What do you consider mature themes?

[elixiadragmire]

Straightforward topic no? No

Basically this stems from my comic, its ... cute looking to a degree, even dare we say disneyque raises eyebrow
So far in my story the opening pages had blood and implied death, two unsavoury thugs trying to kidnap a naive girl for exactly the reasons you imagine, more bleeding dead bodies and corpses on a pyre. Then I killed a messenger bird in the last page openly (not implied at all)

Now this is the beginning without ... spoiling things, I plan some ... deaths, not gore mind, deaths. and blood and some pretty heartbreaking scenes (end of act 3 I swear!). I'm not planning on gore or the gruesome, or at least not showing it to the viewer, maybe even implied 'relations' these are all mature themes to me. Thou the bird killing got a fair amount of rise than the implied deaths.

So is mature content just about the mature themes existing within the story or the delivery of these mature themes?

[ghostnxs]

Not sure exactly what you mean but I'm pretty sure it is mainly about delivery, Disney's mulan had her kill thousands with an avalanche but no one bats an eye or in Tarzan when that dude hangs himself. http://www.cracked.com/article_16795_the-7-most-terrifying-disney-movie-deaths.html So I'm pretty sure its about delivery.

[AnnaLandin]

Mature content for me is a high degree of violence (the gory kind), depictions of sex*, sexualised nudity** and storylines dealing with heavy themes like rape and the survival thereof, incurable diseases like cancer, war, slavery, etc.

Of course, this all depends on how the author deals with it. There are children's books dealing with death and cancer and such, and One Piece - which is aimed towards teenagers - repeatedly deals with war, the loss of loved ones, slavery and the consequences of totalitarian government. So not all of the things I listed above necessarily add up to something being rated mature, but they're definitely things to consider - and certainly something that might be worth labeling individual pages as NSFW.

So yes, the delivery of said themes matters a LOT.

*) By "depictions of sex", I don't mean you can't IMPLY sex that happens off screen; I mean the showing of the actual act.

**) Non-sexual/casual nudity is fine with me, but this is very much a cultural thing, and any scenes with nudity should probably be labelled NSFW, or at least warned of ahead of time; some people might be reading these comics in places where sudden nudity, even non-sexual, may cause offense.

[blastryoku]

Yeah, I think it's the delivery what matters the most, you can have a lot of mature themes in your comic but if you don't deliver them as such, they won't really be treated as mature.

[elixiadragmire]

Yeah this is what I've been seeing too.

its seems the delivery of certain themes depicted on whether its mature content or not. Here's the part that I think warrant research on my part is plot clarity for implied or off screen themes vs outright showing them and creating mature content.

I'm wish to have SOME mature content but not so much that it detracts.

[JigokuNeko]

The nudity thing aside (which has been beaten to death, resurrected, then beaten again) I think a lot of mature themes should be examined through the lens of what would make them triggering to others. The same scene of death can be cartoony (ie. someone dying and a cute ghost floating above them) and disturbing (ie. showing gore, body parts etc). Obviously, the latter should get a label. As a general rule, the closer you get to realism, the more a mature theme has the potential to disturb someone and warrants a label.

[elixiadragmire]

Yeah, there a few scenes that are ... bloody is the best word to use. and will be labelled as mature primarily due to it strong nature of the theme regarding of how much I show and I feel they'll have stronger impact.
The death of my bird wasn't gory or bloody but rather VERY apparent and cruel with seems to of hit a tone with readers with makes me see the delivery was more chilling than the subject matter itself

[asheskyler]

I think PG and PG-13 applies to icky things off screen and R/mature is when it's showed on screen. Not counting dialogue, some curse words will bump it up automatically to an R/mature regardless of pictorial content or subject matter. Just my observation. Of course, there are the G-rated nature programs that show critters violently killing other critters and bugs eating each other alive. [shrug] Exception to every rule.

[facemeltingsolos]

I would add to this anything that might be extremely uncomfortable to tell/teach a child or teen.

One of my favorite reads is Watchmen. If you take away the sex/nudity (fairly simple) and the gore (way more challenging for that book) you're still left with a story that has mature subject matter. One of the main characters was born because of a rape between two friends, one character can no longer connect with other humans and rather sees us as nothing more than matter (indiscriminate killing without being labeled as psychotic), and one character whose entire focus is the idea that society and its ills are a practical joke we all play against each-other.

These are heavy topics.

Another of my favorites is the Maxx. No sex, no nudity, lots of violence (U.S. comic in the early to mid 90's, can't expect much else). Take away the violence you still have a story talks about sex-positive/sex-negative feminism, objectification, and overcoming severe childhood traumas (one story of taking the life of a dying rabbit and its effects later on in the character's life, our memories of the past vs. objective facts, and implied molestation).

The majority of the movie Psycho is just talking and getting to know the mind of a murderer. We get to see how his mind works (or doesn't), and what he must do to hide what he is and what he's done. This movie could be shown in full on TV today, but is still far more disturbing than so many slasher movies because we're going spelunking in the mind of a deranged lunatic. Perhaps, even more frightening, we may see a bit of ourselves.

