I'd love for Stewart to explain WHY he'd have applauded...
Because he agreed with Chabon that it's sad that mainstream American comics have, essentially, abandoned the children's market?
Just a guess.
Is it possible that perhaps children are the past and not the future anymore? Is this ever even considered?
No, because that's fucking stupid.
Sorry Graeme.
Wait, I'm fucking stupid...?
If you're referring to Chris's comment, though, I agree.
Chabon is right, Millar and Bendis can't see past their own paychecks and the rotting corpses of DC and Marvel.
Marvel's desperate attempts at retooling the same old crap (but it's for kids) is not what kids necessarily want to read. Kids want to read great stories with great art, something like Akiko.
Don't give them the same old rehashed stories, challenge them, entertain them...
Shawn, Mark Millar is going to be upset that you're patronizing him and telling him what to do.
Of course Millar missed the point. I would imagine Chabon thought about him specifically more than once while writing his speech.
As far as Bendis's comments go, he has a point: Comics aren't marketed towards kids. But does that mean the industry has to shoot itself in the foot by completely ignoring that demographic completely? (To his credit, I think Ultimate Spidey is exactly the type of book the industry needs more of. If I was a kid, I'd be enjoying it just as much as I do now.)
Kids want great stories? I don't know if that idea holds water.
Exhibit A: Have you seen an episode of Yu-Gi-Oh? It's the worst cartoon ever created--worse than Superfriends, mind you.
I think kids are just like everyone else... there are a some who do their own thing, find their own interests, but the rest just follow the herd with whatever is currently "cool."
I guess I was thinking of myself as a kid, Bill. And also thinking about a friend with two kids that I sent a huge stack of Akiko comics too.
Don't drag me down with your pessimism, damn it. Of course, I would probably scratch my eyes out after watching an episode of Yu-Gi-Oh.
1. There is nothing "kid-friendly" about Millar's Ultimate titles.
2. Millar is actually right that the market for comics has always skewed older than most people seem to think. (The bit about the G.I.s is especially on the mark.)
3. Bendis is a moron who doesn't understand marginal pricing. (Yes, Bendis, comics ARE too expensive.)
I'm not trying to be pessimistic. I know, I find it hard to believe myself. But in a moment of purest optimism last year, I took my three nephews to a comic book store and said I would buy them each something.
I tried to get them to pick up a comic book. I pointed them at the good stuff. What did they walk out with? Collectible card games.
I'm not saying you shouldn't try to get kids to read. The problem isn't that there's a starving market out there of kids desperate for a great kid's comic book. The problem is that most children, like most adults, don't read for pleasure.
ahem...Scholastic...Bone...$150,000 marketing budget.
Agreed, Bill. My comic shop doesn't have kids lined up for comics every Wednesday and the times I do see kids in there, 90% of the time they are walking out with Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh, Heroclix, and the like, NOT comic books.
So, no, it's not necessarily a "fucking" stupid idea. I didn't say that children should be discarded in any manner, I simply presented the possibility that, perhaps, comic companies aren't wanting to target them as strongly as they want to target the older demographic, perhaps where they feel the money is?
In a perfect world, I'd be seeing those kids walk out of the LCS door with comics AND Magic and Heroclix, but I just don't see it happening and haven't seen it for a long time.
I'm torn on this one. There's one theory - that I heard espoused on the night of the Eisners probably at about the same time Chabon was giving the keynote - that we need to retool the industry to market to the kids. That we've lost a generation, there's nothing we can do about it, but let's start from Ground Zero all over again.
The other theory is that kids aren't reading comics and don't have the money to afford them. The place to get your new readers is in college. The preponderence of books in the comic shop today are aimed at that age range and higher, so why not start there? The college kids also have more control of their money and slightly more disposable income. We should pander to them, whether it's with SANDMAN or THE ULTIMATES.
I'm not sure which is right. I'd like for there to be comics for everyone. Manga, right now, seems to be aiming somewhere between the two camps I just mentioned above. That's not a bad thing, either, but it can't be the onl
"In a perfect world, I'd be seeing those kids walk out of the LCS door with comics AND Magic and Heroclix, but I just don't see it happening and haven't seen it for a long time."
Which is exactly what Chabon was saying, except that he was going further and suggesting that, perhaps this is something that people should deal with, as opposed to just shrugging their shoulders and saying "Well, what can you do?"
(Wow, JUST typed past the 1000th character. The final sentence is below.)
That's not a bad thing, either, but it can't be the only solution.
"The problem isn't that there's a starving market out there of kids desperate for a great kid's comic book."
Couldn't the same argument have been made for kids novels, prior to Harry Potter?
No, really, I'm asking. Scott, would you know the answer to this one?
Augie - I don't see why both avenues can't be attempted at the same time. Surely it's not impossible to try and make books for (and market to) the kids AND the college demographics?
If you watch Yu-Gi-Oh!, which is indeed one of the worst cartoons ever made, you might see what it has that so many "all ages" comic books lack. Yu-Gi-Oh!, like most anime for kids, takes its inane premise utterly seriously, never letting slip that the creators aren't as intensely absorbed in the story as the kids at home. If kids want to watch people playing card games, then, dammit, they'll give kids the most gung-ho story about card games the world has ever seen.
Sincerity. Fake it, and you've got it made.
Also, what did Bendis smoke before complaining that the Eisner speeches are too negative? Chabon's speech went on at length about the history of comics and how far they've come. Last year's speech by Neil Gaiman was built around the theme that this is a new Golden Age. That's not optimistic enough?
And advocating comics for kids is "elitist." Sometimes I just don't GET this industry...
Comics evolved from the "funny pages" of over 70 years ago. You know, 3 panel goofy talking-animal jokes. Funny pages were targeted for kids, cause it was written and drawn for KIDS. Since those cartoons eventually evolved into longer more indepth stories, naturally kids followed the medium. However, like ALL mediums, the comic book evolved. More stories became more adult. (you don't see Howdy Doody on TV anymore do you?). What we have now in comics is a medium geared mostly for adults. It may have first started out for kids, but obviously not anymore. So, why are people still preaching "we need more kids"? Kids have manga and colorful cartoons now. (i won't mention the recent evolution of "adult" cartoons). Comic stories suck enough as it is without worrying about a fictional demographic. Millar writing for kids is just blasphemy.
(Yes, Bendis, comics ARE too expensive.) wrote Franklin Harris.
How about those Michael Chabon presents 'The Escapist' books that cost 7 bucks a pop. A comic based on characters he created in his novel that cost 15 bucks in softcover.
Yeah, I am sure that lots of kids are plunking down 7 bucks for his book, too. But, let's do more for kids, right?
I don't think Chabon was saying that we shouldn't have the comics that we have now, or that comics for kids will save the industry, per se, just that this is a segment of the (potential) market that is being under-served at the moment, and has been for some time.
