Hey, Kids! Comics Awards!
For Nick Magazine’s Chris Duffy, the idea of putting kids and high-quality comics together is nothing new—as senior editor, he’s long been helping showcase some of the most sophisticated yet somehow goofy work you’re apt to see anywhere. What is new these days is the degree to which comics, graphic novels, and manga are being developed, marketed, and discussed as a valid form of children’s literature, not as an afterthought to grownup content. One sign of the times is the first annual Nick Magazine Comics Awards, which were voted on by kids and whose results will be announced online on March 17 and in print in April.
Another sign is Françoise Mouly’s and Art Spiegelman’s TOON Treasury of Funny Comic Books for Kids, which is due out from Abrams this fall and also features input from Duffy. As part of an all-star industry advisory board that included Steve Geppi and Paul Levitz, Duffy helped the editors as they collected seminal works by creators from decades past, such as Basil Wolverton (Powerhouse Pepper), George Carlson (Jingle Jangle), and Sheldon Mayer (Sugar and Spike).
First off, tell us about the wacky categories in the Nick Magazine Comics Awards such as “grossest thing in comics.” Who came up with these? Were actual kids consulted at some point, perhaps in some wild focus group setting?
The idea of having humor categories—best hair, grossest, cutest—was always part of the plan. The goal was to get the attention of kids who might not be that opinionated about “best graphic novel” but who might perk up at the mention of Venom’s big ol’ tongue or Snoopy’s cuteness.
In some ways, the whole awards ballot was a mix of awards that were there to represent comics kids know and awards that were there to draw readers in. Graphic novels for the magazine’s audience (8 to 12) are still an emerging category in many ways, and not every kid knows titles beyond Naruto and Wimpy Kid.
Like all things at Nick Magazine, creating the ballot was pretty collaborative; I started by making several versions of the ballot and got input from all the other editors. No focus groups or direct kid research went into the award, but lots of research about the popularity of different characters, strips, and books did. I should also emphasize that in many ways the research for this award has been the Nick Mag staff’s listening to readers about comics and cartoons for years and years. We’ve known from responses to our annual April cartoon-themed issue that kids really respond to the comics art form.
What’s been the response from kids at large to being given this chance to voice their opinions?
Despite what I said before about needing to draw in the average reader with some of the categories, we got a really passionate and large response. I always said that, based on past awards we’ve done at the magazine, if we broke 10,000 entries for this, I’d be happy. We broke it and then some! We asked our advisers (a group of about 50 kids who fill out surveys for us) if we should do the award again and they were almost unanimously positive.
Should adults, especially “gatekeepers” such as educators and librarians, take any lessons from what kids themselves select as their favorite manga series or graphic novel? I’m thinking of the distinction that crops up in prose lit, the one between what adults judge as suitable or edifying for kids and what kids naturally gravitate and respond to. Any thoughts?
I think that educators and librarians are doing a great job on their own. The number of thoughtful and informed blogs by librarians and educators on the subject of comics for children is amazing. Those gatekeepers, especially librarians, are a long way ahead of even book publishers in terms of understanding what graphic novels kids read. Remember that the Nick Mag award is designed to be a national popular award in a humor magazine; the librarians—and can I just say how incredible it is to have gotten to the point where librarians are such a huge part of comics?—can discuss smaller books, more serious books, books with local interest, etc. What they might learn from our award, though, is that awards and critical acclaim sometimes can’t compete with humor when it comes to a 10-year-old reader.
A pretty strong division exists between children’s books (and even between types of them) and trade fiction for adults. Is the same thing true in comics and graphic novels? In other words, do artists and writers there move more fluidly between kid and grownup audiences and are more apt to produce solid work for both?
Most of the cartoonists I know who produce some work for kids move somewhat fluidly between audiences. I think, and I could be behind the curve on this as I don’t work in books, that it’s too early in the evolution of comics into a book publishing concern for a cartoonist to be mostly a “young adult graphic novelist” or a “first chapter book graphic novelist.” I think until very recently, most cartoonists who produced comic-book work saw themselves as working within the whole comics medium. Pre-“graphic novel boom” creators like Jeff Smith (Bone), Scott Roberts (Patty Cake), and Mark Crilley (Akiko) produced comics for kids but saw themselves (and again I might be wrong here) as cartoonists who were doing work that could be read by kids. Not as a “kids’ cartoonist.” That could be changing with publishers like Toon Books, First Second, Stone Arch, and Graphix.
