The Red Dragon's Interview is up!

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

justandbody, you can overthink a flash cartoon.

To put some perspective on it: The cartoon is meant in jest. Yes, it contains some more thinly veiled critique on f4nbois and h4ters. Such critique is not untypical for humor. You can even get offended by it. The goal is to make people react emotionally (preferably by provoking a laugh). Sometimes it is meant to provoke (preferably thoughts).

I'd say mission accomplished.

 

[Fifth Element]

justanobody, your comparison is not a good one. The cartoon is about D&D, and is meant in jest. It is not itself D&D, the product in question. The comic books you talk about, on the other hand, are the product in question.

Your comparison might make sense if you were comparing D&D to comic books directly.

A better comparison (comparing D&D to action figures, for example) would be something like Twisted Toyfare Theatre, a very silly cartoon found in Toyfar magazine. It has all kinds of off-colour humour.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I have been in a comic store before where a father brought in his son for some comics. Now this boy was not allowed to read them because of the lewd costumes and outfits of the females in them.

Now is a middle school (guessing here) boy not the target audience for comic books? You have anime from Japan that is family programming that is reduced in blood for American audiences.

The boy buying comics never returned to the store, and didn't really want the comics when done so his father returned them for a consignment fee to resale them.

Reaching your target audience isn't about reaching 100% of the audience and it never has been. It's about reaching a large enough percentage to remain profitable. If the comics containing excessive violence and scantilly-clad women are not reaching enough of their target audience to remain profitable, then you would no longer see such comics on the shelf. Thus, either your assessment of who is the target audience is off the mark or this particular father and son do not fall within the majority of the target audience demographic.

As to whether poop jokes are an appropriate form of humor, just watch a day's worth of American kid-to-teen-aimed humor and I think you'll see that it is a popular form of humor in our country. Kid shows continue to use the gross-out factor to a major effect. Heck, even crime scene dramas targetted at adult audiences use excriment to humorous effect, as any fan of Bones can attest.

Again, I can understand any individual's distaste for this form of humor, because humor is subjective. But to imply that D&D will lose out due to use of such humor in one flash cartoon seems to contradict other forms of entertainment available to the same demographic audience.

 

[Hussar]

Personally I don't allow my grandmother on ENWorld anymore. Talk about a Curmudgeonly Grognard! Whew! You have NO idea! It's all old school this, and old school that. I mean, really!

Best post of the thread!

Wow, people really, really are trying hard to be offended for other people.

 

[El Mahdi]

Best post of the thread!

Wow, people really, really are trying hard to be offended for other people.

Thank you sir. I aim to please (or tease - as the situation dictates).

 

[Gizmoduck5000]

Good point in fact I mentioned this very thing to the Jinx guys this week. Coming soon kids sizes.

I think that the cuteness level of lil'ns in "Rawr...I'm a monster!" tee shirts comes with a serious risk of diabetic coma.

 

[The Little Raven]

I would wonder what Mr. Rouse as the brand manager of D&D has to say about what this cartoon says about D&D itself as a brand name.

Probably that it's a game about being a pretty elven princess or a warrior with mighty, bulging thews, so it shouldn't take itself too seriously.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

I think if the thread about "D&D needs more humor and comics in the corebooks" and this one ever meet and shake hands, there is going to be some kind of explosion. And a black hole forms, or something.

And i think that if i had had something like the internet back when i was 15 and discovered RPGs, and said internet would have contained animated comics containing poop jokes about my soon-to-be-hobby, i would have cried with joy. For an hour.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Probably that it's a game about being a pretty elven princess or a warrior with mighty, bulging thews, so it shouldn't take itself too seriously.

If your going to talk about the warriors bulging thew then I think the princesses huge tracks of land also deserve mention.

 

[ThirdWizard]

McFly!!