And kids DO read for pleasure. Certainly not all of them, probably not even half of them, but there's a LOT of kids in the world. (Heck, there's a LOT of everybody -- if you can find 50,000 people who'll buy 15 X-Men comics every month, you can find 50,000 of anything.)
Graeme...absolutely. Harry Potter flung that door wide open and strangely enough...it's still wide open. Books like Artemis Fowl, A Series of Unfortunate Events, the Charlie Bone series -- these are all huge trade books that probably could never have stood on their own without Harry Potter. Harry Potter raised the worldwide literacy rate, that's gotta say something!
Here's hoping that BONE is the book to open that door for graphic novels. I think we have a good chance too...
Whoops, sorry for the odd double post there... Lesson learned: Don't refresh the pop-up comments window.
Grame: Sure, we can do both, but part of me wonders what the point would be. These kids come into the comics shop with blinders on for their MAGIC and YuGiOhDigimonPokemonGimmeABreakMon cards and couldn't care less about the comics. (Please note the proper use of "couldn't care less" in that sentence.)
Besides a multimedia blitz, the size of which would be unmanageable by Marvel/DC in their current states, how do you get the kids to care? I think the college kids are more reachable.
And, yes, there ARE plenty of comics for the kids to read and enjoy in my comics shop that they have to pass by to get to the MAGIC cards. There are racks of Archies and Ducks and Akikos and Amelia Rules and all the rest. They never bother with them. what good will even more do, rotting on the shelf like that?
Augie - "And, yes, there ARE plenty of comics for the kids to read and enjoy in my comics shop that they have to pass by to get to the MAGIC cards. There are racks of Archies and Ducks and Akikos and Amelia Rules and all the rest. They never bother with them. what good will even more do, rotting on the shelf like that?"
Good point. Very good point.
Comics are way to expensive, $3 for 10 minutes of entertainment is just insane. Why wouldn't a parent just plunk down the $50 for a video game that will keep them busy for weeks?
And am I the only one who heard Jack Black's "I'm out there on the front lines of rock!" speech when I read Millar's last comment?
Millar is right, Bendis is right, Augie, you are right. Forget the kids they don't read comics.
But, who buys these:
"Compared to other comic publishers whose audiences are primarily male, the comics of Archie Comics are read and enjoyed by males and females alike. With sales in excess of 850,000 copies per month, the comics of Archie Comics can be found at such diverse outlets as supermarket checkouts, bookstores and comic shops."
So then, how do we make reading comic books fashionable?
You mean the powers-that-be can't pinpoint the subtle differences between an Archie comic and the Dark Knight Returns?
sad
Spacejunk: "you don't see Howdy Doody on TV anymore do you?" No, but you DO see lots of other kids' programming. You know why? Because every medium needs an influx of new blood, and getting them young provides that, introduces them to the medium/experience/teaches them how to read the medium at an age when there's less stigma attached. No-one is saying that kids comics should be done at the exclusion of all else - Hell, Millar doesn't have to write comics for kids if he doesn't want to, he can continue to write comics for mid-20s shut-ins. We need a medium that offers something for EVERY age group. I know, it's a crazy idea.
Howdy,
I'm still a bit weirded out by this entire conversation, especially because (with the exception of pornography), I don't think this would even be a question if it were any other medium or any other genre.
College may be a better place to grab comics readers, but how do you get to them? Is this a case of more accessibility to counter-culture, the free-and-open Internet, and new ideas? Is that going to be enough?
My nephew plays video games and collects Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh cards. What might set him apart from other kids is that he also reads anything he can get his hands on. First words out of his mouth after finishing the first "Runaways" digest were, "Do you have any more of these?" He's also loved the TPBs I've given him of Spidey Masterworks Vol. 1, Justice League Adventures, and Stupid Stupid Rat Tales.
-- Ed
"I know, it's a crazy idea."
So crazy it almost makes sense.
Why not just make good books and let whoever wants to buy them buy them, kids or adults?
The Yu-Gi-Oh cartoon has what comics don't: a lack of words. Most kids don't want to read, despite Harry Potter; my nephew has read those books and liked them but rolls his eyes if you suggest reading something else. I gave him some manga and he wanted to know if there were cartoons instead.
Kids don't like to read because most adults don't. Our society don't look at reading as entertainment, which is why nothing counts as successful until it's turned into a movie. Like HP with my nephew, many adults will pick up the godawful, hyped 'DaVinci Code' and they may even enjoy it, but few of them will then go buy other books, and even fewer will go to the bookstore and browse. Their next book will be whatever the bestseller list next crams at them.
I think comics have nothing to gain from going exclusively after a kids market.
This industry survives on the fact that consumers buy 5 to 10 titles a week. Kids would never be able to spend 50$ a month on comics. If you look at Diamond's chart you see comics with variant covers, crossvoer titles and multiple titles about the same characters while comics aimed for kids (the Donald Ducks, BTAS, etc...) are in the bottom of the chart.
They are products for kids: Johnny DC, Marvel Age, Digest editions, etc... but the market needs the older comsumer who can buy 50 to 100$ per month. So to give to much importance on the kids demographic would hurt the industry by rendering the medium uncool for older fans.
It's the same demographic that TV, movies, games are after, because THEY have the cash.
"I think comics have nothing to gain from going exclusively after a kids market."
Good thing no-one is suggesting that, then.
"Legomancer" -- quite the pessimistic view. From the sheer amount of books I see sold from Scholastic Book Clubs in Canada (and that's 10% of the US club market), kids are definitely reading. Young Adult publishing and graphic novels are the two fastest growing categories in bookstores. There are currently a HUGE number of kids books being optioned for movies. Comics NOT going after an exclusively kids market is leaving money on the table.
Comics are too expensive? Maybe. But you know what's really expensive? A 20 page, $20 hardback "children's book" that the kid won't even read 5 years down the road.
Books. With words and pictures. They still sell those, right?
And if you've got a shop that carries ARCHIE comics it can't sell, tell your shop owner to send them to New York. I see kids pestering their parents for ARCHIEs all the time.
"worse than Superfriends"
Anything with the words "Bat-Lube" can't be all that bad.
"Why not just make good books and let whoever wants to buy them buy them, kids or adults?"
Because this demonstrates little-to-no knowledge of the principles of marketting. Which is to say that it doesn't matter how good something is, if it can't find its audience it may as well not exist.
The comics medium is littered with good books just dumped out there, hoping to maybe find an audience. We don't really need any more brilliant, excellently produced comics that end up as sales failures because everyone assumed that the X-Men Addicts would just instinctively know to pick it up.
$150,000 Marketting Campaign on Bone: good thing.
- Christopher
PS: Graeme, I wasn't calling you fucking stupid. I was apologizing to you in advance for yelling at Hunter.
Eh, my favorite was the villain who's super-device had three settings: off, on, and irreversibly on. Guess what it accidentally got set to?
I dunno, I must be hallucinating the kids' comics my daughter rips out of the DC comps box.
