Pet Peeves: De-Emphasized Reprints

While I touted the importance of emphasizing the banal in favor of expressing the importance of climatic scenes, there's a certain trend in reprints that's been bugging me a lot lately.  It's not the colour scheme that some purists have trouble with.  (Though I've certainly complained about that)  It's not the paper quality, though I don't like it when it's too shiny for me to see the pages.  What bothers me is when the reprint of a beloved comic redoes the font in a manner that fails to capture the spirit and quality of the original.

To get an idea of what I'm talking about, here's a few samples.

Here's a page from an old printing of the Asterix classic, Asterix & The Goths, split into two to prevent annoying shrinkage via blogpost norms.

Now, here's the latest reprint that I was unfortunate enough to pick up cheap, not checking the interior to make sure that I was getting my money's worth:

As you can see, the font for the text has all been cleaned up via computer lettering, which allows for cleaner centering and better consistency, but also loses a lot of the original spirit.  The cry of "THREE!" has been marginalized to the point where it's identical to the lower text, leaving too much blank space where it could've been better utilized.

In addition to which, the newer Gothic font is now notoriously difficult to read, compared to the original.  In this latest iteration, it's left unbolded to the point of illegibility.

In other instances, it's a choice made whether to use italics to heighten the intonation spoken by someone.  American comics are notorious for their haphazard method of randomly bolding individual words in a speech, whether those words need to be emphasized or not.

The beloved Church Mice series by Graham Oakley has had numerous reprints that lowered their production costs by doing away with the back half of the wraparound cover, which feels like missing out on a joke.  Sadly, the realistic artwork and dry text was no longer considered marketable in today's children's market, which suggests a lack of imagination on the publisher's part.  It didn't help matters much that the latest publisher that dared reprinted the above felt the need to dumb down the text so that it would no longer be a challenge to read.

I might seem to be contradicting myself here, but there's a difference in being unable to read what's being written, and challenging the reader to plow their way through the text.  Furthermore, the italicized word "Everybody" and "he" missing in the later reprint loses something in the transition.

It's not just the lack of variable fonts that's in danger of being marginalized, but the usage of using uppercase letters to emphasize certain words.  Shouting in ALLCAPS for a long time is generally frowned upon, unless it's used to make a point.  (Though using lowercase is discouraged in American comics for similarly long-held beliefs as well)

Even though Herman is the titular invisible everyman character in his own comic, he's hardly ever called or seen to the point where his physical representation or name is removed to the point of nonexistence.

This isn't just a fault in reducing or cutting out extraneous words to allow for shorter reading time and reaching broader audiences, but also drastically changing words to the point where they're no longer funny.  F'r instance, here's the original classic comic:

Perfectly reasonable ludicrous description, right?  Only, here's how they tried to update it below:

That changes it from a teasing comment to a vicious insult.  Where's the humour here?  Don't expect this guy to be a returning customer anytime soon.

These may be considered minor complaints, but when license rescuers don't pay enough attention to specific details, a certain sense of enjoyment of emphasis is lost.

No matter how sleek and shiny the latest revamped property is, if they don't adhere to a level of quality check, they may as well be no better than Chinese bootleggers who constantly rely on the same words for every situation, whether they fits the scenario or not.

Requested Adaptations: Asterix & the Gaslighter

Just in case you're unfamiliar with the term, Gaslighting is when someone plays up the guilt card by implying and inferring that what you're said was invalid, playing your thoughts against yourself.  Unless there's verifiable recorded proof saying otherwise, you're caught in a game of "I said, You said".  Expert passive-aggressive assault consists of constantly harping over your words, trying to redefine what you've said in painstaking minutiae essay-length detail that causes your innocuous remark to die in the process.

The rise of the Alt-Right online, spreading their rhetoric of hatred has had large implications not just in America, but also across waters with the dissolution of the E.U.  A bunch of rowdy politicians who wanted to implement their narrow visions upon the world, only to succeed beyond their wildest dreams.  But winning through the narrowest of defined victories had extravagant costs that they're just beginning to find out. They never intended to win in the first place, let alone grant all the promises they made in order to gain popularity and eyes their direction.  Now that they're forced to live with the decisions of the (stupid) mass majorities, they're faced with the unenviable choice to either follow-through on their impossible demands, or boldly forge ahead, and risk being lampooned for generations to come.  Backpedaling on reneging their promises would make them look weak otherwise, and they wouldn't want to risk admitting they had no plans beyond winning.

