A question for what kind of fantasy life you'd most like to be in:
{democracy:109}
Note that this isn't the kind of story you like the most necessarily, but which sort of world you'd actually want to live in. Discussion to follow ...
So, our choices are:
- Adventure comics: Rather than running around in spandex and a cape, these stories involve more jodhpurs and Colt .45 revolvers, giant man-eating apes, and jungle rescues of forgotten tribe princesses. I think these sorts of adventures are too close to reality, while not having a big enough pay-off, for me to want to live as an actual person. I'd much rather watch Indiana Jones race through a temple filled with spiders and snakes than do it myself.
- Fantasy comics: I did love "Warlord" and "Conan" comics as a kid, and the idea of being a big-thewed barbarian sword-slinger or a sinister magic-user is very appealing. I'd need to be in a more refined universe than Conan's though, or at least be one of the well-off. The problem with medieval-style fantasy settings is the crappy life of your average person. Very tempting though, for the chainmail bikinis if nothing else. Speaking of which, damn that must pinch in some very uncomfortable places ...
- "Funny animal" comics: Only if I get to be Bugs Bunny. If I could be Bugs Bunny, that would be totally awesome. Aside from kissing a cross-dressing Elmer Fudd, of course. Or having to cross-dress in order to be kissed by him. Either way, that would suck, but the Daffy Duck torture possibilities would hook me for sure.
- Horror comics: I'll be honest, I don't really get the appeal of horror fiction. Just not my bag.
- Mecha comics: Giant robots you can climb into in order to shoot at other giant robots, though -- sign me up.
- Romance comics: Um, no. This is a sub-genre that thankfully has stayed dead, and should remain so.
- Sci-fi comics: I love sci-fi, probably because I am cursed with the hope that the future will be better than the present. With my luck, of course, I'd end up as Soylent Green instead of Captain Kirk.
- Sports comics: We don't get a lot of this in the US, but I've leafed through some British sports comics and they're pretty fun. I like the idea of being a successful, rich, popular professional athlete in a world pretty much like this one ... yeah, I could do that.
- Super-hero comics: As much as I love super-hero comics, I don't think I'd really want to be in that world. We're always getting invaded, you're at constant risk of some flying muscle-bound idiot getting flung into the building you're passing by, and you never know when your parents are going to be revealed as secret Skrull agents. Too much bad stuff happening all the way around for me.
So boring as it is, at this stage in my decrepitude, I would probably go for sports comics.
Which would you choose?
I went with Superhero because that Genre tends to be a combination of several genres; Scifi, fantasy, Adventure, Mecha, funny animals, etc. I like to keep my options open.
Fantasy covers them all, so I picked Fantasy.
Sci-Fi is tempting. Though I have a hard enough time bearing a cross-continental flight much less an interstellar one. Though traveling through hyperspace (besides not being like dusting crops) seems to settle closer to a cruise ship experience than the airboard bus experience of modern airlines.
Superhero would be exciting unless you lived in Metropolis, how many businesses go bankrupt at each climactic battle from the Big Blue Boy Scout? It can’t be cheap to fix a supervillain-of-the-week sized hole in your office, but then maybe insurance companies cover that in those worlds. A non major city that didn’t always have supervillains attacking it would be nice, because I could get most of the superhero awing without the risks of falling debris.
Hmmm…I think I would still rather live in Mass Effects world than Superman’s…as much as I love superheros. it seems like the common man would have it a bit easier in that world.
I picked horror. I love reading horror novels, and I’ve been reading the comic version of “The Stand”. That would be an awesome world to live in, as long as you were one of the people immune to the super flu, and stayed out of Vegas ^_^
I was sad that Noir wasn’t a choice on the list. I know I’d love to live where morality is always a shade of grey done up in black and white. Not to mention all the woman are beautiful, the men generally rugged and common sense actually tending to lead in the right direction, at least the puzzle is one thats solvable by just being hyper aware/lucky.
Hey, guys, REMEMBER!
This one isn’t about what you’d like to READ about, but about where you’d like to LIVE! 😉
It was a tough call, between Sports and Mecha…
I figure (perhaps incorrectly) that the Medical services are going to be better in a Mecha comic, than in Sports, and I REALLY don’t want to tear my ACL!