(That said, her favourite comic is still LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN.)
Children's books are very expensive for what they are, but Lili's 8 now and she still gets mileage out of the likes of Babette Cole.
I was exaggerating for effect (affect?). It is my gift.
Effect.
"Eh, my favorite was the villain who's super-device had three settings: off, on, and irreversibly on. Guess what it accidentally got set to?"
Is that real? If so, much love.
If not? Much love to you for giving me much love.
Look, it's all well and good to come out and say "let's write good comics for kids." Who the hell's going to argue with that? It's like going to a medical convention and saying "Let's wipe out cancer."
But it's easy to have an overly nostalgic view of the past, where everyone was reading Richie Rich while chasing their big hoops down the street under the watchful eyes of policemen who all had handlebar moustaches.
It's a bit harder to, as (god help me) Millar points out, face the realities of the market, as Gaiman did back when he gave his "Tulips" speech to the comic industry, back when it was rolling in speculator dough.
My personal view of the future of retail is that stores will be recognized more for the demographic they serve rather than the product they sell. Comics and 20-40-year-old-fiction-lovin'-males-stores are so strongly associated that we smush the two together and call them "The comic industry", but I think that that is incorrect. In this view of the comic industry, Bendis and Millar (even his view of referencing the current comic-buying mainstream and "the mainstream") are quite right, and no one should expect this demograserving (whee!) niche of stores to buy outside their bounds, nor should we expect Marvel or DC to publish outside of theirs. It certainly makes more sense to argue "either/or" using that definition. But that doesn't take into account underserved segments of the buying public whom I believe somebody will someday make the mfn' wad off of.
Bendis says everything he doesn't agree with is elitist.
Reader: Bendis, your comics suck
Bendis: You're just being elitist.
Is that real? If so, much love.
It is, actually. So was the villain who was screwing up the Earth's weather, because his people lived above the arctic circle, where they were starving because it was too cold to grow crops.
I have to admit that it's hard to see any elitism in Chabon's speech. His request for more fun, crowd-pleasing stories for kids strikes me as a populist message.
"Because this demonstrates little-to-no knowledge of the principles of marketting. Which is to say that it doesn't matter how good something is, if it can't find its audience it may as well not exist."
Exactly Chris. In fact, I'm in many acquisition meeting where everyone is keen on a book until our co-president with amazing marketing savvy comes out and says "who is this book for? who is going to physically buy this book?" which is the question that EVERY editor should be asking themselves when going ahead with a project. There's far too much vanity work going on in comics, which just fuels the argument that comics are "dying" and will never reach a mass audience.
Sorry, guess I got my months mixed up. I was still in "Wah, everyone thinks comics are only for kids!" mode when I was supposed to be in "Wah, how come there are no comics only for kids?" mode.
To really make this thread WEF 2004, I feel the need to point out that ELECTRIC GIRL VOLUME ONE (STAR12452) and VOLUME TWO (STAR15975), COLONIA (STAR15096), JAX EPOCH (STAR18447, Volume Two in September!), and the TRUE STORY volumes and URSULA are all available at your local shops and on various online outlets.
Ah, the warm fuzzies of nostalgia...
Bill- "handlebar moustaches"
Now there is something that needs to come back in style. I could sooo see Ellis with a handlebar moustache.
Larry- Always the promoter. 
Ummm..everyone- What age group of kids are we talking about? I know some 10-12 year olds that love comics. In fact one just asked me about the Teen Titans yesterday.
Only the players change; the arguments stay the same.
That, and I'll always be trying to honor the hard work of our creators by making sure people know about their stuff.
Wow.
Just wow.
I guess the fact that kids don't read comics is why my alumnus, Disney Adventures, is now doing comics only special issues, something that was unthinkable during my tenure, for various reasons.
This entire thread makes me want to rip the pulsing hearts from the chests of half of you.
Any medium that abandons children has no future.
The myopia of this business often sickens me.
"That, and I'll always be trying to honor the hard work of our creators by making sure people know about their stuff."
Nothing wrong with that. More companies need to do that.
Is it our fault for not being the market for them? I have no problem with comics being created for kids AND adults. As Larry stated above when he listed them off, it can be done. The people to yell at aren't the fans and aren't the creators it's other publishers. If they aren't selling then they aren't selling, but is it worthwhile to keep producing them as doorways into more comics? Maybe. I don't have the numbers to tell.
This wasn't in response to you Heidi, just a comment. I agree with you except for that whole ripping hearts out thing. Kinda violent for the kiddies eh?
Yeah, I should add that my daughter Lili absolutely loved ELECTRIC GIRL, and that that goddamn Blammo toy was stuck to her like a limpet for weeks on end.
Heidi wins.
Folks, a medium that doesn't gain new readers is one that is DYING. Period, end of sentence. I'm not saying that comics are dying now, but to chase after tall college-student dollars is not the end-all and be-all of the business any longer. Comics can't simply sit back and say, "well, someone else will get the kids hooked, and we'll just go after the high end of the market." That's what got us in the mess in the first place (as well as leaving the door open for Magic Cards and anime and manga and everything else that is "killing the industry.")
The thing that gets me is that you can have a wonderful book like Sidekicks, but if they are interested in getting into Superheroes there isn't much readily available. As much as I love what Larry and AiT are doing a lot of comic shops don't carry them, so we can blame them too.
Larry: Thank you for reminding me that I really need to pick up Ursula this week.
Heidi: "Any medium that abandons children has no future."
I love you.
Shane: "If they aren't selling then they aren't selling, but is it worthwhile to keep producing them as doorways into more comics?"
If they aren't selling, then why not step back and look at WHY they aren't selling, as opposed to just shrugging your shoulders, declaring that kids don't read comics and going back to producing Ultimate Identity Crisis?
Heidi, dear, you *must* stop holding back. 
Just to play devil's advocate, perhaps it's time to start pointing the blame elsewhere. Most of us here likely started reading comics at a very young age, because that was what a generation of parents were focused on: educating their children.
NOW, the next generation of parents has cable/satellite TV and video games to be their babysitter, and literacy is of less importance. Cash registers at fast food joints do everything for the workers- there's very little typing in of numbers. Typing out full sentences is completely out of vogue thanks to instant messaging.
Maybe the real issue is that, no matter if we offer up quality comics for kids, they won't give a shit, because the next generation is turning out to be a bunch of brain-dead halfwits.
I add that I am raising a child and fighting against those things, so I am working on the problem from my end. But I wonder how many parents truly care, you know?
Two thoughts. First, people keep saying kids don't read comics when what they actually mean is that kids don't read superhero comics. Based on my experiences hanging around bookstores, kids do read manga, which is in fact comics.
