text:
EXCL. PREVIEW: "Hal Jordan & the Green Lantern Corps" #1 Enforces 'Sinestro's Law'
Comic Books
"I see Robert Kirkman has joined the Erik Larsen 'Do as I say, not as I do' club when it comes to the content in mainstream super hero comics. Guys, you've got all the freedom in the world to do whatever kinds of comics you want, and so do we. It's unapologetically ironic that the guy publishing INVINCIBLE, probably the bloodiest, goriest super hero comics in years, is the one casting these stones. And yes, I know he tries to contextualize it, but it's still 'Do as I say, not as I do.' If you want those kinds of comics, MAKE THEM! I think it's absurdly hypocritical to publish a violent book that looks like an issue of Teen Titans on the racks, then take this stance. And just to be clear: I like both Robert's and Erik's work. Never miss an issue of WALKING DEAD or INVINCIBLE."
— Marvel VP-Executive Editor Tom Brevoort, responding to Robert Kirkman's complaints about the violence in Big Two superhero comics
I have a few thoughts on this:
1) It pains the yellow journalist in me to have to include the conciliatory bit at the end there, but I'm all about ethics.
2) As I told Brevoort over Twitter, I think both the hyprocrisy angle and "If you want those kinds of comics, MAKE THEM!" is a bit unfair. Let's say Jay-Z wants to hear a good country song every now and then — should he stop rapping? Kirkman seems much better suited to what he's doing with Invincible and The Walking Dead than to traditional Big Two supercomics, but that doesn't pre-invalidate his opinions on those comics, opinions that ought to be allowed to rise or fall on their own merits. Attack the idea he's advancing, don't go the pot/kettle route. Well, at least don't do it over Invincible, which as a creator-owned book Kirkman made up from scratch is pretty different kettle of fish. But Marvel Zombies, on the other hand…
I hate Tom Brevoort, but he makes an excellent point. Kirkman is a hypocrite, which to me, pre-invalidates his ideas.
…and let the irrational Kirkman bashing begin!
You HATE Tom Brevoort? Really? Like, not just dislike his work or policies, but outright HATE him? Wow…
It's not hypocritical. Invincible has one tone, Teen Titans has (or should have) another. This was the lesson no-one seems to have learned from the 90's: taking Comic A and warping it's tone, concept and characters beyond recognition in hopes of attracting fans of Comic B does not work in the long term. You get a short uptick in sales, then they lag as the fans of Comic B realize they already have what they want in Comic B and stop buying Comic A. Meanwhile, you've poisoned the well of Comic A and it's once-loyal fans have departed, leaving you with a net loss.
For example, I enjoy Ultimate X-Men and Ultimates. They sit in their own little sandbox and it doesn't touch other aspects of the Marvel Universe. Even though I like them, it would disturb me greatly to open the pages of the regular Avengers book and see someone cannibalizing Wasp, for example. Such a thing would be jarring and out of place in the regular Avengers title whereas in its own little universe, it is not.
I'm usually not one to see eye to eye with Tom Breevort – his tendency to stir the pot when it comes to the competition gets real old – but I'll have to side with him on this one. It's kind of like the pot calling the kettle black in Kirkman's case, especially considering the work he's done at Marvel. Granted, the man's allowed to have an opinion, but it seems kind of an odd stance to take when you routinely write the goriest books on the market not under the MAX imprint at Marvel.
"Guys, you've got all the freedom in the world to do whatever kinds of comics you want, and so do we."
Well, no, Tom, you don't, and you know it. Kirkman does, though.
"I think it's absurdly hypocritical to publish a violent book that looks like an issue of Teen Titans on the racks, then take this stance."
It's either idiotic or disingenuous to compare INVINCIBLE with TEEN TITANS, of all things, which has gone through, what, twelve different "regular" writers over the last few years until DC was suitably happy with the "tone" to let one do more than two issues in a row.
If that doesn't support Kirkman's point, nothing does; the point being, obviously, that INVINCIBLE is Kirkman's comic, and no Tom Brevoort or Dan DiDio ever get to fuck with it.
Yes, Kirkman's books are gory, but the characters within them are not relentlessly marketed to kids the way characters like Spider-Man and Batman are, though all the licensed product out there.
That said, I think the situation is actually a LOT better than it has been in the past. Yes, the main-line books are not appropriate for kids a lot of the time, but it's not like Marvel and DC don't each have a line of books targeted to kids featuring their characters (though DC's just got a little smaller), not to mention TONS of affordable B&W reprints of older stuff. Each publisher also has a nice line of picture books for young readers, as well as kid-appropriate cartoons. So it's totally possible for kids to enjoy the characters in an age-appropriate way.
Do I sometimes wish the main-line books weren't so adult in places? Sure. But the companies are addressing it here and there with alternatives.
I have a much bigger problem with, say, the way "Dark Knight" had tons of licensed toys for the kiddos, tied in to a movie there's no way they should have been watching.
MAYBE, the solution is, if there IS a need for good all ages type comics that don't SUCK, the companies should be RECRUITING TALENT WHO CAN AND WANT TO WRITE THOSE?
I'm in my 30s, and I read mostly adult audience comics, but I also LOVE and pick up Tiny Titans and Batman Brave religiously. No children in my life, they're all for me alone.
If you find creators who can do the work, without it seeming like a chore, or who just don't "get it" you'll wind up w/ awesome comics that'll get buzz and get people reading.
Chances are both Larsen & Kirkman could do all ages books if they wanted to, but because it's not where their heart it, it would come out limping and lazy. That's the thing w/ creator owned stuff, yer hearts got to be in it, cuz no one is cutting you a check at the end of the week.
There's companies out there who spend a lot of time recruiting talent, maybe they should focus more on finding the next Baltazar and less on the next Johns clone (Krul?).
Any talent that the Big Two get to do all ages books will just be criticized by Kirkman for working for the Big Two. Just look at his most recent comments about talent going through a cycle of characters. The Big Two will always be wrong in his eyes, no matter what they do.
Brevoort is such a tool. Kirkman is not making similar comments to Larsen at all. Kirkman's original comment ended with something to the effect that the big difference is that when he does bloody/gorey books they are creator owned and they have always been bloody/gorey. Spider-Man (Kirkman's original example) has historically not been that type of book, yet all Marvel and DC books are slowly going that way which is completely contrary their original tone.
@Chad – I have to say that I completely disagree with your comment that in "no way" should children watch "Dark Knight." I think a bigger problem in society is the babying of young kids and their only entertainment being complete mindless fluff (like Alvin and the Chipmunks or most other kid movies, with few exceptions). "The Dark Knight" provides the portrayal of a moral code that is honarable and should be strived for in their adulthood.
Folks, let's see if we can talk about Tom and Robert without literally calling either of them names, as befits us all being grown-ups, not third-graders.
@comicsaredead Let me clarify — when I'm talking about kids not watching Dark Knight, I'm thinking about elementary schoolers like my son and his friends. Moral code or not, there is some violence in that movie that would give them nightmares for weeks.
And yet, while it was out, the toy aisles at Target were filled with figures from that movie.
I guess Kirkman would have a point if not for the fact that Marvel does currently publish several fantastic all-ages titles. Marvel Adventures Spider-Man & Superheroes are the best Spider-Man & Avengers books on the stands right now and they're enjoyed by both me and my seven year-old every month. Along with that Marvel has an all-ages Thor book and several minis every month. Yes, Amazing Spider-Man is targeted at an older age group, but that's part of publishing, you write to your demographic and most comic readers these days are decidedly over 18. However, for those young fans that love Super Hero Squad, there's a comic for that. To say that a publisher should not create The Dark Knight Returns simply because it's not for children is foolish. Batman, Spider-Man and Superman can all be used to tell a myriad of stories over all age groups and there are comics being published today, right now that play to each of them.
Whenever Brevoort has something to say I know it's like whenever Larsen says something: Not well thought out, very general and is the equivalent of starting a flame war online. I'm not a fan.
I still think it's ENDLESSLY easier to make something like Invincible where you don't have to fit it into any shared universe or have any creative limits or have any content limits than something like, oh, Kirkman's pretty poor Marvel Team-Up book (which is actually easier than writing, let's say Cable or Captain American or something where you have even more limitations).
On the other hand, considering how wretched Teen Titans has been content and gore wise over the last few years, maybe that's not the best example for Tom to bring up, unless it was ironic.
That said, I think the situation is actually a LOT better than it has been in the past. Yes, the main-line books are not appropriate for kids a lot of the time, but it's not like Marvel and DC don't each have a line of books targeted to kids featuring their characters (though DC's just got a little smaller), not to mention TONS of affordable B&W reprints of older stuff. Each publisher also has a nice line of picture books for young readers, as well as kid-appropriate cartoons. So it's totally possible for kids to enjoy the characters in an age-appropriate way.
I disagree. The situation isn't getting better, it's getting worse. When the Big 2 have to create a SMALL (more like microscopic) and separate imprint in order to tell new "all ages" stories featuring their heroes, then you know the problem is getting worse. Also, why should the only mainstream MU and DCU books young kids can have to be old reprint stories. 10+ years ago before Quesada became EIC, and 25+ years ago before DC fell in love with the asinine non CCA approved "mature" baxter paper format, MOST MU and DCU superhero comics were both suitable for and appealing to kids/all ages. Those books were written in a LAYERED all ages manner that appealed to readers of various ages on various different levels.
Man… that Robert Kirkman guy sure is a jerk!
@comicsaredead – Are you kidding me? There is no way a kid (say 9yrs old) should be watching "Dark Knight". You don't introduce ADULT concepts to Kids, they have to grow into it.
I think Kirkman is right, mainstream comics should't be "dark". Thats not what most comic characters are about. Keep the mainstream, mainstream a.k.a all ages. You can always publish darker comics under imprints like Marvel Knights, Vertigo, etc.
PS It is a bit disengenous of Kirman to have a teen hero in the mold of spiderman and have it be so graphically violent. If you walk into a comic store and look at the cover, most people would think Invincible is an all ages book.
Dammit, Robert, what did I JUST say???
Perhaps the reason Brevoort responded to Kirkman's comments was that Kirkman was criticizing Brevoort, specifically. From Kirkman's quote:
You know, Marvel just did an intercompany crossover which was supposed to be something all of their readers can read, and it had guys ripping each other in half and intestines were flying all over the place.
I don't want to see Spider-Man swinging around, tripping in intestines going, 'Aw, crap! What a mess!'
But that's what did happen in SIEGE #2. Would Brevoort argue that the "Ares is ripped apart" pages were just incidental, weren't the highlight of the issue, and weren't promoted as such? Some readers responded excitedly by speculating about who else the Sentry might rip apart; other readers were appalled.
If Brevoort had been able to promote SIEGE on the basis of its importance, its quality, or a number of other aspects, he might have done so. But it was crap, Brevoort undoubtedly knew it was crap, and the promotion of "The Heroic Age" rendered the outcome of SIEGE practically meaningless.So, he promoted what he could, which included having a guy ripped apart.
If Brevoort were in a job which required him to promote books mainly on the quality of the writing, I doubt that he'd know what to do.
@Blade X I'm not saying the current situation is ideal (I did mention that I wish the main lines weren't as adult in spots), but I'm sorry, things ARE better than they were a few years back, and I say that as a dad. There are entire lines of comics and young-reader books featuring super-heroes available for kids, and that wasn't the case a few years back, when Joe Q was claiming that kids didn't read comics. What you call a microscopic line, I call PLENTY of monthlies that elementary schoolers can read, given that kids don't have unlimited budgets and that they re-read their comics again and again.
And what's wrong with reading older comics? That was a steady part of my diet when I was younger.
Do things still need to improve? Sure. I imagine the pre-teen years are a bit trickier when it comes to superhero comics, and I for one would love for there to be more kids' superhero comics aimed at young girls and featuring female heroes. But things ARE better.
It sounds like you're arguing a different issue — that the main-line books should never have gotten away from all-ages storytelling. That's a different issue entirely, and no matter how much you and I might wish it could happen, I don't think that genie is ever going back in the bottle.
And of course, there are TONS of kids' comics these days that have nothing to do with superheroes, from Boom's Disney comics to Owly, to Bone … and on and on.
While I agree with Kirkman's sentiment, the thing is this: kids don't want to read kids comics. The trick is to let kids think they're reading a gown up book, when secretly it's entirely all-age appropriate. Kids know when they're getting watered down b.s.
"While I agree with Kirkman's sentiment, the thing is this: kids don't want to read kids comics."
Not sure I agree with that. Depends on the kid, and depends on the comic. Also depends on what you mean by "kid," age-wise.
It sounds like you're arguing a different issue — that the main-line books should never have gotten away from all-ages storytelling. That's a different issue entirely, and no matter how much you and I might wish it could happen, I don't think that genie is ever going back in the bottle.
Chad, that is exactly what I'm arguing. Up until Quesada became EIC, the over whelming majority of Marvel superhero titles LAYERED all ages comics. Once Quesada became EIC, the language,violence,and sexual content in those books suddenly got ratcheted up. Fast forward several years later, and Marvel now has to create a separate "all ages" line with a small number of books that are specifically aimed at kids (often times talking down to them). Now thereare exceptions, and some of Marvel's recent all ages comics are not only pretty damn good, but are not labeled "all ages" and are written in a LAYERED manner so as not to talk down to the readers. These recent LAYERED all ages comics are SPECTACULAR SPIDER-GIRL (and all of the other MC2 mini series),X-MEN FOREVER,X-FACTOR FOREVER,BIG HERO 6,X-MEN: FIRST CLASS,NEW EXILES,NEW MUTANTS FOREVER,WOLVERINE: FIRST CLASS,WEAPON X: FIRST CLASS,and THOR: THE MIGHTY AVENGER.
I'm thinkin' 6-up.
While I agree with Kirkman's sentiment, the thing is this: kids don't want to read kids comics. The trick is to let kids think they're reading a gown up book, when secretly it's entirely all-age appropriate. Kids know when they're getting watered down b.s.
You hit the nail right on the head. That is why pre Quesada Marvel books were such a huge success with people of all ages. Those books were written in a LAYERED all ages manner that did not talk down to the readers and handled mature subject matter in a tasteful and subtle manner.
I said it before, and I'll say it again, pre Quesada Marvel comics is how to do a true LAYERED all ages comic.
Marvel Zombies is a different story since it was an off-shoot of an Ultimate universe story and was kinda intended to be out-of-continuity. As far as I know, Kirkman's in-continuity Marvel work doesn't go nearly as far as his creator-owned work, so Brevoort's comments seem out-of-turn to me.
Marvel Zombies is a different story since it was an off-shoot of an Ultimate universe story and was kinda intended to be out-of-continuity. As far as I know, Kirkman's in-continuity Marvel work doesn't go nearly as far as his creator-owned work, so Brevoort's comments seem out-of-turn to me.
You are absolutely right. His MARVEL TEAM UP book was, for the most part, suitable for all ages.
he said if you want violent comics than DO WHAT HE DID and make them as a seperate title, don't bring them into mainstream superhero comics. Kirkman is only a hipocrite if he get assigned The Avengers and has Thor uses his hammer to bust through the guts of a villian. It's not about one type of comic vs the other, it's about WHEN to do one type over the other. For mainstream superheroes, keep the blood out. You want blood, start your own title, don't bring it a franchise that's been around for decades. People really lack the ability to read closely. If you are going to make a comment on what someone says, read the damn details, don't just get the gist.
>Man… that Robert Kirkman guy sure is a jerk!
Yeah, that's what I said.
Tom B
"Kids don't want to read kids' comics" is the kind of thing said by people who don't have any kids. My 11- and 7-year-old sons *love* Little Lulu, Plastic Man, Captain Marvel, Tiny Titans, Jeff Parker's Marvel Adventures books, Bone, 60's Marvel and classic comic strip reprints, among other age-appropriate material. They never ask for comics with more intestines. Like any reasonable reader, they want *good* comics.
Here's more of Tom B's comments on this subject from his twitter page. I hope Tom and the poster who asked him the question mind me pasting there comments here on this thread.
"I asked about Kirkman's comments. Not saying you should make comics just for kids, but shouldn't you make them for the widest audience possible? Was a time when adults and kids could enjoy the same comics. I can't see kids enjoying most modern comics.
Depends on the kids, I think. It seems to me that most people who make this argument are really pining for the kinds of comics that they loved when they were young (and often for the kinds of comics that they themselves would never buy.) Nostalgia for the past is nice, but we need to sell comics in the present, to a 21st Century audience, not to somebody's rose-colored-glasses version of what they think might work. For all that, though, Marvel publishes a whole line of age-appropriate super hero material in what was once called the Marvel Adventures line, books that should be enjoyable for both kids and parents. But not every comic book is for every reader–can't be. We try to make books for the widest possible audience, sure, but that doesn't mean that every release can be targeted that way, because people don't all like or want the same thing."
There a huge difference between the pre Quesada "layered all ages" CCA approved Marvel comics from the past and the current all ages MARVEL ADVENTURES books. What Tom B and many of the pros currently working for Marvel (and DC) either don't seem to realize or want to admit, is that unlike the MA books, those past pre Quesada Marvel comics were able to deal with a wide range of subject matter (and tones) and still remain both suitable for and/or appealing to people of ALL AGES (young kids,tweens,teens,and adults).
What I have enjoyed since Kirkman's initial remarks and now Brevoort's response is that I'm actually seeing some folks speak up about the fact that super-hero comics by the big two really have hit some serious low points these days. And here I thought I was the only one!
I'm not advocating that Marvel and DC turn all their book s into Super Friends or Marvel Adventures type books. But I do wish more superhero comics felt a lot more super these days and less vile and grotesque. The sense of wonder and adventure that these types of comics had before is missing now and I think readers young and old alike are losing out. I understand that as a generation or two hung onto to the notion of reading the comics they grew up with that more progressive storytelling was called upon to keep that audience, but I often feel let down that "progressive" or "mature" storytelling merely amounts to more violence, more depravity, more twisting these characters from the spirit they were created in, and no one seems to see that that is a dead end for these books. The race to the bottom of the barrel has been on for decades, and I fear as the downward spiral continues readers won't be able to tell a mainstream superhero book from the new issue of The Boys.
