I'm curious. What is it that you won't put in any of your comics?

So whether it be nudity, swearing, fart jokes,..etc. what's your standards?


What content standards have you once made that you broke and why? Was it for money or popularity?

Err, well...no Jack and Orlock doing it.

I have sworn a sacred vow never to allow content of any kind in any of my creations. Bit of a bad idea, in retrospect.

JillyFoo
So whether it be nudity, swearing, fart jokes,..etc. what's your standards?

I've put all three of those in a two comics that I've done.
And two of them in another (no fart jokes in that one).

As to why: I see no problem with any of them. The comic with just the nudity and swearing was for money, but I'd have done it anyway.

To get me not to put them in a comic you'd have to pay me, or convince me some other way, like my comic being really popular without them. :)
-------------------

I don't put bloody gore in my comics or hardcore sex (except the paid one), because that would limit the audience I could get for them.

The only thing I'd ever avoid is magic, my comic is a slice-of-life and takes place in a somewhat realistic world. suddenly putting magical items and monsters in it is a terrible idea.

But anything can be put into a comic if it's dealt with correctly. Pedophilia, rape, furries, racism, etc, it all comes down to how you handle it. For example racism, Y the last man had quite a few racist words being thrown around, and the writer had shown he was a friend of equal rights and shock effect throughout the series.

Alan moore loves to rape his women and is in turn raped by karma when people destroy his work in movie adaptations :)
(i'm j/k lol)
(no really he's the only one i've read portraying it well, disturbing but not enough to alienate you)

I have a level of swearing. "Mild" curse words are used from time to time and only by characters who would naturally use such language. There has been innuendo but no "sex," and any nudity is covered by towels or bathwater or whatever. There's no gore but often blood. (Along the same lines as the murder mystery stuff I like to watch and read.)

I write my comic with the standards of a typical evening sitcom or drama (or a PG-13 movie) -- because those are the things I enjoy and the "rating" of my own life. So it's all within a comfort zone for me.

Oh, and I like to do cut-aways for significant violence -- not so much to avoid offense but because I like the dramatic effect ... and because, I'm not that good at drawing it. (I've done fewer cutaways as my artistic ability and confidence has been improving.)

JillyFoo
What content standards have you once made that you broke and why?

Just one. The word "bitch" was among those words I never used in my comic. Even though it is common to primetime TV, and certainly within that rating range, I find it particularly offensive. However, I had an abusive husband show up in one of my story arcs, and he ends up getting killed by his wife. There simply was no more appropriate last words for him. -- So, I used it. Why work around it? An offensive word for an offensive man (and still within my chosen "rating" ).

Oh, I also avoided death in my comic a LONG time ago because I couldn't bring myself to write it (I chickened out). However, once I started killing people, I found it was rather fun. ;)



And Gelotology (rated E) contains no cursewords or sex or anything unrelated to science (at least loosely). It also contains only kid cartoon-grade violence. No nudity yet and there will never be "frontal" nudity, but I might use cartoon-grade nudity if needed (butt shots or cleverly censored or whatever). Oh, I also want to keep away from any political topics or slants (since it would be an easy trap to fall into with a science-themed strip).

When writing the script for Shades , I gave myself two guidelines with regard to nudity/swearing/violence etc.

1. I wouldn't self-censor in anticipation of what others may or may not find offensive. If the story called for nudity/swearing/violence etc, I'd use it to the extent I felt it was appropriate.

2. Despite the above, I wouldn't use nudity/swearing/violence etc just to titillate. As and when I use it, I consider whether it fits that moment in the story and whether it makes the right impact on the reader (i.e. me!)

Also, I wanted the story to seem as if it was "real" and could actually happen in the real world, notwithstanding the fact that it involved super heroes. For that reason I set myself a number of rules about the genre conventions, particularly in respect of which ones I would not use. High on my list of "prohibited features" were the habit of using one-liners and ownership of themed vehicles like the Batmobile or the Fantasticar.

Most of the characters have obeyed my rules so far but my principal heroine (Boudicca ) has proven to have a very sly sense of humour and simply insisted on having a chariot-themed car !