Point two. This whole conversation is based--at least on the pundit/blogger end--essentially on assertions. I hope to god that Marvel/DC etc base their publishing decisions on more than assertions; though perhaps I'm naive. Presumably, some of these companies have done some preliminary market research or otherwise tried to take some sort of hard look at what, exactly, a kids market for comics might or might not look like, because the kids are going to read what the kids want, Chabon be damned. Scott R: without revealing propriety info, what've you got? Scholastic obviously thinks the market is there: why? how big?
I would like to state for the record that I was in the business of producing comics for children for almost 10 years. so maybe in the four years since I left that business, a whole new generation of comics hating kids have come along. There was always an audience.
Don't mention "market research" and "marvel and dc" in the same sentence.
The key here is distribution.
Put Batman and Hulk comic digests at grocery store checkouts all over North America for $2.50 a pop--like Archie--- and they'll sell.
Kids will read them.
Heck--Publishers don't even need to pay artists for all new material.They have 50 years or so of published stuff to reprint.
--Like Archie.
Moms will buy them for $2.50.
Aaaaaaand a new generation is hooked on super-heroes.
Please don't get me started on Mark Millar.
Steve -- I would love to put you in charge of Marvel or DC for a year to try out the oft-mentioned concept of buying the shelf space at checkout counters country-wide for Superman or Spider-Man comics.
The catch is - we tie your salary to the success of such a program. Let's see if you make any money. Pardon my pessimism here.
Now, isn't it time for someone to suggest again that Marvel or DC start a full scale commercial TV ad campaign? Or for a retailer to suggest that Marvel and DC combine to put one out there for the Comic Book Store Locator phone number? Or maybe we need to include Diamond in that, too. Don't worry; I won't ever suggest a retailer act locally...
Graeme- I wasn't saying we should shrug our shoulders. I'm all for more comics for kids. Hell, I think more kids should be reading regular books too and some of them are. The kids market for books is pretty damn good right now. Why can't comics find a way to tap into that market? Marvel is headhunting directors and screenwriters now, why not put that same energy into trying to get children's book authors into the medium?
I still think it has to do with distribution and publishing problems more than anything as some companies don't understand how to tap into that market. Think of how many kids would be interested in comics if there was a Harry Potter comic on the newstands, not in the direct market. The direct market as it currently stands isn't geared towards kids and thats part of the problem.
Comics for kids need to be in the grocery stores, in Toys R' Us, etc. Put the comics in obvious places where parents and kids can find them.
cont.
"Comics are too expensive? Maybe. But you know what's really expensive? A 20 page, $20 hardback "children's book" that the kid won't even read 5 years down the road."
Here is the difference: Parents buy books for their children, and they are happy to do so. Most children have to buy comics for themselves, or beg their parents for money.
There is material out there. Hell I know it's not a comic, but after I got done reading them I gave my Sidekicks books to a kid that I know to read. She's loving them now. She recently has gotten into the Teen Titans Go comic as well because she watched the TV show.
Manga is bringing a ton of kids in through things like Yu-Gi-Oh and others. There are some things being done right by publishers it's just right now the spotlight is on things that are being done wrong.
One last thing...Shouldn't we do our part too. If you want the kids to read the comics help the material that IS good for kids to read get to the kids. Comics activism is a good thing. If you don't know how go read Steve Higgins' column at Broken Frontier. Drop books off at libraries, schools, etc.
"Most children have to buy comics for themselves, or beg their parents for money."
So market them like books. Whats wrong with a hardback comic book that is sold at Borders or Barnes and Noble in the kids section of the store along with all the other books. There are ways. People just aren't doing them.
Dave is right. Kids are consuming manga like crazy. There is a skateboard park right next a grocery store down the street from my house and I regularly see 10 and 11 year old kids buying Shonen Jump in addition to soda and candy at the store before scooting away to the skatepark. And almost everytime I go to Barnes and Noble I seen teens and preteens checking out the manga. I think Chabon's speech was right on the money.
Shane:
"I still think it has to do with distribution and publishing problems more than anything as some companies don't understand how to tap into that market... The direct market as it currently stands isn't geared towards kids and thats part of the problem."
That's partially what I was alluding to when I suggested that they look at WHY the books aren't selling. It's not all to do with the quality of the books, it's where kids can get at them, the cost of them, and other things as well...
Graeme- I was just agreeing in a long winded fashion.
Whoever mentioned grocery stores (I'm too lazy and tired to scroll back up and see) hit it on the head. Most of us who first saw comics at a young age saw them at a grocery store or a gas station spinner rack. I didn't even know there WERE comic shops until I was 12, and that was back when there were five times as many as there are now.
Can you imagine what would happen if you could ONLY get CDs and DVDs at specialty stores?
Dave Intermittent --
"Scott R: without revealing propriety info, what've you got? Scholastic obviously thinks the market is there: why? how big?"
I'm not exactly sure what you're asking but what's been announced so far is a book by Chynna Clugston Major called Queen Bee and a Babysitter's Club graphic novel by Raina Telegmeier. There's a lot of thought being put into this line and we're looking at the best creators. The major issue is that we will be treating our original graphic novels just like any other kids book, with the same amount of promotional push. Scholastic has the marketing force, talented editors and the background knowledge of what kids want to make this work. As well Scholastic has the brand recognition to legitimize the format in the eyes of school teachers and parents as well as the sales channels to get the book out there...directly into the hands of kids through the various school market initiatives. Hope that helps a bit...
"I regularly see 10 and 11 year old kids buying Shonen Jump in addition to soda and candy at the store before scooting away to the skatepark."
Well there's the thing. Shonen Jump is, what, 250+ pages for $5. If someone wanted to buy 250 pages worth of regular comics? $25+. And that's if it's a cheap, Batman or Ultimate Spider-Man priced book. THAT'S why kids don't buy American comics. Even the average manga, 100 to 150 pages is only $10, which is still a steal in comparison to the average Marvel/DC/Image book.
And, isn't it odd that the only times you seem to be able to FIND 100-150 page trades of American comics it is when Vertigo puts out a quick collection of Y The Last Man, Fables or Losers, or something like The Walking Dead. Mature Readers books, all.
Screwy bidniss, these comic books...
Scott (and Heidi, I suppose--sorry for my biographical ignorance): I'm assuming that Scholastic has, by virtue of experience, a fairly good knowledge of the "kids market," based on more than a hunch. It follows that you guys have both picked your publications and your promotions accordingly. So I guess what I'm asking about is, what does Scholastic thinks it takes to sell comics to kids in numbers sufficient to justify the program, and what does Scholastic base that on? I'm really curious to learn why the people whose paychecks are riding on this think the way they do, and why people who presumably are in this for the cash are leaving it on the table...
And for the record: I think the idea of comics for kids is great, but I'm agnostic on whether it works in reality. I'm just some guy typing away, with no particular knowledge of what kids really want and how to get those things to them; which is why it's interesting to hear from people who do have that knowldge.
More comics should be aimed at children - that way if they don't do what we want, we can yell "fire".
On a serious point - has anyone considered the possibility that kids may not want to read books about Batman, Spider-Man, et al.
