Originally published August 6, 1993, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1029
This and that…
A number of people told me that the abrupt change in tone in the last of my Romanian columns–where gypsy children and misery and want abruptly intruded on fun–caught them totally off guard and left them sick.
Well, now you know how I felt.
* * *
Any number of people have told me I shouldn’t make any mention of the Image cancellations, because it’s going to perpetuate the notion that I’m anti-Image.
But I keep coming back to the realization that what I would essentially be doing is allowing public perception to intimidate me. So the hëll with that.
It’s not the cancellations that are news, of course. It’s the reasons that publisher Tony Lobito has stated for public consumption, both to reporters and again to fans at the Chicago Comic Convention. The reasons being that the books are late and, even more astonishingly, that they don’t fit in with the Image Universe.
I dunno. I find that kind of amazing. Then again, maybe I’m just reading too much into it. I mean, I always thought that Image was founded so that a bunch of hot artists could publish their own characters and make a lot of money. Which is fine.
And then in the intervening year and a half, there was a lot of brouhaha from various sources about how shabbily everyone was treated at Marvel (the company that dissed Image creators to the tune of six figures at least), and how pernicious major comic publishers were, and there was lots of talk about respect, and Image was being perceived as this wonderful haven for creators to go and be treated right.
So now here we are, and Image dropped a group of books for reasons as arbitrary as any ever applied at Marvel. More, in fact, considering that the books were all placing in the top fifty. At most publishers the usual criteria for cancellation is low sales. Which means either that Image has an amazingly high cut-off for success, or else we must look at their other gauges for cancellation.
Lateness? They must be joking.
Doesn’t fit in with the rest of the universe? At the haven of creative freedom? What’s the matter, guys? Afraid someone will come up with a really great idea that might ruin the grade curve for the rest of the Image line?
The likely result of all this is that any creator with a modicum of sense will think twice about going to Image with any property.
Of course, the founding fathers of Image are perfectly entitled to apply different standards to themselves than they do to others. They won’t cancel themselves because of lateness. They are within their rights to remind the creative community that Image is not the general property of creators, but of the Image Seven, and they can and will wield their power as they see fit. Which means that Image is publicly revealed, once and for all, to be definitively the thing that they always were in the first place: a place for a small group of hot artists to publish their own comics and make a lot of money. A neighborhood as they originally said, to be sure. But a segregated neighborhood.
Image is, bottom line, a publishing concern where a small group owns the properties, pays creators on a work-for-hire basis to work on them in a variety of capacities, and exercises editorial fiat over creations that are at variance with the direction of the company.
In other words, just like Marvel.
Once again, Pogo speaks correctly: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
* * *
In order to save people time if they wish to respond to the above, I present this handy checklist. Be sure at least two if not all the points are mentioned:
(a) Peter David once again just doesn’t get it;
(b) Peter David doesn’t know all the facts, because he’s not there;
(c) Image is making the right move and should be applauded for their bravery, rather than attacked by jealous fools like Peter David;
(d) What is this guy’s problem?
(e) It’s okay when Peter David criticizes Marvel or DC or Defiant or John Byrne, but when he takes on Image, he’s going too far;
(f) The fact that I work for Image has nothing to do with the fact that I disagree with Peter David;
(g) I heard Peter David is trying to suck up to Image because he wants to write for them;
(h) Everyone knows Image pays Peter David to write about them because any publicity is good publicity.
* * *
Whenever baby Ariel shouts “Marney!” at the top of her lungs, I know what that means. It means it’s time to pop in her tape of Barney and Friends.
Yes. She watches Barney.
Now if anyone has taken a critical shellacking, it’s Barney the Purple Dinosaur. When he showed up during the televised Daytime Emmy Awards, an audience of industry professionals booed him.
Kill Barney sentiments abound. Just mentioning him in a crowd elicits the same sort of reaction that Dracula displays when having a crucifix shoved in his face.
