Comic Book Resources

This canon thing is for crap. I cut my teeth on Captain Carrot, Power Pack, and Transformers back in the day. Sure I graduated to New Warriors, but other than The Initiative (and maybe Nova, what with that upcoming Sphinx storyline I heard about), none of the continuity from prior books have had any impact going forward.

>> They want all the comics on the stands to be ’safe’ for children, while still engaging them on an adult level like all of the other media targeted at adults. >>

Wow. Talk about over-generalization.

As a creator, I don’t want my comics to be adult – I want to appeal to the broadest market possible, while still telling fun stories. As a reader, I look for the same kind of material. As an instructor and special educator, I looked for material that didn’t kiddify situations – but rather dealt with topics on a mature Degrassi-level.

[And, I also I graduated to New Warriors ... but my comic reading started with SPEEDBALL #1]

Trouble is, it doesn’t matter who is making what comics that are geared toward kids if they’re sold only in specialty stores, which don’t cater to kids and which most kids will never set foot in since there are so few compelling comics sold in other stores to hook them, and which probably aren’t ordering extra copies of any kids’ comics to put on the shelves and be seen, since there’s no one to buy them aside from the very few kids who go there with a parent.

Re: Generalissimo Fernando’s comment: BINGO!

All this talk about appropriate and engaging kid’s comics means nothing if you don’t get the books in kids’ hands. Bring back the spinner rack at 7-11 and grocery stores and lower the prices or offer more content for the price.

Kids want to read comics. The problem is that the comics industry doesn’t seem to care. Or they think what they are doing actually encourages kids to read comics, which is even worse.

The comics that kids are reading, at least in my school library, are mostly published by indie publishers and by trade book publishers. The kids are reading a LOT of comics, just not mainstream stuff. And yeah, they’re not going into the direct market stores. I go for them, and buy the stuff, and put them on the library shelves, where the books DON’T sit for long at all.

Matt Halteman said:

“Bring back the spinner rack at 7-11 and grocery stores and lower the prices or offer more content for the price.”

Not going to happen. The spinner rack is a dodo. Comics don’t make enough per square foot of store space for 7-11 and grocery stores to start selling them again. Comics barely make enough money to continue being published at their current prices, and no company regularly offers extra pages for a lower cost. Sometimes, the extra pages offered are reprints that the company has already paid for. And when the cost of a comic goes up, even with additional pages, the readers complain about the price.

I agree with Butcher entirely, and you as well. There’s loads of good stuff out there for kids – Owly, SSA, Usagi, Bone, the toon books, etc, plus the Manga and the Marvel Adventures stuff, which is still hands down the best stuff Marvel is putting out. It’s the continuity thing that’s the roadblock, and one which seems nonsensical – let the continuity folks gripe. Who cares? No one under twenty-five keeps up with it, and it’s only a matter of time until that base either stops buying comics or dies off. Kids will read good, engaging comics THAT GIVE A SATISFACTORY READING EXPERIENCE IN ONE INSTALLMENT. That’s why the adventures stuff is so solid. You can pick up a mainstream marvel or DC book and get 22 pages of exposition, or maybe one issue-long action sequence, and in either case you leave disappointed. Stories like this, installments for part of a larger story that can’t stand on their own, have no business being serialized. There’s an art to the issue, to having a small story that’s part of a larger story, and it’s lost 90% of the time on the mainstream books.

There’s also plenty of creators playing our trades in the all ages world online. The publishing world is changing and online comics are becoming more and more important, and more quality and creative titles are appearing.

I do as sci-fi humor all ages comic called Marooned – A Space Opera in the Wrong Key. Steve Ogden does another one called Moon Town.

We recently just began a publishing studio called Wishtales, and our stories will cater to the all ages market. In fact, we just published a kids book by my daughter called Gertie, a Guinea Pig’s Tail.

Good stuff is out there, it just may not be on the big stores/comic shop shelves right now.