After all, they've seen the movies or the TV shows, and if they really wanted to read the book of a film they'd already seen, they'd have picked up Ultimate Spider-Man, rather than Marvel Age Spider-Man.
Kid's don't want a "best of" history of their favourite character. They want to get on board at the very start.
I mean, nobody starts reading Harry Potter from book five - why would you start from Fantastic Four #500?
What we need are new comics for kids.
And that sounds like a fair trade to me.
Dave...I can only speak for myself in this case but I think there's a few factors at play here. Graphic novels as a category has the most buzz in the book trade market than ever befrore. Sales last year are up in that category 300%. Comics and graphic novels have finally penetrated mainstream media and popular culture. As well, you can't argue that there's a void in the market for this kind of material. Manga's dominated it because there's nothing else out there being put in the hands of kids. As well, with any labour of love there are several people, including myself, who champion this medium, who truly believe that it can reach a greater audience successfully It just so happens that my career and interest lies in kids books. As for leaving cash on the table..a successful title that makes money only means we can continue to put our more quality kids titles that will actually reach their intended audience instead of "rotting on the shelves" of a dreary comic book store.
Thought: Chabon is someone recently introduced to the Direct Market, and he's giving his keynote speech TO participants in the direct market. And he's saying that they're ignoring a generation.
There really are lots of comics for kids out there, things like Disney Adventures and Nickolodeon Magazine, Chikadee and various other kids publications in the states and Canada. Manga, the whole of manga publishing at the moment. The indies. The Archie material, and every other comic industry in the entire world, kids are reading comics and (for the most part) they have healthy industries. Hell, the licensed Batman Adventures comic magazine for the newstand made money when DC's own comics were in the red, figure that one out. I think Chabon understands that (he even references it at one point).
.cont.
Chabon was talking directly to people like Mark Millar and telling them that they had failed. As an outsider introduced to this industry, he looked and saw it was broken and called them on it. Just like anyone at all who comes from outside the industry into it. Heidi understands that, particularly given her CV, and most people in the DM don't. Saying stupid shit like "Has anyone considered that Children aren't the future?" is just... wow.
Kids comics do work, right now. They just aren't working in the Direct Market, particularly because you can still get great big vocal mouthpieces saying things like "Kids have never read comics! This is stupid" all because I think they'd much rather be able to kill/fuck/rape characters at their leisure without worrying about getting 'in trouble'.
Of course, last time it was Darwyn Cooke who brought this up and was crucified for it, I wonder if Chabon is big enough that fanboy concensus won't be so easily swayed by doomsaying?
Much love for the people I agree with in this thread. And, Scott, what you guys are doing is wonderful.
And still, much extra love for Bill for the character with three switches.
Late for the party as always, I can't do more than echo a lot of the sentiments expressed here.
1. I totally agree about getting the fugging things out of the direct shops and back in grocery stores, seven-elevens and drugstores. Back in the Paleoithic era, when I started reading comics, my primary source for the things were two local drugstores and the town's biggest supermarket.
2. I'm all for comics geared towards kids, buy them upon occasion, and please don't get me wrong here...but I happen to like comics geared towards adults as well. I hope that popular opinion isn't strongly in favor of one without the other.
cont.
3. Many kids just don't like to read, period. Not manga, not Spider-Man, not anything. You can't reach them- they just haven't been raised to enjoy and appreciate reading. Comics as they are now cost too damn much, too. Most parents are not gonna spring for a $3 funnybook, no matter what it has in it. Let's face it, despite strides made towards more universal acceptance, the great unwashed out there still regards comics and any sort of illustrated fiction as uncool, frivolous, silly, childish, and certainly not worthy of being taken seriously. This is a mindset that is just too firmly entrenched to change, and it's all because of their parents, and their parents' parents, and so forth. Even my daughter, who has been raised in an extremely reading-friendly household, both comics and otherwise, simply does not like to read for her own pleasure. Just won't do it. Don't know why.
yes! there's more!...
4. I guess what I'm trying to say is that there are many reasons why kids and comics just aren't connecting like they should, and you just can't single out one or two.
5. And for some reason, while reading this thread, I keep hearing Whitney Houston singing "The Greatest Love of All". "I believe the children are our future..."
Oh, and lest I forget...siphon off some of that blame towards parents who don't encourage reading to schools as well. That may be a bit unfair, but they gotta take a little too.
I for one have learned a lot from this thread and developed a bigger understanding. I even wrote an essay about what I learned. Thanks all.
http://slithytoves.sytes.net/~da...341&
wl_offset=7
I would like to see Chabon, Jill Thompson, Mark Crilley, Mark Waid, Jeff Smith, Neil Gaiman and the many other quality children's authors out there create straight-to-digest comics in bookstores, news stands, and comic shops. Sign on with a major book distributor ready for change and you have cheap, readily available comics for kids.
I hope Cooke and Stewart can draw fast.
I still say you put good comics in front of most kids and they'll at least look at the pictures.
---Which is a baby step to tricking them into wondering what the characters are saying...
--Worked for me.
--and I think Cooke and Stewart CAN draw fast.
--Not Aragones fast, but they almost break the "Paul Pope Inking" fast-barrier....
I've already talked about this subject on my site. I'm just commenting here because it seems like the thing to do.
Just wondering, will Scholastic's offerings be part of their book fair/monthly catalogs? My parents bought me a lot of books through those and while those weren't the only books I read, it was a case where I didn't have to get them from the library or buy them myself.
Late to the party...
...and wow, talk about your wretched hive of scum and villainy, huh? Hoo boy, where to begin?
We can pretty much throw out the pat answers. I don't want to hear crap about how kids aren't literate anymore, that video games are melting their brains and that TV is sapping their will to live. Last I checked, all of us grew up around video games and TV and videos and movies and we STILL read a lot, didn't we? Yes we did. I don't want to hear another crack about Today's Fast-Paced Society Ruining Children, because that shit sounds like my grandfather after he's given up coming up with any kind of useful, intelligent response that anyone can do something with. It's not helpful. It's reactionary and makes you sound like a moron.
(cont'd.)
Two, hooray for college-age newcomers and all, but chances are, if that person wasn't already reading comics when they were a kid, they aren't going to come into it late in the game. Groundwork needs to be there for a person to even consider getting into comics. How did I first get into comics as a kid? Why, comic book stores at the local Tom Thumb, that's how. How did I get back into comics, years after Todd MacFarlane and Rob Liefeld did everything in their power to make sure I'd never come back again?
Not DM stores. It was Borders. It was Barnes & Noble. I will never forget the day I sat down in a B&N and read DARK KNIGHT RETURNS for the first time, all in one thunderstruck sitting. I can only hope other people have had as memorable an experience with comics as that.
(cont'd.)