What is it about him anyway that makes him, to anyone over the age of three, the equivalent of fingernails across chalkboard?
Frankly, I’m starting to wonder.
Is this a blanket defense of Barney? Lord no. The show is still cloying and sickly sweet, loaded with bad production values.
Except…except…
Well, Mister Rogers is pretty cloying. And he’s been around for ages.
Bad production values? I think about the shows that I liked when I was a kid. Diver Dan or Commander Bleep or any of the leaden marionette programs like Supercar. Badly animated fare like Dodo the Kid from Outer Space or Tom Terrific or Eighth Man.
I guarantee you that many of you, right now, are reading these names and smiling, flooded with warm, nostalgic feelings. I also guarantee you that if you watch them now you’ll be struck by just how godawful they were. Just as wretched, if not more so, than Barney.
America, for crying out loud, give the T-Rex a break, huh? The thing that howling adults seem to have overlooked, in their massive egotism, is that the show wasn’t made for them.
Here parents would think nothing of stopping their kids from seeing Jurassic Park because they think it’s too threatening and frightening. And yet they will turn around and revile a TV program for being everything that Jurassic Park is not… never realizing that they have no more business watching Barney than small children do watching Jurassic Park.
It makes me think of the time I was at a comic convention many years ago, fielding questions as Marvel’s Sales manager. And this kid, about nine or ten, said, “Marvel publishes G.I. Joe, right?”
And I said, “Yeah.”
“And Marvel publishes Transformers, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And they’re both made by the same toy company, right?”
“Yeah,” I said again, not sure where he was going with this.
“Well,” he said matter-of-factly, “I’d like to see a G.I. Joe versus the Transformers comic.”
And I stood there, stunned, because both editorially and sales-wise, it was a great idea. And I said, “That’s a great idea.”
And the audience started to boo the kid.
So I looked at them and said, “Hey. Knock it off. This is something he wants to see, that would make him happy. Which of you feels that this kid is less entitled to comics he wants to see than you are?”
And everyone shut up. Because, of course, that’s a very arrogant and self-serving attitude to have.
Then again, this is a country that has remarkable contempt for the young and the old, which is dámņëd strange considering that’s where we all come from and, if we’re lucky, that’s where we all wind up just before they shovel dirt on us.
For example, a mother walks onto an airplane with a small child and draws the same reaction from passengers as would a terrorist with a ticking bomb under his arm.
And of course, there’s the ever considerate reaction of people when they’re in a plane or restaurant where a child is crying. They’ll turn to the frustrated, embarrassed parent with great indignation and proclaim, “Make that baby be quiet!”
Like you can make a baby do anything. Sorry. You can make adults do things they don’t want to do, and they’ll bob their heads meekly and do it. Babies and small children are rugged individualists, however, which is–not surprisingly–unappreciated.
And they’re as entitled to their entertainment as we are to ours.
Thus, Barney.
Some of the dialogue still comes across as a little off. Then again, that might very well be a product of the atmosphere nowadays that we’re all living in. Barney saying things such as, “Come and give me a big hug” and “Don’t tell your mommy about me; this is our secret,” seem innocuous enough. It’s only with our adult sensibilities that we realize these are the same things a child molester might say.
Again, though, we’re not the audience. And as my daughter sits and watches spellbound, and I remain serenely aware that this too shall pass… because my twelve-year-old no longer dotes on Strawberry Shortcake, and the Care Bears no longer do it for my eight year old… I make the following observations:
Each program is a half-hour long, with a story from beginning to end. Considering that Sesame Street and MTV conspire to destroy children’s concentration, I don’t see this as a negative. Hëll, I wouldn’t mind seeing more comic books with a story from beginning to end.
Whenever Barney and the kids launch into “I love you, you love me,” it prompts Ariel to bolt from the TV and wrap her arms around the nearest adult leg and hug for all she’s worth. After years of people screaming that children are imitating violent behavior they see on TV, who are we to knock a program that engenders this sort of reaction?