I am not someone who is squimish about violence, I have spent a lot of my life trying to understand violence and the effects of violence. My problem is it's damn easy to show violence in comics, but why don't we see the consequences of that violence more often? Well, that's something else these days. I remember when I was a kid and Colossus snapped the neck of Riptide during the events of the Mutant Massacre it effected him. It stuck with him, haunted him. It's what I have seen my father suffer with his entire adult life after his experiences during the Vietnam War. We've seen in every DC event heroes of ordinary people just torn apart or butchered and it ends there. We get the gore, the crime scene as it comes to life, but rarely the aftermath. Murder destroys lives, rape has a permanent and terrible impact on victims, genocide ruins generations, war devastates and demoralises the psyche of the fighting man… so if we're going to see these things in comics, especially our superhero comics, then treat us truly like adults and show the consequences. If you want to tell adult stories, then be adults about it. Make it real.
Superheroes shouldn't be tramping through intestines and saying "What the &*%^?" I think Siege was massively disappointing on these fronts. I just don't understand why the style of storytelling that Marvel once employed to tell the Kree/Skrull War couldn't be used today? Is the audience today really so different? Is there no interest in having some sense of wonder and adventure be at work in superhero comics today? And honestly if the villains get any worse in these books while the heroes are looking more and more useless, I fear we will eventually have every one taking a page out of Daredevil's playbook to deal with their adversaries. When villains are killing the entire population of a city neighbourhood, super or not, who's going to want to see a heroic response to that kind of act?
I think Kirkman's right in that he created NEW CHARACTERS to do the type of stories he wanted that weren't recognisable to comics readers young and old, but honestly Kirkman's Marvel Zombies is something that I think never should have been published if Marvel had any real sense of maintaining the image of their characters or properties as they see them, so he's just as guilty of poisoning the well.
I think this is why as I get older I appreciate creator-owned properties more and more because there is a consistency to not only keep the character selling but to keep them true to the spirit they were created in, and that is something Marvel and DC have traded in over and over and over and over again throughout the years for the quick cash of short term sales spikes, capturing that elusive new reader who comes for the shocks and awe of this hot comic or that twisted extreme relaunch that eventually falls flat. Even a guy like George Lucas, who many people think is all business man, would never sell out and force Star Wars Zombies upon the world.
I need to stop this rant now. I just wanted to contribute my two cents for what it's worth.
Kirkman may be self-serving (he did, after all, have a column called "Buy My Books", so that shouldn't be a shock to anyone) but his point is crystal clear, right or wrong, and Brevoort in the above argument is being willfully obtuse. Then again, as the old saying goes, you can't make a man understand what he's paid not to understand. It's too bad, because there are better arguments against Kirkman.
For me it boils down to a fundamental difference of opinion over the basic nature of the marquee Marvel and DC superhero properties. Marvel and DC, as arms of global multimedia companies, obviously see them as malleable concepts they can tonally readjust to fit all kinds of audiences, be it sunshine and corny jokes for kids in their TV cartoons and under-supported kids comics lines, and all rapey-arm-rip-offy for the jaded, adult direct market audience that Brevoort is chasing. A different Spider-man for everyone, hands in your wallet from cradle to grave. Conversely, Kirkman seems to believe that the characters only really work as they were originally constructed–power fantasies for 5-12 year-olds. In my experience, this traditionalist attitude is especially prevalent among people who grew up reading Code-approved books. I'm in that cohort.
While talented creators can make anything sing (I love me some Brubaker Captain America, Pak/Van Lente Hercules, etc,, and I wouldn't let my kids near 'em) I think Kirkman is generally correct. All these years, hype, mega-events and desperate idol chasing later the defining quality of all the Millars, Johns, et al, is that They Ain't No Miller or Moore. And tellingly, the old guys did their relatively experimental, edgy "adult" superheroes pretty far out on the fringes–Swamp Thing and Daredevil were C-list cancelbait, not in-continuity Superman and Spidey.
Looking at the silly horror movie carnage in a typical current month's worth of books starring former Super Friends and their boy sidekicks, I personally think we've lost more than we've gained, but given how the currents of superhero comics and their market have developed/withered over the past 30 years, you are *never* going to get a Brevoort to concede that. The man's job is premised on the opposite proposition. Of course he's going to argue for maximum flexibility to maximize sales on the properties he's running fort he direct market audience as it is now, and against some Silver Age ideal, in the name of a general audience whose disappearance (and there's more than enough blame to go around) chased comics from the newsstands to begin with.
…and I see that someone has posted an except of Tom B. on Twitter making exactly the argument I just posited. Sorry.
One last thing in defense of Kirkman's argument: The Big Two strategy to create kids, all-ages and mature audiences versions of their characters does raise real issues, whether those companies' editors have any incentive to acknowledge them or not. The willingness to publish hyper-violent, her-entrails-taste-like-chicken comics for teens and adults featuring characters created, historically published, and still pushed on TV for children does not automatically justify itself, simply because 20,000 adults are standing in a line with money in their hands, and you go to the direct market with the emotionally retarded readership you have, not the one you want. Smoke up, Johnny! Disney would be hard-pressed to justify a line of cartoons featuring barely legal versions of Ariel, Jasmine and Belle experiencing the Disney version of getting raped on the Justice League satellite, or dying from radioactive Spider-sperm.
More important issue: In that stock photo of Tom Brevoort, I always imagine that's a guitar strap. It really does look like a guitar strap. Is Tom wailing away on some sweet Van Halen solo in that particular shot? Because that would be SO boss.
Here's a question I would like to see Quesada,Brevoort,and the other Marvel editors answer.
Why is it OK to show on panel bloody and gory violent scenes,having cuss words (ass,bitch,and bastard),and some strong sexual innuendos in all of your A,T+,and PARENTAL ADVISORY books, but it's not OK to show your heroes or supporting cast smoking?
Pretty well-trod at this point, I guess, but…yeah, you can oppose violence in some superhero comics and applaud it in others. It's pretty cliche to go straight to Watchmen, but it IS a bit of an obvious example — and would it really have been a better book if it had used the Charlton characters instead of creating analogues?
If I pick up Punisher or Wolverine, I expect to see people getting shot or cut up — that's okay, it's what those characters are about. But a Spider-Man comic where the Lizard eats his son? Thaaaat's kind of another story. What's so hard to understand about "It's okay if that happens in Invincible, but not in Spider-Man"? It's a pretty clear distinction.
I've seen some good recommendations in the thread for all-ages superhero books; I haven't picked up much in the way of Marvel Adventures but have liked what I've read, and I haven't bought Batman: The Brave and the Bold but I love the cartoon. The Muppet Show is my current favorite all-ages book, and I think I might have to check out Langridge's work on Thor (though I'm more interested in his art than his writing).
PS: Hi Kirkman & Brevoort.
Thor is good so far, and Samnee's art is its own kind of fantastic, but if you're looking for more great Langridge art, his Fred the Clown, collected by Fantagraphics, will knock your socks off.
Brevoort shouldn't assume that readers complaining about current comics are driven by nostalgic memories of what they read as youths. If he does some research on writing, he'll find that stories written for young adults must meet the same quality standards as those written for adults. The differences lie in the subject matter, the ages of the characters, the grade level of the text, the sophistication of the themes, etc.
As Blade X has pointed out, Marvel's comics in past decades were suited for all ages. Preteens could be entertained by the artwork and the action; YAs and adults could be entertained by the storylines, the artwork, and the craftsmanship displayed by the creators.
None of the changes made in the superhero comics by Marvel in the past several years, such as masked curses, sexual innuendos, decompression, or reclassifying supervillains as terrorists, has actually improved the storytelling. The changes seem to be aimed at ignorant readers who are embarrassed at the thought of reading "kiddie books," Pandering to the lowest tastes out there risks alienating the long-time readers while failing to retain the ignorant ones.
SRS, I think the Comics Code, a 30-year aberration in which modern Marvel was born and initially flourished, has really colored perceptions of what mainstream comics "should" be. To some extent, the comics you describe were that way because they *had* to be. Before the code, there was a lot more nakedly exploitative sensationalism, albeit in a somewhat more culturally restrained environment. From the earliest comics which were the stepchildren of tawdry Spicy Detective style pulps, to the gory excess of Crime Does Not Pay, the EC line and their many lesser imitators, there has been a deep, serious strain of comics as pretty purile (and in many cases, pretty awesome) entertainments.The first criticism I ever read, at age five, was Jules Feiffer's essay in The Great Comic Book Heroes where he explains that *of course* comics were junk–that's why kids liked them so much.
Where this gets tricky for me is that I think too often the Big Two today implicitly embrace the sleazy pre-code roots of comics as a rationalization for the entrail-fests. The editors of supermarket tabloids probably don't spend a lot of time beating themselves up over how they're contributing to a coarsening of the culture–they're just stoking and filling a demand for celebrity gossip.
The problem for the Big Two is that their overall business model depends on them having their entrails and eating them–they want to exploit Batman–inescapably conceived as a character intended for kids–as a property for 5-year-olds and for modern, violence-saturated 35-year-olds. And while, as Grant Morrison says today in his LA Times interview, that kind of conceptual flexibility is amazing (not to mention exciting for marketers), it's also potentially problematic. Like Kirkman said, while his books are violent, they are his own characters, and he doesn't market the books to children–there's no history of Walking Dead Jr. or Lil' Invincible. DC and Marvel can't say that, and it's not enough for them to brush it off. Although at this point it's clear they won't address it.
Didnt Kirkman say dont make mainstream comics, i.e. Supes, Bats, Spidey, gory and violent ripping dudes in half business? He didnt say dont make gory superhero comics, he said if you wanna make em gory then create your own superhero to do that. Breevort is a moron and I dont understand how he, or anyone else who doesnt actually READ statements made about comics on the internet, could possibly is such a douce.
Again, and I'm directing this to Lloyd but it applies to everyone, calling people names instead of simply addressing their arguments makes you, the namecaller, look so much worse than the namecall-ee. Why should I take you seriously if you can't behave better than a kid at recess? Please take the five extra seconds necessary to compose a post that isn't childishly belligerent.
None of the changes made in the superhero comics by Marvel in the past several years, such as masked curses, sexual innuendos, decompression, or reclassifying supervillains as terrorists, has actually improved the storytelling. The changes seem to be aimed at ignorant readers who are embarrassed at the thought of reading "kiddie books," Pandering to the lowest tastes out there risks alienating the long-time readers while failing to retain the ignorant ones.
You hit the nail right on the head.
SRS, I think the Comics Code, a 30-year aberration in which modern Marvel was born and initially flourished, has really colored perceptions of what mainstream comics "should" be. To some extent, the comics you describe were that way because they *had* to be.
That may have been true in the early years of the CCA, but by the late 70′[s early 80's Marvel (who at that time, had a line of non CCA approved magazines that were aimed at teens and adults) did not have to follow the rules of the CCA if they didn't want to.
@ BladeX –point taken, but the adoption of the comics code was like a big rock dropped in a pond; the further out you get from the center, the weaker the waves, but those ripples determined the flow even as they slowed down and eddies formed–well into the early 1980s. While the code became far less restrictive over time, the mores it advocated, and the potential story elements it curtailed, shaped mainstream (and the reaction of the underground) comics even after the companies no longer had to stick to the letter of the original code in order to get distributed.
You know, the main thing I'm getting from all of this is a lot of people's opinions on what comics SHOULD or SHOULD NOT contain, mainstream or otherwise. These are personal opinions, of course, but I'm starting to see a few too many cries for censorship within the mix, and that's rather unsettling.
Look…comics are such a wonderful media, in which you can have whomever or whatever in any setting imaginable doing whatever else the creative team wants to depict. There are ranges and choices for anyone out there that wants to bother reading something amazing, or looking at something great, or both. There's room for everyone at the table, here.
Mr. Kirkman and Mr. Brevoort are only doing what we do here on the silly internet: voicing their opinions. Obviously, Mr. Kirkman wasn't pleased with being looped into a constant corporate circle, being told what to write and who he could use and whathaveyou. He made the descision to move on, and do his own awesome thing with WALKING DEAD and INVINCIBLE, and is obviously really, really successful with it (that whole TV show deal…). But the fact is he does indeed create what appears to be a bright, colorful Superhero book which is, as has been said, "What if Spider-Man was Superman's son?", and such a book might catch a few people offguard when suddenly there's a super-person flying literally through another person, blood-n-guts abound. However, in Kirkman's defense, INVINCIBLE, while being a wonderful book and deserving of all the high praise it gets, is most certainly not a mainstream, major inter-promotional, company-wide crossover, and the closest it's come to even pretending to be so was with its "Guardians Of The Globe" promo images. Kirkman's corner of the comic book industry is what it is, an amazing thing, but of course he isn't as big as Marvel or DC.
Marvel's SIEGE, on the other hand, was indeed promoted all-over the place as a game-changer in Marvel, that shouldn't be missed by anyone that's even slightly a fan of Marvel comics and characters; and in the second issue a lead character tore another lead character in half, blood and intestines everywhere. The mistake in this case, was that Marvel chose to have this be a total surprise, in that the book wasn't labled "Mature Readers", or had a "Parental Advisory", or anything like that. They went for shock, and they got it, but at the expense of many a jaded, head-shaking reader who was tired of seeing ultra-violence leak into their comfortable, superhero world. Right or wrong, had Marvel at least warned the masses ahead of time that something brutal may happen within the pages of SIEGE, the backlash against might not have been so bad, and at the very least they couldn't be totally blamed for promoting such things to children, even though I seriously 100% doubt that was their intention.
My opinion is, there's room enough for everyone and everything in this industry, and both Kirkman and Brevoort should both realize that and I'm sure they do. As far as responsible publishing practises, I'm not a corporate mucky-muck, I'm not "in the business" outside of being a fan, I'm not really in a place to make these judgments. However, appropriate labeling and cautions, while just saying such things will no doubt raise hell with the Trust Fund Anarchists out there, can be helpful and in some cases just should be in place. Acting responsibly and for the greater good can only help the comic book business as a whole, and there's never anything wrong with that.
Good day to you all…
I think Robert's point has been missed in pretty spectacular fashion, by everyone from Tom Brevoort on down. All he's saying is that books like Spider-Man and Superman shouldn't focus as much on adult themes, but that writers seems intent on doing, because of their own interests.
Robert's suggestion (going back to his "manifesto") is that "mainstream" Marvel and DC titles should be suitable for a general readership and that if a writer wants to deal with more mature themes, do that in his/her own work. As he has done in The Walking Dead and Invincible.
Books like Frank Miller's Daredevil or Walt Simonson's Thor weren't necessarily "kids books," but they certainly weren't so adult that parents would think twice about letting their teens or tweens read them. Today's comics seem geared almost solely toward an older audience.
Or as Matt Fraction's Casanova once put it: "The last comic I read, there was a lot of rape and crying. Kinda harshed my boner for fun, you know?"
Kirkman is criticizing MAINSTREAM superheroes dealing with rape and violence and such. He doesn't want to see SUPERMAN dealing with rape, or SPIDER-MAN tripping over guts.
Why you may ask? Because those guys have mass appeal to children who may pick up their comics on a whim. Kirkman admitted that invincible is violent and that he doesn't have a problem with "superheroes" dealing with violence. It's the fact that invincible is not a book that would have any appeal to children, like a Spider-man or Superman book would have, that makes it ok.
In conclusion, Mainstream Superhero comics and gratuitous violence not ok, non mainstream comics and violence ok
Seriously Breevort and like half the commenters on this site have not read Kirkman's original quote. There should be no argument here.
I agree wholeheartedly with Eric Stephenson. I don't want to see any type or storytelling disappear from comics, whether, I like it or not, because there are others out there that do. I just wish that Marvel and DC could have maintained a code to treat their mainstream super-heroes in a consistent manner and if they want to have books that are full of more mature content have it take place in lines like Vertigo or Icon. A perfect example of this is Watchmen. I am glad DC didn't have Moore use the Charlton characters, and ultimately I think the tale is better for it!
I guess I get hot over this topic because of trying to sell comics each week because (thankfully!!!) we are seeing more and more families coming into the shop. But it's rough trying to find a Ghost Rider comic safe for a kid, or trying to explain why parents should buy these comics and stay away from these comics when both have the same characters plastered across the cover. For my own tastes, I love reading the new Superman, but I look forward to books like Criminal too. And fortunately, I don't have to worry about a parent picking up Criminal at the shop and ever mistaking it for something appropriate for their 10 year old. I do have to worry about them picking up a comic like Ultimatum though.
Someone needs to ask Tom Brevoort what all ages past comics from which past era are we seeing through "rose tinted glasses".
yes, kirkman et al are absolutely right. we should totally go back to the 80's and marvel and dc should publish awesome all-ages comics that everyone loved. then all the kids AND adults will buy them, doubling all their circulation numbers. its so simple it's mindboggling why it hasnt been done before. i mean, besides the fact that now you have cable tv, and xbox, and the internet, and that no kid is ever going to purposely by a floppy comic book book with his or her own money ever again, but other than that, its TOTALLY a sweet strategy.
Ok. For me, here's the difference in the usage of gore in the two examples (Seige and Invincible). In the former, you don't expect it so it's a much much bigger deal. It's only in one scene in one issue but becomes a massive talking (and selling point) because it's left in. This is not the creators straying from the path the book should be-it's a one off moment. With Invincible however, it's a little gratuitous as it happens every other issue. Don't get me wrong, I love Invincible-but the gore in Seige was a lot more unexpected and shocking as a result-which leads me to less is more, not the grass is always greener..
Anybody with me here??
"PS It is a bit disengenous of Kirman to have a teen hero in the mold of spiderman and have it be so graphically violent. If you walk into a comic store and look at the cover, most people would think Invincible is an all ages book."
But that's the point. Somebody can simply flip through Invincible off the shelf and tell that it isn't meant for kids . . . unfortunately, that same person would flip through an issue of Spiderman and come away with the same impression.