At a time where truth and fiction are considered interchangeable, and the news that's considered more favorable is constantly being won out due to personal preferences, an adaptation of Asterix and the Roman Agent seems more appropriate than ever before.  But only if done by the same team of Alexandre Astier and Louis Clichy, faithfully capturing the spirit of the books with Mansions of the Gods.  (Which I greatly recommend, despite reservations over some wonky translation issues)

The scene-stealer is Tortuous Convolvulus, whose mere presence causes everybody in his vicinity to lose their collective minds, even when they're aware of his ability or not.  Long-overheld grievances are suddenly brought out into the open, hostilities arise, and infighting becomes rampant.  It only takes the slightest nudging in a general direction to further flame the fans of war beyond their reasonable limits.

Not too shabby for a smug midget who has the facial features reminiscent of The Grinch.

Of course, when adapting a story from one medium to another, certain liberties would have to be taken.  We'd lose the visual impact of the infected parties speaking in Green-hued balloons, but that could be easily conveyed through having the speaker's eyes glow a persistent bright green instead.  What counts is successfully implementing various concepts from others that wouldn't normally fit in a singular story.

In the past, they meshed two divergent Asterix books, The Big Fight and The Soothsayer to create Un Coup de Menhir (Operation Getafix), and Asterix the Legionary and Asterix the Gladiator into Asterix Versus Caesar, neither of which was as great as they could've been.  The two (unadapted) Asterix books closest in theme of money, Obelix & Co. and Asterix & the Cauldron are wildly different in story structure.  One is a broad satire of Capitalism, the other a monetary journey fraught with failure.  (Asterix is skillfully adept at maneuvering people, but he's an awful businessman, since he doesn't understand finance)  For Mansions of the Gods, they used the Senator from Asterix in Belgium, and the catapult from Caesar's Gift.  By picking and choosing selective elements into a cohesive whole.

And causing arguments over how a technical term is pronounced.

By the same token, there's certain potential elements that could be gleamed from other books that would be considered unadaptable, yet be additive enough to the overall theme than they'd be on their own.  Keep in mind that these are merely suggestions for a theoretical project that as far as I know, hasn't even begun production yet.

For starters, the constant arguments between Asterix and Obelix where they fight like an old married couple would suddenly have stronger consequences and meaning in this story than their squabbles would have elsewhere.  This instance here shows how pervasive Convolvulus' influence is, causing fractures to appear even between the closest of friends.

If, at any point, Obelix's Green-Eyed glow spreads over his upper half,
and his striped pants turn purple, that's a time to worry.

And then, shortly after Obelix angrily marches off in a huff, his conviction fades away, wondering just what he was so upset about in the first place.  There have been multiple instances of the two breaking up, sulking, and making up within a very short time frame.  But I don't think they've ever been captured in a meaningful context.

Another appropriate element to borrow from Caesar's Gift would be Getafix refusing to dole out Magic Potion for the pursuit of domestic squabbles, which'd only increase rising tensions.  Other than fighting over fish, fighting over suspicion would be frowned upon.  Which would be frowned upon, since it'd look like Getafix is suddenly sympathetic towards Roman ideals.

One final element would be the portrayal of a mock trial heavily biased towards Asterix for having suspicious relations with a Foreign power who's on friendly terms, despite his constant denials.

You can just see Asterix fending off the Council's baseless claims with an almost bored expression, being slightly insulted at being probed in this manner, much like Clinton's constant investigations on Benghazi.  I also wouldn't mind seeing more scenes of Asterix trading verbal barbs against the Roman Agent, since Convolvulus is the closest thing he has to a mental heavyweight.

One last thing to consider is the consequences of trolling your base.  When you expound easily disproved facts over and over, the followers behind the instigators start to believe their own lies.

Once they've succeeded in accomplishing their aims, their only recourse is to eat their own.  The worst way to quash someone's dreams, ironically enough, is to grant every one of their wishes.  These newfound lofty positions turn out to be the poisoned chalices, the inevitable result of having every perceived obstacle casually cast aside.  When your entire modus operandi is built on conflict, and there's no more resistance, falling back on peaceful norms is practically improbable.

A possible conflict of interest in copyright infringement would be in capturing the portrayal of the General in charge.  You'd never convince a modern-day reader that the Roman General above, Felix Platypus is a caricature of French actor, Lino Ventura, and not Sylvester Stallone.  But that could be easily overcome by simply reusing General Somniferus from Mansions of the Gods.  As I've said, just throwing these ideas out there.

