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Post by MacNimon on Feb 14, 2012 6:55:40 GMT
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Post by MacNimon on Feb 14, 2012 7:22:42 GMT
Many newsagents didn't know where to display this series. Many mistakenly thought it was kids stuff in the vein of Donald Duck and other Disney , Hannah-Barbera etc characters and displayed it alongside them. Howard was more of a parody though, a social satire, aimed at a more mature audience and its type of humour was lost on the kiddies looking for a fix of Donald or Daffy, and it was eventually cancelled due to low sales. From Wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_the_Duck"Howard the Duck is a comic book character in the Marvel Comics universe created by writer Steve Gerber and artist Val Mayerik. The character first appeared in Adventure into Fear #19 (Dec. 1973) and several subsequent series have chronicled the misadventures of the ill-tempered, anthropomorphic, "funny animal" trapped on human-dominated Earth. Howard's adventures are generally social satires, while a few are parodies of genre fiction with a metafictional awareness of the medium. The book is existentialist, and its main joke, according to Gerber, is that there is no joke: "that life's most serious moments and most incredibly dumb moments are often distinguishable only by a momentary point of view." This is diametrically opposed to screenwriter Gloria Katz, who in adapting the comic to the screen declared, "It's a film about a duck from outer space... It's not supposed to be an existential experience"..." |
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Post by Silver Age Fan on Feb 14, 2012 14:16:33 GMT
I liked this title. It was different. On paper, it shouldn't have worked, but it did. The social satire was very interesting and it's a shame that some people I have spoken to over time have dismissed this (without reading it) as a Donald Duck rip-off or something.
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Post by MacNimon on Feb 14, 2012 21:42:40 GMT
Those who have actually read the series, particularly those who are familiar with other work of writer Steve Gerber, appreciate this for what it is. A great series, a million miles removed from those other more famous ducks...
A thought, though. I wonder what others (who may not be comics fans) may expect of the series without reading it. More to the point, have they ever even heard of the character, or maybe only vaguely remember the movie...I don't have time at the moment, but tomorrow I think I'll start a thread on the topic over on G80s and hopefully there will be someone who has never seen/read it. If they were a newsagent, I wonder where they would display it...?
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Post by llllllll on Feb 16, 2012 9:25:10 GMT
It's certainly a lot more appealing now I've heard a bit more about it and seen the covers. Not sure why anyone would look at them and put them with the kids comics, it's pretty obvious from a quick glance that they're not aimed at the same market as Donald Duck. Look forward to reading an issue or two.
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