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comic waffle

Started by zombemybabynow, 01 November, 2022, 04:01:36 PM

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IndigoPrime

Yep. Comics have to some degree shifted. Dog Man is one example. Investigators is doing very well too. The Phoenix has wisely transitioned to that format with new Jamie Smart collections and Mega Robot Bros. And there's a ton of manga knocking around, to the degree it in many bookstores I visit overshadows the entirety of the non-children's comics section.

This is all good. However, these comic books in most stores are often shoved into a bottom shelf, far away from other books. My daughter asked me in the most recent Waterstones we went into why Bunny vs Monkey, Hilda, etc, were all lurking in the 9+ section, when those tomes are suitable for younger kids. I had no good answer.

There's also something inherently different about the newsstand format. It allows experimentation and variety. It's more like radio, whereas Dog Man is the comics equivalent of Adele – a giant, but a rarity. That's great for Dav Pilkey, but comics potentially provide a much greater range of people to have a crack at this artform. That's why I remain sad about the ongoing state of newsstand comics in the UK, even if there are some bright lights in the darkness.

I don't know how this can change though. I was expecting mini-IP to be anomalous in her year group, but not to the degree she was. That she only knew a couple of kids in a year group of 90+ that got The Beano every week came as a big surprise to me – and not a nice one.