He-Man: Help or Hinderance?

[kiki]

I'm new around here so maybe you've covered this before. If you have, sorry. Do you think the release of the original He-Man cartoon series on dvd could bring young viewers into S&S and then eventually into print S&S? Do you even qualify He-Man as S&S?

[baritsu6]

yes, i think they could get young children interested in sword and sorcery/planet as the herculoids and thundar the barbarian did with past generations--ralph

ralph grasso

[erazmus]

I had to think about this for a while before posting. Something I should probably do more often.
I think it hurts.
I think it sets up associations that kids get teased about when they start school and drop like a hot potato. Most never come back.
It would be different if the show had any underlying qualities that could be appreciated later, even campy funky qualities like the Herculoids or Space Ghost. Better still would be actual quality, like the (now ancient) Jonny Quest series. You can come back to JQ later in life and hold your head high.
Heck I'm a Godzilla fan with no appologies but I found He-Man to be sub-par. The only thing in it like S&S is the gross physical depiction of the characters. Not to dis on S&S (heaven forfend) but I think He-Man is based on all those thing in it that other people in the sci-fi/fantasy world make fun of.
Mike

Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Two Ravens" in Amazing Journeys Magazine coming Sept. 05

[Storn]

I agree with Erazmus. Jonny Quest is quality through and through... Wally Wood doing art direction, I believe... but the storylines, while farfetched are not insanely juvenile unlike He-man. He-man was an excuse to sell toys... lets not forget that EVER.

If you want to get young kids into S&S, you got to look where there is overlap with current trends and interests. Ryonin Kenshin (anime) is a good example. So is the otehr cartoon network offering, Anuyasha. While geared for young audiences, they don't talk down to them. They've got swords and sorcery galore, albeit in a nice samuarai gi wrapping. They tackle issues of might vs. right and war... so while there are lot of goofy moments, it ain't all goofy.

But something like Samurai Champloo gets really serious and at the same time, jazz-advant garde...or something... yakuza wearing shades circa 1700s is pretty odd stuff... but the tone is all vicious looking more like the Good, Bad and the Ugly. Or The Nuts, The Anal and The Beauty.

But while Record of Lodoss is very D&D inspired.. and Escaflowne is very much aimed at romantic young girls with medieval mecha robots... they still brush up against S&S in their world presentations.

I think Princess Monokoke has some great moments, but the shining jewel of Miyazaki for oddball S&S worlds is one of his first.. Nauusica. Nauusica has SUCH a MOebius, heavy metal vibe underneath the anime hood... and small wonder, Miyazaki has admited as much and was penpals with Moebius.

But all the anime I just mentioned? Like or dislike, the quality BLOWS THE DOORS off of He-Man. In every frame, in every script. He-man just showed the same five moves over and over again... and the scripts were dumber than an amoeba on crack.

Visual Storytelling
http://www.stornc.rpggallery.com/

[trey]

You're not being entirely fair, I don't think.

All of those anime BLOW THE DOORS off any of the previously mentioned Hanna Barbera animated series including Jonny Quest in terms of animation quality. True, flimation was notorious for re-using footage, but not much American amination (other than disney) between the end of Fleischer studioes and the advent of Batman: The Animated Series is worth mentioning.

Also, most of those anime you mention are not particularly for kids. Samurai Champloo, for example, certainly has "adult themes" (prostitution, murder, rape, etc.) It is good stuff, though.

While Masters of the Universe was created to sell toys, and the animated series is bad in many ways it does have quite a following and some of those people probably are S&S readers now.

As a kid, I was never particularly a fan of the rather superhero-in-loincloth feel of the cartoon, but I really dug the original mini-books with the toys (written mostly by Donald Glut) that had more of a S&S feel, at least on par with Thundarr.

