in house dollar bill thumbnail
 Total: 43,548 books
 New: 84 books




small login logo

Please enter your details to login and enjoy all the fun of the fair!

Not a member? Join us here. Everything is FREE and ALWAYS will be.

Forgotten your login details? No problem, you can get your password back here.

Seduction of the innocent?

Pages: 1 2 3 [4]

topic icon Author Topic: Seduction of the innocent?  (Read 28249 times)

darkmark

  • VIP
message icon
Re: Seduction of the innocent?
« Reply #75 on: October 24, 2009, 12:47:53 PM »

With comics, I think you have to know when to quit reading.  I quit the DC stuff before IDENTITY CRISIS, the Avengers before DISASSEMBLED, Cap before CIVIL WAR, and the X-Men back around 1983 (and it was STILL too long).  As for Hal Jordan going crazy...don't get me started!  If you don't read those things and don't patronize the companies that do them, you won't have to see your heroes get degraded.  I can live without any of that.
ip icon Logged

narfstar

  • Administrator
message icon
Re: Seduction of the innocent?
« Reply #76 on: October 24, 2009, 10:22:42 PM »

I just keep getting JLA and JSA for the love of the teams. Call it nostalgic hope.
ip icon Logged

John C

message icon
Re: Seduction of the innocent?
« Reply #77 on: October 24, 2009, 11:00:02 PM »

Trying to pick out the things I wanted to speak directly to in order to keep this short.

I failed.  In several ways, not the least of which:

"The message exceeds the maximum allowed length (20000 characters)."

Not just because this goes on forever, but because I started typing this something like two hours ago.

Before we get going, does anybody have any business to take care of?  Because I'm not pulling this car over once we get moving...


As for Hal Jordan going crazy...don't get me started!


In a statment guaranteed to keep some of you up late tonight after reading it...I didn't think "Emerald Twilight" was bad.

OK, sure, everything they've done with Hal SINCE has been terrible, including bringing him back and exhonorating him because it wasn't really him, y'see, and so it wasn't his fault at all, so just accept it and let us write what we wanna write.  Ahem.  Where was I?

Right.  Originally when I read the story, I got excited, because DC has some great heroes (Hal Jordan included), but has a rather boring collection of villains, certainly nobody you expect to ever win.  But Hal had a track record and he was driving by the need to improve things, which the DCU certainly needs.  I didn't see him as "crazy" so much as "done."

He killed?  Handwave it.  In fact, if you look closely, everybody gets left on asteroids, usually with colored or smoky backgrounds, which would seem to indicate an atmosphere.  And even if the character is portrayed as oddly harsh, well, we learn near the end that our faithful narrator is actually someone with a grudge and an agenda, Sinestro.

Add in the way the series was going up to that point, and I see it as a layered story that missed the mark.  There's a lot of dialogue spent bemoaning that the character "must" do somethiing or "can't" back down, and I remember the days when Hal was regularly tested by the Guardians and even offered a leadership role a few times...

Anyway, I can see why people wouldn't like it, especially with what came after, but the story itself excited me to no end when I read it, for all the potential I saw.


Though they may look the same to us. I would hazard a guess that the parents there might regulate what their children read (as nearly all adults like both Manga and Anime in Asian countries), due to the fact that they themselves might give it a quick read.


I'd have to agree.  Imagine going to the store to buy, say, a DVD set for a classic sitcom for a kid.  To an outsider, they're all glossy packages with pictures of attractive people.  But you can see the difference between, say, family-friendly "Diff'rent Strokes" and almost-makes-me-blush "Three's Company."

That said, I can't make heads or tails of anything Japanese beyond their language.  It all seems like a put-on, and none of it really strikes me as interesting, whether it's their movies, comics, cartoons, or anything else.  I can't even figure out if "Iron Chef" is supposed to be funny or intense!  It's like the entire country is a modernized version of Princess Cariboo's Javasu.


I won't say that there isn't an audience for the "over the top" amount of just dragging heroes through the mud... but the funny thing is... These same writers can only ride on the shirt-tails of others... I don't see them putting out anything of their own that is successful in and of it's own accord (Well... maybe Miller's SIN CITY... and I guess a case could be made for the Watchmen... even though they were simply Charlton Chara with a HUGE makeover).


