When catalogs were catalogs: Lessons in writing from the Hammacher vault

I wrote for the venerable oddball catalog Hammacher Schlemmer for oh, about a year and a half — but what a great year and a half. Because you’ll never write something nuttier than what you write for a venerable oddball catalog.

I created copy for fiber-optic snowman tree toppers, remote-control golf balls, transparent kayaks, sonic mosquito repellants and robot vacuum cleaners. I test drove a motorcycle that was no higher than my shins; I rubbed my face over a $2,000 eiderdown pillow (and was promptly yelled at); and I wrote with a straight face: “This stainless-steel ship’s lamp is a modern interpretation of the lanterns used in the days when Scandinavian whaling ships thronged the frigid waters between the Faroe Islands and the Baltic Sea.”

Cuz that’s how you roll at Hammacher. Even though it sounds like we had free reign to write the kookiest things that came to mind (and although the often-outrageous products warranted it), Hammacher house writing style was actually one of tremendous authority. We were to add no hyperbole or salesy gimmick. Nothing but facts and straightforward reporting of a product’s features, with perhaps a wry smile at the more absurd moments. I was told once to picture Walter Cronkite introducing the reader to the product — a trustworthy father figure giving a utilitarian dissertation of what the thing does without undue embellishment.

Although if you’re given a pricey kerosene lamp to sell, you may have to bust out the allusions to the 19th Century Scandinavian whaling industry. Once, when we had a particularly prosaic cookie jar to sell (it spun and played Christmas music, but was otherwise a typical ceramic vessel for holding cookies) we had to resort to counting how many cookies it could hold, because otherwise, how do you say something authoritative about that? At the very least, we could show that Hammacher had calculated your actual volume of potential cookie storage. (The product bombed anyway.)

But even if I thought I had a few nutty products to sell, nothing beats this gem from the archives, circa 1961; I’ve held it dear for years as a reminder that sometimes you just have to put reservations aside and Go For It.

Three for the kids’ bookshelf

Been reading a lot of Young Adult books lately. Here are three I’m recommending these days:

The Mysterious Benedict Society (Trenton Lee Stewart)

I’m a bit late to this party, as the cult sensation around 2007’s brainy action adventure is already well established. (Kids show up to book signings with author Stewart dressed as characters from the book; also, while reading this during a swim team practice for Oldest Son, one mother nudged me and said, “Oh, my daughter loves that book!” I’m pretty sure she was genuinely into the book, and not coming on to me.)

It gets and deserves this adulation for making heroes out of a set of brainy kids. You know: nerds. The kind of smarties who are, in other books, useful-but-barely-tolerable bookworms relegated to the sidelines.

You know how Hermione is the nag who Potter and friends tease for being such a relentless know-it-all? The kids in TMBS are nobody’s nags, and they don’t shiv just because they spend more time in a library than on a Quidditch pitch. Each of Stewart’s four heroes are selected for a secret mission because they are smart — and not just book smart, either. Stewart celebrates all kinds of braininess, from introspective and curious Reynie to adventurous and instinctive Kate. The socially maladroit Sticky is the only character who is a typical walking calculator, but Stewart’s great creation Constance Contraire is selected for the team for being a stubborn skeptic — a rare and misunderstood trait. Kudos to Stewart for introducing readers to the concept that doubters and difficult people can be essential contributors to a project.

It’s a great cast that rises above the adventure itself, which is actually rather bland: The MBS kids infiltrate a bizarre private school where children are being brainwashed to take part in a sinister thought-control experiment. The action settles into a lot of skulking, observing and reporting back, followed by periods where the children review their observations and make startlingly accurate suppositions.

But watching these characters bounce off each other, and generally elevate the role that thinkers can play in a YA book, gives this one a lift onto the must-read list.