[erazmus]

Storn,
Heck, Hello Kitty blows the doors off He-Man, art wise.
Animie is kind of sad for me. I lived in Japan for five years and saw a lot of cool stuff these but the context for much of the good stuff doesn't translate very well for kids. The very commercial stuff does, they watch that in Japan, international marketing is now considered all along the way.
I can remember when American animators might have moved is some of the same direction that animie is except we don't do much animation here any more, not even for kids. we import it.
Wally did background paintings for JQ but I don't think he was the A-D, though I could be wrong.
Mike

Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Two Ravens" in Amazing Journeys Magazine coming Sept. 05

[MichaelEhart]

My oldest kids were He-man age, and funny thing---- they never really liked it. Partly because I made sure they had some grounding in other kinds of cultural stuff, (which seems pretty stuffy, but we had fun) and partly because there are always choices. At the time, there was Thundercats, for example, which had story quality and values that made how much He-man blowed obvious even to a 6 year old. And there was still plenty of swashbuckling in T-cats. Plus, I was an early adopter of video, and I was writing a lot of film history stuff, so they got to see Flynn, Power, Fairbanks and others often.

Faust-- How comes it then that thou art out of hell? Mephistophilis-- Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.

[baritsu6]

gents, i am lucky to have all the original jonny quests on dvd----they are very good. think about this race bannon [ judo, sportsman, adventure]short cropped hair ----dr quest[ scientist, man with morals ] put them together = doc savage ! hell, race looks like doc savage--and the adventures[ lost race, super science, monsters] all doc savage -like----maybe thats why i loved them--ralph

ralph grasso

[erazmus]

As a Kid watching JQ as it appeared I, of course, never made the connection but JQ is very like Doc Savage. But then the Fantastic Four is just like Doc Savage, only with crazy powers and more _gurls_. I think Doc haunts the edges of my own writing much more than I usually realise.
God bless Lester Dent!
Mike

Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Two Ravens" in Amazing Journeys Magazine coming Sept. 05

[Storn]

I'm pretty sure Wally had a lot of influence on JQ. Look at the faces, the spotting of blacks, especially on the faces, that is classic Wally Wood. I also think John Severin had some influence too... might have read that somewhere... doing a bit of research for equipment and the like.

Thuundar actually credits Jack Kirby.

Thundercats was better than He-Man by far and it was obvious to me as well.

As for repeats and everything... I could forgive that if the He-man scripts didn't suck so much. And they sucked. Hey, Voltron used the same footage over and over again and it didn't suck as bad... it wasn't great... but it amused me at the time.

I'm slowly going white. I keep my hair cropped pretty close because I'm an avid tennis player and I hate having hair in my eyes. But I think the real reason is that I want to go totally white (like my grandpa) and have that Race Bannon haircut. Give me another 10 years!!!!

Visual Storytelling
http://www.stornc.rpggallery.com/

[davidolson22]

They made new episodes of He-Man for the Cartoon Network a year ago. I don't think it got good enough ratings, but the artwork was much better than it used to be.

Er...not that I spend time watching cartoons. I barely know all the villains on Teen Titans. And I haven't memorized all the heros on Justice League Unlimited yet.

By the way, what exactly is Captain Marvel's super power? When he is a super hero, is he just a generic Superman with the added ability to cast lightning bolts?

[erazmus]

David,
Like his main rival on the news stands of the ninteen forties, Capt. Marvel's powers are many. He is the physical embodiment of the positive qualities of gods and heros of the ancient greek and jewish peoples. (Power of Zeus, speed of Mercury, wisdom of Solomon, etc, etc.)
His biggest diference from Superman is his power is out and out magic with no 'comic book' psuedo-science to try to explain it. He is by far and away my favorite superhero from the forties and early fifties.
Mike

Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Two Ravens" in Amazing Journeys Magazine coming Sept. 05

[JFCC]

Well, speaking as someone who watched He-Man as a kid, I can certainly say that He-Man helped spark an early interest in fantasy. In fact, the recent revamp of Masters of the Universe helped nurture and maintain my interest in s&s and fantasy when I may have been leaning toward other interests.

As for the cartoon, a lot of people don't realize that well-known and respected television writers such as Paul Dini (the Batman cartoon), Larry DiTillio (Babylon 5, Transformers) and even J. Michael Straczynski got their start on the original Masters of the Universe series. Some of their episodes (such as DiTillio's "The Dragon's Gift" www.tv.com/heman-and-the-masters-of-the-universe/the-dragons-gift/episode/114716/summary.html) were quite good.

Yes, the animation on He-Man sucked and a lot of the writing was pretty average, but it had its redeeming qualities too, and I think you'd be surprised how many kids found an early interest in s&s and fantasy through MOTU.

So I think it helps.

