Ape Entertainment has acquired a license from the Children’s Television Workshop to produce Sesame Street print and digital comics. Starting this fall the new Ape Entertainment Sesame Street comics will target young readers with educational and entertaining content featuring the familiar and beloved Sesame Street characters such as the Cookie Monster, Bert and Ernie, Grover, Elmo, Big Bird, and Oscar the Grouch.
Ape’s Sesame Street comics will be printed in full color in the standard comic book size. They will be available in the traditional paper pamphlet format for $3.99 as well as in hardcover editions for $7.99 and as a digital comic that will be available through Apple’s App Store for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch.
The biggest growth area for comics over the past five years has been comics for younger readers with major initiatives including the launching of Toon Books (see “Mouly and Spiegelman Launch Kids GN Line”) plus the embrace of comics by Scholastic and other major YA publishers that has resulted in the publication of a plethora of comics for kids, tweens, and teens so impressive that The Eisner Awards added two new categories including a “Best Publication for Early Readers” to its 2012 lineup of awards (see “The 2012 Eisner Award Nominees”). Ape Entertainment’s Sesame Street comics adds another iconic brand to this growing trend (which may be the most positive, long term thing that the current comic market has going for it, since it should insure that the current generation of children is thoroughly family with the comic format and the pleasures of reading comics).