Think back to when you were 12 years old.
You were likely in 6th grade at school.
There's a good chance you were entering puberty as well, and it was both exciting and scary at the same time.
Presuming you were a comics fan, your tastes probably ran to American superhero comics. You may have outgrown stuff like the Silver Age Superman, but despite wanting something a little more sophisticated you probably still wanted plenty of action and a good fight. In other words, "sophisticated" in that it wasn't written for small children.
Given that mindset, would you be generally interested in today's offerings from Marvel and DC? Would the storylines interest you? Would you be seeking out comics on a regular basis?
Tags:
No.
I'm not interested in modern comics. I haven't been for a long time. I don't think 12 year old me would be either. I got into comics because of the action and the good fight. And that's still what I want to see in a comic. Looking through my short box of back issues that I haven't read yet, the most recent is from 1976 which is when I turned 12. For sophistication, as I got older, I would read science fiction and fantasy, Asimov and Tolkien. But I've never outgrown what I want out of comics.
When I was a kid, I was fascinated by the "Earth-2" Golden Age characters and DC's parallel Earths in general. So, young me might be inbterested in DC"s recent revival of some of these.
Growing up in the 70s, comic book writing became way more sophisticated and nuanced so I never felt that I had "outgrown" comics. They were growing with me.
When I was 12 my weekly pocket money (allowance) would be enough to buy all the monthly Marvel superhero comics. Now I doubt if I would be prepared to £30 for 6 comics. If I was 12 today I mean.
When I was a kid, Grandpa would occasionally slip me a five-spot, which at the time would've bought me up to sixteen comics., if I so chose. Nowadays, sixteen comics would run around sixty-four bucks (plus sales tax, where applicable), and if I were a betting man, I'd bet that very few Grandpas are slipping their grandkids sixty-four bucks, all that often,.
MethodEng said:
When I was 12 my weekly pocket money (allowance) would be enough to buy all the monthly Marvel superhero comics. Now I doubt if I would be prepared to £30 for 6 comics. If I was 12 today I mean.
For the sake of this question, please assume that money is not an issue.
MethodEng said:
When I was 12 my weekly pocket money (allowance) would be enough to buy all the monthly Marvel superhero comics. Now I doubt if I would be prepared to £30 for 6 comics. If I was 12 today I mean.
Still no.
OK, assuming the cost is not an issue I would say probably no. My 12 year old grandson has watched all the comic related movies but has never shown any interest in the source material.
I think the competition for attention is too great. If I were 12 today that need for the more sci-fi/fantasy kind of stories would still be there I hope. But I'd be getting it filled through the many TV shows now available and of course videos games. ( Are they still called video games?)
If I were 12 today, I would have grown up with an iPad in my hand, and it would answer all my needs, from research to recreation -- which might include comics, but probably not. as MethodEng says,"The competition for attention is too great."
I have a feeling that kids today (and yes, my use of the phrase "kids today" marks me indelibly as an old guy) as a medium. Even if they still enjoy the thought of seeing Captain Potato battle the Living Birthday Cake, they're less likely to m want to "consume" it the way we did in the middle years of the last century.
Perhaps it's analogous to the way that people today get their news on-line rather than by buying a newspaper. It may be that for young people today (definitely an old guy), print is an obsolescent. medium Even reading "static" comics stories on one of them "Eye-Pad" gadgets may seem less interesting than watching an animated or live-action film. (Not that actual "film" is used anymore probably.)Artist's representation of the Baron going on about stufff.
Baron Bizarre Johnson is right!
Today's 12-year-old me would probably consider comics weirdly old-fashioned, like listening to radio when the same show is available on television. Anything I wanted to "read" I'd probably just wait for a movie, TV show or anime to adapt it. And I would probably be very into making videos, as I was very into making comic books 50-odd years ago.