Meet the Flintstones, they’re the modern stone age family. You’re familiar with them. We all are. So let’s go back to Bedrock and see what a modern look at a stone age family looks like.

The Flintstones is something of a slice of life comic centering on, of course, the Flintstone family as well as the Rubbles and Bedrock itself. It’s anachronistic in a way that feels totally true to the old cartoon, while also turning a sharp eye on modern life, and also being a ton of fun. It also goes back to the cartoon’s sitcom roots, being aimed at an older audience. It feels weirdly subversive to see the concept for an old show turned to, more or less, current concerns. I like that quite a bit.

It’s also interesting to see what Mark Russell did with the characters. Fred and Wilma are more communicative, which is awesome in so many ways. The club Fred and Barney belonged to in the cartoon is a veterans’ society now, which ties into just how bedrock came about. Pebbles and Bam Bam are probably the most changed, being teenagers here rather than babies. They often provide a B-plot that reflects the main story in miniature. That’s more than kind of cool. I do sort of wish we’d seen more of Betty. Since she’s Wilma’s friend rather than Fred’s and most of Wilma’s screen time is with her husband, Betty gets pretty left out. I feel like I want the next book to focus more on Betty and Wilma, I want to see more of what’s going on with them especially after the response to Wilma’s art at the museum.

On to the art! Steve Pugh does a really cool job here. Characters from the original are, for the most part, immediately recognizable while also having dropped a lot of the cartoonyness from before. The random background characters have distinct looks. The coloring, done by Chris Chuckry, is vibrant and conveys mood well. My only issue with the art at all is that it does tend to combine massive beefy dudes with comparatively small women. That honestly feels like it could be a throwback though given that the main characters are fairly set design wise and, as the comic goes, we get more body diversity in the background characters.

So, final thoughts. When I first saw that this was going to be a thing months ago I didn’t expect it to be much, mostly due to cherry picked panels and not really knowing what to expect beyond the old cartoon. I’m more than pleasantly surprised to be proven wrong. The writing is solid, the art is good, and while it can be serious there’s always a thread of humor. I like the anachronistic stuff, especially all the little background stuff like store names, it fits and it feels like The Flintstones. So that’s a five out of five from me.

Who would have thought that one of the most brilliant bits of modern satire would be perfectly written and illustrated about the oldest family on televesion

Post-modern Stone Age family. This is way better than it has any right to be. There are genuinely poignant moments about trauma, art, and the lives of animals used as objects. It's insightful and funny and a cutting satire and by far the best possible instance of a decades old franchise. 

Verdict: Classic. Heart and Soul from a warner cash grab.

ARC from Netgalley.
The Flintstones have never been like this before... an eye-opening, satirical commentary on the current social climate of the country.... and its a FLINTSTONES GRAPHIC NOVEL. I know....
Amid the well written story are opinions on the following:
- "Some humans are lesser than others"; shown by Fred having to take out the "inferior" Cro-Mags to show them what "real" people do
- "Money is for buying things you don't need"; shown by the arrival of a mall in Bedrock and the newscast about new trend - "Buying Crap"
- "Art is very meaningful, but "artsy people" decide what is good"; shown through Wilma's handprint art being exhibited, and her being mocked for it
- "You must follow a God to be a member of society"; shown through hilarious interactions at their church, first worshiping a guy that used to lead them (Morp), then a cute elephant who turns out to be just a lost vacuum cleaner (Peaches), an invisible god named Gerald
- "Appearance is everything"; shown by the marketing Fred and Barney do to sell vitamins
- "Veterans all need help after war"; various scenes with Fred, Barney and their lodge
- "Marriage is an immoral institution"; shown through a poignant and hilarious issue about weighing the benefits and reasons behind monogamy versus polygamy or "going back to the sex cave like nature intended" LOL
- "Only vote for the strongest"; still laughing at the campaign slogan "Vote For Me, or I'll Punch You in the Beef"
- "When a scientist says the world is going to end, they are never wrong"; LOL can't do precise calculations with a stone age abacus

Reading this made me laugh, sigh and think about a bunch of different issues that face us in our real, every day lives. I heavily applaud DC for not only bringing back the Flintstones, but making them still the "MODERN Stone Age Family".
High recommend, especially if you have questioned the current moral and political climate... in a Flintstones book... I still can't believe I'm saying that...

It was a new take on the original Flinstones. The graphics were good and I did like the muscle-ly leads. A nice quick read.

I liked it! It was a curious reading although I don't really love the design of the characters, it's a bit strange, but I loved to see that Pebbles and Bam-bam have grown up!!!!
My favourite story is the one they explain how they found bam-bam

If you enjoy satire as a form of social commentary, this is the book - this entire series - is for you!

