Kids Today, Comics, and My Youth

I was in the kitchen the other night looking for a snack when, out of the blue, I started wondering if kids today read comic books. My SO is a middle school teacher and she says that some of her students read manga, but apparently not stuff like Superman, Hulk, or The Avengers. I've got three kids, two of whom are spitting distance from legal American drinking age, and none of them have ever had an interest in American style comics. The older ones were into the manga for a while though. I've never seen any of my friends’ kids reading comics either. So from purely anecdotal experience, I’m left to believe that it’s just not an “in” thing for kids these days, and that makes me a little sad. I assume the sadness comes from the part of the brain that likes to think we had it better when we were young and kids today!?!?!?

But I don’t think the real question I have is actually “do kids today read comic books?”

I come from a poor family. We weren't homeless, out on the streets poor, but we were hand-to-mouth, can we afford groceries, stealing electricity from the neighbors, living in some shit holes poor. Despite that, my mom and my step-dad (both R.I.P.) worked real hard in my pre-teens to make sure that even if I didn't get much for birthdays and Christmas, I got something, and that something would be cool. Might be some comic books, might be some Star Wars action figures. But outside of those, I was pretty much on my own if I wanted something like a comic book.

Also, I may have mentioned before that in my youth, I was a voracious reader.  But my mom didn't like children’s book for the most part, so I started reading adult fiction at an age that was probably not appropriate. But I grew up reading REH's Conan, The Destroyer, The Phantom, and a lot of SF and horror from years past (keep in mind I was born in 1973). So it only makes sense that I grew to love comic books. I had already incorporated heroic fiction into my personality.

My uncle (actually my great-uncle, but we called him Uncle) was a carpenter, and as soon as I was big enough (about 7), he would pay me on weekends sometimes to help him on jobs. So when I was a tiny tot, that’s how I was able to earn money. And being a tiny tot, I spent in on things like toys and books. And comic books.

When I started reading comic books, I already knew about used book stores (some of you may never have seen one of these in the wild), and that they often had a used comic books section. So I would spend my hard-earned cash at the used book store (My mother was a reader also, so getting a trip to the UBS wasn't hard).

Whew, let me tell you, there was nothing cooler than coming home from the UBS with a stack of beat up comic books that I had never read. There wasn't much that got me more excited at that age. And being the quick reader that I was, I’d burn through them, and then re-read them over and over. And then I’d try to draw what I saw in them (which never worked out for me, and I’m still a pretty terrible artist today).

Then my mom explained trade-ins and credit to me, so even though it had diminishing returns, I would take that stack of comics to the book store and trade them in for credit, and get a smaller stack and so on, until I earned more money to buy more comics, so I could then trade them in, and so forth and yada bing fang foom.

My first loves were Batman, Superman, Thor and Star Wars. Then I found ROM Spaceknight, and that became (and remains) my favorite comic book series. I don’t know why, it just was. In the early 80s, I also became a huge fan of Atari Force. In 1986, I was buying new comics on a semi-regular basis with the money I was able to earn, and I found the New Universe. And hot damn! It was awesome! My favorites were Star Brand, Justice and D.P. 7. New Universe made such an in impact on me that now, even though I’m 41, my favorite types of superhero stories are the Normal People Suddenly Find Themselves with Super Powers. That’s why I was so psyched about Heroes when it came on. That’s one of the reasons Unbreakable is one of my favorite movies (and for another reason, see below), and why, unlike apparently the majority of TV views, I enjoyed the hell out of No Ordinary Family.

Hell, even now, if I go to run a supers game, the odds are that it will be some version of Normal People Suddenly Get Powers.

I mentioned Unbreakable above. I love – LOVE – this movie. It has so many things I love in my fiction; a normal person discovering he has super powers, themes of what it means to be a hero, what it means to be a parent, what it means to have a destiny, beautiful cinematography, and excellent, but subdued acting. But it also resonated with me because of Mr. Glass and how his mother enticed him to come out and explore his world more, despite his condition. She used comic books, and I imagined that when young Mr. Glass got a new comic, he must have felt something akin to the excitement I felt when I got new comics to read.

And this bring me back ‘round to my question:

Do kids today read comic books?

As I mentioned, though, I don’t think that’s my real question. I think my real question is:

Do kids have anything that excites them like that these days?

It seems like my own children never had anything that excited them quite like getting new comics excited me when I was little.

So. . . anyway, it’s just something I got to pondering. Sorry for the meandering trip down memory lane. So stop reading my rambling, and go interact with something that excites you.

Peace.

Also, go watch Unbreakable. Seriously, go watch it.

And don’t bother to tell me if you don’t like it for whatever reason.