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I know the subject sounds funny, but consider this. Cave painting is the earliest known form of sequential art. Frequently depicting animals, these illustrations were usually an illustrated chapter of a prehistoric tribe's hunt for food. So it was something that happened.

For some twenty centuries, Egyptian rulers were deemed as deities and were immortalized in Egyptian hieroglyphics inside the great pyramids. Again a picture of perception.

Greek and Roman rulers were similarly immortalized in marble carvings that told their stories around the sides of ancient structures.

Sistine Chapel and paintings from the period that represent fantastic ideas, conveyed more than words into the hearts and minds of all who had the pleasure to witness them.

Today, comics and media abound with fantastic ideas and concepts that outshine our reality.

My question for the forum is, can we through the use of this media (both past and present) delude ourselves into thinking that we can be something that we naturally cannot. Does this media make us dream of grandeur to the scarifice of reality? Is it dumbing us down to deal with the important things of living and interacting with our fellows? And finally, does it make for an apathetic society?

This includes out concepts of things like vampires, werecreatures, the paranormal etc.

It is human nature to strive for the unreachable, the unknowable. Graphic mediums make this easier, definitely, by creating appealing fantastical images to the imagination to aid in your own conceptualisations. I don't believe this inherantly makes you more apathetic though.

I am more of the opinion that graphic arts of the past and today reflect all aspects of the human psyche; what we strive for, what we love and fear, etc.

Cave paintings/drawings tend to reveal the ways of life of the people of the time as comic books do. The same thing can be said for Hieroglyphics. The one thing that can be said for comics, however, is we know exactly when human capabilities are exceeded, and can draw a distinct line between what is reflected in our day-to-day lives rather than our daydreams. We don't know exactly where that occurs in paintings/drawings of extreme antiquity. Does that make any sense?

ANYWAY - I can see where us leaving things like comics behind would create an interesting perception for either the future human race, or a new intelligent race altogether. They may wonder if we were actually capable of everything drawn into the panels.

Really though, the Egyptians place on the wall things that were just not naturally possible, such as godhood for the rulers. Think on that a moment. The caretaker to the king watches him trip and fall down the stairs...yeah a god is going to let that happen to his person...lol.

Comics are the same way, IMO. Ascribing to humanity things that are impossible, creating some in our society that start to believe things that are just not possible. Much like some here would say of the biblical teachings of scenes from the Sistene chapel.

I see comics as a medium to go to this far away place filled with fantasy and live as another person...Everyone in this world wishes at one point or the other to be someone or something else...Comics enable you to do so....As for Egyptian Hieroglyphics and Cave paintings i think it was more like a visual diary than a comic...

But yeah both contain stories depicted through art...

For me personally I see them as stories to get me out of life. To remind me why I am alive, and to enjoy the circumstances that come about. Be it true to life occurances as I have had friends that write comic books to their logical conclusions or to the ones mass produced.

I once new a young man, he was a good friend for the time i was in the city, He loved the stories of the comics he read. His favorite Character was the Green Lantern. So he built up a spiritual belief structure around the codes and system set forth by this archetype. He developed the *green* current and an aversion to a yellow/orange one. It was interesting. He couldn't fill in all the pieces, so for my part I helped him. He didn't have any of the history, or the actual hows and whys, but when he did, his practices took on a life like any other skilled witch or sigil mage. He was a shaman of the city, used the current of the earth quite well as it manifested for him in the energy found within his comics.

To each their own.

Graphic novels "comics" do tell a powerful story in both images and words, but I would think that, say 200 years from now, people would wonder just how many times you could kill Superman, before things just didn't make too much sense anymore...or actually confuse the hell out of them.

I think it depends on the person viewing them.....personal perception....well that can be heaven to one, hell to another and nothing at all to some.

I see comics as a form of entertainment which depicts humor or seriousness based on them. I see the drawings that were done back in ancient times as to having to do with history which we should treasure. Some archeologists that I know have said that when they find them that they are like gold because of the rareaty of finding them in tact due to all that nature has done over the ages.