Even with a market opening up for kids’ graphic novels, I think there aren’t enough titles and there isn’t a long enough tradition for cartoonists to be motivated to specialize. Jeff Smith’s latest project, Rasl, isn’t for the same audience as Bone. Eleanor Davis has done an early reader for Toon Books and a young-adult graphic novel too—but a lot of her other work (as seen in anthologies like MOME) is not aimed at kids. Clearly, there are exceptions! Jimmy Gownley has focused pretty exclusively, and very successfully, on earning the attention and respect of kid readers (and their institutional gatekeepers) with his Amelia Rules! series.
Speaking of Jeff Smith, who also served on the book’s advisory board, let’s talk about The TOON Treasury of Funny Comic Books for Kids. Which creators represented in its pages were ahead of his or her time, and why?
I think the best work in the treasury is timeless, actually. Anyone interested in the craft of storytelling would learn a lot from Carl Barks and John Stanley. Barks could weave a tight complex story circling around one theme and make it seem like the most natural thing in the world. Stanley could do stories with relentless forward motion, but that folded back on themselves in the telling—with a dark humor that seems wrong for kids but is dead-on right. Read some Stanley at http://stanleystories.blogspot.com/ if you don’t believe me. What all the cartoonists in the book have in common is the ability to make every panel and page count.
Can you point out any affinities between classic creators working 30–60 years ago and the leading creators of comics/graphic novels for kids today? For instance, which work might the masters appreciate from the creators nominated for this year’s Nick Awards?
Jeff Kinney’s diary format reminds me of Stanley’s Little Lulu diary pages as well as Jack Mendelsohn’s kid-point-of-view strip Jacky’s Diary. Kinney is also like Stanley in that he doesn’t get overprotective of his readers—both cartoonists lay the tough parts of being a kid right on the line with very little mediation or comfort thrown in to coddle the reader. Sam Henderson’s “Scene but Not Heard” comic in Nick Magazine is of the goofball pantomime strip variety perfected by Harvey Kurtzman in “Hey Look” and streamlined in MAD by Prohias and Martin. And Jeff Smith and Kazu Kibuishi look to me like they learned some world-building from Carl Barks.
Are there any series/characters for kids that you didn’t fully appreciate as a kid, only getting how cool they were when you were older?
I completely did not get Captain Marvel (the one created in the ’40s) as a kid. In the ’70s, DC had a Captain Marvel revival series called Shazam!, and it sort of baffled me when I picked it up at age 6 or 7. Magic words? Squinty eyes? Big, open art style? I was a Spider-Man guy—angst! Drama! Lots of detail on the muscles! As an assistant editor at DC, allegedly an adult, I had to look at some of the original stories from the ’40s, and I was surprised and very charmed. The Captain Marvel comics from the late ’40s were consistently good—often delightful, lighthearted fantasy! But they were about as far from 1970s Marvel Comics (which were my comics gold standard as a kid) as you could go.
I know you’re a big fan of gag or single-panel cartoons. What are some collections or creators that you’d recommend, perhaps for different age groups?
I do like gags. And the readers of Nick Mag have proven that the gag form isn’t dead—the “Gag Station” page is one of our most popular features. For kids 10 and up, I recommend The Far Side, any collection of Charles Addams comics, and the first collection of Harry Bliss’s syndicated gag strip, Death by Laughter. For kids getting up to 12 years old, look for collections of Gahan Wilson’s work. For older teens and readers who really are looking to get their minds blown (and who don’t mind looking for used books!), look for collections for Kliban, Roz Chast, and Virgil Partch (aka VIP).
Let’s look ahead to the Nick Magazine Comics Awards in future years. I like the timeless feel of some of the nominated titles—to 10-year-olds just discovering Bill Watterson, for instance, it doesn’t matter that Calvin and Hobbes stopped being “new” before they were born: It’s new now. On the other hand, could such an approach result in Peanuts, Bone, Spider-Man, or Naruto being nominated every year, leading to a lack of freshness? I guess I’m wondering if there’s the chance of some “Susan Lucci” titles emerging, and if that’s an acceptable outcome.
Are you implying Susan Lucci might not win for that graphic novel she is working on? Because I’ve heard it’s really groundbreaking. [Pause] I’m optimistic that the award will continue to reflect timeless favorites and new popular comics. With the award, we are trying to reflect our readers’ tastes; and kid readers keep certain old works alive (who knew Roald Dahl would still be going strong?) while supporting new ones (who could predict Wimpy Kid would rule the charts?).
Great—thanks so much for your time!
Thank you!