My point there? That leads me to point number 3: PUBLISHERS NEED TO TAKE UP THE MANTLE ON THIS ONE. Why? BECAUSE THEY ARE THE ONLY ONES WITH THE FINANCIAL MIGHT AND PRESENCE TO REACH A NEW AUDIENCE.
Huzzah for telling DM stores to "act locally," but what the fuck does that even mean? Last I checked, DM stores are shouldering a lot of weight already, and they don't exactly have gobs of cash to throw around either. The ones that do generally focus their marketing on RPGs, Heroclix, or anything basically NOT COMICS.
Who cuts the deals to get the ultra-mega edition ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN into B&N? DM stores? No, that's Marvel. That's a Big Two thing. Only they have the weight to cut deals with large grocery store chains (for instance) to get comic books in there. THEY ARE THE EXAMPLE EVERYONE LOOKS TO, AND THEREFORE THEY MUST BE LEADERS.
(cont'd. not much longer, I promise.)
It's like with you, Larry; I love that you have all-ages books. At the same time, I'll give you the keys to my car if you can find ONE KID who got his hands on URSULA, that was not put there by some wizened comics sage directly related to them. Doesn't happen. Even the best indie presses rely largely on marketing within already-existing fans, The ones that get talked about in ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY ain't for kids.
Publishers: THIS IS A FORMULA FOR OBSOLESCENCE.
I think I had a point in there, somewhere...
Epilogue:
We all have our responsibilities. DM stores need to make themselves presentable and known. As passionate comics fans, we owe it to the medium to get them into as many hands as we possibly can. WE ARE ALL PART OF IT. Still, massive sweeping change, in this medium, can only come from the top. Smaller collectives can affect change... but only to smaller markets, and not in anything resembling "haste."
Two. I understand that in the end, it is about the almighty dolla'. Putting comics in grocery stores might not reap millions in revenue, but there is such a thing as LONG-TERM FINANCIAL PLANNING, right? We understand that it ISN'T, as someone pointed out, all about who got the #1 spot in April of 2003?
Are we on the same page, there?
WOO! We just broke 100 posts! Does Graeme win a prize?!
I got into comics from my Aunt giving Gladstone's reprints of Floyd Gottfredson "Mickey Mouse" strips. I was 7. The comics were over half a century old. But my Aunt, who knew nothing about comics, recognized the brand (possibly from when she was young), the book was easy to get (comic set-up in a local mall), and the stories were GOOD (and they still are today) despite their age (which I wasn't even aware of). That's just what hooked one little kid, and I agree with Ken: I was willing to take time out from my Atari for 50-year old comics because I liked them. And I believe that today's kids will make time for comics they like too.
I think whoever finally makes a serious attempt to become the new Harvey Comics is going to make a damn fortune, and that will settle the argument for a lot of people.
Why is this even an argument? Chabon wasn't talking about the books that are in shops, just the ones that don't exist at all. This subject seems to be a rorschach for the comics industry-- you either agree that kids should have a few comics to read, or you kneejerk that someone's going to take your precious super-rape away.
Steve Manale, by the way, is leading the charge on this, he does excellent comics for children.
Now go ahead, use my "rorschach" line against me, wiseasses....
My crazy "Introduce Kids to Comics Method" has been to have them around the house, where they're seen as an entertainment option just like the teevee, their toys, other books or cartoonnetwork.com.
The ones they ask for more of, I buy them. As a parent I feel it is criminal not to provide growing minds with appropriate reading material when they ask for it.
Adults are to blame if their children don't know the wondrous delights that await them in comics. It's my job as a parent to teach, and comics-as-viable-reading material is one of the many lessons I've chosen to teach. Anyone who has a child in their life and hasn't tried to introduce them to comics has no place in this discussion and knows nothing about it.
I find it kind of funny that creators of so-called young adult aimed comics are critizing Michael Chabon's speech and boasting about how their comics outsell all-ages comics.
What do the top comics sell? 100K? 200K? And how many people are in the US & Canada?
300 Million+.
That is their proof of their superiority in the market? That they can sell to a tiny fraction of 1% of the North American population over the smaller fraction of 1% that kids books sell too?
And I'd be curious as to just how many readers of these young adult aimed books are actually in the target audience of 13-19? They say that kids barely read these kid aimed books, well teenagers don't read these teenager-aimed books either.
So I guess there's a failure on all fronts.
Sure comics companies need fresh blood to support them and the Big Two are doing that by releasing digest editions of kiddie titles, both Marvel and DC having lines of comics aimed for kids. Heck, there's a few companies beyond the Big Two like Disney, Nickleodeon and Archie who do comics for kids.
You could complain about how monthly comics aren't in grocery stores any more, the marketing effort is entirely woeful and each issue is too expensive compared to manga but then that's a criticism relevant to all comics and not just the kids ones.
And really at the end of the day does it matter if kids aren't taken with what DC and Marvel have to offer? What's so important about the Big Two having to get kids hooked on X-Men, Batman and Spider-Man when manga's doing an excellent job of catering to that demographic?
Marvel and DC both have 50 years of material already bought and paid for. I see no reason why they couldn't compete with Shonen Jump's price point if they wanted to.
So, given the demonstrable success of the Shonen Jump business model, why don't they want to?
Even if you match their pagecount, realistically, what's going to grab a new reader's eye more: thirty year old DC comics or manga produced within the last ten years? I'm not making a value judgement here, nor am I trying to open up the floor to cries of IT'S ALL THAT MANGA'S FAULT, but I'm not sure that Phil's suggestion will work on it's face. Not that there shouldn't be big, cheap collections of this stuff available, but I'm not sure today's new reader is going to want it even if offered at rock-bottom prices.
Exactly. I doubt the cheaply-priced B&W, 30-year old Essentials volumes that Marvel puts out are mostly being bought by the kids.
I think people focus a little too much on the content aspect of kids books and ignore the promotion and distribution aspects. There's no reason a kid looking for entertainment shouldn't be floored by Action Comics or Superman\Batman but unfortunately there's little chance of them knowing those comics even exist given how there's no advertising outside of DM stores to speak of.
I don't forsee Marvel or DC intensifying their marketing to kids in the Direct Market; the target demographics for the publishers and the retailers are otherwise oriented. The publisher who will make a fortune with comics for kids is a magazine publisher who sees an opportunity.
Here's a conundrum:
The 32 page pamphlet object isn't financially feasible on the newsstands. Retailers don't want to take up precious shelf space with items of such low-profitability. The lower the price, the worse it is.
When Marvel or DC re-package their superhero material into digest-sized books, they're called clueless for hopping on board the manga train without realizing what makes it so popular.
But the digest size material has the better price point and size for the much-valued mythical newsstand distribution people want so badly.
Even people like Scholastic - they're creating graphic novels and shopping them around to schools and whatnot as BOOKS, not periodicals.
Is there a middle ground?
Sure. Panini sell double-issue magazines of Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimate X-Men on newsstands all over Europe.
Acording to Millar they're doing quite well.
