Do you think comics are a children’s or adult genre/media? How does Farr (1991) justify Tintin’s appeal to adults?
I remember when I was young, my uncle used to read the Japanese comics. I couldn’t understand why grown man was reading the children’s book. At that time, I thought that comics were for the children, not grown-ups.
However, according to Farr(1991.p9), Tintin could keep the populatiry by devising a character who would appeal to children as much as grown-ups, though for often quite different reasons. Also, the appeal is self-generating, for in due course the children become adults and then parents themselves, allowing the Tintin tradition to be carried on. I totally agree with the fact after the children become adults, comics are not forgetable. To be honest, I am still crazy about comics, Candy Candy, that I used to read during my childhood. Moreover, some comics, such as Crayon Shin-chan, Dragon ball and Detective Conan, are popular among children and adults in Korea.
Frankly speaking, I haven’t read any series of ‘the Adventures of Tintin’ before and I’ve tried to read ‘The Blue Lotus’ as this is the primary readings. However, I couldn’t download it from the website. Fortunately I watched the movie of ‘The Adventures of Tintin : The Blue Lotus’ in class and it seemed to help for imagination of the pictures in my head. I think Tintin’s characters, such as Tin Tin, snowy, and twins detectives, might be appealed to children and Tintin’s story(plot) might be appealed to adult. Because of this combination, the series comics of TinTin could be popular to every aged group.
In my opinion, if there are many levels of understanding in comics, both of children and adult can enjoy reading it. It may depend on what part of comics would be focused on by readers. Therefore, I think comics are genre/media for the children as well as adult.
Reference
Bernasconi, S. (1991). The Blue Lotus from the adventures of Tintin. Canada: Nelvana.
Farr, M. (1991). Introduction. In Tintin: the complete companion (pp. 8-9). London: John Murray.
Hi katie,
ReplyDeleteWell done on this first post of the semester :)
Remember that you only have to answer 1 question each week.
Your own opinion and experiences are clearly a part of the post. You have also referenced both the primary text and secondary readings.
A good answer
Esther:)
Thanks for your comment.
ReplyDeleteI knew I had to answer for 1 question, but I thought the above 2 question were related each other. It won’t happen again… ^^; anyway it took a lot of time for reading 1 article.