I’m finding it difficult to come up with words to describe how much I loved “The Flintstones Vol. 1.” These are not the Flintstones of your childhood. There is biting satire about the world today that has you laughing one moment and thinking deeply the next. My favorite was issue five. I won’t spoil it, but it is a top-notch political commentary on the state of our elections. The top it all off, the artwork is detailed and beautiful. Highly recommend! All of the Stars!

Nice artwork and a good read once my brain cleared. I like it and plan to read more of them.

I'm a little leery of licensed series like this, but I found Flintstones to be surprisingly enjoyable. It contains a lot of social commentary, which works really well. Overall the book takes the cartoon and modernizes it and makes it more grown up.

The characters get some added dimensions, particularly Fred, Barney, and Wilma. This gives the series some needed depth. But some of the side characters made the book fun. There are cavemen, aliens, a religious leader, and "appliances" that round things out and add humor. My biggest complaint about the story is that the five issues contained in this volume aren't really connected. This works great for reading single issues, where you could just pick one up without missing what came before or after. In this format I was left wanting more. Each issue is a well-crafted, self-contained story.

I am split on the art though. For the most part, it is wonderful. However, sometimes the characters, particularly Fred, seem off. I'm not sure what it is exactly. Probably just odd proportions in some of the drawings. It didn't happen a lot, but it was noticeable and could be distracting. The rest of the art is great though. The references slipped into the background images are superb.

This is a great book to read for some fun and social commentary. It made me laugh numerous times and is worth picking up for that alone.

I received a copy of this book for free through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I'd been hearing buzz about this book for some time. Small pictures here an there showed it to be a maturely drawn, titillating sociopolitical study of sorts. Around the time people started sharing pictures of the Neanderthals and the marriage retreat protests I knew I had to get my hands on this. This TPB collects issues one through six and shows The Flintstones truly deserves not only the buzz, but the title of one of the best comics of 2016. This easily could have been a kid's comic with all of the Odd Couple hilarity the show originally had - instead it's a truly beautiful commentary on life itself.

The Flintstones uses the past to hold a mirror up to the future. From the hilarity of the Mall and television telling everyone that now that they're a civilization they need to be buying the hot new product: Crap, to the commentary about why domestication originally happened and that marriage is another form of it - this comic is brilliant. Having aliens set down and Gazoo be the one to stop the aliens on spring break from partying there was a hilarious move, and Professor Sargon being a poorly disguised Sagan proclaiming that atoms come together because they're lonely was sheer brilliance. This comic produced laughs, but also reflection which still shock me now.

Fred and Barney are veterans with PTSD, but they're also devoted husbands and members of the community. Wilma wants to be an artist, and Betty wants nothing but to be a mom. Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm are teens with their own troubles in school, and close and loving friends. The comic is cutting in its commentary, but it never loses its sweet, wholesome heart. This is still the Flintstones, just for an older audience - and man, I love it just as much as I loved the cartoon growing up.

REVIEW BASED ON REVIEW COPY - FULL DISCLOSURE IN PUBLISHED REVIEW

The Flintstones Vol. 1

While Scooby Apocalypse was hit or miss for me, I absolutely adored the revamped, modernized Flintstones series. Instead of providing an on-going narrative, The Flintstones offers a series of stand-alone issues each one giving readers a glimpse at life in Bedrock during the Stone Age. Except it's pretty clear from the beginning that we're not really talking about Bedrock. The Flintstones instead offers a sort of social commentary on our own, modern world through the frame of some familiar, cartoon faces.

For example, the issues of war and the treatment of veterans once they return home is touched upon multiple times in the first volume. Fred and Barney are both veterans of a war between Homo Sapiens and a species they called 'The Tree People.' They attend meetings at the local Veterans of Paleolithic Wars lodge where they help their fellow veterans deal with their post-traumatic stress. Over the course of this volume we see how Barney and Fred get wrapped up in the war in the first place and the guilt that came afterward.

Other issues that the series tackles includes consumerism, religion, sexuality, the treatment of veterans, and more.

But it's all wrapped up in a familiar, Flintstones-styled package. You see how Barney and Betty come to adopt Bam-Bam. We learn how Dino becomes a part of the Flintstones family. There's even a little on-going side plot about the relationships between some of the family's talking animal appliances. All of the characters you knew and loved from the original are back but their stories and origins are tweaked a bit to fit this updated version of the classic series.

If you're only going to try one of the Hanna Barbera remakes I'd say that this is the one to read. It's incredibly well written, the artwork is great, and the modern update makes the Flintstones feel fresh without losing the charm that made us all love the original cartoon series.

Author: Mark Russell
Artist: Steve Pugh
Release Date: March 28, 2017
Publisher: DC Comics
Review Spoilers: Low
Rating: ★★★★☆

I wanted to love this, but I couldn't. While the artwork was wonderful, the writing was absolutely dreadful. I hated every character.

Forget the Saturday morning cartoons. The Flintstones is social commentary that is relevant and funny. Take the Neanderthals that Mr. Slate hires to work at the quarry. After just a few days in town they are able to figure out that "it seems like the whole point of civilization is to get someone else to do your killing for you." (Simple enough even a caveman could figure it out?) Everything from people buying things they don't need, like a Trilobite Cooker, to arguments over whether marriage is a good idea and who should be allowed to get married are mixed into the stories. There are plenty of spoofs on pop culture: stores like Starbrick's and Tarpit, shoes like Pradzoa and Mammotho Blahnik, and even Professor Sargon at the Science Institute talking about when the galaxy was formed "billions of days ago" and performing calculations on his new Applecus computer. But there are also serious issues like veterans dealing with the return to civilian life, men who had been talked into attacking others and then finding out there was never any threat, and people protesting new things just because "it wasn't around when I was a kid."

There are plenty of laughs about aliens entering the Earth into Galactapedia and alien kids using their Death Ray app "Disintegr8." Betty Rubble asks Pebbles what she has been learning in school and Pebbles replies, "How to sit still and shut up." But my favorite allusion would have to be the Space Oddity scene at the Science Institute. Professor Sargon shoes them a monkey about to be sent into space. He reassure the kids that the monkey's "spaceship knows which way to go." We see the monkey saying, "Tell my wife I love her very much." and a dinosaur replying, "She knows." References like that and some of the language that is used makes this a title for readers 12+.

Puns abound—even more than on the original show or the movie—in these six stories that have a common thread: Fred and Barney are now war veterans, which works out for the best at the end.
Wilma is now an abstract artist. Fred’s words of love: “You were worth every goat.” I think Fred got a bargain with her less-than-impressive dowry. You can see why the guys from Red Dwarf were so hot for her.
The puns are the best part. Andy Warthog! David Rockney! Then the author unleashes a pun hurricane on the mall: Bloomingshale’s, Oscar de la Raptor; plenty of shoes I don’t know enough about, though there are original Ugghs. Starbrick’s. Foot Licker! Outback Snakehouse! And don’t forget Falcon Crest, the official toothpaste of ancient birds.
The local god’s name is the lovely-sounding Morp. “You can’t enter heaven unless Morp enters you.” Sounds about right. But Morp’s priest screws up and has to come up with something better. . . and the choice is awesome! The astronomer looks suspiciously like Carl Sagan, even though he thinks the earth is riding on the back of a giant turtle.
“Monogamy destroys!” Domestication of animals and marriage. . . I get where you’re going with that. And a lot of stealth jokes in the vein of Adam and Steve. And in addition to the David Bowie quotes, the mayor is Bruce Campbell!
Could have made the Vietnam analogy a little more obvious. . . wait, no.
14 pages of covers, mostly of Fred getting nuzzled by either Wilma or Dino.
Fun, and funny. Don’t worry about the plots and just enjoy the moments.

I was sceptical when DC announced their line of reimagined Hanna-Barbera titles. Surely we've reached the nadir of bleak reinterpretations when a comic book publisher decides we need to see Fred Flintstone struggling with PTSD(?)

Well, I needn't have worried. Needn't have worried *entirely*...

Y'see, Mark Russell and Steve Pugh's "The Flintstones" is actually really funny. The satire of modern America, upper working class aspirations is broad but well judged; where the original parodied burgeoning suburban aspirations, Russell's update skewers religious alienation in an increasingly sceptical world, populism, and the vacuity of Western tourism – all while still being about a suburban labourer caveman.

The "but" (and it's a Big Bertha of a "but") is that it does still take itself too seriously. Almost absurdly so at times. Russell and Pugh have crafted an almost perfect update of an old family favourite, but then stick in incredibly misjudged asides about suicide, violence and sex – seemingly out of obligation, as if those are the only things that make this worthwhile.

Not that there's anything wrong with addressing suicide, violence or sex even in a family title but the tone in which it is done is completely out of keeping with both that audience and the rest of the book. I'd love to be able to hand this to my nine-year-old niece, knowing we'd share some of the laughs and have others that were just for each of us – but I can't do that when every few pages the belly laughs give way to a sudden explosion of swearing or depiction of mass slaughter.

It's the fact that "The Flintstones" is so almost, nearly, practically perfect that makes those mistakes so much worse. If the whole thing were an ill-advised treatise on the horrors of war featuring a caveman in a blue tie I'd throw it at the wall and have done with it – but you can *see* how terrific this could have been. Sadly, short of taking a pair of scissors to the pages there ain't no way to get it there.

I can't imagine we're not going to see someone try to bring Bedrock back to TV screens at some point and whoever does could learn a lot both about what to do and what not to do from DC's pass. Take a page right out of history.

I do not know what is worse, the artwork or the story line. This graphic novel is so crude and mean to everyone that it has forever ruined a favorite part of my childhood. This is a much darker version of the Flintstones than I have ever seen. They start off with a type of race wars where the Flintstones race is better than neanderthals. They make fun of them and try to trick them into doing the work they do not want to. There is a running joke about veteran suicide. That is not something to joke about, and I find it highly inappropriate. Lots of jokes about marriage. It’s opposite of the H8 fight as where no one should get married and the only the crazy do. How about the jokes on religion. Now I like a good religious joke now and then. But notice I said good, not a joke about worshiping the vacuum cleaner. Then, it’s the end of the world as they know it.

This entire book is the end of the Flintstones as I know it. The moist heartfelt part of the entire graphic novel is a conversation between the vacuum cleaner and the bowling ball. The rest is high school jock turned forty year old curmudgeon antics and byplay. It’s not worth the read. This version of the Flintstones tries to hard to be Schwarzenegger and completely lost it’s John Goodman fun and heart. Leave it at home, or bet yet, don’t waist your clams.

I grew up watching The Flintstones on VHS, so when I discovered this new graphic novel I was thrilled to have the chance to relive my childhood. The realistic art style was a change I was excited to see and I was thrilled to be visiting the town of Bedrock and all the wacky inventions I loved so much. I thought the story began with a strong start, depicting present day with a tour guide showing an exhibit from the Stone Age in the Museum of Natural History.

Let me start by saying that this is not The Flintstones I remember from my early years. The art style and language alone indicated that youth are not the intended audience, and that this series is going to be a much darker version of The Flintstones. This is not a criticism, just something that I thought people should be aware of going into the series.

However, from that early point in the story, it went downhill. I read approximately one third of the novel before I chose to stop reading from lack of enjoyment. I did skip ahead a little to see if another issue resonated more with me, but nothing did. From the exploitation of the Neanderthals and then moments of sexism, I just felt that I needed to stop reading, as I was feeling uncomfortable with the material and I was not enjoying the volume at all.

I have noticed that other reviews state that this updated series has great commentary and is a wonderful social satire however, for me; it just didn’t sit quite right. However, with so many positive reviews, I shall keep me eye on this and see if I can revisit again for a reread in the future with fresh eyes. I am not giving this a rating as I did not read the full text and do not feel it is right to do so.

I loved watching The Flinstones cartoons when I was a kid so I couldn't wait to read this graphic novel.

I did like it but it wasn't really funny and some of the stories weren't that great. The illustrations were great though.

During my childhood I was big fan of The Flintstones. I read Mangas specially Naruto, One Piece, Fairy Tail; so I keep bar high when I read comics. This Flintstone was not having that wow factor. Stories are flat. No excitement apart from nostalgic feeling of childhood. I would be expecting more from the series. I may be wrong. As an adult I may be expecting more from child comic genre. A good one for kids above 12+.

Loved it. Great reboot, more adult that the previous series but is a mix of laughs and thought provoking parts.

I grew up watching the cartoon series of the Flintstones. What I loved about that was how it dealt with somewhat serious topics but still managing to be funny and quirky. This did not. Sure, it's a modern take, but it lost all the magic of what made the cartoons I watched so brilliant and still fun to watch. It was too gritty, too real. I could not get into this because it was so far from what I expected and was used to.

When I saw this first volume on Netgalley I had to pick it up. I use to love the Flintstones movie when I was younger so I thought I might really like this. I'm so disappointed that I didn't like this. The art was not my cup of tea. I think I would of have liked the story but I couldn't get past it. I had to skim read most of the book. With that said I am positive I won't be continuing on with this series.

I was given an advance copy of The Flintstones Vol. 1 for an honest review from NetGalley. When I first saw this was coming out, I was intrigued. I grew up watching the Flintstones cartoons, and have always been a fan.

The Flintstones Vol. 1 collects the first six issues of the new DC Comics and Hanna-Barbera comic series written by Mark Russell with art by Steve Pugh. This series was not what I was expecting. Written for an older audience, this is a darker take on the Flintstones.

While the story still follows the adventures of Fred and Wilma Flintstone and their friends Barney and Betty Rubble, some things have changed. Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm are not toddlers in this series, but are middle school age. Fred and Barney have traded the Loyal Order of Water Buffalos for the Veterans of Paleolithic Wars. Mr. Slate who was greedy in the original series is now vicious and seems to take pleasure in the suffering of others.

This series has been updated for our times and tackles many issues that plague us today. From politics to religion and even animal rights have been addressed. They also talk about monogamy in a way that would compare to gay marriage today.

While definitely different from what I was expecting, I did enjoy this series. The author has found a way to get people to think about issues going on in the world today by setting them the world of the past. I also really liked the addition of the gallery of the variant covers and artwork

I used to love The Flintstones cartoons as a kid and while this comic tried to be socially relevant it just wasn't entertaining or attention grabbing.

The Flintstones gets a makeover in their newly-relaunched series: Fred and Barney are war vets with PTSD, Wilma’s an artist, and Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm are tweens! Do the changes work? Actually, yes! Is this one of the best titles of the past year like many reviewers are claiming? Nope! It’s surprisingly not bad though – I can definitely see why there’s enthusiasm for this series.

Appropriately enough given the original sitcom’s episodic nature, each issue is a self-contained story with Mark Russell, writer of the short-lived but brilliant Prez, slowly and cleverly introducing familiar Flintstones features in each of them. How the Flintstones came by Dino, Bamm-Bamm’s origin, the meaning of “Yabba-Dabba-Doo!”, and even the appearance of the Great Gazoo are inspired touches.

Like Prez, Russell works in serious commentary on American society. The formation of Bedrock could be seen as an allegory for the foundation of America with the settlers wiping out the Native Americans, or “tree people” here, as well as an observation on how the government lies to its people to con them into wars they don’t fully understand like the Second Gulf War. And the treatment of war vets after a conflict, when the government’s turned their back on them, is devastatingly on point – it’s surprising DC allowed Russell to make such dark jokes about veterans and suicide in a Flintstones comic of all places!

There’s an amusing moment too when people start protesting marriage between a man and a woman, saying it’s unnatural and weird, riffing on how society always reacts this way whenever something new comes along, like gay marriage today. Some of the observations are banal though like the destructive shallowness of a consumerist society with Fred and Barney taking on second jobs so their wives can keep buying the latest appliances (the appliances are, in Flintstones fashion, animals, and there’s a Disney-esque and startlingly poignant scene when the “bowling ball” (an armadillo) and the “vacuum cleaner” (a small elephant) have a conversation about their lonely existences as they sit in the closet waiting to be used again – they find comfort in their shared plight and become friends). Organised religion also gets pilloried as the scam it is but at this point it’s low-hanging fruit.

The flipside of Mark Russell and Steve Pugh’s thoughtful and fantastic commentary, structure and world-building is that none of the stories or characterisations honestly ever blew me away. They’re clever but not very engrossing and I was appreciating aspects of the comics more than getting caught up in them. It’s the same with the jokes – they didn’t make me laugh but I can see them working for some people. Maybe I’d like it more if I was a bigger Flintstones fan but even so I was pleasantly surprised with how cerebral a series about cavepeople turned out to be!

Mark Russell and Steve Pugh may have remodelled The Flintstones for a 21st century audience but they’ve kept the show’s sharp satirical soul intact – the exterior may look flashier but it’s unmistakably The Flintstones - and that makes it a pretty yabba-dabba-decent relaunch!