Do kids still read comics?

[PyroChamber]

Being that comic books were once considered "kids stuff" and now they seem to be more geared towards adults, do kids these days even care about comics anymore?

 

[Ultra Lantern]

They probably do at some point.

 

[Max J Power]

As far as I can tell, kids tend to only read comics if they have parents who are into them. Every time I see a kid in a comic store, his or her parent is picking up their reserves. And a lot of people I know who have been into comics since they were kids first read them because of parents or older siblings.

I think kids read some mangas though. My county library system is really conscientious about keeping up with Naruto, Bleach, and other popular ones from the kids/teens demographic.

 

[Tron Bonne]

From my general experience, no, they do not. I do see a parent occasionally picking up an all ages comic or some bargain bin back issues for their kids, but I really don't see much proof that younger kids read American comics. The average reading age for that nowadays is, I believe, like early to mid thirties, and the younger demography really aren't interested anymore.

Manga, though, I think that's more common. Though, I'm pretty sure not a whole lot of younger people are into any reading all that much nowadays, at least from what I can tell.

 

[redhawk23]

i don't know about kids, like little kids, but theres a fairly strong Trade Paper Back market amongst high school freshman where I'm from. As far as reading new comics though, not so much. Its an expensive habit. with TPB's you get full story arcs and their far easier to lend out.

 

[Thebumwhowalks]

I was round at a friend's house , who has a little boy who is *heavily* into Batman and Spider-man, Batman mainly, I gave him the first 2 seasons of BTAS.
So i was round there and spotted a Spider-man comic he had been bought, and it was awful, it was a baby version of superhero comics, just pure junk. It was like a children's book, drawn like one, reading like one, a style which does not translate well into superhero comics.
When i was that kid's age(about 5 i guess) i was reading(or having read to me) comics by Chris Claremont in Marvel team Up for chrisakes. Making books like that will not encourage him to read sh cbs, he will not develop a passion for them, and instead stick to the cartoons and movies.
And that is another thing i suppose, in this day and age kids will just flip on the movies and cartoon shows, who needs to read comics every month to get their superhero fix. Very young children can watch the same thing over and over again no problem.
And as for these children's books superhero comics, just a bad idea, ok, as you say , the book snowadays have more sophisticated stories to keep adults interested, but they could either re-print the simpler stories for kids(like those MTUP's), or do stories in that style, not woolly Wolverine(who guest starred in the book with Spider-man) and spongey Spider-man.
Ah, seeing that comic really annoyed me.
Anyway, I gave a big bag of comics to the kid at the weekend, every doubler i could find in my collection, hopefully he will develop a real sense of cbs from those.

 

[hopefuldreamer]

I don't think kids these days have much patience for reading at all, unless the parents make a real effort. And the only parents who are going to make a massive effort to get their kids reading COMICS, are... well... us lot

I grew up without comics. My mum would give anything for me not to be a Superhero fan. If she could go back in time and stop me watching the 90s Spiderman Cartoons, the original X-men cartoons, or Lois and Clark (the shows that sparked my interest), she would!

Comics are something that I am only now getting heavily into. For one thing, we don't have any comic books stores in my town. The nearest one is 20 miles away, and so it's kind of hard to keep up with a series. But my local libraries are getting pretty good with their store of Graphic Novels, so i'm working my way through what i've been missing all these years.

 

[hammerhedd11]

I was round at a friend's house , who has a little boy who is *heavily* into Batman and Spider-man, Batman mainly, I gave him the first 2 seasons of BTAS.
So i was round there and spotted a Spider-man comic he had been bought, and it was awful, it was a baby version of superhero comics, just pure junk. It was like a children's book, drawn like one, reading like one, a style which does not translate well into superhero comics.
When i was that kid's age(about 5 i guess) i was reading(or having read to me) comics by Chris Claremont in Marvel team Up for chrisakes. Making books like that will not encourage him to read sh cbs, he will not develop a passion for them, and instead stick to the cartoons and movies.
And that is another thing i suppose, in this day and age kids will just flip on the movies and cartoon shows, who needs to read comics every month to get their superhero fix. Very young children can watch the same thing over and over again no problem.
And as for these children's books superhero comics, just a bad idea, ok, as you say , the book snowadays have more sophisticated stories to keep adults interested, but they could either re-print the simpler stories for kids(like those MTUP's), or do stories in that style, not woolly Wolverine(who guest starred in the book with Spider-man) and spongey Spider-man.
Ah, seeing that comic really annoyed me.
Anyway, I gave a big bag of comics to the kid at the weekend, every doubler i could find in my collection, hopefully he will develop a real sense of cbs from those.