text:
Pine Nut Sticks
|1⁄4 Ounce (1 Package, Active Dry/Compressed)
|Warm water
|2⁄3 Cup (10.67 tbs)
|Anise seed
|1⁄2 Teaspoon, crushed
|Olive oil
|2 Tablespoon
|Salad oil
|2 Tablespoon
|Grated lemon peel
|1⁄4 Teaspoon
|1 Teaspoon
|1 Tablespoon
|All purpose flour
|2 1⁄2 Cup (40 tbs), unsifted
|Pine nuts
|2⁄3 Cup (10.67 tbs)
|1 , beaten
|Coarse salt
|2 Tablespoon
Dissolve yeast in warm water; add crushed anise seed, salad oil, olive oil, lemon peel, salt, sugar, and 1 cup flour.
Beat until smooth.
Add pine nuts and another 1 1/4 cups flour, or enough to make a stiff dough.
Turn out on a floured board and knead until smooth and elastic (about 5 minutes), using additional flour as needed.
Place dough in greased bowl, cover with damp cloth, and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.
Punch down, divide dough in half.
Cut each half into 20 equal-sized pieces; roll each piece, using palms of hands, into a 7-inch length.
Place parallel on greased baking sheets about 1/2 inch apart.
Cover and let rise until almost doubled, about 30 minutes; brush with slightly beaten egg, and sprinkle lightly with coarse salt.
Bake in a 325° oven for 30 minutes, until lightly browned.
Recipe Summary
Rate It
Nutrition Rank
Nutrition Facts
Serving size
Calories 161 Calories from Fat 75
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 9 g13.3%
Saturated Fat 0.8 g4%
Trans Fat 0 g
Cholesterol 14.1 mg4.7%
Sodium 794.7 mg33.1%
Total Carbohydrates 18 g6%
Dietary Fiber 0.86 g3.4%
Sugars 1.3 g
Protein 3 g6.9%
Vitamin A 0.4% Vitamin C 0.32%
Calcium 0.8% Iron 8.1%
*Based on a 2000 Calorie diet

