What the kids these days are really into is 80's comics.

Or at least that's what my kid is into. Hi there blogoverse! I've been real busy in case you missed me (and I know you did). I won't get into why I've been busy because it's all a total downer. Let's talk about happy things instead. Like comics! Any time I take my seven year old daughter Kassidy with me to a comic book shop I usually let her pick out some cheap comics from the back issues boxes. Recently she picked out a bunch of old Batman and the Outsiders comics from the 80's. These comics had colorful girl characters like Katana and Halo so I'm sure that is what jumped out at Kassidy. Plus, we likes us some Batman. (I'm sure The Outsiders showing up on Batman The Brave and the Bold also helped.) I never read these comics back in the day. I was much more team Marvel. I've been reading them when Kassidy is looking the other way and they are pretty cool. Lovely Jim Aparo art. They are so 80's team comics in that they try to touch on real world issues but, ya know with a crazy cast of misfit characters. Ah the 80's when all the heroes were either damaged goods or misfits. Kind of just like the 00's.
Here is a drawing Kassidy did of Katana. To see more of Kassidy's drawings click here. You'll even find some Spongebob art from little sister Alana.

Your best pal ever,
Shannon Smith

Jeremy Massie is awesome.

Jeremy Massie drew these two awesome pinups for my daughter at last week's FCBD. Ain't they swell? My daughter loved them. Thanks Jeremy!

Your best pal ever,

Shannon Smith

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

Dear Comic Book Industry, I'm trying to give you money but it's really hard.

Welcome back True Believers! When we last saw our hero, Shannon Smith, he was up against seemingly insurmountable odds on a desperate quest to give people money in exchange for comic books in rural America. After visiting multiple comic shops in a two state area, Shannon was beginning to fear he would never be able to buy his daughter a copy of the new Supergirl kid's comic. He was even beginning to doubt that the comic even existed.

Let's join our hero now as he types words into the introwebnet...

Hey pals. My rural life does not allow for many trips to the book store but yesterday I packed up the girls (ages six and two) and headed for Bristol.
I told them we were going to a book store and Kassidy asked, "A comic book store?"
I said, "No, a regular book store like where daddy used to work".
"Can we go to a comic book store?" she asked.
"Sure."
I loves me some comic book stores. Just a couple of miles from the Books-A-Million in Bristol there is a comic shop. The last time we went there they had a lot of cheap back issues so I was already formulating the plan of how many I would let Kassidy pick out and how many Daddy would get. We get there at about 4:30 and it was closed. On a Saturday. Bummer. I tried comic book shop. I really tried. I could have spent money online but no, I burnt gas and drove to your store. I hear things are tough all over. I wanted to give you money. I really did. Oh well.
So we go to Books-A-Million.
BAM is my least favorite of the three book "superstore" chains. Their stores are nice, clean, well organized and they have friendly staff but they don't have the selection of Borders or B&N and their prices are pretty lame. You have to buy their membership card to get a decent price and I just don't do that. If I'm paying membership there better be a golf course involved or something. But, alas, there are no Borders or B&Ns anywhere near me.
One thing I do like about BAM is they have a little section of new floppy pamphlet comics in their "graphic novel" section. They seemed to have all the latest Marvel, DC, Archie and Dark Horse floppies so I looked for the Supergirl comic and... of course they did not have it. I'm certain it does not exist and the whole thing is just an introwebnet hoax designed to drive me mad. But, we pressed on and picked out some comics.
We got the first issue of Batman The Brave and the Bold based on the new cartoon, DC Super Friends #12 and Legion of Super Heroes in the 31st Century #20. (Very sad to see this is the last issue of the kid's Legion book. It was a good comic and the cartoon was my favorite of all the DC cartoons.) Kassidy saw the new Marvel Super Hero Squad comic and wanted that. It looked pretty cool but then I saw the price and I had a stroke and died. Five dollars! That's right, I died right there in the store. I'm dead now. Oh, all right, just like Batman in six to eighteen months, I'm still alive. But it was a close one. Five bucks is just way too much for a floppy comic printed on shiny crap paper that wrinkles, folds and tears just by looking at it. Five bucks for a nice hand crafted minicomic with a cardstock cover and some good comics? Sure, I'll buy that all day long. Five bucks for a floppy from Marvel or DC? Nuh uh.
So, I told her to pick out something else and she picked out a Wolverine: First Class comic. I thought that would be okay because she already has a big Wolverine & X-Men Special Edition magazine that had a story from that series and it was pretty kid friendly. My mom bought the magazine at a Scholastic book fair of all places. (You can get an X-Men magazine at a school book fair but I can't buy one at the grocery store... ah but that's another rant.) I flip open the issue of Wolverine: First Class and see that there is some pretty horrific werewolf violence in there so I had to put that one back. I tried Marvel but what with the stroke and the werewolves... no money to Marvel.
After that it was between a Cartoon Network comic with the Secret Saturdays and the Legion comic. I was pulling for the Secret Saturdays but Kassidy picked the Legion book.