The Black Book of Secrets (F.E. Higgins)

I didn’t see this one coming. This 2007 book flew all the way under my radar until a paperback copy landed on the bookshelf at our school’s Scholastic bookfair. I judged it purely by the cover — because, come on, something with the title “The Black Book of Secrets,” gussied up like a distressed Old West ledger, and featuring a tree frog and a Lurch lookalike can’t be ignored. So I picked it up.

What a surprise. Higgins spins a weird and spooky tale that unfurls at a nice tense pace. Set in a vaguely 19th-Century, vaguely European country, the book opens with a downright Dickensian dilemma: Street urchin Ludlow Fitch escapes his parents as they try to sell his (still-attached) teeth to an unscrupulous dentist — and it just gets better from there. Lud falls in with Joe Zabbidou, a mysterious loner who purports to buy people’s darkest secrets from them, a “secret pawnbroker.”

Their profession has a curious effect on Pagus Parvus, the hillside village where they set up shop.  Zabbidou gives solace to the poor souls who unburden their secrets, and sows mistrust among those who have only greed and suspicion in their hearts. The tension simmers to boil, and is interrupted at perfectly tantalizing moments for the confessions of the tormented customers with sins to unload.

The writing is a treat, too, with clean, clear descriptions and amusing observations that help the book breeze merrily along:

Horatio had started in the shop as soon as he could reach the counter, and over the years the young butcher had begun to take on the appearance of the meat with which he worked all day. He had gradually become more solid in the body, rather like a bull, and his thick, hairless forearms were shaped like two shanks of lamb. His skin was the color of hung meat, a sort of creamy blue, and of similar texture. His face was long and his nostrils flared, and his brown eyes surveyed his surroundings with mild interest. The tips of his fingers were thick and blunted; for a man who made his living working with knives he was surprisingly careless.

The Schwa was Here (Neal Shusterman)

Wowzers. Shusterman hooks his readers with a truly unique character: Calvin Schwa, a kid so bland and forgettable, he’s hard to notice even when he’s standing right next to you. Narrator Tony “Antsy” Bonano notices this tendency and experiments with “the Schwa Effect” to see what Calvin can get away with without folks noticing. The answer is, a lot.

Here’s where many authors would take this idea and build a zany story of infiltrating girls’ locker rooms or spying on bullies, but Shusterman is telling a surprisingly moving tale about teens finding their identities and divining meaning from the everyday things that make up their lives.

It’s written in a bouncy Brooklynese, coming on strong with a bunch of dropped Gs and wiseguy phraseology like “on accounta.” But the narrator’s voice is so funny and genuine that the dialect fades from annoyance and becomes a welcome part of the conversation.

Shusterman’s ear for teen dialog is practically cinematic:

“I’ve been thinking there’s something wrong with him.”

“Like he’s retarded you mean?”

Howie’s disgusted by this. “The proper term is ‘mentally handicapped,’” he says. “Otherwise the retards get offended.”

… and he shows a seeming effortlessness when plumbing depth in Antsy’s chatty asides:

I guess this fascination I had with the Schwa was because in some small way I knew how he felt. See, I never stand out in crowd either. I’m just your run-of-the-mill, eigth-grade wiseass, which might get me somewhere in, like, Iowa, but Brooklyn is wiseass central. … “You’ve got middle-child syndrome,” I’ve been told. Well, seems to me more like middle-finger syndrome. … But the Schwa — he was worse off than me. He wouldn’t be the “whatever-happened-to” kid — he’d be the kid whose picture gets accidentally left out of the yearbook and no one notices. Although I’m a bit ashamed to say it, it felt good to be around someone more invisible than me.

The Schwa and Antsy, gaining notoriety from their Schwa Effect experiments, take a dare to sneak into a cranky old shut-in’s apartment and, of course, they get caught. Again, a lesser author would use this “worlds collide” plot barb to commence a wacky misadventure where the Old Man Learns to Be a Kid Again just as the Kids Learn Something About Growing Up — but Shusterman is swinging for a fence much farther away. That sort of easy sentimentality can pound sand.