subset: commoncrawl


text:
An accident involving three motorcycles killed two and injured three Saturday morning on State Route 341, also kown as Geiger Grade. Marcella Corona/RGJ
Two motorcyclists died and three were injured in a three-motorcycle wreck Saturday morning on Geiger Grade, according to the Nevada Highway Patrol.
The wreck occurred around 9 a.m., about 1 mile uphill from the 7-Eleven on Geiger Grade, also known as Nevada 341.
The road was reopened to traffic shortly after 2 p.m., NHP spokesman Sgt. Frank Hernandez said.
Initial reports indicate one motorcycle was traveling from Virginia City down to Reno and the other two were going the opposite direction. One bike crossed the center line, which spurred the crash, Hernandez said.
The eastbound bikes were driven by two men, Hernandez said, and each had a female passenger. The drivers died at the scene, and their passengers were transported to area hospitals. The driver of the westbound motorcycle also was taken to a hospital.
All drivers and passengers were wearing helmets, Hernandez said. Driver's licenses and license plates indicate that all were Nevada residents, he said.
No names or injury details were released Saturday afternoon.
Hernandez said Saturday evening it was unclear which motorcycle crossed the line, but it might have been one of the two headed eastbound. The investigation was complicated by evidence from another recent accident in the same spot, he said.
However, he pointed out that he wasn't the lead investigator and might not have the most current information as his shift had ended a few hours before.
Further information wouldn't be available until Monday, a Department of Public Safety dispatcher said Saturday evening.
Reno and Virginia City are hosting the Street Vibrations Spring Rally this weekend.


text:
How can I make my environment variable (set in batch file) visible in application executed right after setting this envvar?
Here's the scenario that I use:
In my external script (not quite important here) I create Windows shortcuts to jpg files, with the target looking like:
%MYPHOTODRIVE% should contain just a current drive letter.
I start IrfanView using the following BAT script (script is located in the same directory as all the .lnk files):
set MYPHOTOSDRIVE=%cd:~0,2% "c:\Program Files\IrfanView\i_view32.exe" "i:\private\photolinks\photo001.lnk" "c:\Program Files\IrfanView\i_view32.exe" /slideshow="%cd%"
The problem is that neither the single image, nor a slideshow (for the second call to IrfanView) is executed properly.
Shouldn't this "MYPHOTODRIVE" variable be expanded to a proper value upon Irfan execution? Doesn't it get the same environment as the parent script?


