Brian Hibbs of Comix Experience in San Francisco, California saw Timothy Davis' plea for more comics for kids (see 'Timothy Davis of Alternate Reality on Comics for Kids') and saw this fly in the ointment:

 

While I certainly agree with Tim Davis' analysis and position, and while this is clearly an issue many retailers feel strongly about (I don't think I've EVER seen a 'Talk Back' topic that drew so many responses so fast), I guess I need to be the voice of cynical reason here.

 

The sad fact of the matter is that the market DOESN'T support 'Kid's Comics', and unless you can convince the majority of comic book stores to change the way comics are ordered, you're almost certainly never going to see the things you're asking for.  Only a bare handful of these books even manage to hang around 15,000 copies in the Direct Market (Justice League Adventures, The Simpsons), and the overwhelming majority sell half of that or less.  Given that kid's comics have had, historically, fewer revenue streams (TP's, high-end toys and statues, licensing deals, etc.) than material aimed at the older audience, I think you'll be hard pressed to convince DC to do more projects aimed at this demographic, or for Marvel to do ANY.

 

A 'kid's' version of Spider-Man sounds really great on paper, but what have YOU done to show publishers there is a significant (ie: 'You won't LOSE money') market for this material?  And how are you going to convince all of the retailers who don't support the category AT ALL, to jump in?

 

MAYBE if retailers DOUBLED thier orders on the existing kid's comics (at least), then you'd see more titles being offered to this demographic -- but my gut tells me that if Marvel offered Spidey Super-Stories (v.2) #1 tomorrow, it would debut below 23k, and by issue #6 it would be below 17k.  I don't see a lot of political will at Marvel to launch new titles that will stabilize below 25k or so.

 

On this, at least, the charts don't lie.  Regardless of how much we'd all like to see this audience be taken care of.