Looking around for great child-friendly comics for Charlotte got me thinking about the comics I loved as a kid. I was always completely nuts about comics, and at school comics were almost a currency. If one of your friends bought Buster and Monster Fun, you could swap it with your copy of that week's issue of The Beezer or Whizzer and Chips.

Whizzer and Chips, featuring the awesome Sweeney Toddler

Most kids at school (even the girls) would swap comics this way, and each Christmas we'd do the same with our annuals (though I remember getting a bum deal one year when one kid swapped a copy of The Topper Book with me for a Six Million Dollar Man annual he'd drawn all over, the rotter). Back then, even in our wildest imaginings of what the future might hold we never foresaw a day when kids would be able to subscribe to their favourite comics and have them delivered through the letterbox (some comics did offer subs but I don't think I ever remember any kids at school being "posh" enough for subscriptions to anything). For that matter I doubt we could've ever imagined that kids would be able to read comics on portable devices with glorious colour screens, downloading each new issue and reading it.


I'm still a bit of a techno-luddite when it comes to comics on devices though. There's still something really cool about having a comic as a 'physical' rather than an intangible thing (though of course, once you get to a certain age you're a lot more merciless about consigning comics to the recycle bin to save on storage space).

This guy was like a lot of our teachers at school. Also like a lot of parents now! Grr!

My comic of choice as a kid was Krazy Comic. It was funny, had a brace of brilliant regular characters like Cheeky and the Krazy Gang, and always slipped in little hidden jokes and daft stuff into page borders and margins, or had brilliant "trick" back covers (I seem to remember one being a fake antimacassar. Does anyone even have those on their furniture any more or am I just ancient?)

Krazy eventually folded and spawned Cheeky Weekly, but it never felt as zany. I still thought Cheeky's amazing stretch chopper bike was the best thing ever though.

I also loved The Topper, Beezer, Monster Fun and Sparky (again this is where swapping with friends came in handy, can you imagine having to shell out 5p for each of those? It'd cost you a fortune!)

Mostly I picked up comics on cover impact and art appeal, always more interested in the visuals than the stories.

Characters were always the right side of subversive, and that's still part of the massive appeal of comics for Charlotte. If kids in comics are slightly naughty, or perhaps don't always do what adults tell them, they're always going to be a big draw for kids who can live vicariously through them and not get into too much trouble. Roger the Dodger, Dennis the Menace (of course), Cheeky, the utterly brilliant Beryl the Peril and Minnie the Minx - they were all naughty kids who usually ended up on the wrong side of a slipper by the end of the issue (or on rare occasions, won out the day and tucked into a huge feast!)

The Numskulls. I swear biology lessons ruined this strip for me forever

It wasn't just about the naughty kids though, there were the downright WEIRD characters like The Numskulls, tiny little people living inside a man's head (and body). Really good to see that they are still kicking around today (thanks to Jamie Smart, a comics genius who is busily putting together brilliant strips for The Beano and The Phoenix amongst others).

Then of course there were the heroes. As I got older, I moved away from the funny stuff into more serious waters - first with 2000AD and then with a whole brace of gritty comics hitting shelves in the 80s and 90s like Deadline - which had some of the best art and writing of any brit comic there has ever been and featured one of the best female comic characters there has ever been - Tank Girl...

Deadline - a kick between the big toes in comic form

I used to read Crisis too. But now we're moving well away from kid-friendly comics into a whole other realm.

Oddly enough, I never bothered with American comics till quite late on. Some kids at school would bring Marvel and DC stuff to school but these always felt (just as they do today) unapproachable, always in the middle of some huge story arc that went on for so long that you couldn't ever hope to catch up or make sense of a particular character's current quest or storyline. When graphic novels and collections came along, I always preferred to hoover those up instead (and I still take this approach today).

Frank Miller's seminal "The Dark Knight Returns" - When Batman got 'interesting'

Going back to childhood though, those original funny knockabout comics will always hold happy memories. That really rubbish quality paper, and the fact that if you had a comic out in the rain it would literally disintegrate in your hands - and if you tried to store them for too long they'd always yellow in the light and fade...blissful stuff.