text:
5 myths broken about Surbhi Jyoti
Barun Sobti and Surbhi Jyoti Working Together in a web series titled Tanhaiyan
Another actor to make an exit in Yeh Hai Mohabbatein?
Would she be back or is this it? Pavitra Punia
The Conscience
What would happen when you fall in love for the first time? Everything would be so perfect but What will happen if you realize that HE, Loves SOMEONE else? To what extent can you go for love
#TRPtoppers - Top 10 shows of the week based on TRPs!
Check out which shows topped the TRP charts this week. Take a look as we list down the shows that are most loved by the audience!
young age love part 2
arnav:kushi u r age 17 this is not love just attraction.
SS: Broken Strings
My take on delicate relationship of a son and his parents
TS: I love your heart
Its a two shot on Arshi where they clear their misunderstandings..peep in to know more
Full Circle: The Longest Season of Darkness
What will you do for your family, your loved ones? Will you sacrifice everything? Your only hope for happiness for them? Will you walk to the ends of darkness for justice..
arshi SS: di is happy(is she?)
How long will arnav fulfill his di' wishes
Selfless Love.
A different story on Arshi. Peep in to know more.
Barun Sobti is in Kolkata with Panchi Bora – Find out why!
Barun Sobti and Panchi Bora to act together in a coming-of-age film 22 Yards!
OS : With You ..... Hamesha
After kidnapping track when ArShi returned home safely, Shyam blaming on Khushi and Khushi trying to prove her innocence
Farah Khan joins Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa
Reports of Bollywood's known choreographer turned dancer Farah Khan replacing Ganesh Hegde has been making news since morning.
Arshi Song : Jag Ghoomeya ( Movie Sultan)
Arshi Song : Jag Ghoomeya ( Movie Sultan)
Yeh Hai Mohabbatein 28th July 2016 Written Update
Yeh Hai Mohabbatein 28th July 2016 Written Update
Barun Sobti looked cute during his childhood days?
Barun Sobti looked cute during his childhood days?
Ek Tha Raja Ek Thi Rani: Raja to kidnap Rani and torture her!
Raja to turn evil and kidnap Rani thereby exposing his true face!
Vishal Singh to be the new Naitik of Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai?
Vishal Singh is almost fixed to be the new Naitik Singhania on Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai
Remembering the legends of Stand Up Comedy!
Those were the good old days!
Shagun's evil side to get exposed in front of Ishita in Yeh Hai Mohabbatein!
Ishita will catch Shagun red-handed in the coming episodes...


text:
Sad news for fans of legendary and influential Kiwi rock bands The Chills and The Clean: as reported yesterday by New Zealand music blog Off the Tracks, the founding member of both bands Peter Gutteridge died over the weekend. No cause of death has been reported so far. According to Flying Nun, he was in his early fifties. In addition to being instrumental in creating of the unique sound of The Clean and The Chills, the guitarist/singer/songwriter was also a force behind the NZ bands Snapper, The Great Unwashed, and The Puddle. All were a part of the Flying Nun Records label family. The prolific Gutteridge, who coincidentally just in the past month made his first visit to the US for a concert in Brooklyn, only recorded one solo album, Pure, which was initially released in 1989 by Xpressway as a cassette tape but was re-released late last year by 540 Records on vinyl and CD. It was this album that he drew extensively from during his recent US concert. Both The Chills and The Clean were among the top ten artists included in the recently published Billy Gil Amoeblog 10 Classic New Zealand Albums post. Below is a track off Gutteridge's sole solo album Pure.
There's nothing to signify the leaves changing color the wind getting crisper than some cool jangly rock 'n' roll. L.A.'s Dream Boys deliver that in spades on their self-titled debut (check it out on CD or LP). Songs like "Sometimes" breeze through with shimmering guitars and sweet, swoony harmonies, calling to mind a post-punk Byrds or Southern Californian Stone Roses. Few bands dig into this sound so thoroughly, with a wonderfully patient, languid quality, making Dream Boys a standout record even among a crowded field.
I sat down for a minute to talk to these dreamy So. Cal. boys about their somnambulist sound.
PST: It's hard to find out much about you guys from the Internet! Why don't you just tell me in brief about yourselves—when did you form, why did you form, who does what in the band, and are you native Angelenos or from other parts?
Wayne Faler: We formed a little over a year ago. There are three songwriters. Band members are Wayne Faler and Wallace Meek on guitars and vocals, Will Ivy on bass and vocals, and Mike La Franchi on drums. Mike is from the Northern California. Wallace is from Scotland, Wayne is from Michigan, and Will is a Southwest guy via San Francisco. We formed the band after meeting while playing in other bands. We wanted to combine a certain set of influences that really spoke to us and present them in a more modern way.
A 1980 interview with a bunch of new bands based in Auckland by the old New Zealand rock mag Rip It Up posed the question, "How would you most like the audience to react to your music?"
All the bands interviewed answered that they liked it best when the punters hit the dancefloor...except Chris Knox, the peripatetic vocalist for Toy Love. His response? "We'd rather stun them..."
Done and done. Over their all too brief two-year life, the South Island band were the best in the country by a long shot, packing pubs and slaying the hundreds of people who packed in to see them.
The band put out three singles and one LP before splitting up in late 1980. Their impact was monstrous in NZ, directly influencing the formative years of the country's premier indie label in the '80s, Flying Nun.
Brooklyn label Captured Tracks has just released a vinyl document of Toy Love's recorded output, an eponymously titled double LP comprising the best of the LPs and singles, along with other recorded material and demos. Your writer was an unabashed fanatic; I saw all but one Toy Love show in Christchurch, and a bunch at other places around the country.


text:
1 Review
Very good! We made this omlette for dinner and it turned out wonderfully, and I liked that we could make it with all local ingredients. Since kids were eating it, I substituted a mild pepper for the hot one, and sprinkled a little cheese on the top near the end. They loved it! Instead of flipping it back and forth on the plate, I just stuck the whole pan under the broiler for a minute just to finish cooking the top. I'll be making this one again!


text:
Crowd rallies behind Lancaster physical education teacher
LANCASTER — Feelings ran high among the 60 or so members of the public who turned out at WMRSD board meeting on Monday evening seeking a way that would allow fourth-year non-tenured P. E. teacher to continue.
To improve the chance of seeing your comment posted here or published in the New Hampshire Union Leader:
- Identify yourself. Accounts using fake or incomplete names are suspended regardless of the quality of posts.
- Say something new, stay on topic, keep it short.
- Links to outside URLs are discouraged, if used they should be on topic.
- Avoid comments in bad taste, write well, avoid using all capital letters
- Don't cite facts about individuals or businesses without providing a means to verify the claim
- If you see an objectionable comment please click the "Report Abuse" button and be sure to tell us why.
Note: Comments are the opinion of the respective poster and not of the publisher.Be the first to comment.
Post a comment
You must sign in before you can post comments. If you are experiencing issues with your account please e-mail firstname.lastname@example.com.


text:
Maxell CD-391 Double Slim Jewel Cases - Clear, 5 PackItem#: YYI1-T37882 | Model#: 190130
Currently Out Of Stock!
You May Consider This Alternative
Additional Resources
MAXELL DOUBLE SLIM 5PK Product Details
- Each case holds 2 discs
- Store 2 slim cases in the space of 1 standard jewel case
- Self-hanging feature
Related Items
Manufactured by: Maxell
Warranty provided by: Maxell
UPC No: 025215191879
Mfg Part No: 190130
Box Size:
( Length:0, Width:0, Depth:0)
Shipping Weight: 0.4500 pound(s)
Click here for full warranty and support information
- Maxell logos are registered trademarks of Maxell. All others trademarks and copyrights mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.


text:
Definición de source rock en inglés:
source rock
1A rock formation from which later sediments are derived or in which a particular mineral originates.
Oraciones de ejemplo
- The geometry or shape of individual grains appears to be a property inherited from the original crystals of the silicate minerals in the source rock.
- Because the quartzitic gravels and progenitor source rock are notably heterogeneous, the resultant fulgurite glass likewise is demonstrably variable, as seen by the range of colors, textures, and swirled banding.
- It has been suggested that fluvial and lacustrine source rocks were locally deposited in grabens created along the transtensional edges of these rotating microcontinental blocks.
1.1A sediment containing sufficient organic matter to be a future source of hydrocarbons.
Oraciones de ejemplo
- However, permeability barriers may also inhibit the migration of oil and gas from the source rock to the hydrocarbon reservoir.
- The lower limit of intermediate-burial diagenetic settings, and thereby the upper limit of deep-burial diagenetic settings, is defined as the top of the liquid oil window in hydrocarbon source rocks.
- The Ara Group has a high hydrocarbon potential and contains carbonate reservoirs, organic-rich carbonate and shale source rocks and evaporite seals.
For editors and proofreaders
Saltos de línea: source rock
Definición de source rock en:
¿Qué te llama la atención de esta palabra o frase?
Los comentarios que no respeten nuestras Normas comunitarias podrían ser moderados o eliminados.
Muy popular en Reino Unido
Muy popular en Australia
= de moda


text:
Other border states shun Arizona's immigration law
Published on Wed, May 12, 2010
New Mexico's governor says it is a step backward. Texas isn't touching it. And California? Never again.
Arizona's sweeping new law empowering police to question and arrest anyone they suspect is in the U.S. illegally is finding little support in the other states along the Mexican border.
Among the reasons given: California, New Mexico and Texas have long-established, politically powerful Hispanic communities; they have deeper cultural ties to Mexico that influence their attitudes toward immigrants; and they have little appetite for a polarizing battle over immigration like one that played out in California in the 1990s.
Published in the Associated Press | Read Article
Make a Difference
This is your chance to take a stand and help us fight for immigration laws that respect fundamental constitutional principles of fairness and reflect our proud history as a nation of immigrants. Please support us today.
In The News
Read Our Blog
Read the latest in immigration news at ImmigrationImpact.com, with new articles published every weekday.
Text FACTS to 51555 to get the latest posts sent right to your phone.


