Comics For Kids

In researching my latest blog, I stumbled upon a couple of articles that talked about comics’ role in getting reluctant boy readers to pick up a book. The articles really got me thinking about my childhood and my issues with reading.

I was a terrible reader for most of elementary school and read only a steady diet of comics and choose your own adventures. I enjoyed the stories I found in books, but did not enjoy reading. I found the process of reading to be a difficult and especially slow process. Comics offered a great alternative to books. I could get exciting and complex stories, but they didn’t possess the level of difficulty I found in books.

Regretfully, my comics reading did not get much support from teachers at school (although my parents were excited that I was reading anything). These days, teachers use comics to encourage reading and libraries have extensive selections of titles. When I was young, I could only get newspaper strip collections like Garfield or a handful of superhero titles like Marvel Origins and Bring on the Bad Guys. Now, there is the Education Resources Information Center online that has sources for teachers on how to use comics in the classroom. Meanwhile, there is an ever-growing selection of comics for kids being published.

In the comic market of the 80s and 90s, we saw the number of titles with a young target audience shrink. Superhero comics moved slowly away from being aimed at all ages to skewing to an older audience. There would be the odd well intentioned but ill conceived all ages superhero title, but consistent quality titles evaporated from the shelves. Outside of the realm of superheroes, frequently the latest issue of Bone stood out as the lone good all ages title.

As some comics creators aged and began to have kids of their own, they have moved to creating works for their children to enjoy. Andi Watson has moved form slice of life romance titles to the fantasy adventures in Glister while James Kacholka has created Johnny Boo. Meanwhile, newer talents like Shaun Tan or Kazu Kibuishi have been creating all-ages friendly works like the Arrival or Amulet respectfully. A lack of quality kids comics lead Francoise Mouly to first create the Little Lit line of books and now she is launching Toonbooks, a line of Little Lit for readers 4 and up. The line will boast such talent as Art Spiegleman and Dean Haspiel.

When I look at all the quality kids comics being created now, much of which contain the kinds of stories I enjoyed as a kid, it makes me wonder how I would have faired given the quality and quantity of comics accessible to young readers these days.

-Nick