I grew up reading Marvel comics. The X books being my favorite. Sure I picked up some other titles from other companies, but I was a Marvel man. The other companies were inferior in their product (or so I believed). Then I got married and stopped reading comics. I still got my fix with the awesome Marvel movies though.
My kindergardener is learning to read now and comics are naturally something that I am using to encourage a love of reading. I read the Bone TPB to her and she even reviewed it. Naturally to familiarize her with the characters I have shown her comic book cartoons. This is where the divide starts.
What comic book cartoons are currently on the air? Teen Titans is running on CN. WB, or whatever it is called now, have Batman, Legion of Superheroes, and Krypto: The Superdog. Not suprisingly (WB and DC are in cahoots), all of these shows are DC properties. It is hard to find the older Marvel stuff from the 90's on TV. We have an X-Men tape and some of the old Fantastic Four stuff, but much less than what is available for DC.
The logical next step would be movies. The Marvel machine keeps churning out movies and DC is almost kind of stagnant there. The X-Men movies are a little too adult for a 6 y/o though, and this is double for most other properties as well. The Fantastic Four movie was horrible. The only one she can see is Spiderman and even that has its scary parts.
The result of all of this is that my daughters can name obscure DC characters and will miss iconic Marvel ones. I now pick up copies of the Teen Titans Go! comic for Ashli to practice reading. Marvel needs to get back in the cartooning game if it wants to capture the hearts and minds of the next generation of comic book fans.
9 comments:
Its funny: I've sort of lost touch with comics after my teen years. I remember, though, that up-and-coming "3rd party" comic companies like Image and Dark Horse were the big thing. Did that bubble burst?
Dark Horse stayed too fringe. Image didn't have enough control over the creators and was/is plagued with delays and inconsistencies. Both companies still exist, but neither really ever threatened the two powerhouses.
I think this comes down to it being hard to create new iconic characters.
I am glad your raising a reader, and comics are a great place to start, I still read manga. As for the DC/Warner Bros connection, it's only logical that the since Warner Bros owns DC that they would fully mine them for tv and movies, I hope they step up on the movie front cause Marvel is all over them there, and Marvel needs to get back on to the TV (DC has all those cartoons plus Smallvile).As for both Dark Horse and Image they both tried several super hero titles, and mostly they kept coming up with various Superman clones, which most readers would rather read Superman over them (with few exceptions) truely original characters seems far and few between. Which is why both smartly changed (or DH returned their ) focus to non superhero titles which has allowed them to carve out niche markets that the big two are ignoring in the market.Of course Manga is a growing market, and at least up here in Canada has a more mainstream acceptance over their cousins the super hero comics, as they have whole sections devoted to manga in major bookstores not just comic shops.
i LOVE bone. SO good... dark horse has some good ones, still... like usagi yojimbo. and concrete and the escapists... image has girls. which is awesome, btw. and the nightly news.. which is like, the best comic out right now. and david mack's kabuki, i think is on image, too. have you checked out lions, tigers and bears? i think your little girl would like that, too. there are some other good ones on image...
I wish I could still collect comics. The family funds manager is against the frivolous spending of funds. If I started reading, it could be one title max. I would be kinda lost on the x-stuff and with the crossovers never even have a chance. I would need a good stand alone title. Back in the day, I used to spend $50 a month easy on comics.
anjel: I think image is bringing back some of there superteam books. DH always had the best adult line and they need to expand upon that. I haven't really gotten into manga. I did watch quite a bit of anime back in the day, but rarely watch any anymore.
grrrace: I think I read issue one of girls online somewhere. I will have to look in to lions and tigers and bears (oh my!).
comics? frivolous? oh. that's too bad. heh. it's part of our monthly spending :P a necessity. hehehe... we spend... uhm... more than $50... you could probably download comics, too... but i don't know what's out there... there is so much goodness out there, i'd have a hard time picking just one title...
I think the fact that your daughter can ID the DC characters is no surprise really: traditionally (in my mind, anyway) DC books seemed written for a younger set, and Marvel, with it's imperfect heroes, soap-opera romances and in-fighting, always seemed to me to be directed at a slightly older reader.I love your daughter's BONE review. Sounds like she really liked it. Great stuff!
so cool that you're exposing your girls to comics. you are an awesome dad.
She's in kinda. DC is fine. Move her to Marvel when she turns nine.
Post a Comment