I've seen a few Flintstones cartoons and I've seen the movie a while ago, and my opinion of this comic is the same of the rest of the property, mixed. This book was just ok in my opinion, it wasn't bad, there were a few funny moments and some neat stories. However, it wasn't really amazing, but simply worked for what it is. If you're really a Flintstones fan, I'm sure you'll enjoy it, but other than that, it's simply a ok read.

DC continues its looting/updating of the Hanna-Barbara vault. The Flintstones are brought into the modern technological age with malls, television, diversity in religion, conflict, space aliens, not to mention the end of the world. The characters are a bit more rugged, more conflicted, and very confused about technology, not to mention changing mores. Now picking up on the product placements are a hoot. So do not take this seriously, just enjoy the twisted tale, and then get out the videotape/DVD and watch the real thing.

This comic is an excellent modern take on an old classic. A very modern take. This volume deals with things like monogamy, domestication, ptsd, and religion. The political commentary is also very modern.

The characters are classic, but the stories they tell are 2017. It reminds me of the old Dinosaurs tv show (with the puppets and costumes). It uses the pre-historic era as a lens to the modern age.

There are some great references to the original Flinstones. Early on there's a vitamins reference. There's also an interesting origin to the phrase "yabba-dabba-doo" which gives more meaning to it. The appliances also are their own characters. The friendship between the bowling ball and the vacuum cleaner is so touching.

I give this comic a 5/5. This is now to retell a property that everyone is familiar with!

Well, that wasn't what I was expecting. Rather than a funny look at stone age life a la the cartoon I remember as a child, I was faced with an interesting commentary on social issues.
PTSD in soldiers
Treatment of immigrant labour
Consumerism
(Gay) Marriage - Kudos for Fred standing up for the 'non-breeders' right to marry.
Government manipulating troops into attacking innocent tribes just to get their land.
Bullying politicians

It was darker than I thought it would be. I was grinning as I started, because Fred had to show a group of Neanderthals a night on the town and one of them had such joy at being in Bedrock. Everything was new and exciting to him and you could see the joy on his face as he skipped over to buy a balloon from a stand on the street and won himself a hat from a grabber machine. And then they killed him off on a whim from Fred's boss and the whole tone of the comic changed for me.
The artwork was bright and bold but the story was far from this and the humour was dark.

As a child (as an adult, for that matter), I lived for two cartoons (sorry, that's what us dinosaurs called "animated series" when I was a mere baby brontosaurus): "Speed Racer" and "The Flintstones". Both have remained rabid favorites as an adult, the residents of Bedrock so familiar and familial to me by now, even cover of this graphic novel (comprised of the first six comics of the series) alone had me worried about what modern day might wrought on the world's (and my) most beloved prehistoric family. Here, the Flintstones and Rubbles have both grown up - literally, Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm are teenagers now - but the genius of what writer Mark Russell and artist Steve Pugh have created here reveals itself in some brilliant political and social satire, the goings-on of Fred, Barney and their families mirroring our own times. Whether tackling politics, obsessive consumerism, the right to marry, genocide/war, organized religion, gentrification, or the objectification and abuse of animals, in comic book form Russell and Pugh have cast both satirical and critical eyes on today's society, mirroring the 21st-century in the dinosaur age - up to and including unique and ingeniously creative back stories behind how the Flintstones got Dino and the Rubbles became parents. Illustrated in just as coarse and "caveman-chic" a style befitting its subjects, the pages reflect the times and draw you that much more into the stories: Fred still trying to get ahead at the quarry (Mr. Slate is, like, three times the douchebag here as in the cartoon), with Barney as his dopey sidekick and Wilma this time showing off an artistic bent as well as her own kind-of-cool backstory (Betty, by comparison, is severely relegated to almost an afterthought of a character here). Extremely well-crafted with obvious love for the original, this is a new retelling of "The Flintstones" for our times that somehow never loses - at its heart - any respect for the source material. 4/5 stars

Note: I received a free ARC of this title via NetGalley and the publisher, in exchange for an honest review.

Too much politics, not enough laughs. I liked the art style and I wanted to like the stories, but it just didn't work. The original was political, but the humor really balanced it out.

(An ARC from Net Gallery)
"We participated in a genocide, Barney"
It seems to be very in vogue to suggest a dark alternative to the more wholesome cartoons of yesteryear.
The Rugrats are dead.
Spongebob and friends are mutants from fallout.
The Simpsons are part of a cloning experiment gone wrong.