I also shopped for grapical novicals for myself. BAM has an impressive selection of superhero and manga books but not a lot for my tastes. I might have picked up an Essential or Showcase book but I did not see any that I wanted or did not already have. (Note to Marvel, STOP FREAKING CHANGING THE SPINE ART ON THE ESSENTIAL BOOKS. YOU GUYS SUCK AT SPINE ART! And another thing, your website is terrible as far as trying to find the comics you guys sell. Terrible. If you need contact info on a good web designer, just let me know. I'm just trying to help you guys out here.)
I went to the info desk and asked for Best American Comics 2008, any Mome book, any Love and Rockets collection and any Scott Pilgrim book. They did not have any of that. I did find Love and Rockets New Stories No. 1 and Philippe Dupuy's Haunted to I bought those up.

So, let's check the box scores for winners and losers on this rare money spending adventure. DC= three kids comics. Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly= one book each. Marvel= gave Shannon a stroke and killed him dead.

I'll end this yarn on a positive note by saying that all three of the DC kids comics we picked up were really good. Great art, fun stories and they even have letters pages! Letters pages! LETTERS PAGES!!!!! The kids and I are going to enjoy reading and re-reading them for a long time. Now, if someone could just get me a copy of that Supergirl comic...



Your best pal ever,

Shannon Smith

Six year old girls like Kitty Pryde.

(Kitty Pryde and Dazzler by Kassidy Smith age six.)

I mentioned before how much my daughter likes the Dazzler comic we picked up a few weeks ago.  It was Dazzler #2 and it has just a few panels showing Ktty Pryde and some of the other X-Men.  I've been amazed at how interested she has been in Kitty and yesterday when I came home from work she was proud to show me a bunch of Kitty Pryde and X-Men drawings.  The fact that she is a kid and often wears normal clothes seems to make the character very appealing.  I loved the X-Men as a kid and always cared about Kitty a bit more than the other characters.  And by cared I mean that I worried about her.  She was just a teenager so when she was in peril it had a lot more impact than if Colossus or even Storm were in a bind.  (I liked the Kitty Pryde and Wolverine mini-series even more than the Frank Miller Wolverine series.)  However, I've never been a little girl so I had no real scope of the impact the character had on girls.  No I get why so many girls got into comics through the X-Men.  It makes perfect sense.  They can see themselves in Kitty and she changed clothes more than the rest of the cast so there is that whole fashion element girls are attracted to.  

Was there a point to this post?  Um, I don't guess so.  I just find it interesting to look at these comics through someone else's eyes.

Your best pal ever,

Shannon Smith

p.s.  And since I'm talking about X-Men I may as well say I was disappointed by the new Wolverine and the X-Men cartoon.  It was kinda boring.  My daughter seemed to like it though.  She lit up every time Kitty was in a scene and she seems to think the Beast is hilarious.  I don't think she could care less about Wolverine though.  It's not a bad cartoon but it's a big step down from Batman: The Brave and the Bold or Spectacular Spider-Man.  I like the character designs and the cast choices but the animation, writing and music are all below the standard of what I'm used to seeing on Cartoon Network and the Kids WB, er, I mean whatever they call those CW cartoons now.  I also don't even have that Nick Toons channel so we caught it somewhere else on Sunday.  However, if I did have Nick Toons, I doubt that I would watch the show because Wolverine is on at the same time as Batman and Bats is simply better.  So far.

p.p.s.  And since I mentioned Spectacular Spider-Man... Hey CW, change your schedule!  Spidey is on wayyy too early.  7:30 for your best show?!?  C'mon.  I needs my Spidey fix at around 9:00 or 9:30 Saturday mornings.  Get that fixed right now!  Chop chop!

