comic waffle

[zombemybabynow]

I tried to get my x3 nephews into comics via 2th / asterix / tintin and complete arcs of amazing spid.  green lantern etc.

no joy - they're sticking to the world of ps5

but then i had a thought the other day:

If i remember correctly, comics cost me around 75p when i first got into them and they're £4.00 approx at the mo'

Either a young person is getting them via, hand-me-down / parent buying or pocket money.

it must be hard to discover something great when it has a hefty price-tag attached?

and i still cant believe the top 300 comics number 1 was only bought by 78,080 people [approx] in the world [icv2 diamond]

Oh, and i went to the xl centre to a comic-con a few years ago and wasn't able to buy any comics there

hoping free comic book day and digital editions help bring in a new generation?

[JohnW]

In the old days there was a constant traffic in swaps and loans.
You bought your own comic and read your mates'.
Can't bring that back.

And to be honest, if I'd had a PS5 way back when, you couldn't have separated me from it with a crowbar.

[Colin YNWA]

I've managed to get both my kids to be comics readers. Though the Girl Child has drifted from reading generally at the moment BUT put a Manga in front of her about some Volleyball Anime she watches and see her lap it up.

The boy child took little effort to break down and still laps them up.

A heady mix of reading The Phoenix, Bone, Calvin and Hobbes , Dog Man and many others have worked on both.

Now to be fair this is possibly in part due to the fact that they rarely see me without a comic secreted about my person and so I guess that's normalised it and we worked hard to turn them into readers more generally. Its time and effort like most thing.

Don't get me wrong the boys default will always be Switch or his laptop / phone but we ensure everyday there are times they are off screen and for boy Child the next default is comics.

Its all possible.

My great failing however is I STILL can't get him to read 2000ad stuff - and man have I tried!

[IndigoPrime]

The main problem in the UK is that when the industry was hollowed out in the 1990s, the habit was lost. Most of my daughter's friends don't get regular comics. One or two get the Beano. Precisely none get the Phoenix. Some of them read comics, mostly in collected form, but that's all. This – along with changes in production quality – is what drives pricing shifts that are way beyond what you'd expect from inflation.

I personally don't believe that gaming is what has changed everything. When I was a kid, a C64 was just as exciting as a modern console is to one of today's younglings. There have always been other distractions. Today, the main problems are availability, costs and habits. The last of those is also something that needs to be ingrained in a child – and for said child to be amenable, receptive and capable regarding a form of media in the first place. (Mini-IP is a voracious reader. But her mum is too and her dad is a writer. Our house has books everywhere. Being a comics fan, I got her into those. We are fortunate to have a pretty great library about a half-hour's walk away from where we live. I'm painfully aware many people don't have such a good starting point.)

[IndigoPrime]

My great failing however is I STILL can't get him to read 2000ad stuff - and man have I tried!

I've tried mini-IP on Rebellion stuff. It's variable. She lost interest in Monster Fun pretty quickly. It lacks the storytelling smarts of the Phoenix, and the gender ratio remains abysmal. A pity. Regened... she's read. I'm not sure whether she's that fussed about them, mind. Some of the Treasury stuff went down well, though: Bella at the Bar and the Sweeny Toddler hardcover, most notably.

[JohnW]

the habit was lost. Most of my daughter's friends don't get regular comics.

We came from a world that was flooded with comics. Comics were what all the kids read.
There's a world of difference between a grown-up recommending something to you and all your friends being into it.
I'd hazard that without that peer influence, children's comics are doomed to remain in the shrinking little niche they've been backed into.

[Art]

Are the Oni and Scholastic books from Middle Readers and Young Adults not big in the UK? Here they're bigger than "regular" comics (though probably not as big as Manga).

[IndigoPrime]

@Art: Got any examples?

@JWare: When kids are young, peer influence isn't that strong. If kids start reading a lot when young, chances are they'll stick to it to some degree. If comics are part of that mix, there's a greater chance of them sticking to that format as well. The problem is we now have an entire generation of parents who didn't grow up with regular comics. I'm among the oldest parents in my kid's school, and even I wasn't in the golden age of UK newsstand comics – although before I aged out of humour titles, there were still a few knocking around. And there was plenty of other stuff too.

[JohnW]

When kids are young, peer influence isn't that strong.

I won't argue the point.
I'm an uncle not a father, and my opinion is based on supposition rather than observation.
I've no idea what's even available these days, but I'll extol the virtue of Asterix to any and all young 'uns until they shut me up.