I'd buy them myself except my brother insists on getting the DM issues which are a lot further along in the story.
Actually, as a 12 year old, I bought Essential Wolverine Vol.1. I read Wolverine for about 50 issues after that, regardless of who was writing. And even if the stories aren't that good to read now, I still enjoyed them as a kid, even the "Wolvy has no nose" stories.
Marvel tried the ULTIMATE magazines in America. Put them on the newsstands and everything. They failed.
"I still enjoyed them as a kid, even the "Wolvy has no nose" stories."
How did he smell?
"How did he smell?"
Terrible!
Augie: Then start offering some suggestions. And endless volley of "that won't work!" isn't really helping anyone.
It just seemed that if there's no manga, there won't be so much talk about kids and comics. Before the manga-craze, everyone's just contend with the fact that comic's become a geeky sub-culture enjoyed by middle-age men, kinda like the Trekkies. Now that manga came along and everyone's trying to figure out why don't the kids love the same stuff you love as a kid, all the while trying to bash things the kids DO enjoy today (of which most of the middle-age geeks has no clue about anyway).
The simple truth is, life goes on, and tastes changes between generations. Ask the people growing up in the 60's why they'd rather listen to the Psychedelic Rock rather than the Standards. The ancient and recycled superheroes are simply lame and boring to most kids. Live with it.
Bull.
Every five year old boy thinks Batman is cool.
Ken -> I'm just pointing out that one suggestion of something that works in Italy has already been tried here and didn't work.
Also: It was Bill Jemas' idea, another thing everyone seems to forget that he's done while busy villifying him. But I'm digressing now...
I offered up more retailer involvement at the local level, and you quickly trounced on it.
Pardon my cynicism, but everyone has the same ideas in this thread that have been hashed and re-hashed for as long as I've been on the internet. (Going on 10 years now.) Almost none of them have happened, most of them are financially unfeasible in this market, and those that have been tried have failed.
Now, why did the comment count on this thread drop from 100+ to about 75? Were there that many duplicates?
"Every five year old boy thinks Batman is cool."
Sure, Batman as an action figure, Batman as a cartoon, Batman in a board book, Batman in a reader...Batman in a comic from that past 10 years? I doubt it...
Per the comment count thing: HaloScan seems to diminish the number count slowly to 0 on older posts, even if the actual post count remains the same. I have no idea why.
And I ask again: What does retailer participation MEAN? That's such a vague, nebulous answer, it really doesn't say anything other than "it's the retailer's deal, case closed." Not helpful.
So I ask you to elaborate.
The retailer needs to get active in his or her community. The retailer needs to do local advertising. The retailer needs to promote his or her own store. The retailer needs to get the word out not just that the store exists, but that it's family and children friendly. The retailer needs to stock the books, then, to back it up.
My local retailer, for example, makes sure to get up to the three local colleges at the beginning of each semester to make sure that there are flyer and coupons for his store for the students, both new and old. He participates in local events, donates to local charities...
If local retailers want to come together to create little groups to help get the word out about comics in their area, then it's even better.
If you blame the retailers, you might as well throw in all the problems associated with Diamond, the publishers, and the writers.
The best chance for success is outside the direct market.
The direct market is broken and needs to be fixed. Some sort of limited returnability might be in order. That might allow retailers to order slightly higher on all sorts of books, including children's stuff.
Of course, that would be great for aggressive retailers, and the lazy ones would squander the opportunity and stick it to the publishers and distributors.
Writing a GOOD book for kids is much more difficult than anything Millar or Bendis have ever tried to create. Millar has made himself a name with his run on Authority by swiping every bad B-Blockbuster movie of the past twenty years, insert swear word here, insert pop culture reference there.
It's not just a problem of the comic book industry, however.
Take a look at Shrek 2. Is it funny? Yes. What makes it funny? All those, my, are we clever, digs at movies such as MI, Spiderman and King Kong that will have NO MEANING in twenty years time.
Now, compare this to Jeff Smith and BONE. A whole universe, an adventure story, a COW RACE (hooray!) and funny, sentimental characters that stand completely on their own.
J.K. Rowling was able to do the same thing: Harry Potter WORKS on its own (and I am not a big Potter fan, I admit that), but it gives kids the chance to create their own universe and live in it, for all of the hours or days it takes you to complete a novel.
>> Comics evolved from the "funny pages" of over 70 years ago. You know, 3 panel goofy talking-animal jokes. >>
Not very familiar with comic strips of 70 years ago, are you?
kdb
The direct market will be accessible to kids if bookstores save comic shops from its own societal stigma and incestuous system.
The first step is getting the children of parents who don't read comics to read comics.
Ack. I phrased that wrong. I meant the comic shops have the societal stigma and incestuous system, not the bookstores.
>>Writing a GOOD book for kids is much more difficult than anything Millar or Bendis have ever tried to create. Millar has made himself a name with his run on Authority by swiping every bad B-Blockbuster movie of the past twenty years, insert swear word here, insert pop culture reference there.
Millar's done some of the finest all-ages work in recent memory with his tenure on Superman Adventures.
This is all horseshit. Think about the comics that got YOU into the medium as a child. How many of them were "all ages" specifically aimed cartoonish looking material ? When i was around 8 I was primarily reading Daredevil, Ghost Rider, and Spider-man comics. Re-reading those comics when I was older I realized I had no idea what was really going on in them just that it was cool looking guys in neat costumes beating each other up and once ina while they tlaked to their girlfriends or something. I used to work at a childcare program and I'll tell you alot more kids dug the look of The Ultimate Spider-man,Cap and Hulk then they did overly cartoonish things like Akiko.
Hey, no dissing Akiko. 
Wow. I love the idea that Akiko is "overly cartoonish" but Hulk isn't.
For what it's worth, here are some of the comics I got hooked on as a kid that turned me into a fanatic for the medium: Peanuts, Tumbleweeds, Don Martin's "Captain Klutz," Spy vs Spy, Tintin reprints in Children's Digest, Archie and Little Archie, Richie Rich, Casper, Hot Stuff, some scary Chester Gould Dick Tracy paperback reprints, the unforgetable Arnold Roth's Crazy Book of Science, and my beloved Marvel Treasury Edition of Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four stories.
That this is even an argument is all just shows how seriously FUBARed Earth-Comic Book really is.
"That this is even an argument is all just shows how seriously FUBARed Earth-Comic Book really is."
You got that right. For the folks that think otherwise, they might want to ask themselves who'll be reading superhero comics when today's 25-35 year olds are in their 50's and have finally stopped buying/reading them...
De Blieck: "And, yes, there ARE plenty of comics for the kids to read and enjoy in my comics shop that they have to pass by to get to the MAGIC cards. There are racks of Archies and Ducks and Akikos and Amelia Rules and all the rest. They never bother with them. what good will even more do, rotting on the shelf like that?"