Lastly, and most importantly, even if Ariel is engrossed in watching Barney and the kids lip synch to yet another sugary tune, all I have to do is step over to the door and say, “Ariel? Want to play outside?” And Barney is immediately history, or pre-history.
Which is what being a child is all about, after all.
* * *
Hey, Marvel Comics… lemme get this straight. You don’t want Don Thompson reviewing anything by Marvel if it isn’t a positive review?
It doesn’t exactly make Don look like a crusading journalist by honoring this repressive request. If this were the Washington Post, he’d be honor bound to respond, “Up yours,” and write whatever he wants.
But you don’t have to be a genius to notice that Marvel ads have disappeared from CBG in the past after unfavorable comments. The veiled threat of lost revenue always hangs. And this ain’t the Post.
Which means that Marvel’s using its advertising clout to put Don into an untenable position.
Knock off the prior restraint, Marvel. It’s inappropriate, it’s bullying, and it’s petty. If bad reviews upset you that much, work on improving the product. Not stifling the critics.
(My luck… Marvel will lift this ban, and the first thing Don will rip will be something I wrote.)
(Peter David, writer of stuff, will let none of the foregoing stop him from roasting Barney in the third issue of Sachs and Violens. Never let sentiment get in the way.)
• 
“And of course, there’s the ever considerate reaction of people when they’re in a plane or restaurant where a child is crying.”
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With sincere apologies I think you’re off base on that one. The comments are rude? Brusque? Unkind? Maybe. But “inconsiderate”? No. The inconsiderate ones are those who bring their toddlers to such establishments, knowing they might start crying or bawling, or making a fuss and thus disrupting the atmosphere for the other patrons. Many of whom might themselves be caring parents who just needed a break from the demanding work of parenthood and were hoping for an hour or two away from the stress that can be had at home. Having someone inconsiderately bring that stress with them and inflict it on others? I can see where it might be badly received. And I’m not the only one as evidenced by at least one restaurant making the news here for having a published ‘no kids’ policy. Now, if only restaurants could come up with a ‘no cell phone’ policy…
I’ve had far more times at restaurants disrupted by (a) senior citizens talking incredibly loudly because their hearing aids aren’t working, (b) people who have had too much to drink, (c) loud and raucous gatherings of people celebrating some occasion or other, then I ever have with children. So if we’re gonna single someone out, let’s single out all the seniors, drunks and parties before we start condemning parents whose child is in distress.
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PAD
True. But most restaurants will usually ask the individual – who brought themselves – to leave if they’re making a scene. I’ve yet to see any restaurant ask a family to leave because of a noisy or ill-mannered child who probably didn’t ask to be there in the first place. And that’s the whole point. Drunks, being drunk aren’t thinking straight. The elderly often have poor hearing and don’t realize they are talking loudly. What’s the parents’ excuse? Fiancee had such an experience recently. She was attending a performance of CATS and enjoying it. Right up until the kid started bawling behind her. Being well-mannered and thoughtful, she didn’t make “inconsiderate comments” nor even turned to give them a dirty look. She told me afterwards she’d figured the parents were already uncomfortable enough. I’m thinking no they weren’t. Not enough. Otherwise they might have thought about how they were ruining the experience for those around them and eventually picked up and left. No such luck. Fiancee was not pleased. I daresay neither were most people in that section of the theatre. Yes, the child probably couldn’t help himself. But, again, what’s the parents’ excuse? They stayed, knowing full well it had to be bothering those around them. And if that doesn’t define “inconsiderate”, what does?
I agree with Starwolf.
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It’s true that noisy adults are more common and even more irritant than noisy kids, but the problem here is that parents of the noisy child are supposed to be immune to criticism, unlike drunks and boors.
