While I was at the comic book shop, I also picked up this digest-sized Teen Titans comic (of the animated television show)for my young daughter who is a big fan. I sat down and read the first story to her this morning, and once again I'm struck by how clueless Marvel and DC are when it comes to comic for kids (or comics that certainly could, if not should, be made accessible to young children).
There are no narrative captions, virtually no exposition, so if you're a parent reading this thing with your kid and you're not already an expert on the Titans, you have no clue as to who all the characters are or what the hell is going on. The word balloon type is too small (and I've read plenty of digest comics in my day, this is not a constraint of the format).
The coloring is typical modern comic book coloring -- muted colors, no attempt to design using color to create visual contrast or to direct the viewer's eye around the page (and I went to art school -- this stuff is not some great mystery, it's Painting 101). The pages are very hard to scan and look muddy. There's one panel where a villain is floating in the air (being held by Raven's power although there's no visible power effect on the villain, which confused my daughter), and the villain's dark purple pants and boots are against an extremely dark blue background. My daughter asked, "Why doesn't she have any legs?" because they were so hard to make out.
I literally learned to read in large part from comic books. If this is what I had to work with as a kid, I don't think I'd have bothered.
--Chris M.
Posted by Chris M. at March 26, 2005 10:35 AM