I grew up reading comic books.
The New Teen Titans was probably my favorite (I got positively giddy when I was recently watching TT with my sons and saw a Wolfman-scripted episode), with X-Men a close second. (My bat mitzvah present? X-Men #94 – 100 in mint condition. Best. Present. Ever!) But I loved pretty much all superhero comics: the Avengers (remember the West Coast title?) and the Incredible Hulk (when he was green — no, gray. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!) and Batman and Wonder Woman… The list goes on. When I got older, I branched out into Vertigo titles, with some Image and Dark Horse thrown in there. (Best villain ever? Hunter Rose.) But in my heart of hearts, for me, superheroes are about sitting down with my dad every Saturday and swapping the latest comic book titles.
Yep, I grew up reading comic books. So it was probably inevitable that I’d write about superheroes one day. With BLACK AND WHITE (written by me and Caitlin Kittredge) now on the shelves, I thought I’d visit my local comic book shop and reminisce, and possibly buy something for my own children. They’re sort of young to get started on the family tradition–the Precious Little Tax Deductions are seven and five–but hey, it couldn’t hurt to do some reconnaissance. And maybe buy some things.
Imagine my shock and horror when I stood in the comic book store and felt totally lost.
Granted, it’s my own darn fault for taking time off from comic books — other than completing the Sandman series (Joss Whedon may be my master, but Neil Gaiman is my god) and a few other titles here and there over the years, I’ve stayed away from comics. Partially that’s because they got expensive, and when Dad wasn’t buying them, the money really added up. But partially it’s because I got fed up with the various gimmicks I’d seen in the 1990s–the unwarranted crossovers, the numerous covers for the same issue, that sort of thing. Hated that. So I’d stepped away. But there I was, just the other week, deciding it’s time to return to my roots and get into comics again, with my kids right there with me.
There I was, staring at the racks and racks and racks of comic books, not to mention the shelves of bound volumes and graphic novels, and there were tons upon tons of titles that I didn’t recognize. And the ones that I did? OMG. Seriously–how many freaking titles ARE there, and why are there about a million subtitles for each title? (Fine, I had both Spectacular Spider-Man and Amazing Spider-Man growing up, so this isn’t totally a “Hey you kids, get outta my comic book shop” moment. Well, not completely. Shh, don’t mess up my rant!)
Want to hear sad? The dude behind the counter took pity on me and gave me an index so I could get up to date all on the Marvel titles/main story arcs.
An index. Really? Wow. That comic book guy must have thought I was full of you-know-what when I told him I used to read comics every week. And then he showed me the “child-safe” titles for my Precious Little Tax Deductions.
Child-safe. Man, when I watched Teen Titans with the boys and we got to the Terra arc, I raced downstairs and dug out “The Judas Contract,” totally eager to show my offspring the original story for the TT arc…and then I skimmed it. Oh, right: Terra was sleeping with Slade, and she was totally bats*** insane. Huh. Maybe that’s not the best thing to show my wee Tax Deductions just yet.
Sigh. I am SO out of the loop.
So hey out there: take pity on someone who read comics in the 1980s and 1990s: what titles should I get for my boys? For that matter, what titles are out there now that are must reads for a one-time fangirl returning to the fold?
Seven and five are pretty young, but there are options out there. I don’t know where you live, but you might want to wander into your local library–ours has an excellent children’s section. Your kids can read trade collections for free and decide what they like.
Anyway, not all of these will be superhero comics because my son prefers “weird” to “spandex”, but here’s a start (author’s names included if I remember them):
The Little Vampire, by Something Sfar
Yotsuba! (not superhero or fantasy, but very funny and charming–my son and I both loved it.
World of Quest
Twisted Journeys (There are seven of these so far–they’re choose your own adventure books in comic format.
SHAZAM! The Monster Society of Evil (OMG, so good. My son went nuts for this, superhero or not!)
Daniel Boom aka Loud Boy
Magic Pickle
A Bit Haywire (The previous three are superhero comics of a sort. Fun stuff)
The big two companies have made an effort in recent years to appeal to younger readers. Marvel has their Marvel Digests line, with kid-friendly version of Spider-man and The Avengers. DC has a line of “Superman Adventures”, “Tiny Titans” and a Batman book that is supposed to be excellent, but my son has zero interest.
