We figured the audience would want good stories, great art, wonderful characters, people you could fall in love with that we would immediately put through hell.
Chris ClaremontRead
People try to pigeonhole comics by saying they're just for kids. So is The Odyssey. So is the Labors of Hercules, the story of Fa Mulan. The advantage of those stories over the contemporary ones is that they've had 2,000 years of editing. All the crap has been weeded out over time.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Comics are often dismissed as children's entertainment, but like classic stories, they contain depth and meaning.
Chris Claremont's quote highlights the common misconception that comics are solely for kids, drawing a comparison to classical literature like The Odyssey and the Labors of Hercules. He emphasizes that these traditional stories have been refined over centuries, suggesting that comics, too, can contain significant narrative quality and should not be pigeonholed in a limited genre.
Themes
ComicsStoriesArtLiteratureNarrative
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the value of graphic novels in education, this quote can illustrate their literary depth.
More from Chris Claremont
All quotes →The key isn't winning -- or losing, it's making the attempt. I may never be what I ought to be, want to be -- but how will I know unless I try? Sure, it's scary, but what's the alternative? Stagnation - A safer, more terrible form of death. Not of the body, but of the spirit. An animal knows what it is, and accepts it. A man may know what he is -- but he questions. He dreams. He strives. Changes. Grows.
Chris ClaremontRead
Creative life should be more than preaching to the converted, more than going for a core audience of 100,000 people. It should be taking risks, challenging the readership and having enough faith in one's own talent and craft to take readers on that ride.
Chris ClaremontRead
X-Men has always been about finding your place in a society that doesn't want you.
Chris ClaremontRead
My desire as a storyteller is to always catch the readers off guard; to give them something they aren't expecting, and take them in a direction that is satisfying in the here and non.
Chris ClaremontRead
Comics deal with fundamental archetypes. We've been called the myth-makers of the modern age.
Chris ClaremontRead
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