Talk:Superhero comics

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The idea of starting this article has been kicked around a few times over on WT:CMC and it seems a good idea to me. I have flagged this over there and you can find links to previous discussion about the best way to approach expanding this entry (and tightening up superhero). (Emperor (talk) 20:51, 18 December 2009 (UTC))[reply]

I would suggest we can probably split this whole section out and move it to here: Superhero#History of American superheroes in comic books. Might be a bit brutal for a while but I think the main article will benefit from not being weighed down by this history of American superhero comics. (Emperor (talk) 04:41, 19 December 2009 (UTC))[reply]

I agree with Emperor's latter post. Much of the material that would appear in an expanded, comprehensive version of this article would simply duplicate large portions of comic book, American comic book, Silver Age of comic books, and, most obviously, superhero. Given that, I believe it makes sense to simply include a paragraph within comic book, and have it include a link to the superhero section he mentions.

Additionally, we need to show care that this section not play into the unfortunate and uninformed tendency by some to call "superhero" a genre, which it demonstrably is not — there are superhero dramas, superhero comedies, superhero mysteries, etc. I could continue with additional backup for this, but that would be like providing backup for saying, similarly, that poker is not a sport. -- Tenebrae (talk) 20:33, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's not what I'm arguing. I'm saying we should split that large section out of superhero and move it here, as I've mentioned a few times on WT:CMC, in relation to comic genres - and yes for all intents and purposes it is a genre.[1] There is a suggestion it is a sub-genre of the action genre (although that link is black listed) but it is more flexible than that (as you mention) and is more like horror (in that you can have space horror, psychological horror, horror westerns, comedy horror (even rom-zom-coms ;) in fact you could say the same about westerns as there are Space Westerns and Science fiction Westerns, the fact that a genre can combine with another isn't an argument against it not being a genre). In fact there is even a book called Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre. It is enough of a genre that there is debate whether it is or it isn't (Grant Morrison suggests it might not be [2], although in another interview he is happy to talk about what draws him to the superhero genre [3]). (Emperor (talk) 02:43, 21 December 2009 (UTC))[reply]

Hi, Em. Sorry I misinterpreted, and I do appreciate the depth and thought of your reply. Slate is definitely a mainstream source, though I can't tell whether MonkeyBrain Books is a traditional publishing company or a subsidy press. I do think we'd need to see some agreement in the academic press, though, and not just a few examples in the popular press before declaring a new genre. More and more people take Wikipedia as a serious, encyclopedic source. That's getting to be a big responsibility. -- Tenebrae (talk) 03:48, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think the Coogan book definitely qualifies as a mainstream source. Coogan is a respected academic. As his Wikipedia article notes, it "is generically distinct, i.e., can be distinguished from characters of related genres (fantasy, science fiction, detective, etc.) by a preponderance of genre conventions". What has the academic discussion of the existence a superhero genre to day on it? There is definitely a trend or at least a common critical practice to refer to superhero comics as a genre. For example, A David Lewis' paper on Gaiman and Watchmen, "The Nightmare and the Dream: A Literary Survey of Watchmen and Sandman," presented at the Comics Studies Conference in 2000, makes repeated reference to the "superhero genre." ([4])

I agree that there are superhero stories, in comics form and elsewhere, that also function as comedies, etc. But I think I side with Emperor in arguing that these are really mash-ups of two or more genres rather than already-existing genres (ie, comedy) that happen to feature superhero characters. Maybe the initial definition of this article needs to be expanded beyond "a comic book featuring a superhero". Yes, they are a vaguely defined "form" of comics, but superhero comics are also a genre, akin to and incorporating aspects of many other literary genres, such as the thriller, adventure, etc. Maybe a more exact title for the article would be "Superhero adventure comics" but there is very little in the literature that discusses this as a specific genre. There ism however, plenty of discusion of superhero comics (and superhero movies) as a separate genre.--Gothamgazette (talk) 23:48, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WorldCat Genres

Hello, I'm working with OCLC, and we are algorithmically generating data about different Genres, like notable Authors, Book, Movies, Subjects, Characters and Places. We have determined that this Wikipedia page has a close affintity to our detected Genere of superhero-comics-books-strips-etc. It might be useful to look at [5] for more information. Thanks. Maximilianklein (talk) 23:53, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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