How to buy a comic book for a little girl...

...or, Shannon Smith and the Quest for Supergirl Part 4...

...or, Dear Comic Book Industry I Am Trying to Give You Money Part 2...

...or, Kids Like Comics Part 4...

As readers of Shannon Smith is Addicted to Distraction know, I loves me some comics and so does my daughter. (Now seven years old. The two year old likes them too but she can't really read. She just likes to steal them from her sister and run through the house like a crazy person. Or, like a two year old.) Part of the ongoing struggle that is my life as comic book reader in a world of smart phones and dumb people has been my quest to find a new floppy pamphlet comic (ya know, a comic book) that I can buy for my daughter. She has lots of old comics because, back in the day, they used to make comics for kids. She also has several Archie digest books and a bunch of Free Comic Book Day books from the past few years. But, still I have dreamed of and searched for a new traditional comic book that was for little girls.

If you too dream of being able to buy a comic book that a little girl would enjoy then just follow these 20 easy steps to little girl comic book buying success:

Step 1. Be born, learn to read and become a lifelong comic book reader.

Step 2. Grow up, fall in love with a pretty girl, get married, get her pregnant and have a little girl. (The "have kids with a pretty girl" part might be a challenge if you are a woman but you can look into adoption. If your child is a boy, you can pretend that they are a girl. Tom Cruise told me that it will not cause any psychological damage.)

Step 3. Introduce your little girl to comics. Take your little girl to comic book shops and conventions. Take her to Free Comic Book Day and get her some free comics. Give her some comics from your youth.

Step 4. Get excited about how much your little girl likes comics. Be amazed when she draws comic book characters like Kitty Pryde and Dazzler.

Step 5. Realize that your little girl is most interested in the comics that have strong girl characters.

Step 6. Realize that current comic publishers that make floppy pamphlet comics do not make many with girls as the lead characters or that are actually for girls in any way.

Step 7. Realize that comics is the only entertainment media that does not have product targeted at young girls.

Step 8. Get very angry.

Step 9. Buy your little girl Supergirl back packs and clothes but be sad that you can't buy her a new Supergirl comic book because the ones DC makes are weird violent obscene fanboy fetish things that no child should ever see.

Step 10. Start talking a lot on blogs, message boards and at conventions about how there needs to be a Supergirl comic book for little girls.

Step 11. Be amazed when you learn that DC is finally making a Supergirl comic for kids.

Step 12. Go to your nearest comic book shop on the day the first issue of the new Supergirl comic comes out. Leave disappointed because you got there before the UPS truck and you missed out on the comic because you had to go back to work.

Step 13. Visit another comic shop and ask for the comic. There you will be told that they do not carry kid's comics anymore.

Step 14. Visit another comic shop and ask for the comic. There you will be told that they no longer carry new comics.

Step 15. Cry and/or moan about this on the internet.

Step 16. Spend months going from comic shop to comic shop looking in vain for the Supergirl comic. (I checked seven stores in three states.)

Step 18. Drive to Athens, GA for the Fluke minicomics fest.

Step 19. After Fluke, go to Bizarro Wuxtry, one of the greatest comic shops on Earth (or other planets). There you will find issue #2 of Supergirl Cosmic Adventures in the Eight Grade.

Step 20. Buy it.

This my friends is the only way to buy comic books for little girls. This method is foolproof. I've worked on this method for seven years. It cannot fail.

Good luck.

Your best pal ever,

Shannon Smith