Exactly.  They're popular for doing the easy work of deconstruction, but none of their creations are more than a footnote.  I mean, they're annoyingly influential on modern comics history, but that's about it.

I mean, the guy on the street knows who Captain America and Superman are, and can talk about them somewhat intelligently.  Captain Marvel, Blue Beetle, and even Spawn are surprisingly likely to at least have some recognition.  But I'm hard-pressed to think of a single Miller, Moore, or Morrison creation, for example, that would make for viable dinner conversation.  Even "Sin City" is...eh, I guess people have heard the name, but they're far more likely to assume you're talking about Vegas.

Oh, and it's worth mentioning, I thiink, that Moore's original plans for "Watchmen" involved not the Charlton characters, but the Archie stable.  And the fact that you can easily make the connections and that the story doesn't change in the tiniest bit sort of suggests that even those legendary characters aren't all they're cracked up to be.


Image tried... and (in the end) basically failed (good!). The only reason they were as successful as they were was because everyone (fans) played follow the artist... and didn't stick with the truely good writing.


Image was about the artists owning the characters they create, I believe.  I don't begrudge them that, in concept, though I do think there's a problem with building a shared universe that way (look at poor Rom!).

However, that ownership sort of translated into a lack of editorial oversight, which killed any chances they might have had for a serious ongoing fanbase, I think.

Well, that, and the fact that the artists weren't particularly good, for the most part...

To be continued...
ip icon Logged

John C

message icon
Re: Seduction of the innocent?
« Reply #78 on: October 24, 2009, 11:01:29 PM »

Part two, of a series of eight thousand and thirteen...

(And seriously, sorry about the bulk, but it's such an interesting cluster of topics and I hate just replying to every little thing individually and breaking the flow.)


I think we've all agreed this thread will wander off-topic at times and nobody minds.
I think we all can see we are covering a lot more than just SOTI here.


I actually assumed that we weren't necessarily talking about the book at all, except as a springboard.  After all, there are a lot of terrible books that Wertham never even imagined at the time...


The JSA 10 issue run from the early 90s was just great IMO.  So I can't tar and feather the entire era.


Sure you can.  The only reason that book got released, as I understand it, was that they paid the creative team for the !mpact books before the license was finalized and pretty much gave them their pick of assignments to keep them happy.

So if it hadn't been for Archie, the series never would have existed...


In that point I agree with G7.  Know your audience and write to that level.  I still think the retailers have a responsibility to display the books separately for each other.  Disney shouldn't be mixed in with Vertigo titles.
I don't believe in censorship but I do believe in telling buyers what they can expect in a title either with a rating system or at least proper display techniques that give a parent a chance of perhaps pointing his little one in the more appropriate direction.


I think censorship isn't great, but is warranted and acceptable in an industry that can't figure out exactly the "separation" model you suggest.

I mean, I'd rather parents raise their kids to find the good stuff for themselves, but in cases where that fails, publishers have a responsibility assist.  And if they won't or can't, well, somebody needs to do it for them.


At the same time of my purchasing WW/Bonanza Book... I also bought the Great Comic Book Heroes by Jules Feiffer. It was in here that I was introduced to the name of Frederic Wertham - "Seduction of the Innocent". I was only like 9 or 10 and when I read all the crap that he stated and I was actually mystified. I had never ever even looked at any of this stuff in that context.
Who is the guilty party here?
Who either put a face of that nature or drew one where there wasn't one?


I think that one of the bigger problems of the industry is that most of today's creators are in our age range and had very similar reactions.  We lived in a Code-approved world and, when you hear about Wertham in that kind of environment, well, surely he must have been a villain of the worst sort!

Looking back now, I see what he was getting at, even if I don't agree with him.  It was bad science, basically, but his heart was mostly in the right place, in all probability.


But the nail in the coffin for me on this entire thing will always be... Batman and Robin are homosexuals and Batman was a predator of Robin. (there is a big difference between Pedophiles and homosexuals).
It wouldn't surprise me if there was a LOT wrong with Wertham in as much as there was with Cohn (That they were actually demonizing these things due to some form of demonization of self).


That could be.  I'm trying very hard to phrase this in a way that doesn't directly insult somebody, but my experience has been that there are a large number of people who enter psychology because, deep down, they want to fix themselves, rather than patients.  (Original version:  Every psychologist I've ever met was nuts.  In case anybody was curious.)

