Britney's South Park episode + Violence in Comics

When Britney Spears began her career in the pop scene, I saw her as Madonna-lite.

But her last two studio albums, In The Zone and Blackout, are really enjoyable. I practically worn out my copy of In The Zone, and her latest song "Piece Of Me" is a fantastic and meaningful song that addresses the topic of her public persona.

While she has nothing to do with comics and animation, her recent appearance in the newest season of South Park blew my mind. In it, Britney got tired of the public attention and used a shotgun and blew out her brains. And that's just the beginning of the show.

Bizzarely, she survived the blow and went on an adventure with the South Park kids of Kyle and Stan.

As you can see below, with her brains blown off, Britney went on to perform her first single, Gimme More, in the Grammy Awards. If you are aged 18 and above, you can watch the episode on the South Park site jaw agaped at this new South Park affront.

If that's not violent enough for your tender heart, you can go the the Net and check out the latest episodes of Happy Tree Friends (above). In these mini-episodes, cute little squirrels and rabbits get their innards turned inside out (organs exposed etc) in many grissly ways.

Many people are upset by the violence in Happy Tree Friends and South Park. Don't forget that in earlier seasons, Kenny from South Park died in virtually every episode.

The very same people (usually adults) forgot that when they were younger themselves, they were laughing at just as much cartoon violence. Look back at the popular cartoon Wily Coyote and the Road Runner.

In his constant bid to catch (and probably eat) the Road Runner bird, Wily Coyote used a bunch of ridiculous equipment and weapons. Everytime these technology backfired. And Coyote is usually burnt to a charred crisp, his eyeballs, teeth etc falling off his face.

We can laugh at such cartoon violence because we instinctively knew cartoon violence is different from real violence. We laugh because we knew the cartoon character always survives.

Deaths are often used in comics and cartoons to different effects. Take the famous Batman comics - the 2nd Robin, Jason Todd, was killed by The Joker. Tragic, but he eventually returned from the grave as the Red Hood.

So there.

One big fat non-secret in the comic world: noone dies. So often their deaths are quite funny.

There are no deaths in Buddy Buddy, but it's still fun. Slow in posting, but fun. :)