Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio. This week, Bennett takes about ways to take comics to new customers.Anyone out there who is still hoping against hope that comic books would prove to be the only medium to prove resistant to the economic downsides of digital downloads must have blanched at the recent ICv2 headline (see "Digital Comics Nearly Tripled in 2012"). It didn't bother me but then I've always been a proponent of the idea that digital comics create more potential new customers than they "steal" from comic book shops; and I'm not the only one to think that. The best way I’ve heard it expressed was in "Never Fear! Digital comics aren’t phasing out paper comic books," a piece by Paul Delos Santos that appeared in the June 16th online edition of the Las Vegas Sun. It quotes retailer Ralph Mathieu, owner of Alternate Reality Comics as saying "Digital is the newsstand of yesteryear for people that are new to comic books."
Because no matter how hard we wish it otherwise, it's far, far easier to get the comics to where the eyeballs already are than to have them come to us, and what's true for adults is doubly true for kids (seeing as they can’t drive to their nearest comic book shop). I of course still think comic shops should carry as wide a selection of kid-friendly, all-ages appropriate comics as possible we really can't compete with the internet when it comes to encouraging new readers.
Take, for instance, The Phoenix, "The Weekly Story Paper." A modern version of an old fashioned British comics weekly, it's a mix of humor and adventures printed in bright, vibrant color. All the strips are drawn in styles reminiscent of animation and video game design (with perhaps a touch of bande dessinee, literally "drawn strip," a.k.a. European comics), and feature young protagonists. Because while adults can certainly appreciate it, The Phoenix is intended specifically for kids.
The contents vary from issue to issue, but I'm fond of the pirates riding dinosaurs saga Pirates of Pangaea by Neill Cameron and Daniel Hartwell; as well as the science fictional Troy Trailblazer by Robert Deas and Thomas Fickling; and Zak Simmonds-Hurn's epic fantasy Simon Swift. Clearly I prefer the adventure strips but my favorite feature is probably Bunny Vs. Monkey, a funny animal comic that's equal parts funny ha-ha and funny strange. But the really strange thing about it is that it's written and drawn by Jamie Smart, an artist probably best known in America for the SLG title Bear. For those unfamiliar with it, this was a comic so desperately jet black bleak and savage, that back in the 2000's at Dark Star Books it gave perennial bestseller Johnny the Homicidal Maniac a run for its money,.
These are exactly the kind of comics your kids should be reading. I wish the print copies were available to the direct sales market (while we're at it, I wish that American publisher was doing something similar), but they are available for digital download. If you go to their website site you can read an issue for free; if you like it, you can sign up for a free four issues trial. And if you like that, you can get a month's subscription for $8.99.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.