To guidelines I placed in making is one I desire to have the feel of an old Noir B&W film and in said films violence was alluded to but never truly shown. I chose to move in this direction not because I abhor the sight or want to censor myself but rather there is a sense of more dread and disgust when the idea of what is happening is created in the readers imagination. In the classic b&w film the The Black Cat with Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff there's a scene where Bela's character skins Karloff's character. It is only shown and alluded to in shadows but the scene is quite intense and grotesque in this approach leaving the viewer to squirm in their imaginings of what it may be like. Alfred Hitchcock in earlier films approach violence and horror in this same fashion.

The second limitation which I think helps or guides my decisions and maybe quite a number of artists in creating their comic... lack of ability to draw it. Sometimes you may imagine a scene and how you want it to be but in the end it never produces on the page and as a result... well... you rewrite the scene and you tell yourself I didn't want it to be too sexual or too violent or fill in the blank as to what you weren't able to draw. I am being honest. I have changed things previously with a scene because I was not able to draw it the way I desired it to be.

As to explicit language, this has been a struggle for me. I want the dialogue to feel real but at the same I don't want to be in your face about it. The "F" word every other line seems excessive. I am still trying to find the right balance to this issue. But its not a struggle finding the words offensive to me but more for a number of readers language can real stop a reader or even distract a reader from the story being told.

This also the same with boobs.

TheMidge28
As to explicit language, this has been a struggle for me. I want the dialogue to feel real but at the same I don't want to be in your face about it. The "F" word every other line seems excessive. I am still trying to find the right balance to this issue. But its not a struggle finding the words offensive to me but more for a number of readers language can real stop a reader or even distract a reader from the story being told.

Actually, I take the view that dialogue does not have to use the "F" word every other line in order to feel "real" simply because that's not how most people speak anyway.

We've become used to fictional characters in movies, books and, yes, even comics who are incapable of completing a sentence without using at least three expletives and so we tend to think of that as "real". If you think about the people you know in real life, however, that's not the case for most of us. Certainly, in most of the places I've worked there have been very few people who swear to excess (although there was one where it was the norm for everyone!)

I'd argue that there are very few writers who can make the extensive use of expletives sound natural. Tarantino is a master at it, of course, but he's the exception rather than the rule and it's certainly not "necessary". Think of the dialogue in programmes like Buffy or Angel or the X Files or Chuck or The Sarah Connor Chronicles etc etc etc ... Whether you like the programmes or not, the dialogue has no expletives at all and yet still sounds very natural and "real".

Personally I limit the use for artistic reasons. (And, my, doesn't that sound pretentious!) If your characters are always spouting four-letter expletives even when they're, say, ordering a cup of coffee or hurrying for the bus, what on Earth do you get them to say when you want the reader to understand that they are really angry or inconsolably upset (or just plain uncouth)?! Like everything else, extreme language is a tool for the writer to use but - if used all the time - it loses its edge very quickly.

i try to keep my comics relatively clean , like a disney movie or the old comic book code , that meens no sex drugs or monster guts .

Well, I have a lot of them, but I always keep them as "unwritten rules" because, well, you never know when the situation might come up where they're broken. But I DO have a couple particularly enduring rules I play by:

NO Star Wars or other "popular" or topical references

I do NOT think it's clever to take a scene or line from somebody else's comic/movie/video game and have my characters repeat it. Punk-Pink does have occasional references, but the story doesn't rely on them and they're tucked away in a manner that people may not even notice them until a second or third read-through. Also, nobody cares about the Michael Jackson trial any more.

No cursing

It's not that it offends me or anything, it's just that I don't think it's necessary for Bast to say "Give the fok up! This is a goddamn fight you can't foking win!"

that's um... a good question... because a wide range of characters also means a wide range of things... I suppose I could say I find toilet humour particularly offensive, but that's just me.

My characters, on the other hand... if they passed by a village and some random vase character was wallowing in his own refuse because he enjoys living with pigs then whatever right?

this world has a wide range of people and so to make my world seem varied I'd put in racists and misogynists and ppl with foot fetishes but I am REALLY against those things

My present comics each have their own rules.

Lesbian Pirates: no swearing or nudity, but innuendo is allowed (and encouraged!). Certainly no porn. Comic-style violence (nothing graphic).

YU+ME: minimal swearing when it makes sense, occasional tasteful nudity when it makes sense, off-screen sex. Nothing is really violent, but what little violence there is is comical or non-graphic.


