I certainly don’t mean to offend anyone here, but doesn’t this debate strike you as a little… pointless?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for encouraging new readers to pick up comics and I think the industry should be rightly proud of the way it is attempting to diversify and provide a wide range of content beyond the superhero monthlies it has traditionally relied on.

It’s just that the points made here seem rather obvious.

“Your thirteen year old daughter isn’t going to be interested in JLA!” Really?

“Remember, kids, different people like different things!” Yes. I’m well aware.

“Hey! Comics aren’t just about superheroes anymore!” Thanks for the info.

Like I say, I don’t mean to cause offence and I’m not trying to be snarky. It’s just that opinions like these seem a little… tired. Is there anything here you didn’t already know?

Sorry.

I dunno, that seems a rather odd point when the entry included the following:

This may seem like a bit of a “Duh, Brian, that’s obvious,” but too often I see stuff like, “I am looking for comics to get my 13-year-old daughter/niece/cousin/daughter of a friend into comics, do you have any recommendations?” and the recommendations are, like, “Cable/Deadpool!” Okay, Cable/Deadpool was a joke, but the answers sometimes ARE stuff like, “Justice League of America, Hawkgirl, Birds of Prey, Rogue, Manhunter, etc.,” and while all those books might very well work fine for a 13-year-old, the odds are that they are not going to fit the median interest range of a 13-year-old girl.

I'm trying to get her to crack Y: The Last Man now (used Vaughan's work on "Lost" as a hook, as she and I are addicted to the show)- but time is a factor- she's very receptive to my reccomendations but her job overtakes her leisure reading (she's a lawyer so after a week of wading through dry documents, its hard to look at another page of anything, and even harder to find the time to look at anything other than dry documents). But at least she's receptive.

I've had far less success with recommendations to other non-comic readers, even with best intentions- frankly its hard to find people who even want to read comics at all, much less hear which one they should read.

Case in point: my wife's cousin loaned my wife a book of some short stories dealing with fairy tale characters dealing with the modern world, which having enjoyed very much, she recommended to my wife.

I said to the cousin, "Hey, if you like that kind of stuff, you'll love this", and gave her the first three trades of "Fables"- they sat untouched in her home for two or three months until her two brothers, home for vacation from College (and both regular comic readers of X-men, Spidey, Ultimate titles, so on so forth) found them and proceeded to devour them, begging me for the rest of the trades- no surprise there- but our cousin pretty much took them, thanked me politely, and then set 'em aside with no intention of cracking them. A shame, as I really can't see anyone not liking "Fables", but there's a stigma attached to reading comics I guess- people have to really want to read them to get them interested. And to be fair, I did sort of force them on her, an act of kindless, but let's face it, she didn't ask for them, just thougth I'd be nice in the spirit of her kind recommendation.

sorry for the long post, just thought I'd contribute a bit- you can lead a horse to water and all that...

Thanks for that info, Brainfreeze! By the by, I dig your blog. Good stuff there.

I have especially enjoyed Cable/Deadpool the past year or so…. Having worked at 2 different comic book stores, I certainly might recommend it depending on who’s asking, but I get your point about the 13-year-old girl.

Yeah, to clarify, the joke wasn't meant as a shot at Cable/Deadpool.

It just depends on what their gateway to comics originally was. If it’s one of the superhero movies, give ‘em a good superhero comic. If it’s something else, try to find a comic then try some other type of comic.

Yeah, exactly.

It just depends on what their gateway to comics originally was. If it's one of the superhero movies, give 'em a good superhero comic. If it's something else, try to find a comic then try some other type of comic.

I have especially enjoyed Cable/Deadpool the past year or so.... Having worked at 2 different comic book stores, I certainly might recommend it depending on who's asking, but I get your point about the 13-year-old girl.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for encouraging new readers to pick up comics and I think the industry should be rightly proud of the way it is attempting to diversify and provide a wide range of content beyond the superhero monthlies it has traditionally relied on.

It's just that the points made here seem rather obvious.

"Your thirteen year old daughter isn't going to be interested in JLA!" Really?

"Remember, kids, different people like different things!" Yes. I'm well aware.

"Hey! Comics aren't just about superheroes anymore!" Thanks for the info.

Like I say, I don't mean to cause offence and I'm not trying to be snarky. It's just that opinions like these seem a little... tired. Is there anything here you didn't already know?

Sorry.

It is difficult to find books to recommend to others, period. Recommending superhero comics to new readers would seem to reinforce the notion that collectors are geeks. My younger brother is into comics (got me started on collecting), but I don't think he'd really be into Fables or Ex Machina, two of my favorites, although maybe I'm underestimating him.

Only that folks shouldn't recommend just superhero comics. Just how we wouldn't automatically recommend mysteries or romance novels to people before learning what they're interested in, we shouldn't automatically recommend any particular genre of comic book, and yet quite often, that is all people will recommend.

Point being: There is no one comic that's universally better or best to recommend to a non-comics reader. That requires creating a hypothetical situation that doesn't really exist.

The problem is that for most people, when you say "hey, I read this great comic," they think you mean a superhero comic. This is not necessarily bad; it means having to work with their expectations. Most people think "superheroes" when they think comics, and I find the best way to go about introducing comics to a totally new reader is to give them one of each: a superhero comic and a non-superhero comic.

I recently did this with a friend of mine, a Kazakhstani immigrant to Canada in my law school class who asked me for some comics because he wanted to get familiar with "that aspect of North American culture." I gave him Superman: Birthright and the first collection of Y: The Last Man, which is my go-to one-two punch for creating an instant comics fan.

And he liked both very much, but what he loved was the Superman. I just lent him Agents of Atlas last week alongside the second volume of Y. Curious to see how Gorilla Man and Human Robot go over.

Also, there aren't many kids who wouldn't like the 'Marvel Adventures' line. I bought my nephew the big hardcover for his birthday, and he's apparently read it every day since.