The subtle shifts in character attitude are a wonder to watch as things get complicated between Antsy, the Schwa and a savvy blind girl they both fall for. (The easy way out? The blind girl would have played the part of the Magic Pixie Girl, that archetype character whose quirks and charm dissipate the protagonists’ angst — but that’s not Shusterman’s way, no sir.) All these characters are looking to get more out of life than they currently have, and not all of them are yet equipped to identify it, let alone pursue it. By book’s end, they all make surprisingly big strides.

Much of the last third centers on “something big” the Schwa is planning to get himself noticed; for a while, I feared this kid’s cry for help might turn deadly serious, but what Shusterman delivers is a payoff both heartbreaking and riotously funny, and it is so, so much better than anything I could have come up with.

Which is the highest compliment I can make: Shusterman makes original choices and takes surprising veers through his story in a way that even I  — a jaded, blackhearted cynic — found moving. I wish I could write half so well. Better: I wish I could come up with characters half so endearing. Read this one already, wouldja?

Things That Make Me Absurdly Happy VIII

We went through a pretty heavy Pokemon stage in this household that still had legs deep into this, the fourth grade year. I’m a big believer in the Pokemon game as a teacher of reading, of math and of strategy.

I just never realized it could also be a teacher of Darwinism. Thanks, Threadless, for connecting the missing link for me!

OK, OK, we saw your epic movie. Now bring on that *other* ‘Avatar’ flick!

Yep, I joined the rest of humanity and saw “Avatar” this weekend. (In Real 3D, not regular 3D — but not XD, because that’s different, though it may be 3D, too? Hard to keep up with the new new…) Anyway, as I sat in a fully packed theater of a film in its fifth week of release, I experienced sort of what I expected.

In the words of my colleague Kat Achenbach: “visuals = POW! ; story = meh.”

Can’t really refute that. Strip “Avatar” of its visual effects, and you get blunt story manipulation that tells you what to feel now, and telegraphs what you’re going to feel in 10 minutes. Greedy corporations, evil! Bloodlusting soldiers, bad! Purehearted natives, good! Not a single surprise to be had for 3 hours. But I’ll give it this: Put those visuals back in, and I stop caring about the overt manipulation, cuz yeah, that was some beautiful glowing-planet porn right there.

(I am intensely curious how this film will play on home movie screens. That big-screen “wow” does all the heavy lifting, so without that, will “Avatar” feel too long, slow and small to warrant repeat viewings at home? It may take advances in the purported 3D TV before this movie is really worth a DVD purchase.)

I’ll admit that as a guy, even when I am cognizant that I’m being fed a pasty lump of story gruel, I’m happy to shelve those objections temporarily when, for example, robots and dinosaurs start blowing each other up.

Like eating too much chocolate, “Avatar” is pure indulgence, and I’m rarely opposed to pure indulgence. Just remember to brush and floss and move on to healthier food tomorrow.

Now that THAT is out of the way…

… let’s clear the decks for the movie of the other “Avatar”: the one that aired first, the one that lured director M. Night Shyamalan, and the one that knew damn well what to do with a story in the three seasons it ran on Nickelodeon.

“Avatar: The Last Airbender” may be the best cartoon epic ever. Combining pan-Asian aesthetics, long-form fantasy, fierce kung fu, bone-deep character development and comedy, this cartoon still gets repeat viewing requests in my house, from the 9-, 7-, 5 and 39-year old alike. Creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko designed themselves an American anime that rises above whatever expectations you may have upon hearing that label. This show, which debuted in 2005, is better than sizzle, it’s smart.