Again, these are heavy topics, and even if nothing is explicitly shown they're not really appropriate for a lot of the younger crowd. A rapist may be only an abstract construct for some or an all-too-real demon in their past for others.

[scythe]

Well obv anything sexual or violent, or themes that touch on things like mental/physical abuse, suicide, war, famine etc.

I think it's important to note that a mature theme doesn't necessarily mean that a child couldn't or shouldn't be exposed to it, but rather, by labelling something as mature themes, it should act as a warning that the story won't be unrealistically vanilla. For instance, to their huge credit, practically all Disney films deal with mature themes, but are nonetheless child-friendly. Like everyone else has mentioned, it all comes down to context and how the themes are presented.

[malwdark]

I agree, the 'mature' impression is given for the realism and profundity the theme is aborded with.
Sadly, the standarts don't work like that. Many movies, series, games, etc, keep away from certain things just to avoid a +16 or +18 tag that would reduce their sales.

(sorry if my comment doesn't have sense u-u this isn't my native language)

[bmacbride]

"Mature themes", to me, implies that the work contains sexual references or sexual nudity. "Mature" as a word to describe a work of fiction is just a euphemism for sexual content. Doesn't necessarily mean that the themes in the work are literally mature or meant for the developed minds of adults or dealing with serious issues in a serious way. Unfortunately, I can't think of a label for that, except maybe "some themes may be unsuitable for children", but what I would do is just go down the ole checklist of what you need to warn people about. "Contains blood, nudity, violence, death, suicide, rape," etc. etc. It's tedious, but if you're worried about the mental safety of your audience, that's the way to do it. Even if you put "mature themes" in the description, a person who will be very badly affected by a reference to rape won't know what's in there.

[elixiadragmire]

Thanks everyone for your input.

I'm essentially aiming for a 16+ audience minimum, despite the style there aren't many 'kiddies' friendly themes to my work. for example my comic relief is a dwarf with a potty mouth.

Its a funny one really because I started writing and drawing a story I liked and wanted to see and didn't research demographics or how dark my plot 'really' was and how it would be perceived because I would drown in the noise that is the internet.

@bmacbride thats a good idea. I am thinking before we get into the 'thick' of it I should address a disclaimer.

[JigokuNeko]

The death of my bird wasn't gory or bloody but rather VERY apparent and cruel with seems to of hit a tone with readers with makes me see the delivery was more chilling than the subject matter itself

Heh, it's a quite infamous phenomenon in movies that the audience will be more upset at the death of a pet than that of a human, children included. There is also an entry in TVTropes called "kick the dog" or something that an author uses to make people reaaally hate an antagonist by having him kick puppies. So I'm not really surprised this particular scene elicited a strong reaction.

[elixiadragmire]

So I'm not really surprised this particular scene elicited a strong reaction.

heh.

I have to say I'm a sap. To kill that bird I had to convince myself to draw it. certains character I know who are up for the 'chop' I'm ... not sure how I'm going to struggle doing those scenes. All i can think is when J.K.Rowling cried to her befuzzled husband when she killed off Sirius Black .....

[JigokuNeko]

Haha, same here. For a previous comic I had a character take care of a stray and then had the stray run over in front of her. I did tear up over fictional kitty.
But you know, I think if the author feels the sadness (or any other powerful emotion) the readers can feel it too and makes the story more...genuine I'd say.

[elixiadragmire]

i wonder how G.R.R.Martin does it .... and does he own a Ben and Jerry's factory for the guilt eating? Thats my go to food for comfort eating!

[JigokuNeko]

I think he doesn't really care about most of them. He probably has a handful that knows will live (...at least to the final chapters, my theory is everyone will die, lol) and just shreds the rest. Waaaay back when I read the first 3 1/2 books I kinda noticed a certain "detachment" when it came to characters that would soon bite the dust, most notably the whole Red Wedding thing.
Truth be told, I was more heartbroken by Harry Potter's deaths than anything in GoT. Because GoT violence is so extreme and so frequent it kinda became tedious at some point. And since we're on topic, I think HP is a prime example of how to successfully deal in very mature themes without being "+18".

[elixiadragmire]

oh oh oh! Your sooooooooooooo right! (plus i love those books to death!) a great excuse to re-read them for research. They had a good way of giving a sense of danger and presence in the world without OOT violence and gory. Some were even a fate worse than death (dementors kiss)

[scythe]

Well, I haven't read the books, so I can't say for sure, but my suspicion is he's trying to make the story as suspenseful as possible.

How many other stories are there where you're actually, rightfully concerned that a main character might bite the dust during a fight scene? I really can't think of any, except those times in stories where it's been presented as obvious that they will die. But in GOT it's always a surprise, and it leaves you reeling, or at least, thinking, 'woah, what the hell just happened?'