Beau Smith-My Best Batman Face. I’m Serious.

by Beau Smith

Why is likeability and humor in pop culture/film/TV/comic books, and books looked down on?

I don’t mean outwardly hated, but more of a brush off backhand. Do you see an equal amount of Oscars, Emmys, Eisners, and other top awards going to works that are likeable, non-drama, even comedic? Nope. It’s not even close.

Batman. “I’m….So……SERIOUS!”

Serious drama has always been seen as the harder material to write or create, while comedy and light-hearted fare is seen as either easy or not worthy. In MY opinion as a writer, creator, and producer, that’s just not true. If anything, it’s harder to write and takes more work and thought. It’s harder to write for all ages and all gender, as the last 25 years in comics have shown writers and publishers (I add publishers to this because they demand more input to the stories than in the past. I’m not saying it’s a good thing, I’m saying it as a fact.). In a time when diversity is the war cry from the media, social or print, I really feel that we see less of it as a whole in one story or book. We see the straight ahead, sometimes constipated, drama of Batman or The Punisher, with little else but a grim one way street. Or we see a figure eight of slapstick with The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl. NOTE: I’m not saying these books are not entertaining or badly written. NOPE. I’m saying they are not as diverse as they could be. They are written for a niche audience/readership. Real diversity would be to have these characters, as they are, in one book, together dealing with life as it is thrown at us, with grim stuff and goofiness. I know as a human being, my daily life has both dark and light stuff every day. I would think fictional character would as well.

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.

I realize that not everyone in the world is likeable just as they are all not grouches, but we have a mix in our lives every day, all year round. Our comic books do not. It’s a Pick A Side World and it shouldn’t be like Facebook and Twitter come to life. If we all physically fought as much as we virtually fight on the internet, we’d all be too beat up to do anything else.

THE FANTASTIC FOUR. All Ages. All Genders.

I mentioned earlier the term, All Ages and All Gender. A quick example would be the work of Stan Lee/Jack Kirby’s Fantastic Four or Stan Lee/Steve Ditko Amazing Spider-Man and Chris Claremont/John Byrne X-Men. Easily all ages and all genders. Reading through those collections it would be hard to leave anyone out for the most part, but it’s pretty close. Granted, you cannot throw a net wide enough to catch everyone from 1 to 100, the same with gender, but you can make the characters likeable, and relatable enough to get a high percentage of readers to be entertained. We are humans first, we all share day to day actions and emotions to where we can expect the same from our fictional/fantasy characters.

Ant Man And The Wasp. Flying High And Getting It Right.

The Marvel Universe movies have been doing a top-notch job of making characters likable and relatable. Growing up, I never thought I would ever find Thor likeable, he pretty much had a one note personality. Now he is one of my favorite on screen Marvel characters. Same with Ant-Man, Wasp, Iron Man, and on the DC Universe side, Aquaman.

It can be done. It just needs to be done in comics.

Read this column once or twice, tell me what you think. Am I getting near right, or am I way off….In YOUR opinion. I gave you mine.

The Amazing Spider-Man. Greetings With Your Beatings.

Your opinionated amigo,

Beau Smith

The Flying Fist Ranch

@BeauSmithRanch Twitter and Instagram