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Obviously the parents have accepted that they’ll just have to suffer the noisy brat, it’s their child, after all. But it’s not fair to expect strangers will have to be as understanding as you. Dude, it’s not MY child.
PAD, perhaps as a parent yourself, you’re just better at tuning out other children, or even your own?
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I get annoying at all sorts of noise – whether it be children crying or adults talking too loud on the bus. It happens everywhere.
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But I’m not sure there’s an excuse when there’s a child screaming bloody murder and the parents think it’s perfectly ok to let said child pìšš øff everybody else and not do anything.
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On our recent cruise, this happened at a table near us every night at dinner. Big family, several small children, night after night there would be issues. The parents never did anything, they just kept chatting away, acting like their own kids didn’t exist.
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And yes, to be fair, there was another table with a couple of other kids, one of which was utterly mesmerized by the cartoons that were playing on the TV on the wall each time we were in Animator’s Palate. 🙂
The StarWolf: With sincere apologies I think you’re off base on that one. The comments are rude? Brusque? Unkind? Maybe. But “inconsiderate”? No. The inconsiderate ones are those who bring their toddlers to such establishments, knowing they might start crying or bawling, or making a fuss and thus disrupting the atmosphere for the other patrons.
Luigi Novi: So parents should not travel abroad via a plane because their kids might cry? A library or a movie theater, yeah, but a plane? That seems rather harsh.
Looking at StarWolf’s comments here, he didn’t once refer to planes, all he talked about was restaurants and theaters. The bit about it being inconsiderate not to leave certainly wouldn’t apply to planes. I’ve also never seen an airplane referred to as an ‘establishment’ in the same sense as a restaurant before.
It doesn’t take a crying child to be annoyed at a performance of Cats or on a cruise, these are inherently annoying experiences. I don’t blame a kid for crying at either. In fact, I would recognize it as the outward manifestation of my own internal feelings. There’s really nothing you can do to control your level of aggravation when going to Cats but there are a number of less family oriented cruises and even adult only cruises so one can be annoyed at something other then a crying child.
Restaurants are another story. When my son was younger and my wife and I would take him out to eat one of us would take him to the car or for a walk outside if he started getting upset. When one of us finished eating they would take over and the other would get to eat in silence. What annoys me are the people who give you an annoyed look when they see you with a baby before a peep is heard out of him.
“Here parents would think nothing of stopping their kids from seeing Jurassic Park because they think it’s too threatening and frightening. And yet they will turn around and revile a TV program for being everything that Jurassic Park is not… never realizing that they have no more business watching Barney than small children do watching Jurassic Park.”
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Funny story. I actually remember sitting in front of a mom and her two-year-old child the day “Jurassic Park” opened in theaters. They were behind me and the kid was talking in that quiet voice that kids sometimes talk in, so all I heard was the mom’s responses. Which went…
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“This movie’s about dinosaurs, honey!”
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“No, honey. Not like Barney.”
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I got the world’s worst sinking feeling in my gut when I heard that…
I had a similar experience with Batman in the late eighties. The five-year-old next to me told me all about the Batman movie he’d been watching last week, the one with Adam West in it.
Half an hour into the film, I noticed that he and his father had left their seats, never to return.
I think they’d have preferred something with the Bat Credit Card.
Sorry about the lack of spacing there. I must be off my periods.
Well, the thing is it is NOT just our adult sensibilities that tells us that’s exactly what a child molestor would say. We have commercials telling children that if anyone says these things you should go directly to your parents. 😛
Also, while Adult entertainment is not made for children, Child entertainment often must be watched by adults if they are supervising. I’ve watched an unfortunate amount of Dora the explorer. It is often insulting, teaching off base messages like follow your monkey friend with no supervision into the jungle to save a ball from a volcano. And she shouts for no reason. The way I see it, there is no reason why we couldn’t watch Looney Tunes or Animaniacs, entertainment designed for both. Or go outside.
Did Marvel ever knock off the prior restraint?
