What's the Age Group your Comic is Intended For?

[alaingrey]

Just as a reference, because I think a lot of people with teen appropriate comics in this thread are saying they have 17+ level comics, the official guidelines for movies are:

PG-13- swearing, violence, some sex. A standard action comic should fall under this umbrella.

R (under 17 not admitted)- heavy swearing (this would be like an F bomb as a verb rather than as a curse), heavy sexual content, heavy violence (think splatter gore) and explicit and prolonged drug use.

Think the difference between James Bond and Kill Bill-- I think a lot of people in this thread are saying they want 17+ readers because they're 17+ but violence is (legally) totally appropriate for the kiddos! So is mild sex! (which is the Tap rule anyways)

The only reason I consider my comics for older teens is bc the extensive drug use with explicit rendering (it's not implied, it happens) but I reaaaally don't think anime-style violence is 'adults only' at all.

[Kura]

Ratings are kind of more subjective when it comes to what's acceptable in different countries. Some things that aren't considered controversial in some countries are considered adult/controversial in other countries.

Aside from that though, it's hard to say, I gave up trying to target an audience after I went out of my way to make Raven Wolf 14+ish... but then the majority of my readers ended up being in the 22 - 40 so why the hell did I go through the extra work of awkwardly trying to keep the language clean and keeping the violence down??

So I never really thought about it for No Future It's the age range of whoever wants to read it. I guess because of language and themes I would think readers would at least be over 14 to really understand the undertones, but plenty of kids can handle more mature story lines than adults give them credit for (while there are some adults that apparently can't handle mature story lines)

[J.Z.Castillo]

Mmh, so I guess mine is PG-13 then... it becomes R later on though because of the violence... I think? I don't know, there's some really gruesome scenes but they are not constant or the driving point of the story? I guess I'll just go with PG-13

[Michelle]

True, if we're going by an actual rating system, that all checks out. But I'm also considering what kind of age group would be interested in a certain story, based off the way it's presented.

A story could have content that's pretty tame in terms of violence, sex, drugs etc, but still be really boring for a kid to read. Like, Dilbert is a tame Sunday comic, but I wouldn't say it's intended for all ages. At least in my mind, "intended for" and "appropriate for" aren't the same thing.

[MissMagicGirl]

So far my comic is real family friendly. I think it will stay that way. I think it is for teens and up. I think most of my readers (that I know about) are in their 20´s or 30´s. But I have some friends that reads it to their kids which I think is fine.

[alaingrey]

Tru! Although I'm pretty sure Dilbert isn't interesting for anyone ; D

I still think most comics on this site would be interesting for kids. Kids like action and romance, which is a lot of what of the comics here are, so I think "appropriate" does end up being more strong than "interesting."

As for different countries, I only know about European, Australian and American ratings systems, and they seem to be pretty similar. Since my comic is English-only, that's most my readership, so I don't mind about ratings worldwide too much.

[69Michi]

You know in my country there are even a rating for 15+ LMFAO But I never knew that PG-13 already contain some sex and violence.... goodness I thought it was a lot more innocent TT_TT

If that is the case then I think my comic would be PG-13 for some blood and gore, maybe inching up a bit in later episodes but what is gore i can't even to save my life

[Kura]

My country the ratings are G, PG, 14A, 18A, R and Adult. With PG and 14A (which I guess would be our PG-13?) being pretty lenient with it's more mature themes.

I mean if you think about it, Legend of Korra still had a PG rating and that series could get get pretty mature with it's story line.

[Shanny8]

My comic would be considered [possibly] 13-up. Def not an all-ages story...though the violence is tame(right now), there is the language content(light profanity like "hell, damn, bitch" but no f-bombs, mf bombs, and sh*t)., and kissing(but no sex).

[shazzbaa]

At least in my mind, "intended for" and "appropriate for" aren't the same thing.

Yeah, Agreed! "Rating" and "Target Demographic" are totally different questions. Some of us are kind of answering both, since both can be relevant to the question of "what's the intended age group" ?

I think what's confusing the two is that "17+" is used like a rating in the states, one which means very mature audiences, so that sounds like it's being used as a rating. Whereas if you say something more general, like "late teens" or "college age" it sounds more like it's a Target Demographic rather than "the only people this comic is appropriate for"

[alaingrey]

True, true! Bad wording on my part. I think I'm thinking more 'rating' than 'intention' but intention sounds nicer as a topic. And to some extent they do go hand in hand. (ie. don't intend a comic for kids and then make it about sex)

I'm curious about what tapastic people rate their comics, so that I can think of ways to try and limit the access youngsters get to my work ! Maybe tapastic just isn't an appropriate venue y _ y

[ConradComics]

My intended audience would be for late-teen/college-aged males.

If I were to give all of the eventual content of Her Shadow a rating, it would been T+ (or 13 and up).

[indagold]

My recent comics probably 12+. I don't expect my work to be found by toddlers anyway.

[nessiefynn]

I'd say Household Slime Mold is probably going to end up around PG 13 for swearing and violence, I imagine people floating around their teens would enjoy it.

[PurpleGround]

This is nice. For me I tend to go with U, K+ and above. the language used is pretty simple and straight forward to understand. I personally becomes a bit edgy when doing violence scenes so that is usually my gore limitation.

[WakaXO]

I haven't really thought much about it... I guess as it stands now, Neon Rabbit is PG? (Or teen approved lol) There will be more gore as it goes and violent scenes, but there probably wont be any nudity and I want to keep it free from cussing so maybe PG14? ^^;

[6ooey]

My comic would probably be in the age range for 16-17+? It seems pretty tame now but there's gonna be sexual and mature themes in the long run (and constant cursing)

[CHMsketches]

I guess my comic 'Be Brave' is for all ages. It has sad parts but almost all the time is 'happy-flower' XDDD
Also it's a positive story of how to fight the bullying, so it can helps to people.......I guess? XD
https://tapastic.com/series/Be-Brave

[spooktacularprize]

My comic, Between Hay and Grasss, is kind of supposed to be one of those things that's for everyone; if it were on TV it would probably be marketed as a kids' show, but since it's a webcomic and I don't have to worry about that; it has some content that would probably be not allowed on a kids' show. But what I'm planning on isn't super "adult" in my mind. I think kids could definitely handle it and if both kids and adults enjoyed it, all the better!

[Puppisama]

I rate my comic VCvsDvsCFAD for people with 15+ yrs, the lenguage is not specially nice, and there will be blood and you know what kind of scenes in the future. I never thought what kind of audience might be reading my comic now, but what I'm doing is try to share it in sites where kids ususally dont reach, but I really don't care if kids read this or not, because being sincere, at that age I used to read heck of heavy shit and watch gore anime and stuff, and I didnt grew to be a monster just for those series I read and those gory games I played. If you feel insecure, just throw a NSFW for everything hahahaha.