Mansion of the Brain Fogs

The animated Asterix movies have generally been rather disappointing in how they take the wonderfully satirical books and turn them into lushly drawn pieces of mediocre stories that only display a fraction of their intellect. Often enough, relying more on stretch-and-squash animation for humour, rather than their playful wordplay they were better known for.  Ironically enough, the first Asterix movie was decried for being TOO faithful to the book, being little more than a straight retelling.  Other movies padded out their length with unnecessary songs and animated pratfalls that hardly contributed overall to the story.

So it was something of a pleasant surprise to see an animated adaption that actually managed to live up to the quality of the original.  What made this trailer sell it for me is the humour that while shows aspects of slapstick, also has moments of intellect that are on par with the books themselves.

Mansion of the Gods is one of Julius Caesar's most subtle plans - rather than try to conquer the indomitable village through means of force, he intends instead to bring the mountain to the molehill by transplanting Roman Culture right in their backyard. Of course, this plot is faced with resistance from the construction, and the Gaul's reluctant to allow any building flats to be built in the first place. But when they see that their efforts to impede the buildings get completed means that the slaves will wind up working long hours for nothing, they decide to intervene by giving the slaves a dose of their magic potion. However, this backfires as the slaves, rather than use their power for escaping, use it as a bargaining position for freedom and better pay once the buildings are done.

When the Roman tenants move in, the Gaulish village is faced with the prospect of making money off their bartering system and figure they want some of that action, which causes divides between those who want to keep their old lifestyle, and those who see an opportunity where none previously existed.

There are a few instances of historical anachronisms, but nothing pop-cultural that would be considered obsolete within a few years.  Another welcome change is having the overused Centurion Voluptuous replaced by Centurion Somniferus (who's never referred to by name) since he's more typical to the Roman guards surrounding the village who aren't normally corrupt, and are constantly exasperated at their troops.

While the English subtitles have the advantage of being faithful to the translated names, there are a few instances that could've been better rewritten to capture the same tone as the books.

One of the greatest enjoyment from the Asterix books is the list of varied punny authentic-sounding names for new Romans, and this movie gave us several, ranging from Giveusabonus (Anglaigus), Anonymous (Petiminus) and Mischiefus (Apeldjus).  Yet for some reason, there's a different turn of phrase between the trailer and the translated version.

This isn't the only instance where the trailer was different from the movie.  In the book, the scene where Chief Vitalstatistix asks his Gaulish warriors if everyone's had their magic potion (to which Obelix bluntly replies a flat "no") has two different takes in the trailer and movie:


One more changed scene near the trailer's end was where a Roman Legionary was about to taste some of the Magic Potion that gives Invulnerable Strength(TM), when he's interrupted by Obelix at the crucial moment:

This wonderful pun was given a slightly less effective (if equal meaning) treatment in the movie:

Of course, it's not only wordplay that's objected to, but the lack of usage of certain terminology that would be immensely familiar with fans of the books.  Earlier, there was Unhygienix's confusion over how much Sesterce his fish cost, as opposed to a single Sestertius, or more commonly known from the proper plural of Sestertii.  Likewise, everybody knows the proper name for the oval stones Obelix carries behind his back, and occasionally teaches Doxmatix to catch.  What we get instead is a more literal name for Menheirs.  Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, does it?

By far, the biggest indignity is neutering Obelix's trademark catchphrase, "These Romans are crazy!" with the following:

It feels like the translation could've handled another proofreading from someone who was a fan of the books, and not just the names. At least they're better than the online translated subtitles which is just the original text gone through GoogleTranslate with lousy timing reminiscent of Chinese subtitles.  (Which are more annoying and incomprehensible than funny, certain exceptions notwithstanding)

Despite these quibbles, Asterix: Mansion of the Gods is a worthy watch worth repeat viewings, which shouldn't be considered surprising, since one of its co-directors was Louis Clichy, a former Pixar animator (Wall-E and Up).  The other, Alexandre Astier worked on Kaamelott, a humourous take on the King Arthur legend, which I know little about, and will reserve judgement, since it seems somewhat popular.

One last thing - Brain Fog is more of a French idiom than an English one, and its inclusion feels slightly clumsy.  A better saying would be "I don't know, I'm all confused."