In an imaginary world where martial arts masters can control the elements of air, fire, earth and water, an Avatar is born into every generation who can control all four at once, and thus maintain the balance of power among the nations. After the newest Avatar is frozen in ice for 100 years, he emerges to discover that in his absence the Fire Nation laid siege to most of the world. This 12-year-old boy must now square off against the Fire Lord to stop his totalitarian rule. Along the way, Aang the Avatar meets a cast of deeply developed allies, adversaries and comic foils.

If you want to see 22 taut minutes of storytelling, use Netflix to lay your hands on the fourth disk of Season One to see episode 13, “The Blue Spirit,” which is one of the high points of the series. It’s got everything:

We open with Aang’s companions falling ill to a delusion-inducing fever. Jeopardy!

While he goes after a cure on his own, Aang gets captured by a Fire Nation admiral. Jeopardy times two!

His friends can’t save him — they’re getting sicker by the minute, and Aang carries the cure. But lo, who’s this?

A mysterious intruder! What follows is a furious kung-fu-fueled rescue with ingenious visuals and choreography. At one point, the escapees use giant bamboo ladders to stilt-step between ramparts. Energetic action!

Things get complicated when the Blue Spirit’s methods get murky. Drama!

By the end of the episode, Aang has to make some difficult decisions, endure some sacrifice, confront preconceived notions, and plumb deep feelings of loss and loneliness. Yeah, that’s a lot of ground to cover, but the way “Avatar” does it is graceful and genuine and satisfying. Oh, and it wraps up with a good gag, as Aang’s fevered friends get their cure in the form of frozen frogs to suck. Comedy!

Shyamalan must agree with my enthusiasm, because his live-action version (called “The Last Airbender” as a non-contest surrender in the name-recognition war) has a gorgeous trailer in advance of its July 2 release.

But the other “Avatar” is hogging so much airspace, I’ve barely heard a peep about this film for months. I haven’t gotten a single official e-mail update since I signed up for ‘em last summer. These images aren’t even official; just scraped-together flotsam from the Internet:

Apparently, I can expect a commercial during the Super Bowl, and I sure hope so. It’s time to take back the “Avatar” mindspace from the giant Smurf people!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Borings

I’m certainly no Potter-hater. And it’s not like my opinion would make one farthing of difference to J.K. Rowling’s economy if I were. So it’s purely as a lover of good books and movies that I say: Man, was that “Half-Blood Prince” movie a real yawner, or what?

Exactly! It's like looking in a mirror...

We just watched it on DVD late last night, which very nearly became early this morning, because this movie is so incredibly long, full of scene after scene that is no more than a checklist of “I remember that”s from the book. Do we care that Ron played Quidditch well? That the stalker chick pursues Ron again and again and again? Or even that Harry has a book that makes him super good at potions? (Which must be important enough that the book/movie was named for it; and yet it receives no more than two minutes of use, tops, with no explanation or closure by the finale.)

The action — or the lack thereof — is driven largely by Harry noticing someone looking suspicious, and then following that person to observe them. Harry and his Magical Scoobies always seem to have the best luck when stumbling into Suspicious Walkers and overhearing Vaguely Incriminating Statements or witnessing Plot Altering Events. At one point, dear old Maggie Smith asks them, “Why is it always you three?” to which the moviemakers throw up their hands, too, with a wink and a kind of “It’s the damnedest thing, ain’t it?” response.

Meanwhile, we spend most of the movie building the tension around the villain as he pulls a quilt off a magical cupboard not once, but three times: “Draco Malfoy and the Dramatic Unveilings.”

That’s just in the first two hours. In the final 30, we’re treated to a surprisingly uncharacteristic bit of action, swooping off to a mystery cave full of water zombies and magic lockets and demon rum. As in the book, this abrupt change of scenery felt like Rowling checking her clock and saying, “Oh crud! We haven’t done anything interesting yet, and the book’s almost over.” All the revelations came in a rushed and confused tumble. Where is this cave? How did we find it? Why does Harry have to come along and not, say, Snape or Lupin or Flitwick, or hell, all of ‘em? Come to think of it, how many horcruxes have we found already? Do we have any clues about where or what they might be?