But on the other hand, there are many, many panels in Batman books that look suspicious if you take them out of the context--of the characters' entire publishing histories, I mean, and not just the single page or story.  And if you think about it, that's kind of what psychology is all about, taking things out of context and trying to find the "inherent" meaning of each.


I know this probably isn
ip icon Logged

boox909

  • VIP
message icon
Re: Seduction of the innocent?
« Reply #79 on: October 24, 2009, 11:04:39 PM »


I just keep getting JLA and JSA for the love of the teams. Call it nostalgic hope.


I'm with you here Narf. The JLA books are okay enough -- I enjoyed the recent 80 page special with its stories featuring Crimson Avenger and Shining Knight.

JSA, other than the awesome Kobra mini, the regular book has become horrid. These are Earth One reboots, anyway, and I am one of those weird Earth-2 loyalists, so I don't care much for the drama drama drama that characterizes the current series. I gave up on the Magog series with the first issue -- that's how bad it is in my opinion. I know there is a new JSA series coming soon, maybe it will be more entertaining.

And off topic but -- The Web comic is the better of the two reboot books. The Hangman backup in Web has been highly awesome and I hope it spins off into its own series...it would be perfect for a television series even. I am dropping Shield and its 'apologize for the USA at every turn' slant...the Inferno backup is so bad it hurts.

The Marvels Project is addictive! Pick this series up and you will not be disappointed -- it makes me want to check out the stories of the obscure Timely characters more so. Too bad "The Twelve" will never see completion.

B.
ip icon Logged

JVJ

  • VIP & JVJ Project Member
message icon
Re: Seduction of the innocent?
« Reply #80 on: October 24, 2009, 11:52:06 PM »


But I'm hard-pressed to think of a single ... Moore... creation, for example, that would make for viable dinner conversation.


Oh, I could ramble on at length in response to the many threads and topics you hit upon, John, but I'm limiting myself to just this one - since someone pointed it out to me while I was in Paris...

Can you actually name ONE Alan Moore "creation" that wasn't based on someone else's character/story? Try, and let me know what you come up with.

Peace, Jim (|:{>
ip icon Logged

narfstar

  • Administrator
message icon
Re: Seduction of the innocent?
« Reply #81 on: October 25, 2009, 12:38:20 AM »

I want to like the JSA. I guess that it what keeps me with it. I have some but have not read all the MLJ reboots. I just do not see why DC uses a characters name only. There are lots of good names. Thanks for letting me know not to read Shield. I am proud to be a conservative American Christian
ip icon Logged

Roygbiv666

  • VIP
message icon
Re: Seduction of the innocent?
« Reply #82 on: October 25, 2009, 02:57:46 AM »



But I'm hard-pressed to think of a single ... Moore... creation, for example, that would make for viable dinner conversation.


Oh, I could ramble on at length in response to the many threads and topics you hit upon, John, but I'm limiting myself to just this one - since someone pointed it out to me while I was in Paris...

Can you actually name ONE Alan Moore "creation" that wasn't based on someone else's character/story? Try, and let me know what you come up with.

Peace, Jim (|:{>


Other than John Constantine? Nope. I think Moore is/was much more interested in playing with the form of storytelling than necessarily creating characters. Look at the loopy stuff he did on "Promethea", neato.
ip icon Logged
Comic Book Plus In-House Image

JVJ

  • VIP & JVJ Project Member
message icon
Re: Seduction of the innocent?
« Reply #83 on: October 25, 2009, 03:17:40 AM »


Other than John Constantine? Nope. I think Moore is/was much more interested in playing with the form of storytelling than necessarily creating characters. Look at the loopy stuff he did on "Promethea", neato.


Even the source/motivation of John Constantine is suspect, Roy.
According to Wikipedia:
John Constantine's official debut was not until Swamp Thing #37. Moore describes the creation of Constantine as being drawn from a number of "really good ideas... about serial killers, the Winchester House, and... want[ing] to draw Sting in a story."[4] Calling these disparate strands a "big intellectual puzzle," Constantine was the result of "fit[ting] it all together."[4] Initially created "purely to get Sting into the story," by the time of the 1985 San Diego ComicCon, Moore stated that "t's turning into something more than that now."

