I had the exact same experience about 6 years ago...my second oldest daughter (I have four) wanted comic books. She'd found some cool ones about Mary Jane Watson that were probably young adult-ish in story, but the drawings were pretty okay (nothing overtly sexual).
So we went to a comic book store and immediately the guy behind the counter jumped out and steered my kids to a very small corner in the front of his store. He looked me in the eye and said, "They really need to stay in this section."
I look at the rest of this very large store and it's a few teenagers, but mostly middle-aged men. The image I got in my head was not one of the defensible comic-book reader, but of a soft-porn environment.
So we looked at the kids comics and it was Archie and stuff. Nothing that my daughter wanted because she wanted the "drama" and "serious" tone...without the hyper-sexualized stories and images. We asked the owner and he said there was no market for those comics. They (the publishers) tried a few, and he named the exact comic my daughter had found, but those just didn't sell.
So we left with a handful of replacement comics, but we never went again and my daughter moved on, never even considering a comic book again. She reads YA novels now.
The YA novel industry is huge. I really don't understand why there's no market for YA comic books (not graphic novels). It seems odd and sad.
So we went to a comic book store and immediately the guy behind the counter jumped out and steered my kids to a very small corner in the front of his store. He looked me in the eye and said, "They really need to stay in this section."
I look at the rest of this very large store and it's a few teenagers, but mostly middle-aged men. The image I got in my head was not one of the defensible comic-book reader, but of a soft-porn environment.
So we looked at the kids comics and it was Archie and stuff. Nothing that my daughter wanted because she wanted the "drama" and "serious" tone...without the hyper-sexualized stories and images. We asked the owner and he said there was no market for those comics. They (the publishers) tried a few, and he named the exact comic my daughter had found, but those just didn't sell.
So we left with a handful of replacement comics, but we never went again and my daughter moved on, never even considering a comic book again. She reads YA novels now.
The YA novel industry is huge. I really don't understand why there's no market for YA comic books (not graphic novels). It seems odd and sad.
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