All of those questions would have made great cobblestones underfoot of a hero’s quest beginning around page 50 or so. But the real magic of Harry Potter, I suppose, is that audiences have bought so thoroughly into the character of the Boy Who Lived, that Rowling can make her bank on snogging and homework and after-school sports, using just the rarest of dollops of actual journey.

Thankfully, HBP has a sprinkling of treats to make it re-watchable, which I’m sure I will find myself doing as my kids read these books and earn the privilege to watch the movie. It’s clear that Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson have grown into some acting chops as their Harry and Hermione give a deft line reading here, a nuanced facial expression there, that expresses deeper emotion. Nice.

And the film-making is beautiful to watch. Like the other Potter installments, the sets are tasty enough to eat, with lingering shots upon something gothic, grotesque or gorgeous. I like in particular this shot, of Malfoy walking off to his final lonely fate, while the rest of Hogwarts lives on in blissful innocence and shadow snogging:

The depth of field, the lightness and darkness, the contrast in attitudes; it’s like a study in Neoclassical painting, isn’t it? In the end, though, the Harry Potter movies really have become like paintings to me: beautiful canvases that are wide, but not even a little bit deep.

What’s better than Scrabble? Here’s my two QINTARS worth

You know: a QINTAR, that Albanian unit of currency, 1/100th of a lek … and one of the few Scrabble words that uses Q without a U.

Anyway, I like Scrabble well enough. As word guy, I kind of have to. Haven’t played in forever, but I recently enjoyed a viewing of “Word Wars,” the 2004 documentary about competitive Scrabble. This is great way to spend 80 minutes.

Like “The King of Kong,” the 2007 movie about video game addicts striving for the world’s best Donkey Kong score, “Word Wars” follows four Scrabble masters on the tournament circuit, documenting all the egoists, nutjobs and neurotics who devote themselves wholly to the pursuit of something that doesn’t pay very well.

It’s both a little inspiring and a little depressing. Are these the luckiest guys in the world because they excel at a game they love to play? Or are they driven by demons to pursue unattainable perfection?

Is passion a blessing, or is it a curse?

Well, either way, I know that many people who might otherwise enjoy a word game think of Scrabble like this:

"Well, This Just Really Sucks," T-Shirt from Threadless.com

For those people, I have an amazing solution: Clockwords, the world’s most awesome online word game. It’s more fun to play than read about, so I’ll make this quick.

Clockwords is Scrabble plus Space Invaders. Like Scrabble, you’re given a few letters to work with, but you can type any word using any letters. Use the letters you’ve been given, and you get bonuses. In the game, the words you type empower a machine that runs on language. Once you give it words, that machine fires upon little clockwork spiders that are invading your lab and stealing your stuff. Simple, right?

OK, but there’s an extra element that appeals to the tinkerer, the futzer, the optimizer in all of us. Because as you play, you earn the individual letters that appear randomly in those chambers next to the gun. To optimize the variety of letters you can use — and to get letters with special damage powers — you have to switch over to “The Boiler,” a steampunk chemistry set for words.

Here’s where the magic is. The field on the left is like the bag of tiles from Scrabble — these are the only letters you’ll be given in the game, and you can mix and match this array any way you like. Like Scrabble, certain letters have more power because they are harder to use. If you want a super-damaging Q or Z, you have to “transmute” sets of lower-power letters (combine them). If I were to transmute that Q and Z up there? They would turn into a low-level letter made of “brass,” like that E and A at the bottom. Brass letters explode and spread the damage. Jade letters (the lime-green L) provide greater oomph per letter.

This bit of tinkering is what makes the game for me. What letters do I want to see in my rack? What can I work with? Am I not getting enough easy letters? Do I have too many Ls or Us? Do I need more power letters, or do I have too many?

