Free Comics Day has changed a lot for me since my daughter came into my life. It used to be something I almost casually ignored; after all, I was already shopping at my local comics store. I didn’t need a neat holiday to get me through the doors, and whenever the folks at Mind’s Eye Comics (in Eagan, on Thomas Center Drive, just for the benefit of those looking for a good comics store in the Twin Cities–I promise they didn’t pay me for the plug) tried to foist free comics onto me, I told them no. I advised them to save the freebies for someone just walking through the door for the first time who might need an enticement to come back.
I feel very much different now. For one thing, a six-year old is a wonderful cure for feeling jaded, and let’s face it: Even if I didn’t know that I was feeling jaded, that’s what I was feeling. To her, it’s a big day. We get to go to the comics store (which is not an everyday thing; another thing that changes when you have a kid is that you find better things to spend the money on than comics) and she gets to pick out her very own comics to take home for free! There’s a party atmosphere at the store, which contributes to the feeling that it’s a special day; this year, she asked if she could bring her Thor hammer along (the Thor hammer being the only present that she directly requested for her sixth birthday) and everyone at the store got a huge kick of her carrying it around…and she got a huge kick out of everyone getting a huge kick out of seeing her carry it around.
I really can’t stress that enough, actually; for a six-year old girl, being told that her geekery is a positive thing and that it’s not just okay, but actually awesome to be into Thor and Green Lantern (she already knows the Oath by heart) is something that she’ll be able to carry with her through the times that I know will happen, despite my best efforts, where she’s told that it is not okay for a girl to be into these things. The man who jokingly tried to lift her hammer and pretended he couldn’t, the guy behind the counter who gave her a “Free Comics Day” sticker for being the “most awesome kid in kindergarten”…those gestures were important to me. And to her. (If you happen to be reading, thank you!)
She got a “Yo Gabba Gabba” comic and a “Tinkerbell/Smurfs” comic, and I added the “Donald Duck”, “Peanuts/Adventure Time”, and “Superman Family/Young Justice” sampler to the mix for her. I read all five (because what kind of parent would I be if I didn’t read stuff my kid was reading) and was relatively happy with all of them. The “Superman/Young Justice” issue was fairly inconsequential, really more a taster than an actual comic, but was cute; the “Donald Duck” and “Peanuts” were timeless classics but anyone who didn’t already know this probably isnt reading this blog (the “Adventure Time” backup wasn’t to my taste, though); the “Yo Gabba Gabba” comic was cute and captured the feel of the show, which really means different things to different people depending on what they think of “Yo Gabba Gabba”; and the “Tinkerbell/Smurfs” thing…well, let’s face it, my daughter’s going to like it a lot better than I do. Because she likes Tinkerbell just as much as she likes Thor, and that’s pretty awesome too.
For myself, I got the “New 52” sampler…which, I’ll be honest, did nothing to convince me that the new DC Universe is anything other than a terrible vortex of suck that somehow escaped the 1990s and hungers for the future of the comics industry; I got the “Age of Ultron” prelude, which was significantly less terrible than the DC comic but tried a little too hard to convince me that Ultron’s return was a terrible, unbearable, unprecedented threat to the Marvel Universe instead of, you know, Thursday; I got the perfectly good Spider-Man origin recap, which I will toss on the pile with all the other perfectly good Spider-Man origin recaps; I got the various Dark Horse media tie-ins, which were decent (although the final exchange between Mal and Jayne is one of the best in all of “Firefly” in any of its incarnations); and I got the Bongo comics special, which as in previous years delivered a perfectly workmanlike piece of entertainment product. (And a straightforwardly beautiful and touching little bio-piece from Sergio Aragones that feels like it got snuck in by accident, but was absolutely perfect.)
Perhaps, judging by my reaction to the comics I grabbed for myself, I’m still a little jaded. But my little girl isn’t.
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The Sergio Aragones story from the Bongo sampler is actually an excerpt from his current Sergio Aragones Funnies series, which is great.
I took my four-year-old girl to, not my normal LCS, but the one that rented a bouncy house. Disappointing all around. Not only did the bouncy house cost a dollar, but it collapsed while my girl was in it. (No one was hurt.)
