and may well be missing one or two of them.

> he
>REALLY likes to just look at the art

I remember a few years ago, reading one of the Muppet Show books, and my kids pointed out before I'd even noticed that there was a fill-in artist that week. Made me so proud.

It's funny, I've always been much less of an art guy as far as the comics go, but I've gotten way more confident in my assessments of artwork. There's still only a handful of artists that I recognize on a regular basis, but it's a big difference over where I was a decade ago.


>I think the only reason SS is marked T+ is for marketing...
>All ages really should mean ALL ages and I think SS definitely
>represents that and could be rated that way.

Preaching to the choir. Most of the all ages stuff I read with the kids really IS all ages, meaning I enjoy it on a fairly visceral level too. It's not something most creative & editing teams seem to get though.


>1) There are no monthly books (that I'm aware of) from
>Marvel/DC that are in continuity that kids know are okay for
>them and can just grab and feel like they're invested in those
>larger universes.

Hmmm. See I don't give a hoot about continuity... a good title can be a great introduction to the greater universe without having any continuity with it.
I think DC has done far far better at this than Marvel... Tiny Titans and Superman Family Adventures had a cast of hundreds. The Batman: The Brave & the Bold TV show, and to a lesser extent the Sholly Fisch comic, were painted with an incredibly broad brush. In fact my kids just watched the final episode of BTBATB (still on the DVR, I won't let my wife delete it) and it's as amazing as ever.
They've had some misses too - Li'l Gotham, much of the Billy Batson series, the Green Lanternn and Batman CGI shows (which weren't terrible but weren't good and weren't particularly u12-friendly).

Meanwhile, Marvel has had just about all misses, by my count. (not counting Ms. Marvel or Squirrel Girl, which I'm viewing as YA books at this point.) The Li'l Marvels issuue I read was SO bad. The little Hulks or whatever it was called had one decent joke. And the cartoons... my kids didn't even get into Ultimate Spider-man, Agents of SmASH, or that one where the Silver Surfer talked like a surfer dude. They really don't compare to Teen Titans, Teen Titans GO! (which I love), BTBATB, or (for older kids and me) Young Justice or JLU.


>2)I have a hard time
>imagining any kids finding comics unless their parents are
>regular readers (like the folks here) that go to their local
>shop. Now that the Direct market is largely the only way to
>get comics how are kids supposed to find them?

LIBRARIES, dude!

I blame the library in large part for developing my habit since I started out reading stuff fro the library, never thinking I'd turn into someone who'd go to a shop regularly.
Our library has 5 comics sections (kids', YA, manga (by the YA section, but not filed with the other YA comics), New Adult Comics endcap, adult comics) , so i realize we're lucky and uncharacteristic. Two of my alternate libraries has ALL comics in the YA section, which is a terrible mistake I've mentioned to the librarian but she just shrugged and said 'we know.'

Even my kids' school library has plenty of comics, including Bone, Amulet, Calvin & Hobbes, Peanuts, Zita, Big Nate, etc. And the school book fair's selection is never awesome, but there are usually at least a few series on display/sale.