Controversial Humour

By now, you've no doubt heard about the horrific shooting at the headquarters of the satirical comic magazine, Charlie Hebdo that brought echoes of the infamous Montreal Massacre.  That singular incident against women, spurred by a lone fanatic who felt victimized by females usurping his position in engineering (a section that remains male-heavy to this day) brought about a resolution for tougher gun laws
even with the unpopular abolition of the long-gun registry which Quebec alone decided to ignore (not unlike the personally appointed Judges who freely flout against Harper's tough-on-crime laws), and had a more beneficial improvement for quality of life.  By that same token, this attack done by fanatics who felt long persecuted and insulted against has brought about a Hydra-like growth of outpouring contributions from cartoonists all over who've identified with the victims, even if the cartoons from the magazine in question were of dubious quality and taste.  An explanation behind the text and history of some Charlie Hebdo covers can be found near the end of this post:

Among one of the numerous contributors was the retired artist for Asterix the Gaul.  While Uderzo's pen hasn't lost his touch, it's safe to say that his writing hasn't improved one iota, since he missed out on an excellent opportunity for Obelix to say the immortal words;

Especially since men like the Hezbollah chief are decrying against their actions.  When even Religious Extremists who think nothing about bombing Jewish citizens are speaking out against the actions of overzealous people, that's a sign they've gone too far.

The terrorist's actions from resorting to knee-jerk reaction to cartoons that are blasphemous at their least and unfunny at their worst, stems from their inability to find alternative ways of striking back that don't rely on outright violence and explosions.  If they really wanted to undermine the purpose of the controversial comic magazines, they could counter by producing comic parodies of their own.  Of course, the problem with that method is that very often, the results are less than inspiring.  Part of the reason Conservative Political comics have so much trouble gaining a respectable foothold compared to Liberal Comics is that very often, they're filled with one-sided tone-deaf arguments and political strawmen.  Any humour is made at the expense of others, and is very rarely self-reflective.  They spend more time on the message rather than the story, worried that any subtle layering would interfere with the point they're trying to make.  It's as if they don't trust their audience's intelligence.

The act of making a joke is not a difficult thing.  Making a good and funny joke however, is a much more difficult task.  That deceptive division marks the difference between someone using off-colour humour to shock the masses or to make a point.  Now that I've written it down, I begin to see the problem with my suggestion to fire back at nasty humour with humour.  If your basic worldview is narrow and limited, you're not going to be motivated to move into unfamiliar territory.  Sometimes all people want is a clear black-and-white view of the world where The Good Guys and The Bad Guys are obvious at first sight.

One Conservative Comic Book, Liberality for All wanted to take a serious look at what the world would look like if Al Gore won the election, and the results were akin to a Liberal dictatorship with Hillary Clinton as President, Micheal Moore as Veep, and Osama Bin Laden being a UN ambassador.  Because this scenario seemed nightmarishly plausible enough, there was a revolutionary plot involving two buffed-up Conservative talk show hosts (one with a robotic arm) running an organization to take America back at all means necessary.  It would be considered astoundingly over-the-top if it weren't so serious with its subject material.  We'll never know what their plan was, because the series was cancelled two issues in.

To be honest, when I heard about the business with Charlie Hebdo, it reminded me of a French comic magazine I saw on the racks a decade ago that devoted an entire issue to a satirical look at the 9-11 conspiracy, with caricatures of members of government.  (Especially considering Al-Qaeda was sponsored by Reagan as a potential ally against Communist Russia)  I couldn't really understand most of it, since it was in French, but the basic gist I got was that the war was mainly motivated by oil and money.  This wasn't much of an intellectual stretch, since that was pretty much what the motivation seemed to be when America went after Iraq shortly after invading Afghanistan.

I've been unable to find any information about that magazine since I saw it on the stands, but remember that the artwork was a mixture of cartoony and serious.  This sample above is perhaps the closest it comes to its art style.  There might've been an interlude from Tony Blair pointing out that if the attack worked well enough once, it should work well again.  The pentultimate page had a plane about to crash into the British House of Commons.

On the last page, which was in English, we had three tier panels of three people, starting with a woman from the Monarchy saying, "God Save the Queen", George Bush with an raised fist saying "God Bless America", and a smiling Bin Laden surrounded by piles of money, with a stack of dollar bills in his hand saying "In God we Trust."  If anybody has any idea about this, or if it sounds familiar, let me know.

Not Quite a Pet Peeve: Off-Colour Comics

This week's Sunday For Better or for Worse rerun gave us this little ditty with Elly's inconvenience with store clerks taking their time on the job.

This is very different from the first printing where the employee had much more makeup and blush on.  In addition, Elly's embarassment is much more pronounced in the last panel.

This wasn't the only instance of a reprint having less impactful colouring, as these two strips can contest.