If you want to be sneaky, Wild Ride, Ramp Rats and Soccer Sabotage are comics that teach kids about outdoor activities.
The Elsewhere Chronicles are “transported to fantasy world” adventures, as is
The Amulet
Lions and Tigers and Bears
and I’ll wrap this up with
Akiko (the comics, not the novels) by Crilley.
That last one is pretty good. Terrific characters, esp Poog.
You can also check out adaptations of popular kids books (which is what Akiko is). My library has adaptations of Coraline, Artemis Fowl, The Guardians (the cat books, not the owl ones) and so on. Not to mention cine-manga.
Good luck!
Oh! And Owly for your littlest one.
Hmmmm…I think the best place to start will be with Flight Explorer Vol. 1, especially if you’re just getting them hooked, er, I mean, started. Getting them started.
Mind you, it’s a graphic novel, not a one-issue comic, so I’m not sure if it’s what you’re looking for here. But the benefit to Flight Explorer is that it contains a number of different stories with varied themes and art styles, so you (and they) might get a better idea of what they’re interested in reading. Also, the stories are shorter, so they can pick it up and read a quick story before their attention wanders (if they’re prone to that sort of thing).
There’s a pretty good review of Volume 1 here: http://www.readaboutcomics.com/2008/04/02/flight-explorer-vol-1/
Oh, and Amelia Rules! is a really good one, but it’s only tangentially tied into the super hero genre in that the central group of friends form a crime fighting society/club. It’s really about life and growing up though and it’s not been shy about tackling current events or other things that pop up in real life. It’s funny, sweet, and sometimes poignant, but makes for great reading whether you’re a kid or an adult. It’s a great title to keep an eye out for.
Thanks for the terrific suggestions! As ridiculous as it sounds, it never would have occurred to me that the library would have comic books.
I was checking out a Tiny Titan’s collection (don’t ask) and think it’s pretty good, if more comic-strippy than comic-booky (if that makes sense. But the art is pretty fun, and their super-powers do come into play.
First off, the Akiko comics came way before Crilley ever wrote the novels, so the comics are NOT adaptations. But the comics are great. Also, it’s Yotsuba&! – the ampersand is very important in the title. It means Yotsuba and …
Marvel has its Marvel Adventures line of comics for younger readers – Spider-Man, Iron Man, Hulk, Fantastic Four, the Avengers … try them out. Also the Franklin Richards, Son of a Genius trade paperbacks are a hoot.
You might also want to try some of the Toon Books – these are published by art spiegelman and his wife Francoise Mouly: they look more like easy readers; Stinky is great, also Otto’s Orange Day.
Viz’s kids manga such as Dinosaur Hour and Leave It to PET! might also be fun, as is Udon Entertainment’s Ninja Baseball Kyuma.
Scott Christian Sava has a number of good kids’ titles: Pet Robots, Ed’s Terrestrials, Cameron and His Dinosaurs, Hyperactive, My Grandparents are Secret Agents, Gary the Pirate, and Dreamland Chronicles (this last title might be for when your sons get a little older – my 14-year-old started reading it when he was 11).
And, speaking as a librarian who has been working to get graphic novels and comics into libraries since 1984, I’m hurt (hurt, I tells ya ^_^) that you didn’t think libraries would have comic books.
Have fun finding cool stuff for your kids!
Jackie, to get yourself back as a fan-girl, check out the series Astonishing X-men. Issues 1-24 were written by Joss Whedon and are some of the best X-men arcs I have ever read. Whedon’s run is collected in 4 TPBs also.
I revived my fan-boy status a few years ago after many years. I can appreciate your confusion when setting foot in a store. Unfortunately, I stopped regularly reading comics last year due to the cost.
BTW, I just started Black & White and I am enjoying it very much. Thanks!
Hey — thanks so much, everyone! I really appreciate all the suggestions.
All right. Today…I’m buying more comic books!
(Now if only I could get my kids to stop watching Bionicles and start watching Thundercats again…)
Jerodatgm, thanks for letting me know! Caitlin & I had a lot of fun writing Black and White.