But I can't speak for the rules of any future projects I may have. I've certainly drawn horribly graphically violent ones in the past with no problem, and someday, I would love to do some porno comics. They're comics. Nothing is really taboo in comics, because none of the people are real.

I guess there's a question of good taste, but everyone has different tastes. Who's to say what's good?

I'll pretty much tackle any subject if I think it can be handled in a semi-mature and humorous way. But I do actively try to stay away from toilet humor, sex jokes for the sake of being lewd and other things like being gratuitously disgusting. It's not that I necessarily have a problem with poop jokes or anything, I just feel that they're a bit cliched today and I'd prefer to try and bring a little more creative effort into what I make than someone falling face first into a pile of dung.

I avoid:

any and all cursewords
All human nudity (I have lots and lots of reptilian nudity)
All forms of Sex or sexlike behaviors.

I haven't yet used or needed innuendo, I don't THINK I'll need it, but who know...

I have also up to this point avoided the use of Puns. I hadn't noticed that before, but I don't have any puns yet. I think I shall try to continue that avoidance. (Which is odd because if you ask my wife, I use puns ALL the time!)

I like my comic to be viewed by as MANY people as possible.
I often say that it is:

"Kid safe, but adult funny."

lothar
i try to keep my comics relatively clean , like a disney movie or the old comic book code , that meens no sex drugs or monster guts .

LOL!!!!!!!

Yeah Theres nothing I wont put in KFK. Im actually thinking about changing the rating to adults only so i can use the word Fuck and draw this baby killing scene Im planning for book 2.

Currently, I'm trying to keep my comic more on the clean side. Other writing I've done in the past, has not. Right now its clean for a couple reasons:

First and foremost, the comic doesn't really call for foul language or situations-- Y'know? I mean, Han Solo, in all likely hood, would use the F-word non stop... if he were real, but he doesn't need to, and it works. So the same holds true for my comic. I'd just be doing it to do it...

Which of course, would make my comic needlessly less accessible.

Also, I have kids now, and if Daddy spends a crap load of his time drawing comics, they're gonna want to see them (before they're 14), so I'd rather be able to show it to them and share it with them. I think if it was my day job vs something I do in my free time, i might have a different perspective on this. My co-creator, who, at the moment isn't directly involved with production, also has kids, and is excited to see the comic in development, and probably would like to show it to his children as well.

Mastorism does use the word "ass" three times in the first chapter, and when I was at APE, I noticed that I a lot of kids interested in what I was doing-- a couple times I was asked if the comic was "appropriate" for kids by parents, which i feel it totally is (and frankly I think ass, on its own, is an okay word, but other folks don't), but I did have to explain that the word appears in there a couple times. One of my sons wanted to give the comics as birthday gifts to his friends, which again, we had to make sure it was okay with the parents.

Its such a pain in the... er... ass... since the comics is THIS close to being 100% clean, I regret ever using that mild swear word. In fact, I've already changed it to "butt" for digital distro on a kids site, and I will probably have that change apply to the next print versions (so get your limited edition ASS copies of Mastorism #1 right now at mastorism.com -- shameless plug), as well as the TPB a year or so from now.

We talked to another dude at APE, with the same situation. My wife bought a plush toy from him for our 2 year old, and she asked about the comic it was from, and he GAVE her the book, and she asked if it was appropriate to read to him and he goes, "well yeah... except ONE word in the whole book, and I regret ever putting it in there."

So I'm not against any words or subject matter in comics AT ALL, even my own, but for various reasons, I'm choosing to keep it clean for the time being.

comics is such a renegade art form lol. I love how parents still ask if a comic is "appropriate" for their child, but they feel perfectly ok letting them watch movies like 300 and buying video games like Grand Theft Auto. I guess READING the swear words is worse than HEARING it. hahaha good old parents.

The comic medium still hasnt recovered from the kefauver hearings lol.

I won't put:
- hardcore sex and violence. I'll put mild stuff. Like guy and girl doing it (but its not gonna go on and on for 10 pages). Or sexual innuendo dialog ("Oh... Don't you think that soldiers are sexier than priests? I think so... Cuz they got a big and long gun... hihihihihi...").
None of that tentacle rape hardcore BDSM kind of stuff. None of that Texas Chainsaw brutality kind of stuff.

