The Flintstones (2016): Dark and Sobering Satire (?!)

So I've been reading DC's latest Flintstones comic book series. It's breaking my damned heart. Like an episode of Rick And Morty without jokes and without a way out. Or rather, there are jokes, but they're very understated Black Comedy, ponyville-style puns, and Bamboo Technology gags.

Reviews are very strong: GQ calls it the Most Woke Comic Book of 2016. CBR calls it a Surprisingly Dark — and Honest — Satire, Dorkly says it's secretly amazing, and the Daily Dot calls it brilliant satire

Well, for one thing, the artist is really good at giving Fred these disoriented, hopeless, lost-child expressions that break your heart. Remember that face the Joker made in The Killing Joke, where he said, Everything anybody ever valued or struggled for... it's all a monstrous, demented gag! So why can't you see the funny side? Why aren't you laughing?◊

Honestly, that might as well be the comic's message.

EDIT: On further reading, it's not that dark. It's more or less at Monty Python or Two Thousand AD level.

edited 25th Jun '17 8:50:34 AM by TheHandle

Well since this is a thread about fleentsones... GRAND DAD.

sounds like a grand gay old time.

edited 25th Jun '17 9:37:02 AM by Thelastwarrior

It actually gets quite touching and hilarious. The last issue I read demolished Nietzche's Call to Strength. The one I'm reading now starts with an amazing pun; what's the caveman cinema called? Plato's Cave. Let it sink in. Oh, and Fred and Barney are going there to watch a skin flick. Subverted: It's Not Porn, It's Art, literally. The title is Shale Magnolias. The second film they see is The Bridges of Madistone County.

Meanwhile in the C plot, the vaccum cleaner dies by Newbery Medal. The cause is both funny and sad.

edited 25th Jun '17 10:39:48 AM by TheHandle

This was my favorite comic in a long time

It takes the Great Gazoo and makes him the enforcer of the Prime Directive, and shows exactly why said directive is tremendously important. This comic is fucking awesome.

The author also wrote a new Prez comic. DC Fireflied it.

edited 25th Jun '17 12:27:10 PM by TheHandle

I'm putting this on my list of things to whip out when people claim a ludicrous premise will never work out.

Is it really that ludicrous? I mean, Flintstones is ridiculously easy to modernize because it's the premise itself. They're the modern stone age family. The present but with dinosaurs and horrible rock puns. Compared to the rest of DC's Hanna Barbera reboots it's the most logical of them all.

What HB cartoons got a comic reboot?

There ya go. Flintstones and Future Quest are easily the best, the rest is more of a mixed bag.

Well there's Scooby-Doo with Scooby Apocalypse which has the main characters be involved with an end of the world plot which sees a lot of people being turned into monsterous creaures. Wacky Raceland which is basically Wacky Races meets Mad Max. And theres Future Quest which is pretty much a crisis crossover involving all the action characters made by Hannah Barbara. There was also some one shot crossover comics with the DC heroes, one of which involves the Banana Splits teaming up with the Suicide Squad. Though I do remember one of these comics have a supplementary story which serves as a backdoor pilot to The Jetson.

So yeah, there were a bunch of these rebooted Hannah Barbara comics since the summer.

So I just had to check those out. The Wacky Raceland one is an amazing concept executed very poorly. Go watch Motorcity instead. The Scooby Doo stuff is great. The Allstar thing... I can't help but think of Space Ghost Coast To Coast...

Every time birdman came on panel i stopped being able to tale the book seriously

Did you hear in your head a soundtrack consisting entirely of drums while imagining the comic as The Oner?

This series was great, and I'm looking forward to Russell's Snagglepuss comic.

I wish this series had gona on longer but I am excited for snagglepuss especially since it started as a joke

I didn't know it ended!

How DID it end?

In a very existentialist way: Gazoo saves humanity from getting exterminated by the Galactic Federation, then muses that he just gave humanity a chance, that Humans Are Flawed by design and carry within themselves both the seeds of their destruction and that of their success, and that their future is up to them to determine.

In this story, Gazoo is a stand-up dude. Rock-solid.

Honestly, I look at that speech and compare it to all the Humans Are Special bullshit spwered by The Doctor and his ilk, and wonder how we were ever satisfied with such self-congratulatory, borderline-delusional nonsense.

I see humanity as a mix of Humans Are Flawed AND Humans Are Special ^^ But animals are even more special <3

Special compared to what? What does it really entail, when we put this praise in the hand of alien saviours that we make up ourselves?

I liked how it the last issue was science vs religion but neither side was portrayed in a bad light, like sargon has science but he doesnt know all the answers and just made a book called chimpin aint easy about what he thought so far, and the reverend admits that its ok if some people don't believe, because others do and that is important to them.

usually when you get science vs religion stories one side is made out to look bad

I'd say the modern notion that humans are special or that humanity is superior as a whole might have something to do with us building a civilization visible from orbit, having sent a man on the Moon, and possessing enough firepower to carve a smiley face on it as well - all things no other species has evidently accomplished. Earth itself may be an insignificant little blue planet in the scope of a vast galaxy and the nearly infinite Universe, but when it comes to biological specimens, the only ones known so far to actually rival humanity as a species are the inventions of our own imagination - a much better example of circular logic.

I was somewhat disappointed by the initial issues I browsed through. At least some visual resemblance to the cartoons would be nice, and I found the tone a shade more cynical than even Family Guy and The Simpsons... which is rather ironic considering they were supposed to be deconstructive parodies of animated sitcoms. Now the only thing missing is a post-apocalyptic cyberpunk Jetsons reboot.

Way to miss the point.

The Simpsons and FG are the more cynical ones: no character development, flanderization, and no consequences, means no humanity. Those two shows are hollow devices to deliver "LOOK HOW BAD AND STUPID AND MEDIOCRE THESE PEOPLE ARE!" jokes.

The Jetsons are Full Luxury Communism in Post-Scarcity. The best thing to do with that premise is to flesh it out.

The Jetsons are more full-luxury capitalism, though. People still work for a living, with George's perennial complaint being how pushing buttons hurts his finger - which is either a comment on carpal tunnel syndrome, or a surprisingly accurate prediction of modern middle-class entitlement tendencies, where any sort of work is considered grueling torture.

edited 27th Jun '17 5:42:16 AM by indiana404

First time I hear of those alleged entitlement tendencies. People complain of boredom and meaninglessness, mostly, and that's a legitimate concern, I think.

edited 27th Jun '17 3:56:20 PM by TheHandle