[TRtheJ]

[b]quote:Originally posted by baritsu6

gents, i am lucky to have all the original jonny quests on dvd----they are very good. think about this race bannon [ judo, sportsman, adventure]short cropped hair ----dr quest[ scientist, man with morals ] put them together = doc savage ! hell, race looks like doc savage--and the adventures[ lost race, super science, monsters] all doc savage -like----maybe thats why i loved them--ralph

ralph grasso
</blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Jonny Quest = Doc Savage? Um... Other than the type of mysteries and the scientific detective aspect, no. I am a big fan of both, and both are too different to be alike.

As for He-Man... I'm not so sure it'd bring many kids into Sword and Sorcery due to its repetitive storylines. The same basic threat and especially the same villain over and over and over...

Who introduced me as a child to Sword and Sorcery? Frazetta a'la his Conan covers. My eldest brother had the series of books. When I read my first story therein -- Boom! I was hooked.

[TRtheJ]

[b]quote:Originally posted by erazmus

As a Kid watching JQ as it appeared I, of course, never made the connection but JQ is very like Doc Savage. But then the Fantastic Four is just like Doc Savage, only with crazy powers and more _gurls_. I think Doc haunts the edges of my own writing much more than I usually realise.
God bless Lester Dent!
Mike

Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Two Ravens" in Amazing Journeys Magazine coming Sept. 05
</blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

More girls? Every Doc Savage I've read, 80 or so to this point with a few rereads for fun, has girls in it. Without them, who would Monk and Ham have to fight over? []

Lester Dent, in my opinion, hit on something with Doc Savage that no other writer has ever done so well. It's just too bad he didn't live to see the success Doc Savage had in the 60's and 70's.

[erazmus]

The Fantastic Four actually had _girls_ on the team, all the time. []
Doc always had thm around but only Pat was a player, she wasn't always there and they were always leaving her behind or trying to.
Mike

Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Two Ravens" in Amazing Journeys Magazine coming Sept. 05

[baritsu6]

i indicated that doc and the jon quest series had some common likeness, i did not indicate they were exactly the same. i think that by combining race and dr. quest , you have a " doc" like hero --race was a sportsman, martial artist, adventurer---dr. quest , a scientist and father[ trying to teach good morals to jonny and hajii]---now combining this with the TYPE OF ADVENTURES , i see a likeness. both dr. quest and the doc showed no interest in women--true, no monk, renny, ham, long tom---but i would classify jonny as a juvenile " doc savage type" adventure series----i am sorry if i was misunderstood--ralph

ralph grasso

[MichaelEhart]

Doc Savage as written by Dent has a serious influence on my fiction as well. One of the most lamented casulties of my second divorce was my Doc Savage complete set (the reprints, boys, or I would be posting from jail).
I often try to compare any exotic setting to what Dent wrote. And if I could draw a character in 2 or 3 sentances and have them stand out as someone real, like Dent did, week after week, I would sell a lot more stories.
Very disappointing that the big-budget DS movie bandied about a couple of years ago didn't happen. Although Ahnold would have wrecked it, it would have been a magnificent wreck!

Faust-- How comes it then that thou art out of hell? Mephistophilis-- Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.

[CharlesR]

Count me as another Lester Dent booster. My third person prose style still sounds much like his.

Oh and the character designs, model sheets, etc on the original Johnny Quest were by Doug Wildly and Alex Toth.

Charles R

[Storn]

Alex Toth!!! duh.

eh. He and Wally Wood are definitely cut from similar artistic cloth. Especially in core shadowing of faces... no wonder I had a brain fart and got that wrong.

Sorry about that.

And while I didn't like He-man (back on topic), the below quote and one of my younger friends also spoke of He-man really captivating them as kids. So, I'm wrong twice in the same thread. ah...well, I can admit when I'm wrong.

[b]quote:Originally posted by JFCC

Well, speaking as someone who watched He-Man as a kid, I can certainly say that He-Man helped spark an early interest in fantasy. In fact, the recent revamp of Masters of the Universe helped nurture and maintain my interest in s&s and fantasy when I may have been leaning toward other interests.
</blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Visual Storytelling
http://www.stornc.rpggallery.com/

[erazmus]

Actually I think Alex Toth started out working with or under Wally Wood back in the time long ago. I seem to recall some connection beyond the obvious stylistic one.
Mike

Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Two Ravens" in Amazing Journeys Magazine coming Sept. 05