Friday, September 18, 2009

No Comic Reviews

I got nothin' this week. But to make up for this, and because I've been super busy and stressed over the last little while, I did order some stuff from Amazon. Just have to hope it gets to me soon.

One other thing I wanted to talk about was the whole kids/comics thing. After the Disney/Marvel thing happened I heard a couple people around me say "Good, maybe they'll make comics for kids again." After some questioning I've found that people are actually saying one of two things.

1. That all comics should be for kids (and that they were at some point) and adult readers should be pushed out (or at least shunned because they are reading stuff for kids). This really irks me but I don't know if it's worth while arguing with these people anyways, I doubt anything I have to say will change them from this mentality given how uninformed they are and how absolute they are that comics and adults don't mix. So I'll just bite my tongue and move on.

2. That there are no comics for kids. This one kinda bugs me too. And the truth is, I've come close to saying this in the past in saying that the North American comics industry does seem to be aimed mostly at older readers. But I think saying there are no comics for kids is also a mistake. Friends have recently asked me about comics for their kids and not knowing much about the options I had to do a bit of searching. But the truth is that I did quite easily find comics for kids. They may not feature prominantly at my local comic shops but they were there. So I send these friends off with some ideas, they take their kids to the stores, and sure enough they find some books for them. This leads me to respond to the initial group (the group complaining about no comics for kids) with questions like "Have you looked at Boom!'s Pixar stuff/Marvel Adventures/Tiny Titans/...?" Or "Have you actually taken your kids into a comic shop to have them look?" And the answers are generally very snarky and defensive which I guess my questions kinda lead to that. But in general I see that they don't actually try out the books with their kids and when they do bring them to the comic shops the parents tend to be more into shopping for themselves and not paying attention to stuff their kids might be interested in. And this is supported by what I tend to see at my local shops, parents bringing their kids in but it's only so they can pick up the latest Walking Dead TPB or something. The kids aren't even given a chance to look much less encouraged to check something out.

Of course this isn't all on the parents. I find my local shops aren't all that great for kids either. Their current customer base seems to be older so the stores stock more adult stuff so instead of cool toys a child may be interested in we get 12 inch statues of women showing off their underwear... Okay, that may be exaggerating to some degree but not by much. But can you really blame the stores? If parents aren't pushing for a kid friendly section/store then why bother changing?

And I find in the end, the comics that companies do try to put out for kids just don't seem to sell (especially around here) and get cancelled or not carried at all in my local shops. But can you blame them? If people aren't coming in to buy the children's merchandise they aren't going to carry them.

I guess in the end I'd say if you have children, and you want them to enjoy the comic experience, actually take the time to encourage it. Don't go to your local shop, scan the most recent comics seeing mostly adult aimed stuff, and call it a day complaining about the lack of children's material. It's out there, you just have to encourage it.

No comments: