The Tails Side- Know the Right Audience

Last post was about how comics (and TV shows, and stories in general) shouldn't be scared of frightening children.
This brings up the question, though, of where you draw the line. After all, you don't want to traumatize your kids for life or make them lack empathy.
Parents should decide what their kids can read based on their children's personalities and not just on certain moral values. This worked and still works with me.
But there are some general guidelines, such as:
1) Excessive, pointless, glorified violence
2)Pointless swearing
3) Anything pointless that occurs just to give a story shock value.
We can universally agree on that as intellectuals, right?


Speaking of being age appropriate, comics have the better deal than television and movies when it comes to determining ratings because:
1) Most comics are created by individuals or two people collaborating. There are no high financial stakes, such as a million dollar budget or withdrawal of company sponsors. In other words, no CEO decides that a comic HAS to be rated PG
2) Comics are distributed to individuals, not masses. That is, a movie theater HAS to bar minors from R-rated movies. In bookstores, any kid could pick up a Mature manga and not be questioned.
3) Most comic ratings are relatively fair because comic book companies rate themselves while in the US we have the MPAA. This organization gave Ma Vie en Rose, a French movie about an eight-year old transgender boy, got an R rating even though it has no nudity, violence, sex or swearing. In comics, we have the following system:
A- All Ages
Y- Youth (7-10+)
T- Teen (13+)
OT- Older Teen (16 +)
M- Mature (18+)

The MPAA system is slightly more flexible than comics nowadays given that comic ratings are self-imposed. (We used to have the Comic Code of Authority, but it has the fangs of a flobberworm.) And with luck, maybe movies will start to rate themselves and see how people like them.