A Short Report (and a Few Pics) from Kids Read Comics

On Saturday I took my nephew (age 11) to the Kids Read Comics festival in Chelsea, MI. Based at the Chelsea District Library and running down Main Street at various locations, it was pretty much everything you could want from a comic festival aimed at kids and teens.

We started the day at a workshop run by Dave Roman on creating characters:

We then hit the kids artist alley and bought a few things (I picked up some minis for our library's nascent mini-comics collection), and then stopped by the Green Brain table where Dave Roman & Raina Telgemeier were signing. My nephew bought a copy of Dave's new Astronaut Academy graphic novel, and was thrilled to get his copy of SMILE autographed by Raina (he says it's his second favorite graphic novel, right after Bone.)

We then walked down Main Street (past the Jiffy factory) to the pizza place which was having an all-you-can-eat buffet for the attendees. There we met up with my friend E~ and his family (K~, who buys adult comics for one of the local public libraries, and their kids ages 5 and 1).

After lunch we stopped over at the teen artist alley, where I got to tell Thom Zahler, John Ostrander, Bill Loebs, Barbara Slate, and Gary Cohn how awesome they all are; Barbara was impressed and a bit surprised that I fondly remembered her old Marvel series Sweet XVI!

Walking back up the street, we caught the tail end of one of the quick draw sessions, where artists would do large sketches based on whatever passersby suggested. With my nephew's help we suggested that Raina Telgemeier draw a monkey throwing banana pulp at the headless horseman. Here she is in progress:

while Dave Roman & Jerzy Drozd looked on:

Then we went across the street to look at the Comic Jam! exhibition at the Chelsea River Gallery. Then we swung back up to the kids artist alley for one more run through before heading back home:

It was a great day for a comics festival, and my many thanks to all the organizers for their hard work. I assume there will be another Kids Love Comics festival next year, so I strongly recommend that you find a kid and take them!

What's Happening with DC's Kids Comics? Part II

Back in late July I blogged about the uncertain future of DC's line of kid-friendly comics. Three weeks later we now have a bit more clarity:

• Although they didn't appear in the online solicitations, both Tiny Titans and the Tiny Titans/L'il Archie comics showed up in Previews. It appears that the Archie crossover will not be replacing the regular Tiny Titans comics on the schedule, meaning for four months we'll get double the usual TT goodness. Aww Yeah!

• At SDCC, Dan Didio revealed what many have always suspected, that DC's kids' comics lose money for the company. But he also affirmed DCE's commitment to publish titles aimed towards younger readers regardless.

• Also at SDCC, Didio said that there is a DC Kids version of the DC Comics App in the works. This seems like an excellent idea, especially if they keep the cost of the digital comics at 99¢. They have so much past material to draw from, and most of the stories are single-issue or less.

• Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! is indeed ending, going out with a two-parter. 

• Batman: The Brave and the Bold is being replaced on the schedule with The All-New Batman: The Brave and the Bold. The new series will team up Batman with bigger names from the DCU, such as Superman and Captain Marvel, rather than the B- and C-listers. While I must admit that I prefer seeing the far reaches of the DCU explored, I'm fairly confident that the new creative team of Sholly Fisch & Rick Burchett will give us fun and interesting stories.

• Also, we learned that the current season of the Batman: The Brave and the Bold cartoon will be the last. There are fourteen remaining episodes to air. But a Young Justice cartoon is in the works, and I will not be surprised to see a tie-in comic for that show once it debuts.

Creating a Kids' Comic Section the Simple & Easy Way

Over at Blog@Newsarama, Egg Embry posts:

Yesterday I spoke to Galactic Quest store owner Kyle Puttkammer... and he laid a little comic shop science on me: How can retailers be expected to have a Kid’s Comic Section in their store if Diamond will not put a Kid’s Section in Previews? It is a point I had not considered before…

My response:

1. Look for the ‘Kid Friendly’ logo next to items in Previews; order those things.

2. Order Archie stuff.

3. Order One Piece & Naruto.

4. Order Bone collections.

5. Order Diary of a Wimpy Kid books.

6. Order the items listed on School Library Journal’s Best Comics for Kids: http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/540000654/post/1340051134.html

7. Order the Johnny DC & Marvel Adventures titles.

Rack all of the above together on the shelf. Enjoy sales to kids & their parents!

The Power of Bone

Kids like Bone. This is not surprising, of course, but still very true.

Background: A few weekends ago I was back home visiting my parents. I had along with me the massive one volume Bone collection, and was re-reading it because it was our book discussion group book for May. My nephew, age 8, was visiting and saw me reading the book. Up until a year ago my nephew was what would be described as a 'reluctant reader', but in the past few months he's become much more engaged with reading for pleasure. Recently he has been borrowing (and devouring) my dad's Calvin & Hobbes collections, so he's getting into comics as well. My nephew became quite interested in the huge Bone collection, and wanted me to read it to him. So we sat on he big recliner and I started reading it out loud to him. He was quite engaged with it, and after we made it through the first three chapters he began reading it on his own. He was disappointed that I had to take it back to Ann Arbor with me, but I needed to finish it in time for that Tuesday's book club meeting.

I considered loaning my copy to him when I was done, but I have one of the early copies of the one-volume edition and the pages are falling out. So I hopped onto Amazon and ordered a copy to be shipped to my nephew directly. It arrived last Friday, and he completely finished all 1300+ pages over the following 48 hours. Simply put, my nephew loves Bone! (My sister asked me if I know of any other 1000 page comic books that could keep him entertained!)