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What taking my daughter to a comic book store taught me

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Re: What taking my daughter to a comic book store taught me

#141
The seven year old girl was correct: It was not really a comic book store in the sense she had in mind. Instead it was a store with comic books for teenage boys and men and even there a fairly narrow audience. The store was definitely not for children, especially not for grade school or younger girls.

A lesson she might have learned: It's a big world out there, and some of it, e.g., the view of women in that store, is not good, and sometimes, too often, in life we have to be selective.

It's been a while since my brother and I were in grade school and he was collecting comic books. So, only vaguely do I remember Donald Duck and Batman, and those comic books weren't right up against the line, the other side of which was porn.

Instead, say, take your seven year old daughter to a music store, not one for pop music but one where seven year old girls have a nice violins and are learning the "Preludio" to the Bach E major Partita for unaccompanied violin,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KYRdRnnBYw

with Hillary Hahn, the Chaconne of Vitali,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4B1ifcWa9o

with David Oistrakh, the Bach "Chaconne"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tezau3hlRxs

with Alina Ibragimova, or the Bach Busoni piano version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOFflFiLlT8

with Valentina Lisitsa, a store where the seven year old violin students are looking forward to playing the violin part to the Wagner "Prelude to Act I" of Lohengrin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7prUFflX0_E

with Otto Klemperer, also from the same opera In fernem land

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHHCeEO_0-4

with Peter Anders and, of course, especially since she is a seven year old girl, starting at about 3:00, the bridal chorus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebx9KhcnyLM

with Andris Nelsons. Of course, also tell her the story of Lohengrin.

More? Sure: Camille Saint Saens "Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix" from Samson et Dalila

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X79OkSayPSw

with Elina Garancas.

More generally expose her to places and media content where girls and women are actually doing things, good things. E.g., currently there is the Nova program on he LHC and the Higgs boson at

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/big-bang-machine.html

Two detectors there found the same basic result, and one of the detector groups was led by a woman. That program has more examples of women doing things.

Yes, there's a lot out there where the women are all interested in nose jobs, breast implants, micro skirts, and thong panties, but there's also a lot out there for women being productive, building a home and family with love, victory over loneliness, being productive, and with pride in accomplishments and emotional and financial security.

Get her a copy of the classic E. Fromm, The Art of Loving which is about getting emotional security, exchanging knowledge, caring, respect, and responsiveness, and a role for religion -- best thing I ever read to understand people and personality.

Maybe take her to some Saturday classes in cooking school where she can learn to make, say, some really good cookies she could make and share with her friends, e.g., at school. If I were 7-9 and a girl 7 gave me 2-3 really good cookies she had baked herself, then she would have a good friend for years, prom dates, etc. If she could play classical music on piano or violin or sing opera, even better.

How to get her interested in working hard on, say, piano or violin? One way: Let her hear some of the music that is easy to like. Then let her see some people working hard on learning piano or violin and liking it. Example: A sister in law tried to get her daughter interested in piano. No luck. At the farm at Christmas, I was upstairs working on the Bach "Chaconne", and a niece, about 7, came up to watch. I put my violin under her left chin, showed her how to hold the violin and the bow, and to draw the bow across the strings. The next day her father asked me: "How much is a violin going to cost me?". It works.

More? Sure: Get her the DVD of the Australian Ballet performance of Coppelia -- it's a total sweetheart story, nearly all about young women, and where nearly everyone on stage is a young woman. And the actual young women on the stage, the real performers and not the characters they play in the story, are examples of astoundingly hard work, productivity, and, in particular, are just fantastic as actresses, artists, and athletes, especially aerobic athletes.

Of course, at Christmas, get her all dressed up in some sort of a princess outfit -- when I was that age the style was dresses with red or black velvet with lots of satin ribbons and bows -- and take her to a good performance of The Nutcracker. Also get her a Nutcracker doll. It could be one of the happiest times of her life, make her feel more secure as a girl, and be a memory she will have and value forever.

Also get her DVDs of some of the movies from American Girl. They may also have some retail stores it would be better for her to visit than that fake comic book store.

For books, maybe Nancy Drew? Or something similar but more recent?

Since she's seven, a girl, and bright, it may be that she could get good at French with blinding speed -- try to find a way. Talk to some people who know about how a girl of seven could learn French. Maybe have her join a group, e.g., where also she could meet other girls learning French. Maybe try a local Alliance Française. Maybe try some Internet learning materials.

Connection with her being a girl? At that age, typically girls have much better verbal aptitude than the boys and are just fantastic at learning a language.

Be sure to have her learn touch typing -- one of the best skills to have in life now. Talk to some people who know how a girl of seven could learn touch typing, get her some materials, and pay attention her efforts, encourage and praise them, and help her learn.