(|:{>
ip icon Logged

Guardian7

message icon
Re: Seduction of the innocent?
« Reply #84 on: October 25, 2009, 04:02:27 AM »


Quote from: John C


I highly doubt I would allow my daughter to read Identity Crisis (and she is 17)
ip icon Logged

Roygbiv666

  • VIP
message icon
Re: Seduction of the innocent?
« Reply #85 on: October 25, 2009, 04:06:55 AM »



Other than John Constantine? Nope. I think Moore is/was much more interested in playing with the form of storytelling than necessarily creating characters. Look at the loopy stuff he did on "Promethea", neato.


Even the source/motivation of John Constantine is suspect, Roy.
According to Wikipedia:
John Constantine's official debut was not until Swamp Thing #37. Moore describes the creation of Constantine as being drawn from a number of "really good ideas... about serial killers, the Winchester House, and... want[ing] to draw Sting in a story."[4] Calling these disparate strands a "big intellectual puzzle," Constantine was the result of "fit[ting] it all together."[4] Initially created "purely to get Sting into the story," by the time of the 1985 San Diego ComicCon, Moore stated that "t's turning into something more than that now."

(|:{>


So ... if you don't create a character out of whole cloth without reference to anything that existed prior, it's not original or memorable? At any rate, Moore is about experimenting, not really character creation. Characters are just narrative tools to him, I think.
ip icon Logged

JVJ

  • VIP & JVJ Project Member
message icon
Re: Seduction of the innocent?
« Reply #86 on: October 25, 2009, 04:35:24 AM »



So ... if you don't create a character out of whole cloth without reference to anything that existed prior, it's not original or memorable? At any rate, Moore is about experimenting, not really character creation. Characters are just narrative tools to him, I think.


I agree, Roy. It's just that Constantine was visually suggested before his "creation" by Bissette and Totlebein (the Swamp Thing artists) and fleshed out at their instigation. I don't begrudge Moore his source material, but was making the point that Constantine DID fit into Moore's pattern of experimenting with the character(s) of others as opposed to being created from scratch by him.

For the record, Moore created some unique characters in his novel "Voice of the Fire." It's just that in comics he has never turned his creative juices to a character not based on other source material. Just an observation, not a condemnation...

(|:{>
ip icon Logged

Brainster

  • Past Member
  • avatar for old site member: Brainster
message icon
Re: Seduction of the innocent?
« Reply #87 on: October 25, 2009, 06:10:07 AM »

I found Moore's Tom Strong to be different enough from any other character; I suppose you could argue he's an amalgam of Doc Savage and Captain America.

As for Identity Crisis, I agree heartily with the discussion here.  It was sick.  Worse, it was entirely predictable; the whole "second victim is almost killed but survives and turns out to have been the real murderer" is a cliche.  Indeed, the only reason I kept reading at that point was to find out the (ridiculous) motivation.
ip icon Logged

Guardian7

message icon
Re: Seduction of the innocent?
« Reply #88 on: October 25, 2009, 09:11:47 AM »

It is just a PRIME example of bad writing and most certainly a lack of trying to knit togather the basic premise of history that is the JLA.

#2 smack in the face?

Jean Loring's motivations... She never gave a crap about the League. She was NEVER shown in ANY light as to being jealous of ANYONE associated with the League. It all completely falls apart there. They muddy up the reps and histories of such good heroes for this lame story? Oh man... I just can't simply say enough bad about Identity Crisis.

#3 smack in the face?

The death of Tim Drake's Dad (What a horrific scene to watch Tim tormentedly go through that)... Does everyone in the Batman series have have some horrific crime happen to them? I wish to god that Meltzer had simply remained whatever crappy kind of author he was before he came to DC and decided to pollute it with him imagination.


Hey... you know what Brad Meltzer's next project could be?
He could go through the most tragic deaths in DC and remake them...
You know... get some artist to do it in slow motion so that it can be as painful and graphic as possible.

Like with Batman. Have ole Brad redo his origin.
Show every blood splatter... every pearl from his Mom's necklace dropping (maybe adding in a rape scene)... an excruicatingly slow fall of Thomas Wayne (after he forces him and Bruce to watch)... every tear on poor Bruce's face. Then... he can extend it and show Bruce's turmoil afterwards as psychologist are brought in to help him deal with it. I am sure he could stretch it between 4-6 issues.
Then he could re-do Dick Grayson/Robin's origin...
Followed by a slow motion redo of Jason Todd's death at the hands of the Joker...