- Gay stuff. I'm not anti-gay or anything. I just don't feel any motivation to draw that kind of stuff. Sorry I'm just not into that stuff.

- Pedophilia. The only pedophilia in my comics at the most is something that is implicated through the dialog. None of the horrible graphic stuff.

- Chain cusswords. Unless its necessary I don't put chain swearing. To me it only lowers the standard of the comic. Sorry.

- No naked Claudita. Whether you like it or not. The most I'll do is make her wear short shorts or short skirt. Thats it. You're not seeing her naked. lol!

NickGuy
comics is such a renegade art form lol. I love how parents still ask if a comic is "appropriate" for their child, but they feel perfectly ok letting them watch movies like 300 and buying video games like Grand Theft Auto. I guess READING the swear words is worse than HEARING it. hahaha good old parents.

The comic medium still hasnt recovered from the kefauver hearings lol.

Granted, APE was a mixed bag as far as what kind of stuff was on display there, so.. y'know fluffy bunny stuff is next to the pornographic necrophilia stuff... Its a valid question, I suppose. Also, with self publication and what not, there's really no true regulation of content (thank Zod!), so a lot of stuff that might seem okay on the surface could be anything really, inside. So I can dig the concern. I mean, you watch 300, you play GTA, you know what the rating is on that. You pick it up there's the rating right there on the box.

I think it was a harsher time when folks who wanted to put out more adult oriented stuff, and folks still perceived comics as a children's only format-- IE they viewed the "mature" stuff as an attempt get smut into the hands of children. Then you had all those "stings" on comic shops and obscenity charges.

So really, being asked if something is appropriate or not, i guess, is sort of a good sign that people are "getting it" that comics are a valid medium for all kinds of subject matter.

Well, no constant swearing, no pornographic images, and no sonic-look alikes.
That's about it.

Just more mature things.

mattchee
Also, with self publication and what not, there's really no true regulation of content (thank Zod!), so a lot of stuff that might seem okay on the surface could be anything really, inside. So I can dig the concern. I mean, you watch 300, you play GTA, you know what the rating is on that. You pick it up there's the rating right there on the box.

Not at DD. We have a rating system here. It's a self regulated system, which we oversee rather leniently, but if you get caught mis-rating extremely adult stuff as kid friendly you can get into trouble.

As far as what I won't do in any comic... Outright porn I guess. I have limits to how far I'd take violence too, for example I probably wouldn't draw someone getting turned into hamburger. I also doubt that I'd ever have the spine to draw a character getting raped.

ozoneocean

mattchee
Also, with self publication and what not, there's really no true regulation of content (thank Zod!), so a lot of stuff that might seem okay on the surface could be anything really, inside. So I can dig the concern. I mean, you watch 300, you play GTA, you know what the rating is on that. You pick it up there's the rating right there on the box.

Not at DD. We have a rating system here. It's a self regulated system, which we oversee rather leniently, but if you get caught mis-rating extremely adult stuff as kid friendly you can get into trouble.

True enough... Though, I was actually speaking specifically to the situation of parents asking me if my comic was kid friendly at the con.

I also wasn't saying that rating systems are bad either. They're extremely useful, actually-- just the MPAA style rating is what bugs me (addressing my "thank Zod" comment), where movies have to conform to certain standards just to get released. I remember flicks like Evil Dead 2 and Dusk Til Dawn had to use various colors of blood because if it was all red, then that wasn't ok for an R rating. Soooo..... you can have all this stuff happening, and blood everywhere, but if its RED blood... not ok? weak.

no over the top sappy shit.

obscenity doesnt really matter to me. there are times when i havent put things in becuase it made me feel uncomfortable to draw em, but fuck, i hope i offend SOMEONE out there. heh heh heh.

i look at Putrid meat like the fat kid that sits at the back of the class and throws shit atcha but gets YOU in trouble for it. i want it to be fun and interesting, but at the same time unpredictable and somewhat uncalled for cuase that's just the type of stuff i laugh at, and by the looks of it, other people do it. so i dont wanna say ill put a cap on anything. i just dont want it to get all sappy n emo.

words. har har har.

okay, on a more serious note...in any story of mine I usually don't put in sex or REALLY bad words. I use mild swears at times but don't use them egregiously, and um...I hate romance in general, so sex is just...no. though I suppose it could be implied in some characters' backstories, I'd never show it in-comic. that sort of thing.