It's great to see the fine tradition of fantastic brit comics still carrying on, with a whole new generation of artists and writers contributing to brilliant stuff. The modern-day comic heroes like the awesome Zoom Rockman (of Zoom Comic fame), Gary Northfield, Sarah McIntyre, Neill Cameron, The Etherington Brothers, Laura Ellen Anderson, Andi Watson, Luke Pearson and a whole host of others are now fast becoming heroes to Charlotte because, once upon a time, they were comics kids too and saw how kick-ass and brilliant things happen when kids and comics get together. Long may it continue!

Louis - Red Letter Day. If you haven't "met" Louis yet, it's high time you did!

It's #ReadItMD13 Comics and Magazines week and we've been very fortunate to have a brilliant response from all manner of fantastic comic and magazine folk on the blog this week. Today we feel extremely honoured to be joined by Metaphrog, aka John Chalmers and Sandra Marrs - the genius duo behind one of the most brilliant, bittersweet and surreal comics we've ever read - the fantastic Louis comics.

The dastardly boss and his sidekick up to no good. Shiny!

ReadItDaddy (Phil): Thanks for joining in with our #ReadItMD13 Theme Week celebrating children's comics and magazines. Tell us a little bit about yourselves, and the mighty Metaphrog!

Metaphrog: Metaphrog is just the two of us, John Chalmers and Sandra Marrs. We met almost 18 years ago when Sandra moved to Scotland from France and John returned from The Netherlands. Pretty much right away we realised we got on well and wanted to work together making comics. Sandra has always been drawing, and John always wanted to be a writer. We have made lots of different comics together and are probably best known for our Louis stories. We have been very fortunate that they have received so much attention in the media and have been nominated for so many awards.


ReadItDaddy (Phil): We really love Louis, and it seems a lot of other folk do too. How did you come up with such an original character and concept, what inspired Louis?

Metaphrog: The first Louis book came out in the year 2000 and was inspired by the world around us. We wanted to explore the idea of a character who was almost a prisoner and who couldn’t quite see the world around them. The world Louis lives in is quite dark, dangerous and nasty. Some of the inspiration certainly came from the way our own environment and eco-system was being treated. For example, Louis’ job is to make fruit and vegetables and to fill bottles with air. It is not exactly a fulfilling role and so it is understandable that he dreams of exploring the mountains.

Beautiful panel work as Louis gets on with his day

ReadItDaddy (Phil): We've really struggled to find great child-friendly comic stories, graphic novels and magazines that are engaging and 'meaty' (most seem quite lightweight). Do you have any favourite influences?

Metaphrog: Both of us grew up in different countries at different times reading Tintin, but we both read a lot as children growing up. Favourites would include Oor Wullie and The Broons for John, and Sylvain et Sylvette for Sandra. Funnily enough, neither of us really read comics between the ages of 12 and 16 but then Sandra read a lot of European Bande Dessinée, American and British comics, while John explored things like Zippy the Pinhead and other underground comics and fanzines. There is definitely room for growth in the world of great comics for kids!

Louis and his beloved friend FC

ReadItDaddy (Phil): I grew up with some of the great 70s comics, most of which seemed to involve lots of very talented Scots. What do they put in the water up there!

Metaphrog: It’s true a lot of Scottish writers and artists were involved with magazines like 2000AD and have worked for the bigger American comic publishers over the years. I suppose there is a strong oral tradition of telling stories in Scotland. Many of the comics published by DC Thompson sold in vast quantities for decades and that meant millions of people read comics which must have influenced the following generations.


ReadItDaddy (Charlotte): Can FC have his own story one day?

Metaphrog: That would be a great idea, we don’t think Louis would mind.

Oops!

ReadItDaddy (Charlotte): Will Louis ever get married? (Daddy points out that this MAY have already happened but we haven't finished off all the Louis stories yet!)


