellblazer fan, I ain't arguing, though.

 

 

Gaaah! I should've Googled first!

[COI]

In the new Wolverine video game, there's a point were you're on top of a helicopter; you break the glass, grab the pilot, and hold him up to the propeller blades. It made me giggle uncontrollably.

 

This story was lame, no offense. From the build up, I was expecting something much more exciting...like a guy getting torn to shreds in a helicopter propeller.

[october]

I recently reread this one. Comics in the 50s were as lurid as videogames and movies are today.

 

In the first story a guy lures travellers to his house so his psycho brother can murder them, cut them up, and dump them in the swamp. He kills a salesman, a random woman, and a guy who got lost on the wrong road. The three are killed and cut up and the bodies reform in the swamp....but with the wrong parts on each person. They take their revenge by dismembering the man and putting his parts back together incorrectly. The second and third stories are just as bad, with a panel showing a woman's head sewn to a pictureframe and a wife grilling her husbands leg....which she naturally cut off. Nice!

 

[Chespirito]

That's a true comic!!

[COI]

Actually, that sounds pretty farkin fantastic. I may have to get the reprints.

[october]

Actually, that sounds pretty farkin fantastic. I may have to get the reprints.

 

You absolutely should. ECs hold up VERY well today. The reprints of the horror titles are an absolute must for any collector.

[Senormac]

I recently reread this one. Comics in the 50s were as lurid as videogames and movies are today.

 

In the first story a guy lures travellers to his house so his psycho brother can murder them, cut them up, and dump them in the swamp. He kills a salesman, a random woman, and a guy who got lost on the wrong road. The three are killed and cut up and the bodies reform in the swamp....but with the wrong parts on each person. They take their revenge by dismembering the man and putting his parts back together incorrectly. The second and third stories are just as bad, with a panel showing a woman's head sewn to a pictureframe and a wife grilling her husbands leg....which she naturally cut off. Nice!

 

 

Yea....but what I wanna know is.....did they get the death penalty at the end of the story....or were they killed by circumstance? Whats so shocking about this story in Police is that the bad guy does NOT escape. He is killed..... I am not that interested in gore and horror as I am in seeing the "bad guys" get their due. Thats what gives me a good reading experience.

[Chespirito]

I like it when they get way with it, its different..sometimes interesting

[october]

I am not that interested in gore and horror as I am in seeing the "bad guys" get their due. Thats what gives me a good reading experience.

 

I feel the opposite. I like it when evil wins....otherwise it's not very horrific.

[MrBedrock]

Well, when's the last time a comic won a Pulitzer?

 

Maus, in 1992.

 

As a Preacher and Hellblazer fan, I ain't arguing, though.

 

 

Gaaah! I should've Googled first!

Two of the recent Pulitzers for fiction went to novels in which comics and/or fandom played an integral part - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon (2001) and The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (2008).

[BRB-migration]

Sandor, who has stuffed and mounted the largest of mammals, got his just desserts!

 

That was fun.

 

Mind you, with today's primarily adult comic readership I think it's safe to say that more boundaries are crossed now than in the GA. Not in Spider-Man maybe, but how many GA books feature a giant demon dog bum-raping an adolescent boy (Hellblazer #11)? Or an aged pervert making love to a human effigy constructed of pork, beef and chickens (Preacher)?

 

I have to go wash my brain now.

 

Yeah, sounds like some GREAT writing there for sure. Probably won a pulitzer for those lovely images. Must take a genius to come up with stories like that.

Some boundaries are better left not crossed.

 

Well, when's the last time a comic won a Pulitzer?

 

And indeed, I would call Preacher a genius book. A black comedy with action, horror, shock, and grit that tackles some big issues. I loved the entire series. I fully understand if it's not everyone's cup of tea. Hell, the intelligence-insulting, tepid, overwrought, banal writing present in so many other comics is what I find truly insulting.

 

I would rather read a comic that challenges my intelligence and my boundaries than read a luke-warm, reheated story about a superhero who saves the day again, all the while spewing idiotic line after idiotic line that a person would never say in real life. Yawn.

 

 

+1

 

Obviously the person replying is not familiar with the genius of Garth Ennis. So I won't even mention Herr Starr and the swordfish...

 

And don't worry about the Pulitzer thing - it wasn't a "real" Pulitzer anyway.

[goldust40]

Well, when's the last time a comic won a Pulitzer?

 

Maus, in 1992.

 

As a Preacher and Hellblazer fan, I ain't arguing, though.

 

 

Gaaah! I should've Googled first!

Two of the recent Pulitzers for fiction went to novels in which comics and/or fandom played an integral part - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon (2001) and The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (2008).

 

Kavalier and Clay was a great read, and sort of required reading for GA fans here. Didn't realize it won a Pulitzer, though...

[Ken Aldred]

Going back to the first post about Police Comics, how about the story that first made me see what a genius Jack Cole was.

 

From Police Comics 22, reprinted in Plastic Man Archives Volume 2,

a story called "The Eyes Have It!"

 

Cole changes his style effortlessly between light-hearted slapstick and very dark within this one story.

 

As well as being blown away by how talented the guy was, I also thought that this work was psychologically disturbing and not really for kids at all. Classic Golden Age pre-Code material from one of my favourite creators of that period.

 

[General Zod]

In the new Wolverine video game, there's a point were you're on top of a helicopter; you break the glass, grab the pilot, and hold him up to the propeller blades. It made me giggle uncontrollably.

 

You should play Dead Rising. One of the goriest games ever involving zombie hunting. Excavators, frying pans, showerheads and the like as weapons. It's so much fun.

[conditionfreak]

I have seen it all and never understood the gruesome stuff. The Night of the Living Dead and worse stuff. Never appealed to me. Give me a superhero that saves a damsel in distress, and I am satisfied with my comic book. The video games. The movies. The comic books nowadays and in past days that contain beheadings, cut off limbs and stuff, appeal to a certain animalistic side of many humans. Like rubber necking looking at an accident on the highway. I never look at accidents on the highway if emergency personal are there or close to being there. Slasher movies with Freddy, Jason and the like. They all do nothing for me although I have to admit I do like the parts where the nicely endowed girls are running around in their underwear.

 

I can not believe how popular Zombie stuff is in comic books. How rediculous the characters look with bodies walking around that are not even connected. How does one speak without vocal chords? Eat without stomachs? See without eyeballs? For those that collect this Zombie stuff, I do not expect it to last long. Where is the long term collectability in it? The old EC stuff at least had SOME semblance of stucture. Monster and mad scientist stuff had some credibility based in science or mythocal fiction. But Zombies? There are some that actually believe in them I know. But they are uneducated backward peoples, or they are making money off of that kind, by producing counter spells to ward off the bad zombies and such.

 

I watched a movie called something about Wrong Turn, or whatever. Talk about dumb. People running around in trees a hundred feet high, hiding from monster looking slasher hillbillies that collect body parts for, well, for no reason really. They get a really really good looking girl and they want to cut her arms off and put her spleen in a jar???????????????

 

No. I just don't get it. Give me something like "The good, the bad and the ugly". Or even Batman 1, and I'm good to go. I even liked "Pitch Black". But The Blair Witch thing. Jason and Halloween, or Nightmare on Elm street, all leave me sick to my eyes.

 

I did watch a lot of this stuff though, because I had a female friend that was "into it", and you know what us guys will put up with in that endeavor. She liked to visit graveyards and "do it" inside those large walk in crypts.

 

Lucky for me, I ain't scared of the dark, nor of Zombies.