That's a really childish reaction--someone doesn't like elves, so therefore they're a cynic?
LOTR is nothing more than fantasy, yet Tolkien was truly a masterful storyteller. Elves, Wizards,.. fantasy. I suppose you consider LOTR, Silmarillion, Hobbit just childs play or for that matter C.S. Lewis's Perelandra series that was based in a sci fi / fantasy format.
No, I don't. Your "argument" completely collapses when you simply invent a position for me and then attack it without asking if it IS my position.
Everyone who wants to defend elves and dragons goes to Tolkien. Well, Tolkien was rooted in tons of research into myths and legends, and invented his own language from that basis. 99% of fantasy that we're talking about is rooted in Tolkien. That's the difference between an innovator--someone who did the groundbreaking into Western and Northern European mythology and pieced together archetypes from British legend with certain Christian concempts (Tolkien pointed out that there are no churches in LOTR because the whole story takes place on a level where so much of his belief system is being played out)--and the hacks who simply spin variations on that one model.
Fans of little people with pointy ears and dragons and juvenile sex fantasies always try to justify their continuing to hang around the playground long after they've graduated by going to Tolkien or Lewis. Well, OK, I guess you're saying you only read Tolkien or Lewis and not all that gawdawful crap clogging the shelves at the bookstores, and the same goes for ALL the people buying that garbage--they're just using it all to prop up their studies of Christian symbolism in Tolkien and the uses of faith in Lewis. Yeah, ok.
As far as Laurell Hamilton, hell I haven't read her work and probably never will,
Then maybe you shouldn't point to her as evidence that comic books have grown up?
but that hack is going to be signing her book Danse Macarbre all over the dang country, and that hack is getting the "Borders" crowd into the direct market comic store looking for her Anita Blake title. That hack sells books.
OK, she sells books--what does that have to do with the point you made?
Are you seriously saying that because she sells books, that's evidence of some kind of literary worth? Because you pointed to her as proof that comics were not just for kids. Her books are crap--trust me, I know, and wish I didn't.
But lets look at a book like Deogratias by Jean Philip Stassen. It is a story set during the Hutu, Tutsi genocide. The main character, Deogratias, is a young Hutu who is cynical and thinks everyone is out to poison him in his food and drink, and the ethnic strife has turned him insane and dependent. He desires banana beer each night for without he thinks he turns into a dog. The metaphor and allegory is striking and is a thought provoking exploration of the insanity of those times.
If you say so.
Or lets take a look at Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. This title is her autobiography of growing up as a young Iranian girl shortly after the Mullahs took over in Iran through the mid 90's. Very fascinating and very relevant.
You're making the same point you inadvertently made with your Tolkien reference--you're using these tiny niche books as some kind of evidence that the comic book has grown up. YOU are the one who pointed to Hamilton selling books as proof of something--are you now going to tell me that 99% of comic books sold are hard-hitting "relevent" titles about Iranian girls? Or are 99% of the comic books sold (to kids a lot older than 18) boring superhero crap?
I tell you Darkwolf, the comic industry is so much different all over the world except in the United States , where so many people here still hold up their noses and think oh what a childish things these comic books when in reality so many people don't know a dang thing they talk about.
I couldn't care less what idiots around the world do with their reading time--their view of America proves that all they've been doing is reading comic books. And trust me, as someone whose best friend is an illustrator; who sells short genre fiction; who has another friend who works for a comic book distributor; and who works at a school where I have daily conversations with three kids who read comic books, one who reads that Anita Blake bisexual werewolf crap, and one kid who draws his own comics, I know a lot more than you seem to think. But of course, I have a different opinion from you, so therefore I mustn't know anything?
That sophomoric attitude proves my point completely. Adults know that two people can be informed about an issue and have different opinions. That you are so threatened by mine that you have to quote sales figures, two tiny niche books while ignoring the mass of books that actually "sell" (which you think is of major importance) and the opinnion of those oh-so-more-sophisticated foreign idiots as "proof" only shows that you, my friend, are the one who doesn't know a danged thing about why someone who actually reads and lives in the real world has no time for funny books.