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COMICS vs YA: Come the fuck on (RANT)

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I read Sabriel when I was twelve. Picked it up in the YA section and it really wasn't any more dense than any of the other stuff I was reading from the same shelf. So I'm not sure what you mean by it being too hardcove fantasy?

Never heard of Billy Boyle though.

Genres are pretty fluid so it doesn't really matter anyways but if I think of a good fantasy novel to recommend to a 12-14 year old, Sabriel is the top of the list.

I just felt like it dumped a bunch of fantasy type stuff with the seven gates of the underworld or whatever and all of this like spirit-like stuff with very little room to breathe that I couldn't really be bothered to immerse myself with because it felt so overwhelming.

The other reason I quit out was that I was like halfway through and it still felt the novel hadn't really started yet--there was a conflict, kind ? But Sabriel didn't know what really happened to Abhorrsen and neither did the reader so it felt like it hadn't gotten completely through the exposition before jumping into the action. Based off of what I read on Wikipedia it wouldn't have shaken that feeling until very late in the novel, right before the climax.
 
1) you're not wrong
2) this is why Harry Potter was the best everybody dug it

Any time anybody slags a thing that fourteen year old girls like I always roll my eyes. It's so lame to set yourself up as superior to fourteen year old girls. It's especially silly when people don't realize that the pop culture they like (comics, action movies, anime) is trashy pulp.

The difference between comics and YA is that comics are a medium and YA is a genre within a medium.

Kind of. He's clearly talking about Superhero Comics and sci-fi/dystopian YA: i.e. the space within each that goes bestseller and gets turned into blockbuster movies. We're not talking about Love and Rockets or Winter's Bone here.
 
The difference between comics and YA is that comics are a medium and YA is a genre within a medium.

I have a feeling the OP is only talking about one genre of comics. I don't think he's ripping on things like Walking Dead, or Road to Perdition, or A History of Violence, or Snowpiercer, or even Men In Black.
 
I just felt like it dumped a bunch of fantasy type stuff with the seven gates of the underworld or whatever and all of this like spirit-like stuff with very little room to breathe that I couldn't really be bothered to immerse myself with because it felt so overwhelming.

The other reason I quit out was that I was like halfway through and it still felt the novel hadn't really started yet--there was a conflict, kind ? But Sabriel didn't know what really happened to Abhorrsen and neither did the reader so it felt like it hadn't gotten completely through the exposition before jumping into the action. Based off of what I read on Wikipedia it wouldn't have shaken that feeling until very late in the novel, right before the climax.
Hmm, maybe it's because technically Sabriel isn't the first novel in the series? Lireal was written first and is quite a bit longer so might introduce all the concepts at a better pace.

Simple concept that is creepy as all the fucks
And the movies kind of let Percy Jackson down. The world building in those books is outstanding.

Never heard of it before. :O I haven't really picked up much YA (except in comics) in quite a while. Actually, the last YA novel I read was the first Percy Jackson, and while I really like the concept, it didn't grab me enough to continue right away. Adding The Knife of Never Letting Go to my to-read list. Thanks!
 
Hmm, maybe it's because technically Sabriel isn't the first novel in the series? Lireal was written first and is quite a bit longer so might introduce all the concepts at a better pace.




Never heard of it before. :O I haven't really picked up much YA (except in comics) in quite a while. Actually, the last YA novel I read was the first Percy Jackson, and while I really like the concept, it didn't grab me enough to continue right away. Adding The Knife of Never Letting Go to my to-read list. Thanks!

might give lireal a second chance if i get the time.

and the knife of letting go starts out real unlikeable, but within a few chapters you won't want to put the book down. it's really grim and shocking though, so don't expect to be delighted much.
 
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Here is good YA lit.
 
I think to understand the phenomenon you have to consider the emotions each are based upon and how maturation effects those emotions.

Superhero comics are power fantasy where the driving emotions are aggression and resolution through violence dynamics.

The kind of YA novels you're describing are romance oriented, focusing on the dynamics of love, attraction, and how they're reconciled.

Most people never really experience maturation in how they deal with feelings of aggression and violence. This is why action movies can be so low brow yet still appeal to adults, especially adult men.

Romance on the other hand is something most people grow to have a more complex, nuanced view of than what is depicted in YA novels. It simply becomes unrelateable to mature adults. As a result it is much easier to trivialize and/or criticize.

Our relationship with aggression and violence as entertainment is relatively similar throughout our life. Our relationship with romance and love matures substantially as we get older, so in order to pass the "smell test" a story needs to be more layered than what a teenager is looking for. As a result it is easy for emotionally mature adults to watch an action moviie and think "I have a mature viewpoint on media, I enjoy this action movie, therefore there must be significant subtext that makes this more than just action movie schlock." Alternatively it is just as easy to watch a movie based on a romantic YA novel with as an emotionally mature adult and roll your eyes incessantly at how trivial and trite the depiction of emotion is and pick the movie apart afterwards.
 
I think girls are just in general likely to be a lot less aggressive about things they don't like. Not saying it's like that for all of them, but you don't see them actively making fun of dudes for liking comic books the same way men get mad at Twilight or whatever.
 
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