What do you think of ratings , as they are applied now to comic books , especially now that the Code is officially 100% kaputo and it seems like many companies have adopted the same system/set'o'lettes that Marvel uses ?????
For reference , what is that set ???????
I seem to recall that , in the late 80s , Frank Miller and some others left DC in a huff ( Dumb Bunny: " I always did like those small forigen cars ! ":-) )...
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...over DC's imposing ratings/warnings on titles they were doing then , oome but not all of which?? were what became the " Mature "/Vertigo line .
I had meant to put up a post regarding OTHER media's ratings , most obviously the MPAA theatrical movie ratings and thos TV ratings for broadcast and video?? TV here in the US ( The MPAA oned are imposed by a board , the TV ones are self-imposed , BTW , I believe . ) , which are voluntary...and I know we have Australians and Brits here , and I believed that the British rating are NOT voluntary and have force of law...and just recently , I read of a horror film being ( In submitted form . ) 100% banned from UK theatrical , home vid , or download release , ( Granted , if an appeal doesn't work they will likely cut it some...) , so !!!!!!!!!!! :-0
Historically , the starting of the MPAA is the USA in the late 60s , just as with the imposition and re-imposition of the Production Code ( " Hays Office " ) in the US in the 20s and 30s were in fact done to stave off often-existing ( And , of course , varying greatly . ) state regulation becoming stricter and the possibility of Federally-imposed regulation !!!!!!!!!!!
To-day , BTW , the MPAA ratings letters - all 25 of them :-) ARE copyrighted to the MPAA .
Is the Marvel one ?
Or the TV one , for that matter ????????? ( THAT little unimportant thing :-) )...........
Instead of ratings, I'd love to see comics publishers adopt the reading level/ content guidelines used by book stores and libraries. Beginning Reader (3-8)*, Intermediate Reader (8-12), Teen (13-17), and then everything else defined by genre/ topic.
Most super-hero comics would be solidly in the Teen category.
* The age ranges I have there are based on memory from time working in book stores. I haven't yet found an definitive definition of the categories online.
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." -Groucho Marx
Check out the Secret Headquarters (my store) website! Comics and Games for Everyone!
I used to listen to WOXY.com; It was the future of rock-n-roll! RIP WOXY
That's because each publisher sets its own categories. They are pretty similar, however.
As for Australia, computer games are an issue at the moment. They don't have an 18 rating so very mature content games simply can't be sold here.
Australia is quite paternalistic, which goes against its larrikin, individualistic image. I think its monitoring/firewalling of internet content is way ahead of any other Western country at the moment. They've recently brought in laws effecting it.
DC's mature readers label was one of the big bones of contention for Alan Moore btw..
..The other night , I happened upon a marathon , on the AMC cable channel , of that 50s TV series , The Rifleman , with Chuck Connors and Johnny Crawford .
I'd never actually seen the series before .
Every episode was TV-PG , with a " V " ( for Violence ) expanation added .
From the 4-6 I saw , most episodes were the old type of Western that generally built up to a climax where the guns come out and a couple people get killed or hurt bad , with the victim putting on a pained expression and turning away from the camera with the camera/shot then cutting away .
The title sequence opens with Connors marching forward , whirling his rifle around , and BANG !!! BANG !!! BANG !!!-ing as the announcer inveighs " The Rifleman ! " !!!
Figserello said:
Censorship and control of what the masses might be enjoying goes back a ways in Australia. I suppose all the way to penal times.
Apparently the Western as a movie genre was invented in Australia. A film about Ned Kelly was the first to be made in long form by running a succession of reels after each other.
Films made in Australia about Bushrangers then became very popular for a while all over the world. They would've looked like Westerns with train robberies, bank robberies, Victorian frontier gunmen on horseback etc. Of course, they were very anti-establishment, as the bandits tended to be the heroes, so the authorities of the time banned Bushranger movies outright, and the genre came to be developed in the US where the mythologies it established sat much more happily with the authorities there.
Alan Moore has it both ways.
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." -Groucho Marx
Check out the Secret Headquarters (my store) website! Comics and Games for Everyone!
I used to listen to WOXY.com; It was the future of rock-n-roll! RIP WOXY
...I saw somewhere ( Somebody else , please put the link up . At The Beat ? ) that Image has announced a company-wide ratings system , rather similar , to what it appears the other guys have , but with only one " lowest rung " that is belowthe level of " Teen " .
Franlly , my impression of Image IS that the vast majority of their titles would be " Teen + " or higher if only because it appears so many Images ( And , oddly enuff , I do do some buying of lesser-known Images from my LCS's 3/$1.00 bin , getting one issue of miniseries . ) would be from T+ to some kind of " Adults Only " by comic-book standards ( And , yes , there are exceptions . ) , if only because so many Images are R-rated movie/thriller novel-type concepts and allow themselves situations/visuals/language ( Generally , I'd think , on the milder side but comic books get judged by harsher/stricter standards . ) in keeping with that:--...
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