But in the case of the Flintstones it works (mostly).
Fred and Barney are war veterans who battled the Tree People in order to claim land to build Bedrock.
Now they are just trying to live their lives despite aliens, the end of the world and PTSD.

When looking past the grim content (Fred's catchphrase cry of celebration now a coping mechanism for soldiers) there are still puns and a lot of heart in this tale.

The story is pretty decent - a Flintstones take on modern society - similar to the classic cartoon. However, I had a tough time getting used to the characters drawn realistically.

<p>Other than getting the theme song stuck in my head, what is the purpose of a rebooted Flintstones? Nostalgia I suppose. Getting to play around within the confines of a system? All those stories you wish the Flintstones had told while you were home sick at lunch during grade school (The Flintstones came on at noon when I was growing up. This may not be the case for people who did not grow up in the same environs as I did -- I don't know. And so, The Flintstones always make me taste <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3treMuGiCVM">Zoodles</a> because that's what you ate when you were home sick. Again, that might not be a universally understood *thing*)?</p>

<p>Recently I read <a href="https://www.librarything.com/work/17195561/book/136781154">A Hundred Thousand Worlds</a> by Bob Proehl, which briefly touches on whether readers want new characters and new stories or simply new stories for comics. Would I have requested a comic about early humans that weren't the Flintstones? I don't know. So I guess that's the purpose of a rebooted Flintstones, for people like me, who are indecisive about what they want out of reading-life, I guess.</p>

<p>And none of this has anything to do with <A href="https://www.librarything.com/work/19083012/book/140386264">The Flintsones Vol. 1</a> <i>per se</i>. Hmmm.</p>

<p>So it's The Flintstones, but more for grown-ups with digs at <a href="https://www.flintstonesvitamins.com/">vitamins</a> and chimpanzees spouting David Bowie lyrics. Fred and Barney are veterans of a Vietnam-War-type-of-debacle that clear-cut the way for Bedrock's establishment. Wilma is an artist (was she on the TV show? I remember she was a cigarette girl in one episode). Betty is just Betty (boo!). The elephant vacuum cleaner forms a friendship with the armadillo bowling ball that is the most compelling relationship in the comic, although I get the impression that there are a lot of sight gags and *wink wink nudge nudge*'s that I missed because I am lousy at reading comics (I tend to read the words and gloss over the pictures) and, as an ARC, the quality is not as great as it would be in the actual book. </p>

<p>The strength in <A href="https://www.librarything.com/work/19083012/book/140386264">The Flintstones Vol. 1</a> (and I keep typing Flintsones rather than Flintstones, so I apologize if that typo squeezes its way into the final review) is the way each comic feels like an episode of the TV show, even with updated drawings and situations and style. It feels like I watched six episodes of The Flintstones yesterday, eating Zoodles, in my pyjamas. Russell captured that television feeling somehow, and I'm not exactly sure how, but he did, even if I think the whole thing should be abandoned for a spin-off Vacuum and Bowling Ball story line instead. </p>

<p><A href="https://www.librarything.com/work/19083012/book/140386264">The Flintstones Vol. 1</a> by Mark Russell went on sale March 28, 2017.</p>

<p><small>I received a copy free from <a href="https://www.netgalley.com/">Netgalley</a> in exchange for an honest review.</small></p>

The Flintstones have been recreated as a wry satire on today's society. Some of the stories work, like people getting upset that people are starting to get married. Others, like Fred and Barney having to get second jobs so that their wives can buy more crap feel like I'm being beaten over the head with a stick about abject consumerism. The stories and jokes are all just OK, none of them really grab me. I'll probably give this series a pass in the future.

Mark Russell's adaptation of The Flinstones was nothing like I expected it to be, in the best way. I expected a campy, childish comic. And while it's campy, it is also tongue-in-cheek and rebellious. I didn't expect a commentary on modern society from 100,000-year-old Bedrock, but Russell manages to drive his points home in an often hilarious and relatable way.

In this intelligent take on the beloved childhood cartoon, Fred and Barney are war vets with PTDS while Wilma is a deep-thinking artist. The town of Bedrock is the height of stone age civilization with clever world building that steps things up a notch from the cartoon. Satirical in nature, the story makes some very dark jokes and poignant observations about our society in regards to growth, politics, government, war, consumerism, and even pokes at gay rights (though not well rounded enough to call it a genuine address of LGBTQ rights).

I enjoyed this volume more than I expected to, all in all, it was an enjoyable read that I would recommend. The writing was somewhere close to a 4 star, with the art hitting 3.5 for my personal tastes.

We reviewed this title on our podcast: http://www.krayzcomix.solitairerose.com/?p=1092