Seven words, PAD:
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“And the blood. Will flow. Like milk.”
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Wish I could remember who wrote that…
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J.
Jay, unless my memory is playing tricks, it was Alfred Hitchcock to a very young Bill Mumy.
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Personally, I’d like to know if Marvel continued to withhold advertising from CBG. Just morbid curiosity.
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It’s interesting; out of the various topics that Peter covered in this old column, the one that seems to have drawn the most interest is the subject of noisy and/or uncontrollable kids. Believe me, I’ve had to sit behind, next to or near any number of squalling kids in my travels, and I quite understand that there generally isn’t much the humiliated parents can do about it. That being said, I’ve also encountered an equal number of toddlers with a sunny disposition, particularly if Mom or Dad can be motivated to take them for a walk up and down the aisle, where they’re usually quite happy to greet their fellow passengers like long-lost friends.
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What does set me off though, is not the kids themselves, but parents who completely divorce themselves from any degree of control or responsibility when they’re in public. When I went to see The Karate Kit, there was a dad who obviously wanted to see the film and was perfectly happy to let his bored toddler go walkabout for the entire length of the movie. That is not the same situation as being trapped in a metal tube crossing the country for several hours. Nor is it okay to let your kids romp through parking lots, Dunkin Donuts (way too much hot coffee being carried in my particular town), grocery stores (I almost saw a senior citizen fall over in my local Shop-Rite the other day because two kids were chasing themselves through the bakery aisle while their mom was engrossed in a hugely important phone call about a tennis match) or any number of public places like that.
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When I was in my twenties, I used to take my little brother along to lots of different places with me whether it was the bowling alley or a movie theater and the one and only condition I ever made was that he had to behave like an adult. And he did. To this day, I still have people remark on what a well-behaved little brother I had way back then, even though he’s now married with a son (who is equally well-behaved BTW) and a step-daughter- and is about a foot taller than me.
Young children ought not to be thought too badly of for behaving as children are wont to do. Sure. But parents ought to know where such behaviour is appropriate and where it doesn’t belong.
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Mother’s a devout catholic but, at 89 she wasn’t as mobile as she used to be. So I drove her to the Christmas ‘midnight mass’ service – one of the major celebrations on the Christian calendar – a couple of years back. Sitting in the front row were an impeccably dressed family. They could be used as a classic “dressed in their Sunday goin’ to meetin’ clothes”.
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Unfortunately, they’d brought their similarly well-garbed 4 year-old daughter. (maybe 5, close enough either way.) A BORED 4 year-old. Twenty minutes into the service, she got up and started pacing back and forth. Parents did nothing. She went up to the altar, sat down next to it and started fiddling with the flowers there. Parents did nothing. She eventually got back up, walked up to mother, grabbed her purse then went back to sit next to the altar where she proceeded to start going through the purse’s contents. Even then it took at least a couple of minutes before mother finally waved to the kid to come back and sit on the bench. Not blaming the kid. But what the heck were the parents thinking???
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Fortunately they tend to be in the minority. Most kids are reasonably well behaved and should be encouraged that way. But when they aren’t? That’s when one should tell the parents to, well, parent.
That isn’t what I meant, Joe, but it doesn’t surprise me. I was actually quoting Si Cwan on a shuttle, speaking to a child who’d been kicking his seat for several light years…
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J.
Sorry Jay, my irony alert must not have been working. Still, you really haven’t heard the story properly unless it’s being told by Bill Mumy, complete with Hitchcock accent.
Let’s see… PAD’s good friends with Bill Mumy, and the story’s apparently very well known (but not by me), which would make it entirely appropriate for PAD to put the line in the mouth of Si Cwan, as a little “easter egg” for those who knew about it beforehand.
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And those of us who didn’t, it’s still a hëll of a memorable line — and entirely in character for Si Cwan.
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Yup, classic PAD.
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J.