Then encourage and praise her in writing: Have her start writing on nearly anything -- letters to grandma, how to train a kitten or puppy, how to bake terrific cookies, how to tie a bow tie, how to wash out stains, how to iron a dress, how to sew on a button, how to use a text editor, how to use Facebook, blog posts (anonymous), etc. Then get her started on English grammar -- sentences, subjects, verbs, prepositions and prepositional phrases, adjectives and adverbs. Then make friends with a high school English teacher (nearly all women, right?) and have that teacher help your daughter improve her writing. Then have your daughter write some longer pieces with sections, subsections, table of contents, figures, references, etc. on anything: If your family moves, then have her write on moving to a new house. On getting a puppy or kitten. Whatever. Get her going on writing, then reading, the more in writing, then more in reading.

For being better in talking to her, and to others, too, get, read, study, think about, and use

Thomas Gordon, Parent Effectiveness Training: The Tested New Way to Raise Responsible Children.

also called reflective listening.

For more, get her several, used will be fine, high school texts in plane geometry, pick a favorite, use the others for alternative sources, and work through plane geometry with her, that is, get the fun of doing the proofs. Emphasize orthogonality and the Pythagorean theorem: Orthogonality is one of the most important ideas in all of pure and applied mathematics, mathematical physics, engineering, multi-variate statistic, and best approximation, e.g., in computing, right up to how to do ad targeting on the Internet, Fourier theory, the fast Fourier transform, digital filtering, etc. Sure: Quite generally every closed convex set has a unique element of minimum norm, and quickly get to a supporting hyperplane with orthogonality. Sure, one of the biggest results in college math is the polar decomposition in linear algebra and, right, about orthogonal eigen vectors. Can get going on orthogonality right there in high school plane geometry, and she likely has all the prerequisites. If not, in a few places take out a few minutes and get her caught up.

Give her a little on electrons, protons, neutrons, atoms, energy and energy levels, and chemical bonds. Then, right, presto, bingo, guide her to the Internet videos of the Eric Lander lectures on biology at MIT, say,

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/biology/7-01sc-fundamentals-of-bi...

Also, don't have her miss (get her a bowl of popcorn for the occasion)

http://www.princeton.edu/WebMedia/flash/lectures/20100419_pu...

with

April 19, 2010,

Eric Lander: "Secrets of the Human Genome"

Sure, have her watch some Brian Greene videos.

Get her a freshman college chemistry book and help her work through it, learn about NaCl, CaCO3, C-H bonds and methane, gasoline, and converting O and C-H bonded hydrocarbons to CO2 and H2O -- e.g., as in heating the house, powering the car, flying an airplane, etc.

Look at the GED materials and get her through all of them by the time she is 8-9. A bright girl of seven should be able to get through all of that in one not very busy summer.

The GED materials are minimal -- in particular in addition she will need to get through algebra I and II and trigonometry and high school physics.

Then, to heck with high school -- then get some good advice and guide her in home schooling through, say, at least the first two years of college. So, for calculus, just get her some good college calculus books (my view of AP calculus is that it is to be avoided, skipped, ignored because the authors didn't understand calculus very well -- similarly for Khan Academy -- repeat, just get some good college calculus books, period), and, sure, make friends with a college math prof to help her not get stuck and to stay on track. Then, sure, have her do college freshman physics -- that's heavily just what calculus is for.

Then when she goes to college she will be nicely ahead.

"Youth is such a wonderful time of life. Too bad it's wasted on young people."

Don't have her waste hers.

Re: What taking my daughter to a comic book store taught me

#142
post #104
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First of all, you're making the assumption that our popular comics are popular because of sexualized content (i.e., no MJ with big tits = no one is gonna read Spiderman; doubtful). No, I am not. I am pointing out there is a correlation between sexualized content and sales numbers in the US today. In fact, I've pointed out elsewhere that perhaps this is one of the reasons the US comic audience is so small: The main…

> The main titles have narrowed their focus even more compared to the 80's and are now overly sexualized and aimed squarely at men in a very narrow age bracket. They're aimed at the people who are left reading comic books: men who grew up reading comic books. Who are now adults. Kids don't read comic books and don't care to. It's been that way for quite a while. I'm willing to bet the comic book companies have done a…

> Kids don't read comic books and don't care to.

And it's interesting to ask why, when kids elsewhere do, and when US kids used to.

> I'm willing to bet the comic book companies have done a little market research before going in this direction rather than intentionally alienating younger readers.

Why would assume this, given how badly they've repeatedly misread their markets, and how badly they've been managed (e.g. Marvels bankruptcy)? They've over and over done stupid, short-sighted things to alienate both readers and collectors (e.g. their attempts to drive up sales from collectors with tons of variant covers) that publishers elsewhere have not. Not least their failure to get their titles more eyeballs by getting them into other sales venues (growing up Norway, I'd been reading comics for something like 10 years before I ever set foot in a dedicated comics store, as comics were everywhere so there was no need to).