You can judge my success for yourself. Note that while I failed level 34, I totally killed with QUANTIFY. Man, 423 points? That’s smokin’. (Can you do better?)

The two greatest things I saw this Christmas

“Compatible with Wü” – Oldest Boy got Lego Rock Band and a cheap third-party guitar. The guitar maker must not have had the authority to use the name Wii, but this solution had us in hysterics on Christmas morn. (Also, the box reads “When play Guitar Hero 3 games, the glissandi will no function due to the game limit.” I should probably be grateful they didn’t spell due “do“.)

On the trip between Cincinnati and Chicago, we also got to witness Windmills in the Mist.

This is the barest tip of the massive Meadow Lake Wind Farm in White County, Indiana, just north of Lafayette. We came upon it first at night, and were baffled by the rows and rows of red lights blinking in unison. Faint back-lighting from a nearby town just barely allowed us to see the outlines of those massive blades. It was an awe-inspiring sight.

Just look at these beauties (as seen on the Very Blustery Day we passed them on the way home):

The effect of the rows upon rows (totaling 121, apparently) of windmills was lost amid the snowstorm, but it gave me goosebumps nonetheless.

According to the Horizon Wind corporate site:

Meadow Lake has an installed capacity of 200 megawatts – enough to power approximately 60,000 average Indiana homes with clean energy each year. … The electricity generated by the wind farm is sold into the regional wholesale market. The associated energy credits are used by businesses and organizations to comply with state renewable energy mandates or to voluntarily reduce the environmental impact of their operations.

Well, I say, “Wü hü.”

No, the Golden Globes did not snub ‘Star Trek’

Since the Golden Globe nominees were announced last week, I’ve seen a number of references to J.J. Abrams’  getting “snubbed” in the best director category for his “Star Trek” reboot — even that it should have gotten a “best picture” nom.

Now, I’m a big J.J. fan. His “Alias” and “Lost” shows are high-water marks in popular culture. I even sort of enjoyed his “Mission Impossible” installment (marred only by his penchant for the ol’ “perfect-disguise face swapping” trope). And I’m even a reasonably big Trek fan. But this movie was not the finest hour for either.

“Star Trek” is undeniably a brilliant reboot, which makes it a notable accomplishment all on its own. It manged to make this creaky old franchise relevant again, by introducing characters with depth and a sense of urgency about them. Chris Pine as Capt. Kirk is one of those surprise performances that make you rethink the character you know so well; outside of Trek circles (and heck, even inside some) Kirk had become kind of synonymous with buffoonish swagger and scenery chewing. Pine makes him crackle, to use a noxious reviewer word.

If anything, J.J. and his writers — Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman — deserved Globes, even Oscars, for the category “Best Character Development in an Overstuffed Ensemble.” Movie-makers should take notes on how the entire herd of A- and B-list Trek characters makes an appearance and has something relevant to do. Nobody is window dressing. No character is on screen simply as part of a fanboy checklist. That alone is a rare and satisying outcome of this reboot.

Tension stayed high throughout, as well. Someone was always in deep doodoo, and it never felt tiresome. (I’m not sure how they accomplished this. When Something Perilous is always On The Verge of Happening, it can make the story feel cheap and manipulative, but I found the constant jeopardy of the crew to be plausible, which makes it enjoyable. Another kudos, you writers.)

While good characters are usually more important than good plot, it’s the plot that sinks this movie’s Globe hopes, in my opinion. The story ball gets dropped squarely on the plot and its vanilla villain. Eric Bana makes the most of the tattooed brooder, Nero, but ultimately he has little evil-doing to do. There’s a time travel element, and a years-of-simmering-revenge element, and even an appearance by Nimoy himself, but none of these things covers up the fact that the plot drivers were directing traffic from the back seat. Given how carefully the characters were developed, I was a bit surprised that the central story felt so casually dashed out.