Dude, at least he's reading. Comics are what got me into reading and many others I know but I can guarantee you it wasn't Watchmen or Preacher I started out with. I mostly read kiddie comics or any thing I saw. Heck, I remember reading the comic book adaptation of Batman and Robin over and over. Was it a good comic? Hell no. But I was six. But I read enough until my taste matured. That's like being mad that he's watching Blues Clues instead of Goodfellas or something. He's five for god's sake.
One of the worst things you can do towards their development is force them to read what you think is good. I remember being at a library book sale and overheard a 8 year old kid pick up a Star Trek book and ask his mom to buy it. She was disgusted and called it trash(there was no individual pricing on the books; it was donation only so price wasn't an issue) and picked out a different book instead for him that she said was better. I can guarantee you that experience affected the kid's outlook on reading negatively.
One of my younger cousins had a hard time getting into reading when she was around 8 or 9 and my family gave her a bunch of old Archie comics we had laying around. Now those aren't great stories or well written but now she's around 13 and she loves reading and has progressed to better things. Give him time to have his reading level mature before you force "better" things at him.

 

[Mario_Galaxy]

Back when I read comics regularly, I was the only person under the age of 20 going into my comic book store. It was an awkward day when my mom had to buy that naughty Avengers issue with Wasp and Hank Pym going at it and The Flash issue where there's explicit cocaine usage, haha!

Those two comics are actually prime examples of how comics have been geared more towards adults. There's been similar evolutions with every medium.

 

[terry78]

They still make comics geared towards kids, but it's like nowadays there are only two sets of books..those only for kids and those only for adults. There isn't really any happy medium.

 

[Thebumwhowalks]

Dude, at least he's reading. Comics are what got me into reading and many others I know but I can guarantee you it wasn't Watchmen or Preacher I started out with. I mostly read kiddie comics or any thing I saw. Heck, I remember reading the comic book adaptation of Batman and Robin over and over. Was it a good comic? Hell no. But I was six. But I read enough until my taste matured. That's like being mad that he's watching Blues Clues instead of Goodfellas or something. He's five for god's sake.
One of the worst things you can do towards their development is force them to read what you think is good. I remember being at a library book sale and overheard a 8 year old kid pick up a Star Trek book and ask his mom to buy it. She was disgusted and called it trash(there was no individual pricing on the books; it was donation only so price wasn't an issue) and picked out a different book instead for him that she said was better. I can guarantee you that experience affected the kid's outlook on reading negatively.
One of my younger cousins had a hard time getting into reading when she was around 8 or 9 and my family gave her a bunch of old Archie comics we had laying around. Now those aren't great stories or well written but now she's around 13 and she loves reading and has progressed to better things. Give him time to have his reading level mature before you force "better" things at him.

Yeah, I see your point, but , 'y'know, I was just thinking that as the book had such terrible artwork and a terrible story, he would think that comics were the substandard version of the cartoons/movies. whereas, even when I was that age, I always thought the comics were the best medium for the sh story. He could express no more interest in getting any comics.
the books I gave him? mostly they were all old comics from the late 70s/early 80s that I read at his age, and a little older, he will be fine with them.

 

[The Morningstar]

I think kids read less of anything these days.

Although I will say Marvel seems more welcoming to kids and newer readers. Whereas DC seems to be catering more to the older fans.

 

[lizzy1151]

To be honest I red comics when I was 13 and on lol. The weird part is none of my family members really enjoyed comics or superheroes. I never really understood but I felt like I should have been born in the 1960's lol. t:

 

[smallville fan]

I think kids read less of anything these days.

Although I will say Marvel seems more welcoming to kids and newer readers. Whereas DC seems to be catering more to the older fans.

Adventures of Superman seems geared towards children.

What comics need are better advertising if kids really wanted to know where to get more. For example putting advertisements say at the end of Ultimate Spider-Man, Avengers Assemble or Beware the Batman would be nice.

 

[jonathancrane]

Considering that the attention span and traditional literacy of the American kid is diminishing, I would answer no the question. From the purely subjective standpoint, the only kids that I have seen or know that read comics are traditionally ones that have parents who read/collect/create comics. However, one exception: I once had a fifth grader ask me if I thought Doctor Hurt was going to be in the next Batman film. It blew my mind that a) a kid read comics b) the kid read Morrison's run c) the kid grasped a sufficient amount of what Morrison was doing in the comic to appreciate it.

 

[Goshdarn Batman]

(Warning! This is going to be a long post, some will probably find it boring and skip it.)

I don't know about the US or the rest of the world. But where I live? No, I don't think so. When I was a kid/teenager, I was probably the only one in class who read comics. In twelve years I have probably seen only one kid holding a comic book. I wanted to give him a high five

We have two "big" comics to choose from where I live. Donald Duck and The Phantom (you know, the first "superhero" in comics), and they're sold in regular grocery stores (we do have some comic book shops here and there, but it's cheaper to buy online, and much more to choose from).