And, hey, Obama’s NEVER going to come up with a Health Plan better than piloting a Bio-Booster Guyver unit! 😀
I’ve got to go with the Adventure comics, since I already date She Who Must Be Obeyed.
😀
For a normal person, go with a Superhero world. I mean, haw many times has Metropolis been torn down to bedrock, and everything is rebuilt and back to normal in just a couple of months? Sure, bad things happen, but they are highly localized, and easily rebuilt. If Doctor Doom had taken out the World Trade Center, it would have been back up in time for the next issue.
If I get to be the hero? Gimme ‘Mechs. Gimme the megadamage weapons and the melodrama. Give me a world where I just have to find the right guy to blow up to solve my problems.
I thought about picking Fantasy for a few seconds before I considered that since most fantasy stories are set in ersatz medieval Europe, I’d most likely be living out my days as a miserable downtrodden serf. So, superhero world.
Although it could be constant mayhem with invading aliens, maniacal villains and the constant threat of kryptonite, I gotta go with the Superhero world but I’d be the human the super person knows. As a part-time reporter, that genre fits right in. But I would want to wear a cape.
I’m still a sucker for magic, so I’d go for fantasy. Second best would be superhero comics – since there are wizards in them too – and possibly scifi – assuming there are powerful psions in it to substitute for magicians.
Robotech! I chose mecha, naturally. I was raised on Robotech and the original Gundam series, among others. At an early age, I played the Battletech (and Citytech and Aerotech) strategy boardgames. Give me a giant, arsenal-toting mecha and you will see a very happy monkey.
Superhero. Why you may ask? Because, even with all the danger of dying and of increased odds of being kidnapped,vaporized, mind controlled and having your apartment destroying there is a very very low chance of actually dying.
How many peoples have died and stayed dead in the Superhero world? Not many. I would just work as hard as I could to become best buddies with a hero so that my chance of dying and staying dead was decreased and my odds of gaining wacky superpowers would be greatly increased.
I go with the Superhero world.
@Jeff: I was surprised when you said you don’t like horror fiction. You never liked The Witching Hour, House of Mystery, or the EC horror comics? I admit I don’t want to live in a world in which the dead can come back and eat me, but I enjoy reading about it and watching it in the movies. Is it the gore you don’t like?
I’m not sure what it is Danny, it just hasn’t ever done it for me. I don’t HATE it or anything, but I don’t particularly find the stories all that interesting or entertaining. I mean, we’re all going to die eventually, that’s one of the only things we can all absolutely count on, you know? So why get all worked up about a fear of death, which is what horror comics essentially come down to.
Super-hero comics, while they can be serious and deal with real issues (including death) are more about things that we will NEVER see, new things, interesting things. I just don’t find death all that interesting, because I know for sure it’s something I’m going to have happen to me sooner or later.
The “torture porn” aspects of it frankly just leave me puzzled, stuff like the Saw movies and such. I like boobs as much as the next healthy hetero male, but covered in rotting flesh or dripping with blood? And people being mutilated and brutalized for the heck of it? I just don’t get it.
Having said that, I totally am fine with people who do enjoy the genre, it just doesn’t scratch my particular itch.
I wanted to go with Fantasy but I realized I didn’t want to live without indoor plumbing as much as I’d enjoy the chainmail bikini’s!
As such, due to the fac it can cover everything out there, I went with Superhero.
I said fantasy because that covers the D&D and SCA.
@Jeff- There are comics that fall into the horror classification that have some real touching heart warming stuff going on to remember. Things like the “Walking Dead” series dealing with people overcoming the horrors around them to try and maintain something close to normal despite it. Still very much a zombie comic, but where the author decides to focus makes it into so much more.
My vote’s for funny-animal sci-fantasy. ‘Nuff Said? I think not.
Romance, cuz it’s the only chance I’d ever get to have a relationship 🙁
Nobody has voted for sports. What does that say about us? 😉
Well, we do spend a lot of time on the computer and like comics…Are you really that suprised that no one here wants to live in a world that revolves around sports?
Nope, not surprised, just saying 🙂
The only sport I’d qualify for is freakin’ sumo wrestling and I ain’t wearing a diaper! LOL
Superhero, the DC universe if given the choice. Anything that ups the chances of getting a Green Lantern ring…
Although if I got to BE one rather than PILOT one, mecha would be tempting. Especially if we’re talking transforming mecha here.