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Showing posts with label dc comics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dc comics. Show all posts

Sunday, 9 December 2018

Booky Advent Calendar Day 9: "L'il Gotham Volume 1" by Dustin Nguyen and Derek Fridolfs (DC Comics / Scholastic)

Posted by ReadItDaddy at December 09, 2018 Labels: , , , , ,
Our Booky Advent Calendar entry for Day 9 might have the very loosest connection to Christmas (well, Turkeys and Thanksgiving) but it's still a hugely impressive piece of work and well deserving of inclusion in your christmas book shopping list.

We've loved Nguyen and Fridolfs' take on the Bat-Universe for ages, reinventing awesome DC characters for the "Fort Solitude" series - and showing that there are far better ways to wean your kids on DC's unfathomably complex comics universe without exposing them to tons of dark stuff.

Nguyen and Fridolfs have achieved something I never thought we'd be able to put our stamp of approval on. They've taken characters we know and love from the Bat-Universe here, and turned them into the most adorably playful scamps you can imagine.

The compilation here works through several holidays, including Robin's take on a Halloween parade, and what happens when The Penguin takes on a one-peng crusade to free tasty turkeys from imminent doom on the dinner table.

Just LOVE Robin's 'study' face here. That's C after her holiday homework assignments!
Purists might get a tad upset at the thought of a kiddified character assassination of their fave heroes, but we really love these - and despite the many, many other attempts there have been (and are still ongoing) to give kids a taste of DC's greatness, this is by far the best.

"L'il Gotham Volume 1" by Dustin Nguyen and Derek Fridolfs is out now, published by DC Comics / Scholastic (self purchased: Not provided for review)
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Friday, 10 March 2017

ReadItDaddy's 2nd Book of the Week - Week Ending 10th March 2017 - "Secret Hero Society - Fort Solitude" by Derek Fridolf and Dustin Nguyen (Scholastic / DC Comics)

Posted by ReadItDaddy at March 10, 2017 Labels: , , , , ,
Our Second Book of the Week this week is the glorious sequel to the first "Secret Hero Society" story. What happens when Bruce, Clark and Diana head for camp...?
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Friday, 11 March 2016

ReadItDaddy's YA Book of the Week - Week Ending 11th March 2016 - "Lois Lane: Fallout" by Gwenda Bond (Curious Fox / Capstone)

Posted by ReadItDaddy at March 11, 2016 Labels: , , , , ,
US Cover
 We're squeezing even more Book of the Week love onto the blog than ever before. No reason why older readers should miss out on book of the week fun, so we're introducing an occasional chapter book or YA Book of the Week alongside our Picture Book recommendations. You lucky people!

So let's kick off this new idea with a book that has been an utterly rivetting and fast paced read from start to finish, featuring a character I previously had absolutely no love for! "Lois Lane: Fallout"
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Thursday, 23 April 2015

Why Marvel and DC just don't "get" kids (particularly girls) - A ReadItDaddy Editorial

Posted by ReadItDaddy at April 23, 2015 Labels: , ,
DC's new initiative to bring in more revenue from 6-12 year old girl comic and superhero move fans...It's like Lego Friends for Supes. Bleurrrrrrghhh!
We love comics. You know we love comics. So by rights, we should be doubly excited by the news that DC has launched a new initiative to bring in some coin from a largely untapped market (in their opinion at least). Girls who love superheroes and supervillains, girls aged 6-12 and who already work their way through the relatively 'safe' (slim pickings) comics in the DC range.

Marvel will undoubtedly be paying attention. We were following another debate by comic superstar Faith Erin Hicks who sparked off a very interesting discussion about why Marvel and DC can't seem to quite nail producing kids comics when I spotted a link to DC's latest stuff: 


At the moment, this seems to be talking more about an animation / movie / merchandising initiative rather than comics, and the first image (which you can see above) is an initial set of characters who will launch the range, and the stories. Cute, sassy teenage versions of existing DC female superheroes. 

I'm not the market for this stuff, I know I'm not. I had to show it to my daughter to gauge her opinion though, and...hmmm, sorry DC / Warner, she's not happy and if she's not happy, I'm definitely not happy. 

"Batgirl doesn't look like that" she said. "Wonderwoman doesn't look like that" she said. Because Charlotte has been slowly introduced to kid comics from this side of the pond, the cute clean preppy-like figures above are far distant from European, Japanese and (hooray) Brit comics that don't feel the need to sugar-coat and sickly sweeten everything aimed at kids. 

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not condoning anyone sharing grown up comics with their kids. It's your duty as a parent to ensure that your child's reading (and viewing) matter is appropriate for their age, and when you start picking through Marvel and DC's massive back catalogue, it's extremely tough to find comic arcs that don't treat women like sex objects, don't resort to mindless violence to drive a story along, and don't delve into dark stuff when they need to 're-invent' a character or story. 

Here's the thing though, touching on that point, where do DC and Marvel really think the massive revenues from superhero merchandise for kids actually come from? 

Lego products? Sure we're about to get a whole slew of Lego-based superhero stuff but most of the Lego range has absolutely nothing to do with prospective lego-based movies, it's based on movies that 6-11 year olds shouldn't even be watching (the age rating, for instance, on The Avengers movie is  12. Similarly the Iron Man movies carry a 12 rating but a quick google reveals no end of toys based on those properties for kids far, far younger than 12 - everything from underpants to lunch boxes and of course suits and fancy dress stuff so they can role play their fave supes. 

Back to the "comics for kids" thing though, patronising kids or making the assumption that girls in particular can't handle complex and involving plots or can't cope if characters aren't stylised and cartoony is the worst possible direction for comic superhero stuff to go if they want to bring in an audience from an early age (and keep that audience coming back well into adulthood too, right?).

Kids are intelligent, kids are remarkably well read (and they have the internet, whether you like them having it or not!) Kids love their movies and TV, they love their merchandise, their videogames but they can handle far more complexity than you give them credit for.

Look at the plots, characters and stories in our favourite kids comic - the mighty Phoenix, leading the charge for kids my daughter's age. Never talking down to its audience, celebrating their intelligence, their creativity and their ability to handle complexity without resorting to the sort of sugar-coated cutey-ness that seems to regularly hit our inbox (and equally, regularly hit our recycle bin). 

We will be watching the new DC stuff. We'll be watching and observing Marvel's response, and we'll also be seeing how more seasoned and knowledgeable comic fans than us react because from where we're currently sitting, this just isn't good enough. 
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