Yes that's a good observation Anthony. I'm certain that were I to write a comic or graphic novel (which is my intent, sometime in the future hopefully), the fact that I have PTSD would definitely be an influence. Writers do tend to include personal experiences in their writing, consciously or unconsciously.

Off the top of my head, I know that the creator of V for Vendetta had an odd childhood with fanatical religious parents and "escaped" from them in his teens. He's a very strange person himself, worships an obscure Roman snake god and practices magick, among other things..

Stan Lee (Stanley Lieber), the creator of X-Men (and Spiderman, The Hulk, and many others), is the son of Jewish immigrant parents. He served in WW2 and helped to liberate fellow Jews from the Nazis. I read him saying once in an interview that his experiences in WW2 influenced the characters he created. Most of the creators of the original American comic book characters are now in their 80s and 90s and lived through the Great Depression, and many also served in WW2. So I imagine their experiences of the Depression and being in the war shaped the characters they created.

Thanks for the book examples Linda. I haven't read any of those but I'll have to check them out at some point. There aren't many movies that show PTSD other than combat related. There is one though that's quite good, it's called "My Family", it's about a hispanic family in East L.A. The one character witnesses the murder of his older brother while he's still a child. The movie then shows him growing up, being an alcoholic, isolating himself from everyone and basically having all sorts of troubles. He meets and marries a woman from El Salvador who is also traumatized. Anyways it's very good. He definitely has PTSD although it's not mentioned.

When I was a kid, comic books were 'boy' things. My husband is the expert in the family about comics. We'll see an ad for a movie and I hear from him 'Cool! I remember reading that comic when I was a kid. We've got to go see that movie.' He's still a kid at heart.

From my limited experience and expose to comics to movies (and you listed all of the ones I knew off the top of my head) I wracked my brain and came up with these three:

The Bride from Kill Bill (I & II)-Her attempted murder, rapes in the hopsital while she was in a coma, thinking her child was dead...yeah-I can see her wanting a little justice.

Swamp Thing (my first movie based on comic)-Main character (can't remember his name) set up in a lab explosion to be killed and it mutates him and he has to live in the swamp. He fights to protect innocents and the environment. All the while he watches his wife live her life and won't let her see him. Pretty sad movie, if you ask me.

The Shadow-I saw the movie with Alec Baldwin. WWI vet whose alienated from pretty much everything goes to Asia, becomes a drug lord and is kidnapped by monks who teach him to use his darkness and go home to fight evil. I love the old line 'Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of men? The Shadow knows!'.

Pretty nifty subject, Evie. Until you mentioned it, I never thought about it, but most comic book characters have some major catastrophy happen to them to make them the hero/villian of a story line. Also, the traumas that made them who they are they try to forget or hide from the world.

I saw Tim Burton's Batman Returns recently, and I was so struck by how the Penguin and Catwoman could both be interpreted as having ptsd, in a sense. (And speaking of Tim Burton, how about Edward Scissorhands?) These characters have experiences that are truly outside the realm of ordinary experience. In Penguin's case, being born so grotesquely deformed and abandoned to be raised with penguins; in Catwoman's case, to be thrown out a highrise window by her boss, then revived to life by a bunch of alleycats. It really does makes one think about the creators of these characters.

Actually, a book could be written on the subject of comic strip characters, their creators and interpreters (i.e. film directors), and PTSD.

Amazon search for books on the topic that may have already written, anyone? Evie?

Evie, I'm not a fan of movies of this sort, but two PTSD affected people in one family - it is just too much! :cool:

My boyhood favourite was Conan the Barbarian. Used to inspire me with his attitude towards his trauma and suffering. "What does not kill you, makes you stronger". Considering my age, it's obvious Conan was a comic book long before Arnold S. played him in the movies. ;-)

Jim.

*says dryly* gee, thanks! :biggrin:

All kidding aside, I just read a book with the lead character having PTSD. The author did a piss poor job of portraying it. Started out with an explanation of it and the characters symptoms and then no mention nor portrayl of it again. Pretty sad. I will have to find the title of it again. It was a good read otherwise.

bec

Speaking of PTSD in books...something off the top of my head...Septimus Warren Smith in Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway ...though it is combat related ("shell shock" from WWI)

It doesn't matter the media, the darkness that you portray has to have root some where in it.

On another note, in Serenity/ Firefly, River Tam.

Her usual crazies aside (erm, the psychic thing) she has 'flashbacks' panic attacks etc as a result of the 'experiments' used on her.

I like looking at other media, painting etc and wondering what was in the artists mind when they drew/ painted them.

One for example is Edvard Munch's The Scream

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scream

This is a quote from Munch
The original German title given to the work by Munch was Der Schrei der Natur (The Scream of Nature).
In a note in his diary - the page headed Nice 22.01.1892, Munch described his inspiration for the image thus:
“I was walking along a path with two friends—the sun was setting—suddenly the sky turned blood red—I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence—there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city—my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety—and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.„ Edvard Munch

Thanks for those good examples Marlene. I love The Bride/Kill Bill... it's one of my favourites. And you're right, most comic book characters do tend to hide from the world in some way.

Hodge, have you seen Batman Begins, the latest movie in the series? It's very good. Not sure about a book like that existing currently, I rather think not, as I'm really into comics and I likely would have heard of it. I believe I read a thesis online once though, about comic book characters and mental illness. I'll see if I can find it again.

Thanks Uncle, how could I have forgotten Conan! He's one of my favourites. And yeah cass Serenity is another good example, thanks. Thanks RD for the book too. I should be making a list!! Actually I could probably write an article and provide my own illustrations as well, being a comic book artist. I could have it as a website. That might be a good project for me when I'm bored. :)

Hey Batgirl,

I haven't seen Batman Begins. I find most films too overstimulating in the theater, so I wait till they come on cable, usually. I know there are some reference books on comics (you could google Visible Ink Press, for example), but don't know about anything else scholarly, though I would be surprised if there weren't some on this subject. I just never really thought about it until reading your posts and connecting your insights with my impressions of the Batman movie I did see recently. I would really encourage you to continue your research about what others have written on this subject, at your leisure of course, so that you are fully armed with background information about what others have said before writing your own article or book. Yeah, get a printout of that thesis you saw. You'll probably want to cite it. I bet you could do an awesome job. If you'd like any further research tips, feel free to ask (part of my job is knowing how to research for the best info). Good luck, hodge