In fact, a large majority of For Better or for Worse Sunday reprints have had a particular amount of toned-down appearance that makes them less dramatic than usual.

As you can tell, quite a lot of it comes from the characters screaming at each other.  For the longest time, I thought this was typically normal behavior.

It was suggested that Lynn Johnson was suffering from some kind of colour blindness for appealing for Magenta and Turquoise which would've accounted for her bizarre taste of mishmash of fancy words that actually look ugly.

However, that wouldn't account for the various previous Sunday comics where her stand-in family would constantly display sudden rushes of blood to the head that were less unsettling than Emily Carroll's His Face All Red.

There have been complaints about reprints of old material given a glossy shiny look that looks unappealing to long-time readers of newsprint comics on lousy paper, and those complaints aren't unjustified.  The paper can be too shiny, resulting in having to constantly tilt the book so the glare doesn't get in your eyes, and the colouring can be garish compared to the earlier toned-down appearance.  On the plus side, the new reprints give Lawrence a healthier shade of brown than his whitewashed earlier version.

This isn't solely limited to FBOFW, but other newspaper comics as well, where records weren't as meticulous in their archival collections as others.

The wife's expression above seems more intense than the one below.  I wonder why?

At first, I thought this one was a misprint in the first Herman Sunday collection, giving the prehistoric man a Bravehart-like tint, but I've got the Sunday comic in question, and it actually appears like that.  It was faithful to its source material.

This isn't the only caveman to be cast in a strange light.  An odd deciption of Wily from BC (Found at another intensive Sunday Comics blog here) can be seen.

This would be akin to those instances where first depictions of cartoon characters such as Wayland Smithers (Black), Vegeta (a natural Redhead) were mistaken first impressions later corrected in later versions. However, all previous initerations of the curmogodeon peg-legged water hater poet have shown him to be as pale as his brethen.

Despite the misgivings these comics might have in being incorrectly portrayed, they provide an interesting contrast to the regular colour schematics of cartoon characters, and provide an alternate vision of what it must be like for someone with colour blindness.

The Flintstones are some of the most iconic cartoon characters despite their formulatic upbringings.  So when it came to being adapted to the comics page, how were they portrayed?  Not with Fred's Orange outfit, and Barney's Brown suit.  Instead, they opted to present them as blue and orange.  The women Betty and Wilma were known for being in Blue and White, which is almost impossible to mess up.  Instead they showed themselves in basic orange and black.  With tiger stripes yet!  (Apparently, Black Pearls are rarer and more expensive, which wouldn't lie with their anachronistic domestic appearance) Whether this was to present a more attractive design for the funny pages is up in the air for consideration.

A random sampling shows the women's dresses changes colours and outfits almost interchangeably.

One thing I've noticed about these Flintstones comics is how many of them end with confrontations with large dinosaur creatures.

In some cases, the warped colour can give a whole new meaning to the background, giving previously passive elements a whole new flavor.  In this Baby Blues, it looks like the father's hair is being drained away as he thinks of his past.

In this Herman, it looks like the boss is gradually becoming greyer, eventually revealing his true nature underneath.

When I first saw this Hi & Lois comic, I thought that Dot intentionally placed a plastic apple that Trixie couldn't eat, since she picked up the same pink apple.

This Garfield comic is an interesting study in contrasts.  For years, I thought this was another iteration of Odie, who'd suddenly jumped owners from Lyman (who originally owned him) to this cute girl, and the two of them shared a history that was never explained or expanded on.  It was only years later that I found out the original colour schematics for this dog were brown.  Draw your own conclusions here.

It turns out that a large majority of Garfield strips staring Odie turn out the be tonetically weird.

When it comes to portraying crowd scenes, the American comic book had tendencies to go the quick and dirty method by using pale colour schemes among crowd scenes to save time and energy of having to go through colourizing every individual person.

At times, colour can have the element of portraying a prevalent mood throughout.  The very first Asterix book had scenes where entire characters were coloured a deep shade of red or purple depending on their feelings at the time.  This was only shown in the first album, and was never repeated in subsequent books.

Some more miscellaneous comics that I can't think of enough of a clever summary for:

At the time of this strip, Cliff Robertson was still alive.  I suppose the Star Phone also works for actors who everybody thinks are dead, since they haven't been in the spotlight for a long time.

Here's one last bonus - a FBOFW that appeared on July 19, 1986.  If the reprint shows Elizabeth to be less upset than in the throwaway panels, you'll know what was overlooked.  Feel free to make your complaints where applicable.