When you're wandering through a Wal-Mart looking for an item and you've just gone into the outside garden area because someone "saw them out there last time," that is exactly the wrong moment for a Muzak version of the "Twilight Zone" theme to start playing over the fucking PA system.

How was your evening?

I've been bitching a lot recently about the trend for comics to be a lot more mature than they should be. When looking through a recent Wizard article (which is my one guilty pleasure mag purchase–I don't know why I still buy the goddamn things) about the upcoming big "shakeout" that 52 is supposed to bring to the DCU, I was stunned about how much death, suffering and sex was involved.

I was reminded of this when I read the latest Comic Shop News. Here's Gail Simone talking about her upcoming Secret Six limited series, the follow-on to Villains United, which had an entire issue where the main characters were tortured:

"Plus, one of DC's most famous villains gets naked. In fact, lots of people get naked. Sometimes with each other…"

And it finally sank home. The reason why DC doesn't need to put a Mature Readers tag on comics that feature rape, murder, mutilations and torture, is because only mature readers read this shit. No kids pick up DC Comics anymore. When was the last time, honestly, you saw a kid with a DC comic in their hand? Or a Marvel comic, for that matter?

It's not that I mind characters getting nekkid. But do you remember when that was reserved for Vertigo? Instead, it's all over the DCU now. For all the whisperings about Wildstorm getting put into the DCU, I'm surprised they haven't dropped Vertigo altogether. After all, can you tell any difference between the imprint and the mothership?

Gail Simone knows she's writing for aging fanboys who have long wanted to see Cheetah and Catwoman mud wrestle naked. So sure, why not call it "Villains Gone Wild!" Comics have given up on trying to get an audience that will outlast this generation. So party while you can, people. Enjoy how cutting edge and daring you're being. You're digging the industry's grave.

One of the things I do is keep an eye on YouTube. It's like panning for gold, in that you get approximately as much stuff worth watching as you do gold in some random stream. As I was scanning down through the latest bits, like looking into some strange alternate universe in which "LOL" has been transformed into meaning "This is some really amazingly unfunny shit," something struck me:

Thank the gods we didn't have YouTube when we were kids.

Why? Because look at what's on YouTube. I'm fairly certain that 90% of the stuff on there is created by kids from the ages of 10-15 who are at home with some form of digital camera and proceed to take footage of them dancing, or acting stupid, or something. Then they post it with the warning "This is lame, but I'm posting it anyway." And they're honest kids, because it's lame. Not even their mom would find this stuff amusing in that cute "Oh, I've given birth to a mutant but I have to love them because those are the rules" kind of way.

Why should we be grateful? Because we would have been doing the same goddamn thing.

Think about all the stupid VHS movies you shot when you were a kid. All the dumb photos. All the dumb drawings, even. All those things that you have either sought out and destroyed or have been lost in the depths of time. All those things that you can't believe you were stupid enough to actually record in some form or fashion. If you had YouTube at that time in your life, you would have put all that shit on YouTube. And you know it.

Anyway, so. There. Something to be happy about.

I haven't been here in a while because I've been working under the hood at Needcoffee. And throwing content up there like mad. I've got some more stuff coming over here and not just when I'm so pissed off I can't see straight (see the T-Mobile rants). So thanks for your patience. LOL.