A tale of two comic shops or things used to be better back when they sucked less.

(Gaze into the face of Awesome. This is the glory that was. All Star Squadron #37. 1984.)

I love comic book shops but now that I live in rural America my comic book shop visits are very infrequent. Neither the town I work in nor the town I live in even have a spinner rack much less a comic book shop. A county away from me my pal Brian at Cavalier Comics runs a nice shop and is happy to get me what I need but I am seldom in that neck of the woods. Way over in Bristol, TN there is a shop called Mountain Empire Comics. It's the shop I went to when I was a kid and it's a nice little store. They carry Rasl and that's about all I can expect of a comic shop these days. (I've given up on them carrying stuff like The Comics Journal or much else I have interest in.) I've shopped at comics shops since at least 1985 and from about 1991 to 2007 a comic book shop visit was a weekly thing for me but now in my grown-up-daddy-of-two-rural-life if I visit a comic shop six times in a year then that would be a lot.

(I don't know who this new "Obama" character is or what his super powers are but that is a pretty boring costume. It's just a suit. How is he going to swing over the city or punch bad guys in the face with a suit jacket on? I hope he does not replace Spidey.)

This past Wednesday (the 14th) was apparently a big day for some comic shops. For me, it was just Wednesday but out of random dumb luck and the need to get the kids out of the house on a snow day I ended up visiting two comic shops. I had to go by the doctor over in Abingdon VA which is about 45 minutes from my house. There is a newish G2K store over there. This G2K location is part comics shop part video game store. It's a cool store. If I were 15 or under I would want to go there on a weekly basis. Nice, clean, new, well lit, lots of video games, lots of toys and all your new mainstream comics. Well, not all of them. I took the kids in and we looked around. The clerk was still putting out new comics and toys from the Wednesday shipment. He was nice and asked if we were looking for anything. As both a nerd and an Obama fan I of course was aware of the Spidey comic with Obama so I asked if he had any. He of course said they were sold out. I expected that. Then I came back with a question I dreaded to ask. See, I don't really care about new mainstream comics. It's not that I don't like them it's just that I don't' need them. I have about 1000 comics in my basement that are written better, drawn better and probably even stapled better than most of what Marvel and DC have put out in years. I'm all good on the super hero books thanks. That being said there is one specific super hero comic I have been wanting. Since my first daughter was born it has been a dream of mine that DC would make a Wonder Woman or Supergirl book for kids that wasn't terrible and actually made sense. Recently, DC started a new Supergirl book so I've been wanting it. Granted, the girl in the comic does not look anything like Supegirl but hey, I'm desperate to have a comic I can read with my daughters other than the Archie books. But, alas, I've never seen this Supergirl comic anywhere. So, I summon up the nerve and I ask, "Do you have that new Supergirl comic for kids?" Now the comic is a month or two old so I expected them to be out of it but the answer I got was like a punch to the stomach. "No, we stopped carrying kids comics due to lack of interest." Ouch! They never even ordered the thing. Supergirl dead on the vine. No, I do not at all fault the small business for making the call it feels it has to make on any product. I've been there myself. As a former book retailer I've returned some of my favorite books due to lack of sales. I get it. But as a customer, it kind of sucks to be told that the store has given up on the one and only product you would have any interest in. If your local grocery store stopped carrying your favorite beer because it turned out that you were the only one that ever bought it, you would understand but you would still be pissed. The difference is that you would probably go back to the grocery store. You would need milk or bread or something. But as a parent who spends his meager discretionary income on his kids, I don't have much need for a comics shop that does not sale kids comics. I really tried to find something to buy. My oldest daughter loves comics and she was sick so I wanted to get her something. I looked at the comics racks over and over but all the books were terrible looking. Ugly, dark, violent art in this terrible post-Alex Ross hack painting style all over the place. Marvel and DC sure make some ugly comics. The only comic that interested me at all was a Grant Morrison Dr. Who comic but I nearly had a stroke when I saw the cover price. Oh well, I'm sure I'll find a copy of the Supergirl book at a convention or something.(There was a time when things happened in mainstream comic books. The Superman Family #183. 1977.)