I have to ask, though: How many kids enter your local shop in the first place? Put it another way: Does your local comics shop actually feature attractive pictures of Archie, Akiko and Amelia in their storefront displays? If not, why would a child enter the store looking for such things?
I don't mean to be presumptuous -- Seattle's comics shops have taught me that there are indeed exceptions to the rule -- but if kids have no native interest in, say, Wolverine and Batmen, and your average comics shop is a paean to such characters from the exterior decorations right on inside, to the exclusion of all else, then why would they ever step inside in the first pl
(Continued from last message) -- ace? This is what I meant on the old weblog when I was railing against the "one-genre network." It's not that the One Genre is BAD, simply that such extreme devotion doesn't give anyone not interested in said genre a reason to take comics seriously, since there's clearly nothing for THEM in there.
While I'm in the mood to rant: In preparation for an upcoming "girls' manga" issue of The Comics Journal, I've been frequenting my local bookstores, and I've lost track of the number of times some 12-year-old girl has dragged her mother over to the manga shelves and said, "Buy me this," only to have the mother reply that she'd just bought her daughter the previous volume three days ago. Indeed, it because of the number of kids I have to step around just to get to Barnes & Noble's manga shelves that I'm having a damned hard time taking Mark Millar very seriously. Not that it was easy before, but still...
Kids DO read comics. Kids LOVE comics. They just don't read Marvel or DC comics. Maybe the Big Two should rethink that whole "all oatmeal, all the time" formula -- sorry, little joke, there.
Dirk - My retailer has a huge sign out front promoting their manga selection, which is just as big as the local Borders, I believe. They host regular CCG game nights, which I've seen populated by plenty of teenagers and tweenies. It's in a small family-oriented town, and I can honestly say that 9 times out of 10 that I'm in there, a parent will bring their child in. Often, they look at the spinner rack of comics and then pick up their MAGIC pack and move on.
There are exceptions, thankfully. And the situation /is/ getting better for parents looking for superhero comics, at least. A year ago, a parent looking for a $3 comic featuring Spider-Man that's safe for an 8 year old couldn't find anything. Bill Jemas' Marvel Age is fixing that.
Barry - to play Devil's Advocate (I suppose, given the tone of this entire discussion), when today's 25 year old is 50, tomorrow's 25 year old will be reading comics. That's if you work on the argument that the new entry point for comics is college readers.
Steve - Have you seen Deodato's HULK art lately? Heavily photo-referenced looking stuff. AKIKO would be overly cartoonish by comparison.
"Barry - to play Devil's Advocate (I suppose, given the tone of this entire discussion), when today's 25 year old is 50, tomorrow's 25 year old will be reading comics. That's if you work on the argument that the new entry point for comics is college readers."
Consider this: a large percentage of today's adult comics readers started when they were kids, in the 60s-80s. If our current adult readership stops reading comics and nothing changes in the next 25 years in regards to kids, even if there are some college age comics readers, they'll probably be much, much smaller than the audience today.
And that's IF college readers are buying these things.
": a large percentage of today's adult comics readers started when they were kids, in the 60s-80s."
Yes, and that's who the books were marketed towards.
"If our current adult readership stops reading comics and nothing changes in the next 25 years in regards to kids, even if there are some college age comics readers, they'll probably be much, much smaller than the audience today."
IF both of those things happen then, yes, your conclusion is self-evident. But if comics today are overwhelmingly being written for adults and shunned by children, then it's the adults (or college kids, and maybe teenagers) who are likely to adopt them for their own reading material.
In the end, I agree with whoever said it above: It's not a problem of not having comics for kids. It's a problem of distribution and marketing.
>> But if comics today are overwhelmingly being written for adults and shunned by children, then it's the adults (or college kids, and maybe teenagers) who are likely to adopt them for their own reading material.>>
How many people pick up new habits like this as adults? Moviegoers, TV watchers, book readers ... they almost all get the habit as kids. They don't read the same kinds of books or see the same kinds of movies, but from baseball fans to history buffs, tastes form early.
There are forms where people generaly come to them first as adults -- opera, for instance, but there's an argument to be made that even there, a taste for music is what drives it -- but they're generally extremely marginal. So I can't say I think that embracing a policy of abandoning kids and trying to win over comics readers as adults is a strong strategy.
[more]
[...and more:]
In every culture where adults reading comics is a widespread thing, they mostly start as kids -- in Japan, every major publisher has material out for very young readers (even pre-readers) that often loses money, but which they consider vital to forming the habit of reading comics that'll be so profitable to the publisher in later life. For that matter, in every culture where adults being habitual consumers of anything goes, they usually start as kids. Older kids in some cases (drugs, booze, cigarettes, porn), but I can't think of a popular commercial pasttime that doesn't benefit from a "get 'em while they're young" approach. Except where doing so is illegal, and sometimes not even then.
kdb
I admit to being a bit of an odd duck. Didn't get into movies at all until after I graduated college and bought myself a DVD player. Didn't pay much attention to music until I went to college and had a 45 minute commute each way.
Didn't start reading comics until I was 13, which made me an old man compared to everyone else on the internet, who keep telling me how it was a single commercial at the end of a GI JOE episode that brought them to comics. Even then, the reason I got into comics had more to do with their easy newsstand availability than my thirst for greater media enrichment.
That's why I believe that distribution is a bigger problem than material. Thanks to Scholastic and TokyoPop, et. al., we might be overcoming that barrier. It's not that we couldn't stand to have a few more All-Ages appropriate books, but they won't be doing anyone any good if the kids can't find them. Or, even worse, they can only find them in dimly lit smelly specialty stores run by
(Dangit, JUST missed the cut-off again.)
Or, even worse, they can only find them in dimly lit smelly specialty stores run by fanboys. Those will turn people off of comics forever.
Well, I wouldn't disagree that distribution is a huge problem, though I think it goes hand in hand with the other three biggies.
I also don't think that figuring you're an odd duck means your experience can be widely duplicated. I didn't start reading comics regularly 'til I was 14, myself, but I don't think that's any indication that if we give up on kids we'll win over college-agers.
kdb
Augie:
Re: Akiko vs. Hulk. (And only one shall win!) Cartooniness isn't just in the rendering, it's in the proportion. Crilley's Akiko is drawn with the proportions of a normal pre-teen girl. Deodato's Hulk has a head that's a good deal smaller than the muscles in his forearm.
Steve - Fair enough. I was just thinking of the "normal" humans in the book, and not the superpowered green-skin guy who never shows up in his own book.
Kurt - I understand that, but it's just where some of my warped p.o.v. comes from. I think most of the arguments I've made in this entire thread come from the frustration of hearing the same things over and over again through the years without many of them being challenged.
Now excuse me while I go back to re-reading the Eisner Award winning UNCLE SCROOGE comic I have here... Don Rosa rules for a Younger Audience.
Anybody ever trying asking a kid they know, what they actually think about comics?
Most kids will say they like them.
But most have no idea how to get them.
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