If you look at comics and the movies that are made from the comics, there's always a moral to each story that we're supposed to learn from. Yes, most of them are just for entertainment purposes, but there are rights and wrongs, common sense if you will, that we're supposed to learn from.
To think that we can actually wield the power that these comic book characters have would be ludacris.

im inclined to view sceptism as a denial of reality.there is many wonderfull things in history and now the limited human mind is unable to comprehend.

I think that the comics we draw and read show us what our minds are capable of. Perhaps we'll never physically be capable of these things, but mentally we are.

For some, it's just a pleasurable way to pass the time.

For others, it's an escape from a brutal reality.

Heck, for some it's just a way to make a buck.

But for some, it's truly a wonderous world where the mind can explore it's full potential.

I think that the painting on cave wall was like the caveman's way of helping out their hunt or documenting it, comic'c today are just fantasy that people enjoy so that they can get away from reality...

I totally agree with the last post only to add that cave paintings I believe were also for early entertainment purposes

Of course it is possible. We all want to be something that we are not, or be somewhere else than we are. The imaginative mind can create a wonderful world that makes one seem better than they are. Most of the "comics" of today are centered around what we know, but there are some that stem from fantasy and the question of "what if", as for the paintings, carvings and hieroglyphics they were to tell the stories of the great aspects of ones life, who knows maybe even those stories could stem from fantasy to make the person look better than they were...

Comics are tales to amuse the kids, of fantasy and to explore the realms of dreams. making it eiser for them to read. Yet they are tales.... The paintings of the yester years where for documantation of warriors and the hunt big difference.

The day to day routine of the mundane world will always fuel the imagination and creative spirit.

Most of us are unhappy with average, human lives, so we strive to be something else...Whether it be climbing up the corporate ladder of the business world or trying to achieve power in a paranormal way.
Works of art, fiction, and the like certainly give us an escape and surrounds us with that idea.
I think that if one completely wraps themselves in fiction they can lose touch with reality, thus isolating themselves believing they are something they're not.

comics to me are a great thing, but then again they depict fictional charachters.. now with the ancient cultures are ttally different. they are based on the religion and culture of that time.. so i think they are compatible with todays time and ages. even tho alot of the ancient religions are what people so call are dead , but in alot of hearts they still burn :)

Imagination has no real limits. Now trying to say that anything we imagine can be reality is downright silly.

we can think anything means whatever we want it to but it doesn't change reality and what it is. It is more likely that the longer something is around the more true it might be but it is not for sure no matter how old it is

I am afraid I disagree, Maximus.
In the egyptian society all the images represented the TRUTH.The king WAS the sun of Osiris and the image of what the greeks called Kosmos (the organized reality).If the pharaon would fall the world would fall with him(and they were right in a way hahaha).

Besides that, one of the main difference between art and a simple object is the purpose!The purpose is very important in art.The egyptians were very religious (that is a thing very hard to understand for our different organized minds).All of them from the pharaon to the last slave.
Comics are entertainment, but the sequences from the tombs were made to preserve the MAGICAL IMAGE (FORM) of the things and stories that happened [the egyptians artists represented the human body on a strange position to preserve it`s magical form; they knew how to make a realistic body but they wanted to represent something different].
They are not just a historical comic.The Trajan`s Column from Rome may have a bond with that, but the Egyptian art was VERY different from a comic.The artists from the Ancient Egypt belonged to the clergy just like the engineers.

TThe cave paintings were just a way to document what was happening at that time, maybe for proof of how the hunt went...

I don't think the original poster was looking for a dissertation on the meanings of ancient drawing and paintings.

Art, in all forms, reflects life. Regardless of what the art is being used for.

Now the question is, can we delude ourselves into thinking we can do things.. I'm assuming, by what people see in modern day animation... such as, perhaps if someone is obsessed with werewolf comics, will they eventually think they can take on the qualities of a werewolf.

I think there is some validity to that. If you look at the way kids play, they often pretend they have the qualities, traits and abilities of their favorite characters, whether it be Spiderman or Luke Skywalker...

This fantasy role playing does continue for many people into their pre-teen, teen and even their adult years. Sometimes the mind is so used to playing the fantasy, it can no longer draw the line between it and reality.

So, in an answer to what I believe was the actual question asked, YES.

I don't really know enough to comment on this subject matter. However I find it fascinating and quite possibly I may someday when I find the time would like to learn more about it.

I could say a whole lot on the subject of Art and History... but as far as this thread is concerned... Watch " Unbreakable," with Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson. It actually runs directly along the lines of the thread, while telling a darn good story to-boot. =D

comics are a way to look into someone's eyes though pictures that can take yourself to a far off place that u know in real life you can never go to that place. it is in that way people can reach and go to places like in there mind as they would have no way of doing so in the first place.

I have to agree with Birra.

As a child I loved Spiderman comics. But, I kept my reality. And, as an adult, when the movies came out, I was not disappointed. Because it was a fantasy, come to as close as life as it could.

We have to keep our reality. Even when we want the fantasy.

i love comics esp manga and english comics.they inspire beyond the dull norm of awfull daily life in this ugly society of slaves.and many teach about the reality of what is going on,behind the propaganda of the slave masters who run western society

everyone shoots to be the very best of anything.it doesnt mean were deluded.it just means were reaching for our own goals and desires.the most natural and humane traits in humanity.

*EverythingGoesSour* great movie and I agree.

BTW I thought this was lost in annuls if the forum. Completely forgot about it lol

The beer reflects life also... and that is not art ;)...or maybe it is for some...
Not everything that reflects reality is art.And art is not just a reflection of reality.That was called naturalism.The art is a form of filtering the reality and presenting the inner REALITY of the artist too.
Only a small part of the society is changed DIRECTLY by the movies and comics and that may be a good or a bad thing.That depends on the reciever.
The main purpose of art is not education (that is what we have schools) and the art is above moral principles.You can not understand art if you are seeing just the exterior of it.
The purpose of art is close to the purpose of alchemy.
And if someone is not interested in the purpose of art how he can understand it truly?

I guess the answer is YES and NO.
LOL

I agree with Diesel's post.
We're all striving to meet our own goals the best that we can.
Delusional.. I don't think so unless one has unrealisticly set that goal too high.

I hate to say this but the comics are the only thing i read in the newspaper becuase they have more of a grip on on reality than anything else

I think this a intrersting subjuct....

It is in Our Human Nature to want and desire to be the Best we can be .. ALways striving and working towards doing our best and attempting for Perfection.. We may not always reach our Goal but without Dreams and High Expectations for ourselves thinks our lives would be utterly boring

Comics are fantasy. I think it could be dangerous for the extremely weak minded. Encourage dangerous actions.
One another note, why are gheeks always obsessed with comic books? Usually because they want more from life, it is their escape.

In case anyone thinks I did not answer the question -- today's society is too jaded, and sometimes too smart for their own good. no one is re-reading their old X-Men and praying they have some chromosome allowing them to become Magneto. As for media hype....What media hype? Comic books are becoming a dying breed. People are too lazy to roam free without remote control at hand.

I am reminded of a line I heard in a movie based on the Tales of the Arabian Nights.

"Stories teach us how to live."

And they do. Not just mearly in Comics. As Grandious and Unrealist as they may be. They all tend to deal with some very real and normal conflicts that happen in everyday life. Love. Trust. Honor. Friendship. Loyalty. Honesty. Helping our fellow man. Not standing by when we see something wrong happening. Even South Park gives these morals in every episode they air. Stories of Great and Wonderous things and events and people have always been the way we have taught and learned how to be what we are. Comics included.

my opinion is way back before time they needed away to talk so they did what was nessusary to do so by there art form..

back along time ago art was a way to communicate and document certain things. Today in comics it is just for entertainment

I think to a point depending on what you watch it can be a dumbing down of sorts but if you are watching the right things it could very well be what we could aspire to. I don't think it is ever good to look at something and say that is to hard or we can never do that, it is always better to say I wonder how long it will take for that to happen or for me to be able to do that. So I think some media makes it possible for those who see the glass as half full to aspire to be better then they are and do more.