Today's Quixote Coyote Strip:
One of the things I've noticed while reading old Floyd Gottfredson "Mickey Mouse" comic strips and watching old "Mickey Mouse" and "Betty Boop" animated shorts, is that old stuff wasn't what we would consider "safe". When we think about that generation, we think of our old Grandparents and their tame tastes in Music and TeeVee (Dear Lord, every day my Grandpa sits on his front porch and listens to the same old Country songs). To my Grandpa, the Beatles were DANGEROUS. But, conversely, those old cartoons were super dangerous. Besides all of the inherent violence of all the old Warner Bros. cartoons, old Disney cartoons could be scary. Really scary. The old Mickey Mouse strips were full of action, danger, and could be kinda creepy from time to time.
And I think kids need that kind of stuff. This isn't a safe world, and trying to shield children from it by creating safe stories for them is, to me anyway, stupid. Plus, kids like creepy and scary stuff. Just look at how popular that "Monster High" crap is, or how well "Goosebumps" did at the Box Office.
Like just about everyone my age, there was at least one Disney movie that traumatized me ("Pinocchio" may easily be the scariest movie of all time), but those old films stick with me too, as so much else fades away.
All of which is a long-winded lead up to me going, Man, those Shadowcats really creep me out.
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