Standing on the Brink of a Golden Age

Welcome to Good Comics For Kids!

There has never been a better time to be a kid who loves comics.

The drugstore spinner racks of my childhood may be gone, but the number of comics being produced for children is growing, and the range of quality is much larger, from cookie-cutter adaptations of television shows to groundbreaking graphic novels with true literary merit.

There are many factors contributing to this. One is that mature comics creators are turning their hands to children’s comics, often because they are having children of their own. As the audience for traditional superhero comics ages, the Big Two publishers, Marvel and DC, are creating lines for younger children to introduce them to their characters. The manga boom has caused publishers to take the under-18 audience  seriously, and librarians, who see manga flying off the shelves, have been leading the push for acceptance. And webcomics are still flying under the radar for most readers, although there are some very fine offerings out there.

As a result, I believe we are standing at the brink of a new Golden Age of children’s comics. It started with Bone and Amelia Rules, and now we are seeing an array of choices, from the Toon Books preschool titles and DC’s Tiny Titans comics to sophisticated novels for older teens.

This blog will cover it all. We are a varied group that includes librarians, editors, writers parents, an artist, and an actual teenager. The one thing that brings us all together is our love of comics. We’ll be following (and breaking) comics news, reviewing new and old titles, and talking to creators. Sometimes we just talk among ourselves and compile that conversation into a roundtable post.

With so many writers and a wide range of interests, this will be a very inclusive blog. Any comic written for readers 0-18 is fair game, although we will concentrate more on the preschool to middle school sector. And while we’ll pick out the good stuff, we’re not afraid to give a bad review to a comic that deserves it, or admit to liking cheap commercial crap once in a while.

This blog is a continuation of the original Good Comics For Kids, and we will be importing the reviews and interviews from that site over here for your reading pleasure.

Here’s a quick look at the cast and crew:

I’m the editor of this little blog, and some readers may know me from my writing at MangaBlog. I also freelance for for Publishers Weekly Comics Week, Comics Foundry, and Shojo Beat. My two teenage daughters help me keep things in perspective.

Robin Brenner is the Reference and Teen Librarian in the Brookline (MA) Public Library and the author of Understanding Manga and Anime. She was a judge for the 2007 Eisner Awards and tracks teen comics at No Flying, No Tights.

Katherine Dacey is completing her Ph.D. in musicology and is Senior Manga Editor at PopCultureShock.

Sabrina Fritz writes about comics for Manga Village.

Lori Henderson is the mother of two pre-teen daughters and the editor-in-chief of Manga Village. She blogs at Manga Xanadu.

Esther Keller is a school media specialist in Brooklyn, NY. She has a BFA in creative writing and an MLS in library and information studies, and she just finished a two-year stint on YALSA’s Great Graphic Novels for Teens Committee.

Jason Sigler writes and podcasts about comics at Digital Strips and is the artist for the webcomic Amazing Super Zeroes.

Scott Robins manages library marketing for Kids Can Press and regards himself as an advocate for children’s comics and graphic novels. His former blog was All Ages.

Eva Volin is the supervising children’s librarian for the Alameda Free Library in Alameda, CA. She writes for MangaCast and was a judge for the 2008 Eisner Awards.

Snow Wildsmith is a teen librarian in North Carolina, a past member of YALSA’s Great Graphic Novels for Teens Committee, and a manga reviewer for Manga News.

If you are a creator or publisher and would like to include us in your press mailings, please contact me at wordballoons@gmail.com.

And welcome aboard!

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