So we left G2K and headed for Bristol, TN. I need some shoes and I had heard about a going out of business sale. (Oh that wacky recession.) On the way I noticed a comic shop I had never been to before so I pulled in. It is called Vintage Comics.

The shop looks like most of the smaller shops I've been in. Lots of comics and toys crammed from the floor to the ceiling in every corner of the shop. And of course, they have video games. One thing I didn't notice was any new comics. I asked the clerk if they carried new comics and he said, "No, we quit fooling with them a few months ago." I was taken aback by this for about a half a second but then I thought to myself, yeah, that's exactly what dealing in new comics is, "fooling". I wouldn't fool with them either if I were a small business owner. Vintage comics had a dozen or so long boxes of dollar comics so I started looking through those and immediately found just the type of comics I was looking for. They had bunches of pre-Crisis DC books with Wonder Woman and Supergirl and all the heroes my daughter likes from back in the day when comics had stories in them that made sense. Forget new comics. Forget Spidey and Obama's Spectacular Sales Gimmick. What we need are old comics.

(That's right. Twenty cents. Uncle Scrooge No. 112. 1974.)

I even found and old Uncle Scrooge. (Lately I've been picking up all the funny animal comics I find for a buck or less and it's all Josh Latta's fault.) I let my daughter pick out a few and we ended up with eight comics. We came away with my Scrooge book, the All Star Squadron and Superman Family books pictured above, a couple of Wonder Woman comics, a Superboy with freaking amazing art by Kurt Shaffenberger, a Cloak and Dagger and a Dazzler. They only charged us six dollars. Eight awesome comics for less than a dollar a piece! If I ever have any discretionary income any time soon I'm going back and cleaning them out. My six year old loves the comics and I do too. She is really blown away. The All Star Squadron alone is enough to satisfy one's superhero appetite for quite a while. It has the Marvel kids taking on Superman, Billy Batson and Captain Marvel in the comic at the same time, all the heroes riding in a Plastic Man raft, all the heroes fighting freaking Hitler and the Flash and Plastic man get shot! Now that's a comic book! If all that stuff happened in comics today it would be a year long company wide crossover called Secret Infinite Invasion Crisis. Back in 1984 they just called that the September issue of All Star Squadron. Needless to say, I can't wait to get back to Vintage Comics.

So two comic shops in one day and two every different results. A new school shop that has completely given up on kids comics. An old school shop that has completely given up on new comics. What does it all mean? I don't know. Last week was a weird week for comcis. You had the Spidey/Obama thing dominate the mainstream media's perception of comics. You had Batman freaking die and no one outside of the comics community cared. You have comic's monopoly holding distributer to the direct market make a change that means they probably won't be carrying any new books from the publishers that actually make the kinds of books I like. Odd times. I'm just glad the folks in charge today do not yet have time travel technology that can allow them to go back and time and destroy all the good comics that are already out there. None of those clowns are allowed in my basement. If we can keep the savages from stealing or destroying all the old comics then at least my daughters and I will have something to read.

Your best pal ever,

Shannon Smith

p.s. The comics we picked up inspired my daughter to make a lot of great drawings and even invent her own superhero rock band and make up a theme song for them. Team/band members include Light Girl and Fast Girl. You can see some of the drawings here. There are dozens more but I can't scan fast enough to keep up with her.

p.p.s. Yesterday, Saturday the 24th, me and my posse hit up another comic shop. This time it was Hero Headquarters in Kingsport, TN. It is a nice friendly shop. Lots to toys. Lots of G.I. Joe. They only had a small amount of new comics and rather than having them on a rack they were just laid out on the counter. No Spidey/Obama and of course no Supergirl. He had a nice selection of fifty cent books where we found an issue of Wonder Girl and some other goodies. (Kassidy is already drawing Wonder Girl adventures.) I also got a book from the old Marvel Graphic Novel series for just a buck! I'll probably talk more about that after I read it.