As for the comics, we had to wait in line and were told we could only pick two. I thought that meant two for me and two for my daughter, but no. They didn’t even have most of the ones I wanted to get for her. No Peanuts, no Donald Duck, no Tinkerbell. I don’t know if they never got them in, or where out by the time I got there. (Although I got there pret early in the day.)
She picked the Yo Gabba Gabba book, and I got her something called DC Kids. She liked the former, but didn’t show much interest in the latter. I gotta say, the DC Kids one didn’t seem new-reader friendly, and she is quite literally a new reader.
Oh, and does anyone know if the Avengers books were new material or just reprints? Looked like reprints, as far as I could tell.
The Avengers/Ultron issue was a zero-point-one thing I read in the second TPB . . . the one with The Hood seeking the Infinity Gems.
I gotta go through my haul over time. There was one indy kids book that had what I’m assuming a piece from Art Baltazar featuring damn near every character shown on Tiny Titans. Also impressed by all the costumes worn by Comic Book Guy on the Bongo cover.
I think Marvel could REALLY do well from reprinting the classic Lee/Kirby Avengers (and everything else Lee/Kirby) in floppy format for kids.
The Smurfs, if these are the original Peyo comics, are classic stuff. Don’t let the mediocre 80s cartoon turn you off.
The New 52 is indeed a vortex of suck, but just as I thought I was out, they went and got China Mieville to write Dial H for Hero. Dastards!
Your daughter is awesome.
“The man who jokingly tried to lift her hammer and pretended he couldn’t” – that dude is awesome.
“a straightforwardly beautiful and touching little bio-piece from Sergio Aragones that feels like it got snuck in by accident, but was absolutely perfect.” – it’s old news, but that dude is awesome.
Thanks for sharing, Mr Seavey. I needed a bit of awesome today.
I was five when I got my first Joker comic, six when I started collecting Batman and Wonder Woman in earnest. When I was seven, I went as Wonder Woman for Halloween. Yet here it is, thirty-seven years later, wearing my Blue Lantern hoodie, and I’m still being told “girls don’t read comics.”
Keep nurturing her. The world needs more Wonder Women.
… your six-year-old is into Thor and Green Lantern?
I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that, I guess, and I haven’t read either title in more than a year (I plan to catch up on Thor, not so much Green Lantern) but what sort of conversation do you have with her when there’s a full-page spread of the scantily clad stewardess Hal has brought home for a one-nighter or Thor makes someone explode in a bloody mess, both things I recall happening those titles within the past few years?
@Murc: Between reprints, movies, and cartoons, you’d be amazed at how easy it is to keep a kid supplied with superhero material to their heart’s content without actually touching the current series on the stands. She reads ‘Essential Thor’, she watches the Avengers cartoon and the ‘Green Lantern’ cartoon, and she watched the ‘Thor’ movie with me. (Thor, by the way, threw a baby tantrum when they tried to give him a shot and he should have been brave. Just saying.)
@clay: Sorry to hear about the bad experience. Hopefully, next year you’ll find a store that’s not so stingy. 🙂
@Katzedecimal: Blue Lantern hoodie? Where did you find this thing?
@Prodigal: At my LCS
Your daughter is awesome, but you knew that. And kudos for being such a good dad.
In Ultron’s last four story arcs (not counting Disassembled), he
1. Flash fried an entire country
2. Conquered a large chunk of the Kree Empire
3. Almost destroyed Earth with weather manipulation satellites
4. Was revealed to be the being who is most likely to render the Earth devoid of animal life (through conquering time and making Kang his water boy/chronological catamite.)
Ultron hasn’t not been a big deal since the post-Heroes Reborn Avengers re-launch. “Grim ‘n’ Gritty” storytelling has its detractors, but when your story’s primary antagonist is Marvel’s favorite example of A.I. Is a Crapshoot
(http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AIIsACrapShoot)…
P.S.-There’s nothing cooler than being unable to pick up a child’s “Mjolnir”. I’d tell my story, but it always makes me a bit misty-eyed in recollection, so I won’t.
That’s very cool. And charming.
Re newDC, I just read JLA 8 (on the stands, I’m not buying it). I could understand everyone squabbling and acting like jerks in the initial “just become heroes” arc but five years later and they still come off like a bad rendition of Silver Age Avengers.