DC gets flack for making light of suicide

[Earth 2 Chris]

http://www.namicalifornia.org/news.php?page=current-news&lang=eng&id=5044#.UjNO-Y5Ugob

There's a link within the link to DC's rules.

Not sure what to think about this. Harley is a screwball character at heart, so is this any worse than a Looney Tunes character doing the same thing?

Is it folks being over-sensitive?

Although you think the lawyers at DC would have looked at this and raised a red flag....but maybe the publicity was the point?

Chris

[The Toyroom]

DC had a bad batch of press last week...

[enyawd72]

Oh for crying out loud...now we're gonna start boo-hooing over fictional suicides of fictional characters?

[LadyZod]

I think the hub-bub is because the last panel calls for her to be naked, thereby making it exploitative...

Because people have nothing better to worry about evidently.

[Earth 2 Chris]

If I put myself in the place of someone who actively works to prevent suicide, I can see their point. Is it worth protesting and giving publicity to? Probably not.

But from their view point, DC is actively courting their most vulnerable age group. And by making light of it, they probably think they are advocating it, and making it seem "cool" to the kids they are trying to protect.

Of course, they're not, and from DC's view point, it's a funny series of events to give potential artists a chance to draw.

Chris

[palitoy]

Making a contest out of suicide attempts is bad taste and a terrible idea, pure and simple.

[thunderbolt]

Making a contest out of suicide attempts is bad taste and a terrible idea, pure and simple.

agreed, but that is what DC knows these days, bad taste and terrible ideas.

[Iron Mego]

I think the hub-bub is because the last panel calls for her to be naked, thereby making it exploitative...

Because people have nothing better to worry about evidently.

This is NOT the issue actually. The issue, if you read the NAMI article, is that they see DC as making light of suicide by saying it'll be "fun" to draw scenes of suicide attempts.

[PNGwynne]

I'm hardly surprised--DC itself has been committing the world's longest media suicide for ten years, so it's evidently desensitized to how tacky and insensitive such a contest is.

[Earth 2 Chris]

If the scenes were just in a light-hearted book, they'd still be a little suspect, but maybe no more so than similar scenes in old Looney Tunes and MGM cartoons.

Making a contest out of it and drawing attention to the "fun" nature of it was definitely a stupid and insensitive call on DC's part. They should know better.

Chris

[Iron Mego]

They could have chosen any scene from the book for the contest. This is pretty stupid if nothing else.

[MegoSteve]

Making a contest out of suicide attempts is bad taste and a terrible idea, pure and simple.

Thank you.

[Hector]

Glad I don'r read these new comics.

[jwyblejr]

Yet another head scratcher on how Didio keeps his job.

[ctc]

>Making a contest out of suicide attempts is bad taste and a terrible idea, pure and simple

Yeah. They should be making a contest of murder, like the good ol' days.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman:_A_Death_in_the_Family

I dunno. This one seems pretty tame for a freakout. It has a real Looney-Tunes feel, we got NO context for the scene, and we ALL know nothing's gonna come of it. I don't know if we can even call it an ACTUAL suicide attempt, or given the character and the circumstances (which we don't really know yet) a weird bit of self-indulgent drama.

>making it seem "cool" to the kids they are trying to protect

Are there really any kids reading it? Their target audience is late teens/early 20's, but even then.... how many folks who are actually buying the books are of that group and how many are much older?

>now we're gonna start boo-hooing over fictional suicides of fictional characters?

Let's be glad they haven't read "GLA."

Don C.