Metaphrog: Louis hasn’t already been married but he does meet a friendly girl in Louis - Dreams Never Die and also in Louis – The Clown’s Last Words so who knows? It could possibly happen. Part of the sadness of the Louis stories must come from the fact that apart from FC Louis is alone.

Our huge thanks to John and Sandra for stopping by the blog. Visit the Metaphrog website at http://www.metaphrog.com  and John and Sandra's blog at metaphrog.blogspot.com and get some seriously awesome Louis in your life too!

Happily living on Phoenix Island :)

This week's #ReadItMD13 theme is a celebration of children's comics and magazines. Not the sort that usually come with a nasty little plastic toy, and are just glorified TV ads wrapped up between glossy covers, but the sort of comics and magazines that tap into the most amazing resource on the planet. A child's imagination.

As you can see from the header pic, Charlotte is slowly building up her fab collection of The Phoenix Comic, probably one of the best things to happen to the Britcomic scene in a very long time. The Phoenix first caught my attention a year or so back, and we bought a couple of copies to check it out. Since then we've signed up and subscribed, and Charlotte's reaction to the strips (and seeing that wonderfully decorated envelope slide through the letterbox every Friday) reminds me of my reaction every time I used to nip round to the local newsagents to pick up my copy of the Galaxy's other greatest comic, 2000AD (Featuring Judge Dredd, of course!)

The Galaxy's Greatest Comic - Still going strong!

If your children are a bit older, you can still buy this epic comic and it's never too late to start appreciating the sheer thrill power.

Back when I was a kid, comics were seen as 'low brow' reading, always frowned upon and definitely discouraged in schools. Now it feels like it's taken a long time for early years specialists to see the value in comics and periodicals as a way to engage reluctant readers, and deliver a potent combination of a storyline that feels immediate and approachable, wrapped around visuals that spur the imagination into life.

The "Comics for Phonics" range of early years / early reader books from Pearson are a range we've previously shouted about. They're an excellent range of children's phonics books that lay out stories in comic-strip-style formats that feel exciting and nicely paced, for a range of reading abilities.

Comics are great for developing a child's narrative and visual skills. I largely learned to draw the sort of things I liked to draw purely by copying bits of comics and then making up my own stuff. Similarly with stories, drawing comics allows a child to deliver the narrative of their characters without needing to fuss and muss around too much with "he said, she said, he exclaimed, she sighed" - In fact the time honoured method of dialogue delivery (the speech balloon) has started to creep into Charlotte's drawings at school (something I'm no doubt going to be in hot water about at some point! Eep!)

Comics aren't for everyone, and so we'll also be taking a look at magazines this week. Children that prefer a great mix of fact and fiction as well as an absolute TON of content, activities and brilliant art and writing could do far worse than check out the utterly sublime Anorak Magazine - the happy mag for kids (and happy it most certainly is!)

Anorak Magazine. As beautiful inside as it is outside

Developed to be the perfect antidote for those aforementioned 'plastic tat' magazines, Anorak is definitely worth taking out a subscription to if you want a little bit more from your children's periodicals. Every issue seems to get better and better, wrapping together some of the best artists, writers and crafters in the business to come up with a constant deluge of engaging content.

In a similar vein we've also been introduced to the fabulous "Box" Magazines from Bayard. We'll be showing you a bit more of these later in the week but check their website out. They do three magazine ranges to cover toddlers right up to teens.

Story Box for younger readers. Featuring one of our fave textless story characters, Polo!

There are also apps from Bayard to compliment the print magazines. Like Anorak these wrap together a brilliant mix of facts, stories, activities, brilliant puzzle games and fabulous artwork to stimulate young minds.

We're only just looking at the very tip of the comics and magazines iceberg here. Stay with us during the week to find out a lot more about child-friendly comics and magazines as we'll be taking a more in-depth look at a few we think are rather special, and also (hopefully) featuring a couple of guest articles to show parents (and kids) that comics are definitely not for dummies, and magazines needn't be shallow, gift-dependent and destined for the recycle bin.