Batman: The Brave and the Bold Cartoon!

[Timothy]

New Batman cartoon coming to Cartoon Network

I absolutely loved the 1970's comic "The Brave and the Bold" and I hope that this cartoon will turn out to be a hit rather than a flop like "The Batman..."

[arkhaminmate]

I was looking forward to this for awhile. But the character designer posted a blog recently, & I don't think it'll be so hot.
This guy obviously doesn't get Batman. He seems like a bitter Adam West fan who's never picked up a comic book in his entire life. He claims that comics have sucked since the 80's, & that The Batman was a dark series. I'll post the link in a sec

[Timothy]

arkhaminmate said:

I was looking forward to this for awhile. But the character designer posted a blog recently, & I don't think it'll be so hot.
This guy obviously doesn't get Batman. He seems like a bitter Adam West fan who's never picked up a comic book in his entire life. He claims that comics have sucked since the 80's, & that The Batman was a dark series. I'll post the link in a sec

I can kind of see his point about comics sucking post-80's, but "The Batman" is definitely not "dark" by any conventional standards. I knew from the drawings that this series was "WB Post-Baby Boomers/ Adam West Batman Fans Create Batman Cartoon, Take Two." Hopefully, it doesn't get too "Adam West" like, or, Heaven forbid, give him a reoccurring role...

[arkhaminmate]

Here's his blog
drawman.blogspot.com/2008/04/new-cartoons-announced-and-babymen.html
Prepare to be enfuriated

[Timothy]

I'm going to attempt to humorously destroy his post with my own commentary ;D

One of the things I enjoy about this new Batman cartoon is the fact we are going back to a kinder, friendlier Batman.

Oh, CENSORSHIP!... Look out, here comes the return of "Yes, Robin, I've Become a Human-Fish!" Batman (See, actual cover below for more Silver-Age laughs)



A Dick Sprang version, which is the guiding design principle we are working from and there still is a slight echo of the BT styling, which is a nice break from the grim and gritty.[/img]

"The Batman" is gritty the same way that director Tim Burton is coherent in interviews.

Let's face it, these cartoons are for children, young children 5-10,12 years old. Cereal eating, fruit rollup snacking, toy buying kids, not 30-something, 40-something bitter bee babymen who want these characters in adult situations.

Um... I hate to break it to this guy, but kids have already had these types of cartoons, and they really sucked.

Cases in point include the following;




Kids only enjoyed the above series because it had Batman; not because of the quality, and certainly not for the stories.

The message boards are already full of babymen angst about the show, how they hate the art, the idea of a kid friendly Batman and I have to just laugh at the rediculous comments.

From Washington State University's list of errors:

You may ridicule ideas because you find them ridiculous, but not rediculous.

Sorry, couldn't resist ;D

IMO one of the biggest resons comics suck ass and have since the 80's is the rise and overtaking of the biz by the Babyman fan and the loss of kids reading comics as a hobby.

I'd like to introduce you to a friend of mine named "Nintendo." He was born in the 80's, resulting in the loss of a tremendous amount of readers.

Now we are stuck with an aginging fanbase with limited taste, long memories, a twisted taste where the comic heroes have to be dark, gritty, sexy, adult...REAL!

In the words of Batman from Batman Returns, "Things change." Whether you like it or not, get used to it. All of us here will be saying the exact same thing when we grow older, but the fact remains that nothing is eternal. Fans want darker stories to match darker times, and not rehashed Dick Sprang art from a by-gone era. In that respect, who is truly the aging fan-base in this situation?

Humor, the most popular form of comic in the world is the least popular form of comic in the direct market. Fans don't realize what an aberation the direct market has become and how out of step it is with the rest of the comic reading world.

So, comic fans have to change their tastes simply to coincide with the beliefs of others in an entirely different genre of storytelling? Not buying it...

I include it all, strips, manga, you name it, but superheroes are a niche with the smallest fanbase.

When compared to every other conceivable genre, yeah, that makes sense. Of course, that same logic can be applied to film, literature, art... See the pattern?

The top books crack, what 100K? Try having a TV show with that number.

To that I say three words; "apples to oranges." There is no way that printed media will be able to reach as many people simultaneously as broadcasting will.

If they made TV cartoons the way the babymen wanted the shows would fail to reach enough ratings to survive.

See, "Batman: The Animated Series." Or, hell, "Justice League."

I also realize the fans on the web are probably not always the best sampling in any fan base as they are always the extremists.

So, we'll do whatever we want regardless of public opinion. I think that sounds more totalitarian to me than his above statement.

I loved the Batman comics as kid, I love the Batman TV show, the funny, corny Adam West, and millions did too.

Yeah. As a fad. For barely two years. Then again, this is coming from the same generation that gave us the pet rock.

I think you can only darken these concepts to a degree and for a certain amount of time before you play them out, and face it, these concepts have really been played out anyway.

He sounds more like a lazy or uninspired would-be writer to me.

70 years of these characters pumped at you in every medium by the big corporations means there is little fresh that can be done.

Can somebody loan this guy "Dark Knight Returns"? Or, hell, issue #24 of Gotham Knights where Bruce confronts his fear of guns?

Fans also forget the only reason any of this stuff exists is for $$$. The show exists to sell ads and toys and such, and for no other reason.

Great... Another aging 40-something post-"Baby Boomer" against money, "The Man," or "The Corporation."

That doesn't mean it can't be good or entertaining, but these corportae giants want big buck returns. Kids have been abandoned by the direct market, they now read manga or are fans of animae as that's what they are exposed to and have easy access too. No new kids come in waves to comics like they used to, no wonder back issue sales, the backbone of retail has all but dried up.

Print died in the era of the Internet. The medium will change one way or another; Marvel's doing a great job digitally archiving comics onto DVD volumes.

[Papa Smurf]

... Mr Timothy seems pissed. Personally, I don't like a light and airy batman. He's supposed to be dark, that's part of what makes him Batman. When they try to make him airy the show doesn't work right for me. There are inner demons hiding under that psyche, not lollypops and ponies.

[Timothy]

Apr 23, 2008 1:18:11 GMT -5 Papa Smurf said:

... Mr Timothy seems pissed. Personally, I don't like a light and airy batman. He's supposed to be dark, that's part of what makes him Batman. When they try to make him airy the show doesn't work right for me. There are inner demons hiding under that psyche, not lollypops and ponies.

"My parents were shot in their faces, but I'm okay with that!"

[Papa Smurf]

^ See? that would be wierd to come from batman's mouth. The world wants a dark unhappy batman bearing the grim load of protecting gotham. seeing him do things like boogie or surf (with shark-repellent batspray of course) just seems wrong.

[Timothy]

Apr 23, 2008 23:28:51 GMT -5 Papa Smurf said:

^ See? that would be wierd to come from batman's mouth. The world wants a dark unhappy batman bearing the grim load of protecting gotham. seeing him do things like boogie or surf (with shark-repellent batspray of course) just seems wrong.

What I enjoyed about Batman: The Animated Series is that it was a serious, yet kid-friendly Batman that could concurrently be enjoyed by more adult audiences. It had a high budget for, essentially, a "throw-away" children's cartoon. The acting was top-notch, the designs immersive, and the scoring fantastic. This new show is frustrating because, based upon the designs, it looks like it's set in the silver-age; this, despite the fact that the Blue Beetle design featured in the promotional artwork, is from the modern age interpretation...