[IndigoPrime]

I'm an uncle not a father, and my opinion is based on supposition rather than observation.

I've noticed a shift between infant (~4–7) and junior (~8–11) kids. In infant school, kids had a tendency to get into whatever their parents suggested. At junior, my daughter and her friends are starting to do their own things a bit, and be influenced by friends. (Mine got her first doll house last Christmas, because she'd never really had that but a friend did.) There's a point now where some of the boys in her year (Y4) who used to get The Beano are dropping it, in part seemingly because it's "for kids".

I've no idea what's even available these days, but I'll extol the virtue of Asterix to any and all young 'uns until they shut me up.

Widely on the newsstand: an awful lot of plastic tat on the front of comics that are really low-effort activity magazines; Lego magazines (polybags taped to the front of, charitably, 'readable' comics); a couple of good educational mags (Animal Planet; junior Nat Geo); The Beano. Some places also stock The Phoenix (a mostly quality mix of humour and action strips aimed at a slightly older reader) and Monster Fun. And that's pretty much it until you get to the titles aimed at tweens and teens (2000 AD; Marvel reprint; Shift; etc).

[Colin YNWA]

 I will say the Marvel (and I assume DC but I don't see those) reprint comics from Panini (I think it still us) offer amazing value. Basically 3 US comics for the price of one I  a nice solid package, much better paper and cover stock than the originals.

They much find an audience as 2 or 3 come out every month still (last time I looked) so something is happening there too.

[IndigoPrime]

I remember during one of the reboots, I subscribed to a bunch of those Panini reprints. In the end, they became too repetitive to stick with, but MWOM did the business every month. I was upset when that was canned. (These days, you can't sub to most of them, which means I have no interest.) But, yeah, good value for nippers if you can find copies.

[RookieNerd]

I tried to get my x3 nephews into comics via 2th / asterix / tintin and complete arcs of amazing spid.  green lantern etc.

no joy - they're sticking to the world of ps5

but then i had a thought the other day:

If i remember correctly, comics cost me around 75p when i first got into them and they're £4.00 approx at the mo'

Either a young person is getting them via, hand-me-down / parent buying or pocket money.

it must be hard to discover something great when it has a hefty price-tag attached?

and i still cant believe the top 300 comics number 1 was only bought by 78,080 people [approx] in the world [icv2 diamond]

Oh, and i went to the xl centre to a comic-con a few years ago and wasn't able to buy any comics there

hoping free comic book day and digital editions help bring in a new generation?

Well coming back to comics after a very long time away I noticed how comics are sold thesedays. A few select collectable stores and book shops compared when they used to be sold all over the place. Yes I know about the digital market and tried it, but something is lost in the comic book experience imo. I am getting most of the back issue stuff off a local comic reseller and third party amazon sellers (even Ebay at a pinch).

Comics were more of a thing back then and gaming culture wasn't as big as it was today. The big and little kids are into gaming, but one did raid my comics to read. Some JLA, Marvel Civil War, Username Evie, Zombo and they got themselves a Flash Rebirth local. For kids to get into comics we really need to pass the torch on thesedays to get some eyes on.

As I am not a speculator/collector so I am not bothered to much about condition. I am picking up GN for a song £3 to £5 off resellers graded at mostly very good. So I have a lot cheap books that I don't care if they get more worn by the kids.

[Art]

@Art: Got any examples?

The Raina Telgemeier books would be the biggest one.

[AlexF]

I can't help but agree with the general view that the habit of kids in the UK buying a regular weekly comic is all down to the parents of said kids passing on their own fond memories.
On the other hand, the comics world in Bookshops is healthier than ever. Used to be only Tintin and Asterix (and full agreement that they're still amazing), but now there's that, there's Manga, there's Telgemeier, there's Dog Man, and although hybrod books/comics kind of annoy me 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' is like crack for kids who've reached the point where they can read independently (something that typicall hits at some point between 7-11, from my experience). And there's enough comics in there that if those kids go on to pick up a real comic later, they'll know how to read it (I'm always despondent at the number of adults I meet who won't read comics mostly because they literally don't know how to read a comic We should teach this shit in school.)

And those books are basically the same price as any other prose book - not something a kid can afford to buy every week, but hopefully a few times a year what with World Book Day tokens and Xmas/Birthday money from well-meaning uncles.

Lately my parenting struggles have been less about getting them off the console (which is usually a social activity, hard to complain about!) and more about getting them off endless TikTok scrolling...