I am sure he could take those original stories and really make them horrific... He certainly has the mind for it (just so you know... I only mirrored that on what and how I felt he wrote Identity Crisis)

See... I don't like him.

NOT that any of those deaths above were any better (in their original inception).

For the record:
Neither was the death of Iris Allen (Barry Allen/Flash - E1), which distrubed me as well - it was gross - I dispised the character of Professor Zoom/Reverse Flash after that so much. I wanted to see him die... and frankly when Barry accidently killed him for trying to do it again... I felt he deserved it.

I am sure there are a lot of death scenes that were bad... but not excruicating like those ones from Identity Crisis were (They were over the top and thoughtless).

Okay... and I will let this go now. no more ranting... LOL

But you can bet your butts... if Frederic Wertham (author of "Seduction of the Innocent") was alive today and read that comic... he would have every reason to be concerned at content and rightly justified.

G7

P.S. I am way too passionate about his ain't I? LOL



ip icon Logged

darkmark

  • VIP
message icon
Re: Seduction of the innocent?
« Reply #89 on: October 25, 2009, 12:31:10 PM »

"Handwave" Hal Jordan getting turned into a killer?  'Scuse me?  The noblest Green Lantern of them all?  Star of all those great John Broome stories and some of those less-than-great Denny O'Neil stories?  (Be fair, folks.  The stuff that came up in the post-Adams revival was decent, but usually not great.)  A lot of the appeal of Silver Age heroes was their NOBILITY.  Even Spider-Man, as trouble-beset as he usually was, knew he had to do the right thing and did it.  Hal Jordan was simply not a killer.  If he was, Sinestro would have been gone a LONG time ago. 
ip icon Logged

John C

message icon
Re: Seduction of the innocent?
« Reply #90 on: October 25, 2009, 04:55:44 PM »


"Handwave" Hal Jordan getting turned into a killer?  'Scuse me?  The noblest Green Lantern of them all?  Star of all those great John Broome stories and some of those less-than-great Denny O'Neil stories?  (Be fair, folks.  The stuff that came up in the post-Adams revival was decent, but usually not great.)  A lot of the appeal of Silver Age heroes was their NOBILITY.  Even Spider-Man, as trouble-beset as he usually was, knew he had to do the right thing and did it.  Hal Jordan was simply not a killer.  If he was, Sinestro would have been gone a LONG time ago. 


I agree on all counts, but I don't mean (and I apologize for not making that sufficiently clear) handwaving in the inane sense that DC actually did.  They just swept the problem away and blamed it on a monster.  I mean that:

- It's a plausible interpretation of the art (which, frankly, is pretty, but not particularly clear) to say that all the defending Green Lanterns survived, if battered, meaning that Hal did not go on a "killing spree," which absolves him of most of the deaths;
- Sinestro's spirit was narrating, meaning that Hal's actual actions may have been exaggerated in the retelling; and
- Sinestro was technically a construct of the Guardians, so his death doesn't "really" count any more than a robot would, except in its psychological effect on Hal.

That leaves Kilowog, who was alive and Hal killed him on-panel.  And I can't handwave that very far, but I should admit that didn't bemoan the passing of the worst Englehart creation ever.

However, in the previous years of stories, Hal was confronted with increasingly erratic dictates from the Guardians, who were also exerting more authority over the Green Lanterns.  So I'm left wondering if there was a mind control aspect to the story, especially when Tomar-Re or even Hal talks about how he can't do anything else.  It could have even been Sinestro, considering that Mosaic established those sorts of abilities against Stewart.

Anyway, my point is that the story was far more complicated than even the editors (and possibly Marz) realized, and the way to bring Hal back was to explore that and have him take responsibility and repent for his actions (even if under someone else's control), not just jump back with everything magically better.


Characters are just narrative tools to him, I think.


My inner child desperately needs to say that "Moore is a narrative tool!" in a petulant voice, just so you all know.

I think that's one of my big problems with him.  He's not a creator.  He wants to jump into everybody else's sandbox, kick around what everybody else has done, dictate a bunch of rules for everybody to follow, and then be left alone for not being given enough freedom.

In my line of work, people like that get fired, not held up as geniuses.  Because they're not, any more than the dadaists were the geniuses of their generations.

I'm being harsh (and it's not directed at you), but he's just like Meltzer in that way, in that he doesn't actually contribute so much as tell the reader that everything else is trash.


Quote

Identity Crisis

I personally feel thier are potentially portions of the story that might be offensive to my daughter as a woman (kinda like Kyle Rayner's girlfriend stuffed in the fridge scene - gruesome). It isn't the the number of times the dialogue is asinine or the puny redherring crap we had to ferret our way through. It isn't the subplots...
IT IS the gruesome death of Sue (including the rape scene on the JLA Sattilight), her being pregnate, on Ralph's brithday and of course Ralph ultimate reaction.
It was horrid. You don't have to be a fan of either chara to see this as something that was simply pushed too far. It was disgusting and though I know horrible things happen in real life... this wasn't truely necessary in this medium.


I do get that.  But I would have found it acceptable if it had been done well (whatever that may mean), it had been a good story (whatever that may mean, too), and it actually had some bearing on the story.

As it was, it was a combination of cartoonish and disgusting, bouncing around a cesspool of story idiocy, and turned out to be entirely irrelevant to the story Meltzer was telling.

And I'm serious, here.  It could have been an intense story about how Sue and her friends had to deal with the effects of the rape over the years.  It could have been a mystery story where the nature of her death and the graphic nature held clues that we were supposed to follow.  It could have even been a straightforward hunt for a brutal killer and probable rapist and how the heroes try to live up to the term when they'd much rather torture him.

Any of those would have made it acceptable and, to use the earlier word, mature.  In their place, we got an accidental case of poorly-motivated murder drenched in gore and sex for no real reason at all.  To me, that's what makes it offensive:  It didn't have any meaning other than to show it was permissible.


I apologize for jumping up and down on my soapbox.
But I don't apologize for feeling offended by the imagery, context of the story and the portions I mentioned.


I don't have a problem with it, and I agree.  I'm just not as focused on the details because I can see the case for a graphic death scene or the inclusion of rape in a story, even about superheroes.  But I most emphatically think that "Identity Crisis" wasn't it, because it only added shock, and not even for the sake of the story, but for the sake of the scene itself.



But I'm hard-pressed to think of a single ... Moore... creation, for example, that would make for viable dinner conversation.

Oh, I could ramble on at length in response to the many threads and topics you hit upon, John, but I'm limiting myself to just this one - since someone pointed it out to me while I was in Paris...
Can you actually name ONE Alan Moore "creation" that wasn't based on someone else's character/story? Try, and let me know what you come up with.


It really does depend, because you can argue how much is original and how much is "retroactively original."  I mean, I know that he relies heavily on books like "Superfolks" for his plotlines, so I don't even find his stories particularly innovative when others might rave.  Likewise, is "he looks like Sting" grounds for declaring unoriginality?

(And if that's the case, then are ANY comic book characters original?  Superman borrows from Wylie and Burroughs.  The Flash borrows from Wells.  Submariner from maritime myth and maybe some Lovecraft.  Captain Marvel draws from many myths.  I admit that I've yet to find a literary or mythical super-soldier, so the Shield may be entirely original, though.)

So I'd say that Constantine fits the bill.  Likewise Tom Strong and Promethea, even though they obviously derive from other sources, are characters he created that aren't direct copies of something else or empty receptacles waiting for someone else's story, like the Watchmen characters were.

Beyond that, and to the extent those aren't "legitimate answers," I can't think of anything.
ip icon Logged

narfstar

  • Administrator
message icon
Re: Seduction of the innocent?
« Reply #91 on: October 25, 2009, 08:41:21 PM »

Achilies was the involnerable super soldier
ip icon Logged
Pages: 1 2 3 [4]
 

Comic Book Plus In-House Image
Mission: Our mission is to present free of charge, and to the widest audience, popular cultural works of the past. These are offered as a contribution to education and lifelong learning. They reflect the attitudes, perspectives, and beliefs of different times. We do not endorse these views, which may contain content offensive to modern users.

Disclaimer: We aim to house only Public Domain content. If you suspect that any of our material may be infringing copyright, please use our contact page to let us know. So we can investigate further. Utilizing our downloadable content, is strictly at your own risk. In no event will we be liable for any loss or damage including without limitation, indirect or consequential loss or damage, or any loss or damage whatsoever arising from loss of data or profits arising out of, or in connection with, the use of this website.