Sunday, January 24, 2016

Beppo the Super-Monkey and Rocket Raccoon



When I was a kid, DC was the place to go if you wanted whimsy as part of your comics.  Super-Monkeys, Bat-Mites, wacky alien sidekicks, and crazy Red Kryptonite transformations were just some of the fun kinds of concepts I rarely saw in Marvels more "serious" output.  How times have changed in this era of cinematic superheroes.  DC's offerings are dead serious, while Marvel has made a talking raccoon one of its biggest stars.  I'm not holding my breath for a Beppo appearance on the big screen.

15 comments:

AirDave said...

This is awesome!

So, I'm not the only one disappointed by DC. It seems that the people in charge are really, actually embarrassed by the "geekiness" of comics. Maybe we should stop trying to apply scientific means to explain it. There's no need for Bill Nye or Neil Tyson DeGrasse to try to explain it like Star Wars. It just is.

"There is no spoon."

Anonymous said...

I've also noticed how Marvel is totally willing to embrace the humorous aspect now, both in film and their mags, whereas DC seems to want to go retro to the "grim and gritty" 90's. Pity.

Carycomic said...

Put blue-and-gold tights, offset by a red cape, on Oliver (the flying monkey from OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL), and you'd have a perfect Beppo.

As for this cover? Suitably zany for the time it harkens back to. Good job!

Bob Buethe said...

@AirDave: You are by far not alone.

Bob Buethe said...

@AirDave: You are by far not alone.

Sonofjack said...

You forgot Detective Chimp!

Yes, I too am worried about the footage I've seen from the DC theatrical movies. They seem to have filmed every scene in half-light in an effort to be "edgy". At least the Flash TV series is still fun...

Bob Buethe said...

What's worse is the announcement that DC is once again rebooting their universe in June, to bring it in line with the cinematic universe. Aaargh!

Bob Buethe said...

What's worse is the announcement that DC is once again rebooting their universe in June, to bring it in line with the cinematic universe. Aaargh!

Ivory Bill Woodpecker said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Kid Charlemagne said...

Suffering Sappho, how many times has DC rebooted its multiverse?

I remember the first Crisis in the '80s, Zero Hour in the '90s, and the second Crisis--the one where the Golden Age Superman died--just before I finally gave up on following superhero comics.

I mainly quit them due to the cost, but it was also getting to where keeping up with the happenings was more work than fun, which defeats the primary purpose of comics.

Anonymous said...

I stopped reading DC after their increasingly misnamed "FINAL" CRISIS.

Kid Charlemagne said...

The real Crisis in all the comic-book universes is the continuing increase in prices of comic books, combined with the growth of other forms of entertainment (video games are just one example), all of which make it harder and harder to gain new readers.

I wonder, idly, what the average age of the comic book fan is today.

Anonymous said...

Over 21, probably. Sadly, that's who most of the dialogue (especially in some of the newer indies) seems geared towards. It's getting to be like every Robert DeNiro movie I ever saw between RAGING BULL and AWAKENINGS!*

*F-bombs dropped in thirty-second spurts, every 10 minutes, like clockwork. And that is most definitely _not_ a good thing!

Sonofjack said...

Another problem is the loss of "newsstand" comics. I used to be a teacher, and I had a student who was a fan of Spider-Man. When I talked with him about it I discovered that for him Spider-Man was only a cartoon and movie character. When I asked him about the comics he said that he'd read a few, but that he didn't have many opportunities to buy them because he didn't see them for sale very often. He lived in a small town. I grew up in a small town as well, but when I was a boy (I was born in 1961) comic book were in every drug store and about half of the grocery stores. Whenever my family traveled I knew that I could pick up new comics at any 7-11 store. Today, it's hard to even find them outside of specialty shops.

Jonathan Linneman said...

There's so much to agree with in this post and the comments. I don't know how there can be such a disconnect between DC on TV and DC at the movies. They have one highly marketable character for which dark movies work very well. Unfortunately, that means that they just can't help themselves when it comes to the big screen, no matter what character they're working with.

Actually...I take that back...they did try the lighter approach with Green Lantern. Honestly, I like it a lot more than Man of Steel, but it ultimately fell victim to the usual DC darkness trumping the campiness they had to work with (among other things). If it had been successful, maybe the direction of the DC movie universe would be a bit different.

I'm still holding out hope that DC movies lighten up a bit, especially with the success of TV's Flash.

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