Marvel and IDW to Create New Comic Books For the Next Generation of Readers
The new comic book line featuring Spider-Man, The Avengers, and Black Panther will be available starting this November
SAN DIEGO, CA AND NEW YORK, NY (July 17, 2018) – Marvel Entertainment and IDW Publishing announced today that the two companies will develop middle-grade comic books designed for younger readers. Featuring some of Marvel’s most popular characters, the monthly issues and trade paperback collections, published by IDW, will be available for sale at local comic book shops and book retailers across the country, expanding opportunities for the next generation of Super Heroes to experience the Marvel Universe.
“From Iron Man to Captain Marvel, from the Hulk to Shuri — the Marvel pantheon has something for everyone,” says John Barber, editor-in-chief of IDW. “With this team-up, Marvel and IDW aim to bring exciting, all-new comics to a generation growing up in a Marvel world.”
Launching in November 2018, the Marvel and IDW collaboration will kick off with a Spider-Man series featuring both Peter Parker and Miles Morales, followed by an Avengers series beginning in December and a Black Panther series in January 2019. Each of these titles will serve as an easily-accessible jumping-on point for younger readers to follow the adventures of their favorite characters.
“Marvel is excited to work with IDW to share these brand-new stories with our younger fans,” said C.B. Cebulski, editor-in-chief of Marvel. “Characters like Spider-Man, Black Panther, and the Avengers inspire us through their strength and determination, but they resonate with readers because of the struggles they face and the challenges they overcome. We want to share their journeys with our younger fans first-hand.”
“Marvel is committed to delivering unique and accessible content for our younger audiences and fans,” said Sven Larsen, director, licensed publishing of Marvel. “As one of our most valued partners, IDW is the right fit to help us feature some of our most popular characters and publish stories created especially for the next generation of Super Heroes.”
“This partnership reflects the true spirit of collaboration at work,” said Greg Goldstein, president and publisher of IDW. “As comic book publishers, IDW and Marvel are able to produce high-quality visual storytelling experiences for fans both young and old. By combining our efforts, along with Marvel’s ever-increasing presence in popular culture, the results will be spectacular.”
Story details and creative teams for the new line of middle-grade comic books will be announced at a later date.
Replies
Sometimes I think that Marvel doesn't like young readers much. Then again, I think that Marvel doesn't like older readers either.
When I was a kid--and I'm talking fifth and sixth grade--I read comics. Not the way I read them a few years later when I really started collecting them, but I read them. I read "The Great Darkness Saga" at a friend's during a sleepover. I read Avengers, Spider-Man, Batman, and whatever else was in that box. I read Mad Magazine. Was any of it aimed at kids? No more than anything else. It was written by Chris Claremont, Gerry Conway, John Byrne, Marv Wolfman, Steve Englehart, all long before I knew who they were.
At a certain point, kids want to read the real thing, and I think the biggest mistake is thinking that they "can't handle" the real stuff. They can. They don't have to understand every bit of it. In fact, one of the things that appealed to me as a kid was that I didn't understand all of it. I didn't care if it was the middle chapter of an ongoing story.
I just finished teaching in a fifth grade classroom for eighteen years. Never once did I have a child come up to me and say they didn't understand a comic book and ask me to explain it to them.
I'm not saying to give them a Vertigo book or a Marvel Max book, but I think the reason most "all ages" comic book lines fail is because kids don't want things that are aimed at kids. Kids want to read stuff that's just over their heads. It's what makes them grow.
I hope this succeeds and proves me wrong, but when you think about what you read when you were a kid, it wasn't "made for kids"; it was made to be good and interesting and a little bit complex.
In the Silver Age comics were either written for 10-year-olds or high schoolers, depending on the editor. They weren't labelled on the cover as being for certain ages and the art styles weren't obviously different. Using the simplistic art styles of the animated shows in the comic books, IMO, has been a mistake. It draws a bright line between the comics aimed at "little kids" and comics aimed at teens and older, and little kids don't like being treated like little kids.
Richard Willis Johnson is right!
On the other hand, I liked Richie Rich and Disney comics, and British kids' humour comics, at a very young age. As I got older I left them behind.
As a young reader I was sometimes disappointed by Marvel and DC comics that were too old for me: Man-Thing #20, which I couldn't follow and found a bit disturbing; the lead story from Detective Comics #397 which I could follow but didn't "get".
At a slightly older age I disliked the stories I read from Englehart's "Batman" run, the Clayface III story, and the lead story from Detective Comics #441.
Yeah, I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree (that's what makes horse races, as a wise man has been known to say). I didn't read comics during the Silver Age because I wasn't born yet. I really don't think I would have liked them at the time I was a kid. I wanted to read the books I said above, and as a rule, I have found the kids today do too.
That said, I did have a few Silver Age books in my classroom--the DC Showcase editions of Flash and Elongated Man--that some kids did go after from time to time.
I wasn't clear that I was talking younger than you were. The first superhero comic I followed regularly was Fantastic Four, starting when I was 8. When I was 8 or 9 my teacher got the class to bring in comics to create a comic book collection. That was I really began to get to know the DC and Marvel Universes, as opposed to some characters.
My Marvel and DC reading in the 1970s was a mix of Silver Age and Bronze Age stuff, as both companies were still reprinting a lot and so were Australian publishers. It meant I read a lot of the heroes' origins early on. I liked a lot of the Silver Age material.
Ah, I see! Yeah, I have always just found that kids love reading stuff even if they don't quite understand parts of it. It either causes them to ask clarifying questions in order to make meaning of it, or it will hit them later in life, or it will make more sense later on when they reread it.
As a teacher, I think we talk down to kids way too much.
Luke Blanchard said:
I don't think advanced concepts are a problem. They can and do stretch the imagination and feed the thirst for knowledge. Julius Schwartz and Stan Lee included a lot of advanced information that Mort Weisinger did not.
I think that since the Code died an overdue death, writers and artists have tended to push the edgy stuff (sex and gore) whether a story called for it or not. You don't have to seek out Vertigo and MAX imprints to find comics that don't work for pre-teens. If a story or show includes these things when they are not needed to tell the story, that is accurately called gratuitous.
I can get behind this, especially in terms of the gore.
Richard Willis said:
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