When I was younger there was Batman, Superman, Spider-Man and so on, but they have never been as popular as Donald Duck and The Phantom. Spider-Man must be the most popular American comic over here, he had many issues published in my language before he disappeared from the stores.

I remember when "Batman" came out in 1994. It was a magazine with stories from "Batman Adventures", based on the animated series, an adaptation of "Mask of the Phantasm" and the Harley Quinn story "Mad Love". It was the coolest thing ever, in the middle of the magazine there was a feature called "The Gotham Gazette", with the history of Batman comics, movies, news about Batman Forever etc. I was 7 years old, and it was my favorite comic... It lasted only 12 issues before it vanished because of low sales

Maybe I'll upload some pics of the magazine, just to show you how cool it wast:

Anyway... It seems that most of our comic book readers are men in the middle of their 30s and older. Even my grand-uncle read comics until his death, and he was 95 years old or something.

It's really sad that so many kids miss out the fun. Or maybe that's the problem. There is no fun... Most comics today are incredibly dark, violent and sexual. I'm not saying that comics should ONLY be for kids, but mainly for kids. As I wrote in another thread; if I were a kid today, and picked up a Batman comic, I would probably be scared away from reading comics!

 

[chamber-music]

As far as I can tell, kids tend to only read comics if they have parents who are into them. Every time I see a kid in a comic store, his or her parent is picking up their reserves. And a lot of people I know who have been into comics since they were kids first read them because of parents or older siblings.

This

A couple of my friends worked in a comic store so I used to hang out with them in there sometimes and the only time you see kids buying comics is because they were with their parents or older sibling who grew up reading them and got them into them.

When I was in school there was only 10 out of a couple hundred kids in my entire year group who read comics and that included the time of the comic movie boom of Spider-Man, X-Men, ect.

I definitely think the readership base for comics is skewered more towards the older scale than the younger these days.

 

[Goshdarn Batman]

I definitely think the readership base for comics is skewered more towards the older scale than the younger these days.

How do we fight this evil?

 

[terry78]

Do what the movies are doing and make them cater to both. A lot of DC and Marvel stuff tends to skew hard PG-13 and close to R, and while most kids would find that cool at the same time some of the stories get a little too heady, I think.

 

[def28]

Was talking my comic shop owner about this not long ago. I see kids with their parents at the shop but they are almost always buying very child friendly books. Not only cause of the content but its way easier to follow. Tough to keep up with Spidey/Bats Continuity and money wise. I'm sure there are exceptions but I think Teens are the ones who start up with the geek savy stuff DC/MArvel stuff. Then later into indie.

 

[Goshdarn Batman]

DC Comics writer "...and then the villain rips out the kind old man's guts, strangles him slowly with the intestines and laughs. His grandchildren cries hysterically. Suddenly a little dog shows up. He stomps it to death. Squish, squish! Blood and tears flow everywhere. (Stops writing, lights a cigarette). That'll show everyone, comics are serious stuff! Dark and gritty... For adults!"

DC Comics editor: "I'm sorry, Dan... But this is crap! What the hell are you thinking? The villains shouldn't laugh. Laughter = kid's stuff. Drop the campy stuff, please. We're writing for adults, not nine year olds!"

 

[Spider-Aziz]

Not many kids read comics, but some do

I know a kid reviewing comics on Spider-Man Crawlspace home page
Another kid on those forums
And a kid in my neighborhood views Alan Moore as the best comic book writer

My youngest brother reads some comics, he loves Spider-Man 2099, Superior Spider-Man, Punisher v8 (as a fan of Metal Gear games, the Big Boss look for Frank pulled him in). It probably has to do with me reading comics like mad helping him to find his issues

And Bum, I hope you read this:
Think about old cartoons and comics, what was there in the 60s-80s, and what the 2000s offer in TV and comics, huge gap in quality
We can forget the recent bunch of Marvel shows as an animated universe

 

[Mee]

Most comics aren't geared at all towards kids anymore, and the way that comics are distributed doesn't work for selling to them.


When I was a kid, there was a comics rack in my local grocery store, and at the gas station. I could see them when my parents were shopping and turn on the begging.


Now you have to go to a comic shop, so unless the parent is into comics, the kid won't get exposed. Maybe kids will catch on to digital comics as tablets become more mainstream and accessible for younger and younger ages.

 

[Goshdarn Batman]

Now you have to go to a comic shop, so unless the parent is into comics, the kid won't get exposed. .

Yeah, and some comic shops are a little bit scary. I've seen many strange things.

 

[Mee]

Hah, yeah they're not the most inviting or family friendly places.


If comics were back in mainstream grocery/retail stores, they'd sell. Imagine how many kids would be begging for the Iron Man comic by the cashier's counter if they had just seen the new Avengers movie?