And they're the ones that are small bit players of questionable success.

> If those genres sold well, there'd be more of them.

If those genres existed in reasonable numbers in English language translations, being sold in more places like the small number of comics stores, maybe the people who would have enjoyed them would realise that comics are for them too.

Sometimes developing your market means taking risks. The European publishers understands this. They are not just chasing the big successes and milking them dry. You won't see 5 Spiderman titles. Instead you regularly see variety magazines headlined by major, well-selling characters with guest series they hope to develop filling up a substantial portion of the magazines (the French language Pilote and Spirou perhaps being the most well known internationally), or short runs on entirely new series they are taking a gamble on.

Many, many of these titles are never profitable. Many of them are outright gambles that there's little expectation will be profitable. Many of them are only able to stay profitable because of the main title is a massive draw. But some of those guest series become breakout successes of their own, carrying magazines filled with new guest series continuing to develop new markets and new fan bases.

Both of the biggest Norwegian series at the moment started life as strips and then had bit-parts with a few pages here and there in bigger magazines, until they'd developed enough popularity. When they got their own magazines, they were initially propped up by "tried and true but not quite big enough for their own magazine" series.

Several current Norwegian comic artists started their careers submitting fan-art to magazines in the 80's, then got invited to publish a page or two, eventually got their own little series with a few pages in a bigger magazine each month, and ended up with their own magazines.

And if you think "that's fine, but it's not breaking new ground", consider that many of these series are very different from each other. You'd find cutting political satire alongside Beetle Bailey (Billy). There was comedic parodies in The Phantom (Fantomet). And so on. A lot of material that'd never have a market in the 80's, got a market because the publishers found it worthwhile to publish a few pages in not-very-related magazines to test the market and get reader feedback. Other material got a market because they "rounded out" magazines and draw fan bases that'd buy a magazine they'd not otherwise consider, even if a specific series will not stand on its own.

This is where you should look to figure out how to develop a culture for comics, as these are the methods that have been successful - even with potential markets a tiny fraction of the US -, while Marvel and DC and the smaller US publishers have struggled.

> Well, we're talking about comics in the US here aren't we?

Are we? I'm not, exactly because contrasting the US market to the European and Japanese markets reveal so many interesting differences that helps see the article in context.

Re: What taking my daughter to a comic book store taught me

#143
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know exactly how you feel. For the past year, my main gaming rig has been on another continent and I've been making do with what I could play on a cruddy little netbook running Linux. It's probably been my best year of gaming ever. I've been an old west robot prospector. I've seen a man have sex with a giant goldfish. I've tried to get a mouse to wear a hat. I've consoled a grieving child. After all that was done,…

The indie game equivalent are web comics. There are really well made and interesting ones out there, although finding them isn't always easy. For some, printed versions are also available.

Also there is Image, Oni Press and Vertigo.

Re: What taking my daughter to a comic book store taught me

#144

I've never understood Americans' obsession with superhero comics. When I was a kid I was reading Asterix[1], Gaston Lagaffe[2], Spirou et Fantasio[3], Lucky Luke[4], Prince Valiant[5], The Phantom[6] and similar stuff. Of course, I've read Superman, Batman and Spiderman also but at least I've had a choice. I can't understand why they don't exist in US, why are the only comic books Americans know superhero comics? [1]…

Whoa, whoa, whoa. America has non-superhero comics, of course - the Sandman series, Y: The Last Man, Preacher, The Walking Dead, American Vampire, etc.

...but Marvel Comics is superheros. Marvel is owned by Disney, and Disney has a huge marketing budget. DC Comics is superheros...owned by Warner Brothers.

EDIT: yeah...none of those that I mentioned are remotely for kids. Hmmm.

Re: What taking my daughter to a comic book store taught me

#145
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're aimed at the people who are left reading comic books Well, funnily enough we're having this discussion on a website devoted to startups. So think of it from a business point of view. What would any of us here say if someone described the current state of affairs and strategy for their startup as "we started off as a successful company but we've been bleeding users and losing demographics, so we're going to…

Catering to a narrow but profitable niche is very common advice on HN.

But accelerating the decline of your profitable niche by withdrawing from the niches that fed the creation of your current niche, is probably not good long term thinking.

In the case of comics, Marvel and DC has a market of 30's males now because they served the market of kids in the 80's and before.

If they want to retain that profitable niche, they better make sure they develop interest amongst younger readers.

Re: What taking my daughter to a comic book store taught me

#146

Garfield, Dilbert, Foxtrot and Calvin and Hobbes is about the extent of my comic repertoire Taking a 7 year old to a comic store is like tasking her to a pg 13 movie.. . Not too surprised it didn't work out. Comics tend to deal with adult themes and are aimed at older people.

