[...] that we were expecting kids to be reading comics?  Not that this topic is specific to FC #2 (and not that it’s the first time I’ve talked about it), but it occurred to me while reading it — the original Crisis on Infinite Earths, which was [...]

I have devoted much space to this exact subject on my own blog. My sons have become majorly interested in DC superheroes. It was easy enough to pick up old issues that I was familiar with – single issues or Showcase collections or whatever – but I had tuned out of mainstream comics 15 years ago because I wasn’t happy where they were headed. <br/><br/>I decided to check out what was out there and appropriate for 11 year olds and I was pretty amazed that the violence has gotten more graphic, the sex has gotten more gratuitious, the presentation of women more sexist and general outlook of the books to be needlessly grim and sadly sensationalistic.<br/><br/>The problem is that superheroes are still sold as a children’s medium out there in the mainstream, with toys and t-shirts and coloring books and cartoon shows. In the actual world of the source material, however, very little beyond the comics specifically based on cartoon shows are appropriate for those kids eating up the rest of the merchandise.<br/><br/>Though there are plenty of people who don’t want to face up to it, superheroes WERE a child-appropriate medium until somewhere in the 1990s when the industry realized how many guys my age were out there ready to drop money and began catering to them. The mantra at the time was the comic books weren’t just for kids anymore, but I don’t see how that needed to be translated into what resulted. Imagine if one day it was decided that booze was going in all the candy in existence. “Candy isn’t just for kids anymore.”<br/><br/>Great. So what exactly do kids have when grown-ups co-opt their entertainment? <br/><br/>The irony is that as the comic book industry pulls away from children, the publishing world discovered that in the realm of both picture and chapter books, the kid market is a gold mine – and you can actually create well-crafted, intelligent, non-pandering product and get sales. AND you can gear things towards girls and get more sales! Amazing!<br/><br/>The mainstream comics industry largely ignored this, though. Now they attempt to talk up pretty sad circulation numbers. By cutting out kids from the majority of the market – and therefore, stifling the most important part of being a comic book fan, the weekly habitual run to the comic book store – they’ve killed any meaningful possibility of market growth. <br/><br/>There may be a future in graphic novels, but once the bookstores catch on that just because it has Batman in it doesn’t mean it’s appropriate for children, there is going to be hell to pay. It happens to every medium that shills violence to kids in the mainstream, you know? <br/><br/>So, yes, I entirely agree with what you are saying and I add that I think it is bad business – and bad craftsmanship. Making some kid appropriate does not mean making it stupid.<br/><br/>Thankfully, there are still scores of old comics that I can get my kids and that they love.

I’m not a big fan of censorship. And that type of corporate censorship just pushes all kinds of buttons.<br/><br/>Oh, I hate censorship. That’s one of my biggest hot-button issues.<br/><br/>But saying “maybe this presentation isn’t appropriate for this particular comic” isn’t censorship, corporate or otherwise.<br/><br/>And I certainly agree that it’s the parents’ responsibility to watch what their kids are reading/watching/experiencing, but there should be some level of trust in the makers of the products being read, watched or experienced. Most comics from DC’s Vertigo imprint say right there on the cover: Mature Readers. But if I were a parent and my nine-year-old brought home an issue of JLA, I wouldn’t think for a second that I’d need to watch out for that comic, and would’ve gotten a serious shock when I flipped through it and saw Red Tornado… unhanded.

I find myself pretty divided on this issue. On one hand, I think it’s the responsibility of the parent to supervise the literature his/her kids have access to, not so much “the industry.” I’m not a big fan of censorship. And that type of corporate censorship just pushes all kinds of buttons. <br/><br/>But that said, I think there should be some kind of formula in place, a label, something that qualifies each book for its audience, if for nothing else than as a guide to help parents decide what is and what is not appropriate for their kids to read. <br/><br/>I do believe there should be some titles that are expected to maintain a certain level of age appropriateness, and those should be consistent. And writers should adhere to those guidelines. <br/><br/>I think some of the superhero titles, especially, should remember that there is an art to storytelling, and that subtlety can be used instead of the graphic uber-violence we have to endure in so much of our pop culture in order to access “story.”