I also don't do much violence, but that's more because I can't draw it well. I have fights and whatnot in my stories but they usually end abruptly or with some creative way. or the enemies are robots and something so they just spark and spew oil. XD;

What's crazy is that I'm like the only one among my peers that doesn't draw porn and ridiculously proportioned boobs and shit. Not that I'm morally against those things, it just not what I'm interested in drawing comics about. That and I don't want people wacking it to my comics! I want people to read my comics because they are brilliant, not because they cause errections...

I'm not into being gratuitous for attention, which is what I feel a lot of 'edgey' comics try to do. If a story requires a 'graphic' scene, there are ways of going about it without showing everything. That's the art of storytelling. It's like how in resivior dogs how everybody remembers 'seeing' the cop get his ear cut off, but in actuality the camera cuts away. Tarantino got a lot of flack for that scene, but mostly, everything's implied.

I'll never draw SD(superdeformed)characters. I hate when a comic is super detailed, and every character is realistically shaded, and then the next panel is this badly drawn, fat headed migit thing.

Daiconv
What's crazy is that I'm like the only one among my peers that doesn't draw porn and ridiculously proportioned boobs and shit. Not that I'm morally against those things, it just not what I'm interested in drawing comics about. That and I don't want people wacking it to my comics! I want people to read my comics because they are brilliant, not because they cause errections...

I'm not into being gratuitous for attention, which is what I feel a lot of 'edgey' comics try to do. If a story requires a 'graphic' scene, there are ways of going about it without showing everything. That's the art of storytelling. It's like how in resivior dogs how everybody remembers 'seeing' the cop get his ear cut off, but in actuality the camera cuts away. Tarantino got a lot of flack for that scene, but mostly, everything's implied.

I'll never draw SD(superdeformed)characters. I hate when a comic is super detailed, and every character is realistically shaded, and then the next panel is this badly drawn, fat headed migit thing.

Tarantino had this rep for being violent gory film maker, but really... his movies were more based on dialog than anything else. There were just one or two extreme moments which, like you said, happened off camera. Of course he did a good job answering the rep with Kill Bill Vol. 1 with all that (intentionally) silly over the top decapitations and whatnot. Ha.

But I digress.

What I really wanted to know is, what comic has disproportioned shit in it, and is is disproportioned to what the character ate, or the actual physical passing of said shit? (I'm a pun opportunist)

mattchee
What I really wanted to know is, what comic has disproportioned shit in it, and is is disproportioned to what the character ate, or the actual physical passing of said shit? (I'm a pun opportunist)

There are a lot of manga style comics that do that, and I don't want people to think I'm taking a shot at any title that does use SD. SD is cool, I just don't think it works for what I am trying to do. (I do love the giant screaming head thing, tho)

And I was just saying I don't like it when it goes from super realistic to super cartoony all in the course of one panel(unless that's what they're going for)

Hmm... sex scenes I guess, mostly cause ka-blam won't print anything that goes that far. I'm actually worried about one page, although I don't think I went too far there.

And too much gore. There is some (two heavier scenes, one with entrails and one with "brainstomping") but not that much. There's plenty of blood though. I don't know why, but I associate punching people in faces with fountains of nasal blood.

I don't think I'll be putting any fart jokes. Unless I'd find one that's really funny, but overall I view farting/vomiting/scat as a bit disgusting, so I'm avoiding these.

Other than that everything goes I guess. If I'm worried about a specific topic, I'll try to approach it from a different angle than I normally would.

There are certain plot developments that I wouldn't go for or too expository dialogue ...like for example characters lining themeslves up and telling who they are and what they do (thinking here about the opening of Secret Wars, haha). But these are storytelling choices, not content limitations.

Basically, I'm sticking to "mature readers country" as much as possible. Will I break these boundaries in any direction? Sure. I have a project that WILL cross into adult territory (and not going to touch that one until I have a backing of a publisher AND enough artistic skills to pull that one off)and also I've rediscovered random notes for something that might be an all ages fantasy tale. Assuming I don't end up with one of the supporting characters torn apart by a cow-sized demonic dog :)