But maybe that’s the point. Perhaps the evil villain and his dish-served-cold weren’t the central story at all. Maybe J.J. thinks the character coalescence is really the hero’s quest in this film. Maybe if I think of it this way, I’ll enjoy the second viewing a whole lot more than the first.

"Fire everything ... at the Golden Globes committee!"

Comics for the half-pints: What lights the fires of my little readers

Last time, we learned that comics were good for kids; yet I lamented the aging up of most modern comics and the dearth of really great kid stuff. But that’s just a relative dearth, my friends, and there have been many things that have caught and held the attention of my little ones, even Oldest Boy who (until recently) was a reluctant reader.

Representing readers who are 9, 7, 5 (and 39), here is the Scott family hit parade:

1. Runaways

This series created by writer Brian K. Vaughn and artist Adrian Alphona for Marvel is one of the first books Oldest Son asked for. At 8, he actually finished the first volume and sought out others I own. Though originally sold under Marvel’s “All Ages” line, “Runaways” has since lost that marketing demarcation because the stories and situations do trend a little older (but not too much).

The premise is one of those that’s-just-so-killer ideas that every writer wishes he had: When a group of bored kids discover that their parents are actually supervillains, they run away from home and try to atone for the sins of their fathers (and mothers). Vaughn created compelling characters on such a compelling mission that when he stepped away from writing duties, none other than Joss Whedon himself asked to take over.

Marvel originally made its bank with a comic about a teen superhero (perhaps you’ve heard of Spider-Man?), and “Runaways” honors those roots well with a set of modern kids from 8 to something less than 18. They’re sarcastic, bored, beset by teen ennui and heartache. When they start to get too mopey, a fight breaks out, a bad guy gets stomped, zippy dialog gets zipped, and things trip right along. A reminder: It’s still more a teen book than a kid book, and it may lead down roads you’d rather not walk with your kids. Sex is spoken of obliquely (though canoodling is practiced often), and a few characters are gay. This generally runs below the radar, except for one storyline in volume 7 that features one gay character struggling with an arranged marriage with a member of the opposite sex.

This is no problem for my household. “Runaways” meant reading and reading is good. Here are two Runaways covers that indicated just how much range and anything-goes glee this series is capable of. Is it superhero action? Teen drama? Chick lit? the answer: Yes.

One more piece of evidence. Just take a look at this gorgeous preview from one of the later volumes. With a real economy of image and word, you can figure out all the main characters: who’s lovelorn, who’s a doofus, who’s a leader, who’s a cutie-pie 8-year-old super-strong mutant with a penchant for cosplay kitty hats. These characters have always been characters first, superheroes second, and that’s just good storytelling.

2. Bone

How’s this for a great story:

1. Independent cartoonist self-publishes his own black-and-white fantasy comic.

2. Rather than bankrupting him, as the odds would dictate, the comic gains a loyal following and survives to be collected in 9 thick trade paperback books that sell admirably well for $20 a pop.

3. Years later, mega-publisher Scholastic takes an interest. They colorize the books, shrink them to digest size, cut the price in half, and market them like crazy to kids in stores and book fairs. Popularity goes through the roof.

Everyone should own a few copies of the “Bone” series based on the price-to-value ratio alone, let alone the delicious storytelling for all ages within. The story is part Tolkien-esque fantasy, part Walt Kelly “Pogo” comic strip. (I resisted these books at first because I thought they were a rip-off of my much-loved Pogo comics. Boy was that dumb.) Oldest Boy and I have enjoyed the whole series.

Writer-artist Jeff Smith strikes an incredible balance between fantasy storytelling — dragons, evil rat creatures, talking animals, medieval villages and the rest — with silly Sunday funnies. The hero, an amorphous white blob-thing called Fone Bone, is simultaneously cuter, funnier and deeper than Mickey Mouse himself. You can tell the original comics were self-published because Smith often takes pages to dwell on some small but gorgeous detail, some wee bit of action, or just some leisurely sight gag. