Carl Looks Too Old

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#1
Pickles312

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I don't know if I'm the only one who this bothers, but Carl has started looking way too old for his age in the comics. It's been established that he's supposed to be around 13, maybe 14 by now. We know that based on the length of the time skip and the fact that Lydia, who is 16, has mentioned several times how much older she is than him.

Now, if you go back to the first few issues after the time skip, Carl looks around 13. He's certainly physically fit for a young teenager, but he still looks his age. Take the first conversation with Negan for example. His face looks much older than before the timeskip, but still young.

 

The past couple of dozen issues though, he's looked way too old. It's almost bizarre. His jawline and cheekbones are just completely different. And I get it - he's going through puberty, so his bone structure is going to change as he matures. But within maybe a year of time he has gone from looking 13 to looking like a completely separate 30 year old man. It's not an evolution, it's just completely different. There's no way he's still a young teenager with how he looks.

 

Now I like Adlard's art, but we all know he's had a problem of drawing a lot of characters the same way, and it seems to me he can't draw people with much subtlety. So perhaps he decided Carl should look older and he just went to a completely different archetype because he couldn't figure out a more nuanced way. Either way, Carl is simply not being drawn as a believable 13-14 year old anymore. At least not in my opinion. I don't know what anybody else thinks. Last issue when talking with Sophia in the hallway, I just couldn't not notice it. Really bizarre.


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#2
RayRey

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The kid characters in this series have never been hugely consistent in terms of their look. Often times they are drawn according to the theme of that particular scene. In issue 185 they were talking about sexual relations so of course they are going to want to make them look as grown up as possible. In other scenarios such as the adults saying the kids are too young to fight than they are going to be drawn to look rather small.

 

As for my ages I go by as of issue 185

 

Lydia is 16 (I will probably turn her 17 in a bit because by my book it has been about six to nine months since we picked up from the timeskip.)

 

Sophia is 14

 

Carl is 13.

 

Will probably age up Carl and Sophia here soon as well. We will know a year has gone by when we start seeing the characters in summer clothing again. They clearly are in cold weather clothing now and when the timeskip picked up they were in hot weather clothing.


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#3
naossano

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That problem is more obvious in the show, but it seems you are right for the comics as well.

 

Imo, the problem isn't that he is drawn as too old, but that they decided to mention the number of years, and that they reduced the timeline with those unnecessary mentions.

 

Considering how many things happened since the very beginning and the fact that they ought to be ellipses within and between each plot arcs, i wouldn't have hard time believing it has been 10 to 15 years since the ZA. And if they don't mention an established timeline, i wouldn'T have hard time keeping that belief. If they mention it, they should do it right.

 

That being said, there is a couple of time in a child\teenager growth in which they change a lot in a small amount of time. It doesn't seem obvious if you see them every day (and if you don't have to buy them new clothes), but it becomes glaring if you take pictures or movies at the beginning and at the end of those specific years.


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#4
Skull-Faced F***

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I think the bigger problem is that Carl was mentioned as being 7 and 8 before #100 and Eugene's comments in "Call to Arms" confirm that only 3 years have passed since "Life Among Them".  Therefore Carl should be 11-12.

 

Nonetheless, remember that Carl is apprenticing as a blacksmith -- hard, physical work.  And it seems likely that we're now up to a year past the reboot (from the tomatoes and apples in "The Rotten Core").  At the very least, it has to be past April which means he's now at least 14 in the post-reboot ageing.


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