text:
Real Adaptation Is As Politically Tough As Mitigation, But Much More Expensive And Less Effective At Reducing Future Misery
Rhetorical adaptation, however, is a political winner. Too bad it means preventable suffering for billions.
We basically have three choices: mitigation, adaptation and suffering. We're going to do some of each. The question is what the mix is going to be. The more mitigation we do, the less adaptation will be required and the less suffering there will be.
That's the pithiest expression I've seen on the subject of adaptation, via John Holdren, now science advisor. Sometimes he uses "misery," rather than "suffering."
Frankenstorm Sandy, like Katrina, provides many lessons we continue to ignore, such as Global warming "adaptation" is a cruel euphemism — and prevention is far, far cheaper.
I draw a distinction between real adaptation, where one seriously proposes trying to prepare for what's to come if we don't do real mitigation (i.e. an 800 to 1000+ ppm world aka Hell and High Water) and rhetorical adaptation. The latter is a messaging strategy used by those who really don't take global warming seriously — those who oppose serious mitigation and who don't want to do bloody much of anything, but who don't want to seem indifferent to the plight of humanity (aka poor people in other countries, who they think will be the only victims at some distant point in the future).
In practice, rhetorical adaptation really means "buck up, fend for yourself, walk it off." Let's call the folks who push that "maladapters." Typically, people don't spell out specifically where they stand on the scale from real to rhetorical.
I do understand that because mitigation is so politically difficult, people are naturally looking at other "strategies." But most of the discussion of adaptation in the media and blogosphere misses the key points:
- Real adaptation is substantially more expensive than mitigation (see Scientists find "net present value of climate change impacts" of $1240 TRILLION on current emissions path, making mitigation to under 450 ppm a must, reprinted below).
- Real adaptation without very substantial mitigation is just a cruel euphemism (see An Illustrated Guide to the Science of Global Warming Impacts).
- Real adaptation requires much bigger and far more intrusive government than mitigation. Indeed, if the anti-science ideologues get their way and stop serious mitigation, then the government will inevitably get into the business of telling people where they can and can't live (can't let people keep rebuilding in the ever-spreading flood plains or the ever-enlarging areas threatened by sea level rise and Dust-Bowlification) and how they can live (sharp water curtailment in the SW DustBowl, for instance) and possibly what they can eat. Conservative action against climate action now will force big government in coming decades to triage our major coastal cities — Key West and Galveston and probably New Orleans would be unsavable, but what about Miami and Houston? (See Don't believe in global warming? That's not very conservative.)
- Real adaptation is so expensive (and endless) that it is essentially impossible to imagine how a real adaptation bill could pass Congress — unless of course you paid for it with a high and rising price for CO2. Hmm. Why didn't somebody think of that?
- The only people who will pursue real adaptation are those who understand the latest science and are prepared to take serious political action based on that understanding. Unfortunately, that doesn't include any of the people people who helped kill the climate bill back in 2009 and 2010. There isn't really much point in spending tens of billions of dollars to plan for, say, a sea level rise of several feet if you don't accept that is what's coming. The point is, you can't even imagine doing the planning and bill-writing and then actually investing in real adaptation — unless you accept the science and do serious worst-case planning. But if you accepted the science, you'd obviously pursue mitigation as your primary strategy, while using some of the proceeds from the climate bill to support adaptation.
So real adaptation is not more politically viable than real mitigation — and arguably it's less viable since at real mitigation has multiple co-benefits, including less urban air pollution, improved health and productivity, sharp reductions in oil imports and so on.
What really is the point of pursuing something that is not more politically viable than mitigation when it won't actually prevent misery and suffering for billions of people? Sure, we must pursue adaptation for Americans — and we are ethically bound to help developing countries adapt to the climate change that we helped create — but real mitigation is the sine qua non.
Real mitigation is an effort to keep emissions as far below 450 ppm as is possible — and if we go above 450 ppm, to get back to 350 as fast as possible (see How the world can stabilize at 350 to 450 ppm: The full global warming solution).
Let me expand on #1 and #2 below.
What is the cost of "adaptation"? It is almost incalculable. The word is a virtually meaningless euphemism in the context of catastrophic global warming. Here is what dozens of recent studies make clear we risk if we stay anywhere near our current emissions path:
- Staggeringly high temperature rise, especially over land — some 10°F (or more) over much of the United States
- Permanent Dust Bowl conditions over the U.S. Southwest and many other regions around the globe that are heavily populated and/or heavily farmed.
- Sea level rise of some 1 foot by 2050, then 4 to 6 feet (or more) by 2100, rising some 6 to 12 inches (or more) each decade thereafter
- Massive species loss on land and sea — perhaps 50% or more of all biodiversity.
- Much more extreme weather
- Food insecurity — the increasing difficulty of feeding 7 billion, then 8 billion, and then 9 billion people in a world with an ever-worsening climate.
- Myriad direct health impacts
No wonder climate expert Kevin Anderson (see here) has said inaction on climate change is "incompatible with organized global community, is likely to be beyond 'adaptation', is devastating to the majority of ecosystems & has a high probability of not being stable (i.e. 4°C [7F] would be an interim temperature on the way to a much higher equilibrium level)."
And 7F isn't close to the worst case:
- UK Met Office: Catastrophic climate change, 13-18°F over most of U.S. and 27°F in the Arctic, could happen in 50 years, but "we do have time to stop it if we cut greenhouse gas emissions soon."
- NOAA: Climate change "largely irreversible for 1000 years," with permanent Dust Bowls in Southwest and around the globe
- Observations Support Predictions Of Extreme Warming And Worse Droughts This Century
So what precisely do you plan for in your adaptation strategy? You need to determine at some point whether you can save Miami, say, because you wouldn't want to waste $100 billion trying only to find out you planned for the wrong scenario and it was hopeless. Then again, who is going to get people out of their cities as long as one political party is devoted to shouting down anybody who claims humans are actually warming the planet?
And how exactly do Muscovites "adapt" to the possibility of 20°F Arctic warming? What would a 1000-year heat-wave look like in 2100 if the planet is 9°F warmer? How exactly would the world adapt to see levels 4 to 6 feet higher in 2100 and then rising 6 to 12 inches a decade?
Fundamentally, massive prevention plus lots of adaptation (and some misery) is much, much, much cheaper than not bloody much prevention and incomprehensible amounts of adaptation and suffering and misery.
And as the IIED reported in 2009, their study Assessing the costs of adaptation to climate change: a review of the UNFCCC and other recent estimates concludes costs will be even more when the full range of climate impacts on human activities is considered.
Scientists led by a former co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [warn] that the UN negotiations aimed at tackling climate change are based on substantial underestimates of what it will cost to adapt to its impacts.
The real costs of adaptation are likely to be 2-3 times greater than estimates made by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), say Professor Martin Parry and colleagues in a new report published by the International Institute for Environment and Development [IIED].
The study finds that the mean "Net present value of climate change impacts" in the A2 scenario is $1240 TRILLION with no adaptation, but "only" $890 trillion with adaptation.
The mean [annual] impacts in 2060 are about $1.5 trillion"…. As usual, there is a long right tail, with a small probability of impacts as large as $20 trillion.
Don't worry folks, it's only a "small probability" (in their analysis) — but that "fat tail" by itself is enough to render all traditional economic analyses useless (see Harvard economist: Climate cost-benefit analyses are "unusually misleading," warns colleagues "we may be deluding ourselves and others").
Let's put aside the fact we are on pace to exceed the A2 scenario (which is "only" about 850 ppm atmospheric concentrations of CO2 in 2100): See U.S. media largely ignores latest warning from climate scientists: "Recent observations confirm … the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realised" — 1000 ppm. For this country, the A2 scenario means 9 to 11°F warming over most of inland U.S. by 2090 with Kansas above 90°F some 120 days a year.
But here's the key point the media and the authors failed to convey. In the "aggressive abatement" case (450 ppm), the mean "Net present value [NPV] of climate change impacts" is only $410 trillion — or $275 trillion with adaptation. So stabilizing at 450 ppm reduces NPV impacts by $615 to $830 trillion. But the abatement NPV cost is only $110 trillion — a 6-to-1 savings or better.
Strangely, the authors never point this out directly. If you're interested in why the IPCC underestimated adaptation costs, the study focuses on several areas:
- Water: The UNFCCC estimate of US$11 billion excluded costs of adapting to floods and assumes no costs for transferring water within nations from areas of surplus to areas of deficit. The underestimate could be substantial, according to the new report.
- Health: The UNFCCC estimate of US$5 billion excluded developed nations, and assessed only malaria, diarrhoea and malnutrition. This could cover only 30-50% of the global total disease burden, according to the new report.
- Infrastructure: The UNFCCC estimate of US$8-130 billion assumed that low levels of investment in infrastructure will continue to characterise development in Africa and other relatively poor parts of the world. But the new report points out that such investment must increase in order to reduce poverty and thus avoid continuing high levels of vulnerability to climate change. It says the costs of adapting this upgraded infrastructure to climate change could be eight times more costly than the higher estimates predicted by the UNFCCC.
- Coastal zones: The UNFCCC estimate of US$11 billion excluded increased storm intensity and used low IPCC predictions of sea level rise. Considering research on sea level rise published since the 2007 IPCC report, and including storms, the new report suggests costs could be about three times greater than predicted.
- Ecosystems: The UNFCCC excluded from its estimates the costs of protecting ecosystems and the services they can provide for human society. The new report concludes that that this is an important source of under-estimation, which could cost over US$350 billion, including both protected and non-protected areas.
No surprise, really, given that the IPCC lowballs amplifying feedbacks and climate impacts, too. In fact, even this study lowballs the potential impacts of our current maladapter-driven climate policy, especially the very fat tail or the plausible worst-case scenario.
Anyway, if you're interested in the important stuff — the enormous benefit of stabilizing at 450 ppm — just jump to Chapter 8, page 103, here.
The bottom line on adaptation: I'm all for it. That's precisely why I support a serious carbon price, since it is the only plausible way to 1) pay for domestic adaptation [and the share of developing country adaptation that we are ethically bound to provide] and 2) have a serious possibility of limiting future climate impacts to a level that one could actually adapt to.
This post is an update.
37 Responses to Real Adaptation Is As Politically Tough As Mitigation, But Much More Expensive And Less Effective At Reducing Future Misery
Real mitigation – Global Warming Mitigation Method – http://www3.telus.net/gwmitigationmethod/
Unfortunately, there is no way around a major focus on adaptation, given that policies that we put in place today to reduce greenhouse gases are not going to significantly change extreme weather for decades. I would throw in another "adaptation framing" that is a "bait & switch" adaptation. That is when advocates talk about adaptation to get people to think about mitigation. It is a tricky line to walk, and one on which I would tread lightly.
Much of the adaptation talk entails two disturbing implications:
(1) There will eventually be Solar Radiation Management (SRM, i.e. stratospheric sulfate aerosols) to restrain further warming – either that or Direct Air Capture (DAC) of carbon – which seems like a pipe-dream. The seawalls Bloomberg envisions would only buy a few decades in the absence of SRM or DAC.
(2) There will be a massive culling of the human population which makes the black death look like a fire drill. Those who can afford to construct Biospheric bubbles will not have any excess funds to save anyone else.
From an ecological or humanitarian perspective, it's difficult to understand the difference between "rhetorical adaptation" and "real adaptation."
Joe, thank you for laying out this key economic argument so clearly. Common sense and the math together are powerful. I'm sure a lot of us are thinking it a good idea that you be invited to advise the administration while basic principles for climate strategy are still, we hope, being decided. Hope there's a path for that. In any case, the economics of adaptation & mitigation -not even on the radar now in Washington- can't be left on the back burner and instead can be the basis for political coalition building and getting the public's attention. Inside moves in DC will decide policy, but important public support for sane policy will never kick in until the public actually gets the science.
The president should address the nation on the urgency, and his views on action; but so should climate leaders. Media presence is fundamental.
Planning to "adapt" to climate change without curtailing our CO2 output is like planning to adapt to another Chicxulub asteroid.
Thanks for updating this post. I have shared the older post widely.
Triage won't only apply to adaptation but will increasingly come into use in disaster relief as countries are hit by simultaneous multiple events which exhaust available resources. NGOs are already at their limits as Oxfam admitted during the Pakistani floods. Combine this with higher food costs and a faltering global economy. The only positive is the consequent reduction in emissions, ME
Suffering for who?
That's why mitigation and adaptation don't hold a candle to suffering. Suffering is a regressive tax, where the world's poor pay with their lives, where the middle class go to impromptu Red Cross shelters and where the rich move to their other homes before the disaster hits.
When I talk about adaptation I talk about heat transfer devices drawing heat out of the Arctic Ocean and putting it into the 60 below zero Arctic air in winter. This restores the Arctic Ocean's ice pack. I wouldn't mind overdoing it by 20, to fight certain runaway aspects of climate change.
When I talk about adaptation I talk about spraying fresh water mists into the air on wildly windy days on Arctic land, so as to coat the land with a thin layer of early snow or a late snow layer, so as to reflect sunlight back into the sky.
I accept that other people have worse ideas and louder voices. Sometimes it's not that the best ideas win, it's only a shouting contest to see who gets the grant money. We're the losers.
Adaptation and mitigation are words that confuse your target audience (ie those that don't understand the words…).
I suggest replacing "mitigation" with "avoiding/reducing" and "adaptation" with "paying for the damage".
Really – one thing we have learned is words matter. This is too important to lose people on specialized jargon.
In the real world adaptation could just as easily mean "adapt by using less CO2" – and mitigation could mean "mitigate the damage by paying for it" – so it is a communications fail.
What price humanity itself? Dollars mean nothing if we are not.
I agree, Tom, "adaptation" in this context could lend itself to several interpretations.
Tillerson's speech where he says "we can adapt" is funny, but few people understand why.
This needs to be clarified, and we may need a new word.
Is it just me or is everyone avoiding the elephant in the room aka eugenics~adaptation?
Conserving eugenics and plantations, "ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson … questioned the ability of climate models to predict the magnitude of the impact. He said that people would be able to adapt" ("Exxon's CEO: Climate, energy fears overblown"; JONATHAN FAHEY, Associated Press; huffingtonpost.com, 6/27/12).
Another great post by Joe Romm. Thanks.
The only issue I have, besides the gargantuan money figures (in present value) which really indicate unsustainable damage to civilization, is the concept that we will be sustained if we do not head toward 350 ppm,equivalent starting now (or yesterday). This seems unlikely because 1) the biogeophysical response seems to be "non-linear" and 2) we are still early in the "Response Factor" from the past several decades of "emissions."
It seems to me as the issue of climate change is a moral issue at its core– rather than technical– where a society or individual feels entitled to sell out others or the future for immediate selfish gain. . .well, it's that ethical attitude that must change first and that's our primary adaptive task on which all else hinges.
People believed the earth was flat for a long, long time. People believed the earth was the center of universe for a long time also. In these cases, the beliefs did not change day to day living very much.
Now we have climate change and resource depletion along with extreme population rise. All of these things actually effect people's day to day lives and the general operation of society.
Give the eventual obvious character of these current predicaments, it may only take 20 to 30 more years to convince most people of the truth versus 200 to 300 for the flat earth and earth centric mindsets of the past.
Real world examples don't have to be strictly mitigation or adaptation. Obama's talking up energy-efficiency in structures. That would primarily mitigate demand for fossil fuel though it could, if well designed, also make structures better adapted to the new climate extremes of wet, dry, high winds, heat, and even some cold where it wasn't before.
I think that most Americans of a certain age remember the Fram Oil Filter commercial. "You can pay me now or pay me later." Surely we can find a way to leverage that.
Just found this study from 1999, thought i share it here
Risk Perceptions, General Environmental Beliefs, and
Willingness to Address Climate Change
Our primary conclusion is that risk perceptions matter in predicting behavioral intentions. Risk perceptions are not a surrogate for general environmental beliefs, but have their own power to account for behavioral intentions. We think four secondary conclusions are worthy of mention. First, behavioral intentions regarding climate change are complex and intriguing. People are neither ''nonbelievers'' who will take no initiatives themselves and oppose all government efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, nor ''believers'' who promise both to make personal efforts and to vote for every government proposal. Instead, most people are in the middle, favoring some actions and opposing others. It is an error to assume that most opponents to a particular proposal also oppose doing anything.
Second, although risk perceptions and general environmental beliefs influence both voluntary actions and voting, there are significant differences among the demographic variables. Women are more likely to intend to take voluntary actions. For voting intentions, however, when the variables that measure climate change perceptions and environmental values are in the equation, it is better educated, older, men who are more willing to support government policies to impose public sacrifices in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In summary, we find women disproportionately among supporters of voluntary actions, and the better educated disproportionately among supports of government policies.
Third, knowledge about the causes of the global warming is a powerful predictor of behavioral intentions, independent from believing that climate change will happen and have bad consequences. Even though information immediately prior to the voluntary action questions identifies causes of climate change for respondents, willingness to act is predicted by knowing the causes before reading this information. We thought that perhaps being knowledgeable is a surrogate for salience, that people who think climate change is an important issue become informed. When we introduce salience measures into the equation (not shown), knowing the causes retains its explanatory power. So, we return to our initial hypothesis that prior knowledge (not solely from reading information just before answering questions) about what causes climate change fosters behavioral intentions to act on those causes. Finally, the success of the risk perception variables in accounting for behavioral intentions should encourage greater attention to risk perceptions as independent variables. The research on risk perceptions initially used psychometric scaling methods to illuminate perceptions of the riskiness of technologies and behaviors (Slovic, Fischhoff, & Lichtenstein, 1980; Slovic, 1987; 1992). More recent work has looked at risk perceptions of ecological systems (McDaniels, Axelrod, and Slovic, 1995; McDaniels et al., 1997).
This work has taught us much about the way people conceptualize risks, but rarely looked at the consequences of these perceptions for behavioral intentions or actual behavior.
As generally assumed, our results show that risk perceptions and knowledge increase people's willingness to take steps that address environmental problems.
Risk perceptions and knowledge, however, share the stage with general environmental beliefs and demographic characteristics. Although related, risk perceptions, knowledge, and general environmental beliefs are somewhat independent predictors of behavioral intentions. Our findings suggest some guidance for—as well as limits to what can be acomplished by—risk communication and information efforts. http://www.peccuv.mx/descargas/pdf/docuteca/Risk%20Perceptions,%20General%20Environmental%20Beliefs.pdf
It would be interesting to record and display the current state of suffering for the Katrina victims now and the latest Sandy and maybe even those for Irene.
These unfortunate people are the first obvious americans to vividly experience the hand of GW.
Of course there are a lot of other US incidents in the last 2yrs which are just as devastating but not so vivid – like the dustbowlification of Texas and the SW, with places starting to be abandoned. And the epic flooding that has recently occured and the tornados and derechos and the fires and the pinebeetle….(and even the BP oil spill maybe!)
They will in time no doubt be repeatedly exposed to more and more extreme events as the frequency increase and most likely never will recover from the initial impacts.
Adaption is fools gold in a 3C+ world.
We must not forget the temporal dimension. As far as the Right, and 99% of denialists are of the Right, are concerned, 'adaptation' is for future generations, including their own children, to suffer. The denialists currently extant imagine that they will be safely returned to the carbon cycle by then, but it looks like they might be in for an unpleasant surprise.
That precise attitude is the modus operandi of the parasite class, always has been and always will be.
Most likely designs for the future will both mitigate and adapt to climate change in the most important ways.
We have to back off immediately — just stop — destroying the environment that supports us while learning to live in the very hostile environment we have just created.
And our best solutions will be characterized by profound integration with natural capital where human capital is the most important component; as we make our way into the future.
I think that most people will be surpised by the $1250 or so trillion estimate in climate change costs. My question is whether there is a time frame for this cost estimate(?) It seems clear to me that the climate changes that cause extinction for about 50% of the earth's species will also seriously reduce the carrying capacity for humans, especially our ability to grow food.
Nature has a monopoly on the vast majority of services it provides to us and it is not terribly rational to give these services dollar values.
Yes, the dollar costs to us can be projected but looking at the entire system . . . things will start to get quite chaotic and civilization must change dramatically to be more closely in tune with natural systems to better benefit from them; as well as the way we do wealth, economics, financials etc.
We must proceed forward with life and death urgency with those variations of life or death skits better left to comedy routines.
Bill, thanks. Someone finally mentioned food. The comments, thus far, have been about semantics and framing.
My great fear is that the rain-fed agriculture in the Midwest North America will continue to unravel as precip timing and intensity are influenced by the melting Arctic ice.
It will take federal government involvement in an effort to assure farmers have surface water irrigation as backup while the farmers radically change their crop choices and methods. Call that adaptation, if you will, but adequate grain supplies are what will keep the world population from flying apart.
It is remarkable how much social media noise there was over Hurricane Sandy and how relatively little there has been about what was – prior to Hurricane Sandy – the biggest (and continuing) natural disaster of the last few years
I'd mentioned energy-efficient structures, but I take your point about food.
A merge between the concept of mitigation and concept of adaptation is low-till, low-fertilizer, no-irrigation farming with heat-tolerant cultivars. Less fossil fuel is used, food still grows.
I guess that only being intuitively in tune with nature could leave us to be less mentally able to see the prospects of order. For as the nature becomes chaotic then the in tune person could also become chaotic. Certainly understanding of causes of chaos is a better way to stay in tune.
I don't think it is the majority position but I definitely agree this attitude is held by a non-trivial portion of the denialsphere right now. As nasty climate impacts start to pound the US I've noticed an appearance of comments like "just give me 30 more years." Basically, "who cares if the theater is on fire as long as it doesn't get to my row before the movie is over."
See http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/06/29/506473/confirming-the-human-fingerprint-in-global-ocean-warming/#comment-385894
The idea Jim sponsors – OTEC – is something in which he told RealClimate he has a financial stake. So take his advocacy with a grain of salt.
To realize the benefits he talks about OTEC would have to be deployed on a huge scale. Repeat >>> huge scale.
The idea expedites mixing of extra global warming BTUs from the ocean surface to the deep ocean. The assumption is that they will harmlessly disappear down there, leaving behind a gentler kinder climate system. In other words….
OTEC relies on the same thinking that brought us tail pipe CO2 emissions: out of sight, out of mind. That did not work out so well did it?
In short, OTEC is blind to a fundamental truth: the deep ocean is part of the climate system too!
Of the various geoengineering options this one ranks right up near the top in terms of unanticipated nasty side effects.
Great article, thanks.
On framing, I've noticed many people I talk to about climate change in everyday life have really taken to the "steroids" metaphor.
This metaphor gives them an easy way to absorb the facts about the various kinds of "steroids" we are adding to the weather. I call it a "steroid cocktail":
* more heat energy in the air
* more heat energy in the oceans
* more water vapor fuel for storms
It is the reality of more energy/fuel in our weather system seems to be the "aha" moment for many. So I always talk about the "steroids" using the terms "energy" or "fuel".
The water vapor "steroid" is not usually as discussed as others. Trenberth says water vapor increases around 7% per degree C. So when talking about 6C warming we can also talk about a 40% increase in water vapor fueling storms, deluges and flooding. We have already seen what 5% increase can do to extreme rainfall events.
Adaptation will be needed for the changes we have set in motion already. The problem is that people are talking about adapting to continued fossil fuel emissions. And that, quite frankly, is an impossible proposition.
Joan, I was thinking about prolonged drought in America's rain-fed grain basket. Even heat tolerant cultivars need water.
Yes, the majority of social media responses so far appear to be in the service of the maladaption of superficiality of which neophilia and what is called here 'the wow factor' are prime components, ME
Contextual and behavioural change can change beliefs and attitudes very quickly. Watching your house flood for the second time in months or your house explode in a firestorm while the neighbours whisper 'global warming' makes denial hard to maintain, ME
Another favourite line in the denialosphere is the 'blame the teeming masses' argument, which admits that there are real problems but blames it all on the 'population explosion' in the poor world. This has pretty obvious Malthusian implications, and, of course, the real culprit, the over-consumption of the greedy in the rich world, is never mentioned.