This is the moral panic of the religious right all over again. Just like during the 80s and 90s, this one is aimed at sanitizing all adult aspects of society and making everywhere a "family friendly" place.

Re: What taking my daughter to a comic book store taught me

#147
post #12

I can already hear the debate raging about weather or not the images or particular examples in this article are acceptable or defensible or not. I think it's totally fine for the comics that this one shop has are there. Artistic freedom! Great! What's not super is that it's really the only kind. It's like netflix with only action movies. This article should feature a bunch of blank photos representing the comics that…

How can the market fix this?

If there is not enough demand, then publishers aren't going to create these titles.

Re: What taking my daughter to a comic book store taught me

#148
post #137

I've never understood Americans' obsession with superhero comics. When I was a kid I was reading Asterix[1], Gaston Lagaffe[2], Spirou et Fantasio[3], Lucky Luke[4], Prince Valiant[5], The Phantom[6] and similar stuff. Of course, I've read Superman, Batman and Spiderman also but at least I've had a choice. I can't understand why they don't exist in US, why are the only comic books Americans know superhero comics? [1]…

Similar comics existed (and exist) growing up in the U.S., but they are less prominent in comic book stores, and more prominent in traditional book stores or the Sunday paper. E.g., Calvin and Hobbes ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes ).

We got those in addition to those. E.g. Calvin and Hobbes had a monthly magazine in Norway until a decade after Watterson stopped drawing (publishing reruns after they'd run dry of original material) alongside guest series. On top of that comes the collected editions.

Some US newspaper strip artists end up earning more from Scandinavia (aggregate potential market of about 25 million) than the US because of this.

Re: What taking my daughter to a comic book store taught me

#149
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you say is like a nice idea, but you have to remember that this is a business. These kinds of comics line the shelves, because they're the ones that sell. Of course, it could very well be that if we had more comics that were more moderate they would sell also, but nobody's willing to take the risk. On top of that, you also require an author that is interested in that - you can't just suck this stuff out of a pen…

This is definitely a self-fulfilling prophecy. Many other nations have a wider audience for comics, but in the US we've followed your advice so long that all the audiences that aren't adolescent males have been pushed away. Which leads to where we are: comic book companies chasing after a tiny fraction of their potential audience, because they can't make comics for anyone else, because not enough others are hbotherin…

Except they didn't follow my advice because I or someone else thought it would be cool, it bedmates of the market. People just weren't buying enough comics do they had to target a niche more and more. You say there is some kind of hidden audience that would buy comics if they just stopped portraying female characters the same way they portrayed spiderman? In sure there are some people that feel that way, but I don't there would be enough of those to support the industry, because, again, the internet and other mediums are just wrecking their business.

Also, what other countries really have a healthier comic industry than the US of you exclude manga and manhwa? Not to mention that a huge portion of manga actually is the same as US comics. There are just a bunch of others as well. Not to mention that in Japan you have to tie in the merchandise, light novel, and anime industries to manga as well. There are no popular equivalents for some of those in the US.

Re: What taking my daughter to a comic book store taught me

#150

I've never understood Americans' obsession with superhero comics. When I was a kid I was reading Asterix[1], Gaston Lagaffe[2], Spirou et Fantasio[3], Lucky Luke[4], Prince Valiant[5], The Phantom[6] and similar stuff. Of course, I've read Superman, Batman and Spiderman also but at least I've had a choice. I can't understand why they don't exist in US, why are the only comic books Americans know superhero comics? [1]…

I'm from the UK and loved my occasional childhood holidays in France or Portugal for a chance to buy Lucky Luke and Pink Panther comics. For some reason Asterix and Tintin were popular in the UK but other Franco-Belgian comics didn't take off. There were a few 70s prints of Lucky Luke and I have one translated 1970s Iznogoud but they went out of print quickly until Cinebook [0] started selling new translations about a decade ago, and the characters are much less well-known here than on the continent.

I think Gaston is still unavailable in English - I'm not such a fan of Spirou and Fantasio but I recently bought Cinebook's "The Marsupliami Thieves" as it was the only Franquin book available in English, sadly.

By the way, a recent HN thread on internationalization mentioned how few really well localized film translations there are and gave Shrek and Frozen as examples of good ones. The English translations of Asterix were brilliant and full of English-specific puns, presumably replacing original French puns (I have read some of them in French but my French is not really good enough for wordplay).

(edit: Although obviously the UK has its own tradition of kids-including-girls-friendly comics: Beano, Dandy, and many others. And for a modern equivalent I like the Phoenix comic [1]. But comic book shops here are mostly also very full of superhero comics and adult manga and not young-girl-friendly.)

[0] http://www.cinebook.co.uk [1] http://www.thephoenixcomic.co.uk/

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