Alien was an adult movie; given its gore, language and themes (think here of the android ramming a pornographic magazine down Ripley's throat in an attempt to kill her by raping the only orifice he could get to at the time). And this comic book adaptation stuck as closely to the cinematic version as possible.
Which sounds about right. Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson's knew their audience would be the same as it was for the film. Well, so you'd think.
But the story goes that a young boy aged around 10 pestered his mum to buy him a copy. Which she did; it's got a funny animal in it after all. You know the one, explodes out of John Hurt's chest, gets tall, develops something of a taste of for the crew but doesn't like cats.
When the boy complained about the swearing in the comic book his mum, so the story goes, went ballistic. The upshot of which meant the publishers withdrew all copies from the newsagents and pulped them all. They were so sorry that the mum hadn't at least skimmed through the comic before she brought it and used her own powers of deduction. What were they thinking? Tsk, tsk.
Because comic books are for kids aren't they? Okay, maybe the book should have had a warning on the cover like some comics do. But personally I tend to think the clue to it's reading age is in the source material it came from. Call me insightful if you must or simply on the ball.
Welcome to my world.
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