text:
Hi, great plugin!
I'd like to hide the redirect menu/box for any user other than the high-level admin. is this possible?
Hi, great plugin!
I'd like to hide the redirect menu/box for any user other than the high-level admin. is this possible?
whenis -
This did not make it in the new version 4.2.2 I released today, but I do have it in development for the next version.
Thanks again for the feedback.
Hi -- great plugin thanks.
Unfortunately going to have to uninstall it though. I have a multi user site and it needs to be idiot proof. I cannot have the redirect menu showing for low level users.
Any time frame when this functionality will be implemented or do you know of a quick and dirty workaround?
b33fheart -
You could very easily edit the plugin to add super admin only access.
I am not sure when I will have a new version out, but until then, if you decide you want to edit it, do the following:
On line 78, change the '10' to 'manage_network_options' like so -
add_options_page( 'Global Hide/Remove Admin Bar Plugin Options', 'Admin Bar Options','manage_network_options', 'admin-bar-plugin', 'gabrhp_admin_bar_page' );
That will give it Super Admin access and it will not show up in the user level menus.
Best of luck.
I notice your site is down and therefore I can't make a donation. Thought you might want to know that.
I'll give this a whirl -- thanks a lot !
Thanks for the info. We are actually working on a new site - just have not have the time to get it up yet. The donation link was mistakenly left out on the temporary site navigation.
The new donation link is http://www.fischercreativemedia.com/donations/.
Donations are not expected, but always appreciated!
Warm regards,
Sorry Don -- being an uber dunce here but from your instruction I don't see the line to edit. Please could you clarify.
thank you
sorry - that is my fault. I was thinking you were referring to another plugin.
It SHOULD be line 95 and 96 of the page_post_redirect_plugin.php file:
where the 2 lines say (line 95 & 96):
add_action( 'admin_menu', array($this,'ppr_add_menu') );
add_action( 'admin_menu', array($this,'ppr_add_metabox') );
change it to this:
add_action( 'admin_menu', array($this,'ppr_add_menu') );
add_action( 'admin_menu', array($this,'ppr_add_metabox') );
You are basically wrapping them in an if statement to check for the Super Admin user lever. That will stop it from displaying both the menu and the redirect post_meta box. If you only want the menu off and not the meta box, just wrap the first line in the if statement and leave the second line out.
Please let me know if you have problems.
Hi Don,
It didn't work and took site down. Back up now by renaming quick redirect plugin folder via ftp.
Here was the error:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function wp_get_current_user() in /home/sitename/public_html/wp-includes/capabilities.php on line 1039
I should have tested that out first.
The user check has to happen after the pluggable.php file has loaded, so the check needs to be moved to the functions a bit later on in the code.
This should work, (I test it on one of my installs):
Forget the other stuff I told you. Instead, in the first line of both the ppr_add_menu function (about line 116) and the ppr_add_metabox function (about line 415), add this line:
So, it would look like this:
function ppr_add_metabox(){
//rest of function here...
function ppr_add_menu(){
//rest of function here...
Again, let me know if you have problems.
All hunky dory now -- thanks for your time Don ;-)
This topic has been closed to new replies.


text:
Endurance exercise and metabolism are linked to transcriptional activation of human telomeres, researchers propose.
Theranos in Criminal Probe
April 19, 2016|
Federal officials are investigating whether the diagnostics company misled investors.
April 19, 2016|
Federal officials are investigating whether the diagnostics company misled investors.
April 18, 2016|
The genomics pioneer shares the sessions she most looks forward to at this year's American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting.
April 15, 2016|
Sequence analysis of 41 viral strains reveals more than a half-century of change.
April 13, 2016|
"Ego dissolution," and other things that happen to the human brain on LSD
April 11, 2016|
The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute will store tissue samples from patients with leukemia and lymphoma from which scientists can make patient-derived mouse models.
April 7, 2016|
The immune cells—known for clearing dead cells—also chew up live progenitors in neurogenic regions of mouse brains.
April 6, 2016|
Structural studies reveal how SSRI drugs bind to the human serotonin transporter.
April 5, 2016|
Certain immune cells surrounding the organ appear to block viral entry.
April 1, 2016|
In the introduction to the book, author Sean B. Carroll draws the parallels between ecological and physiological maladies.
April 1, 2016|
Lab Girl, The Most Perfect Thing, Half-Earth, and Cosmosapiens


text:
Video Industry News Video Company News Technology Industry News Technology Company News Novelty Industry News Novelty Company News Gay Industry News Gay Company News Legal Industry News All Company News
Released: Sep 04th, 2009
Running Time: 181 Min.
Director: Joey Silvera
Companies: Joey Silvera Video, Evil Angel
Distribution Companies: Evil Angel
DVD Extras: Cumshot Recap, Still Gallery(ies), Trailer(s)
Cast: Nyobi, Jamie Croft, Miss Goodbar, Nicole Foxxx, Patricia Bysmark, Arcanjo, Jag (II), Alesandra Ribeiro, Sabrina Leal, Diezel, Shakira Maya, Kaike Monttany, Carla Ferraz, Xame, Christian (I) (TS-friendly performer), Sandy Lopez, Pablo (II) (Brazilian), Cindy Nielson
Genre: Trans
Joey Silvera delivers lots of Mutually Assured Dick-sucking in How to Please A She-Male 3, a brand-new, ten-scene collection of she-males and their swains mostly feasting on each other's cocks, with some tease and just a little ass-fucking thrown in for good measure. After introducing us to American T-girls including the feisty Jamie Croft and African-American Nyobi, the Sultan of She-Male Porn heads to Brazil to take the temperature there, highlighting scenes with Carla Ferraz and Shakira Maya.


text:
What it is: Many pregnant women experience carpal tunnel syndrome, which causes numbness, tingling, burning, pain, or a dull ache in the fingers, hands, wrists, and even in the shoulders. Thank the extra fluid your body is holding onto.
How it affects exercise: Repetitive movements such as lifting weights or strength training moves that put pressure on your wrists might be too painful, so find other ways to work the same muscles that don't cause wrist pain. Wearing a wrist brace might also offer relief, so ask your doctor about that.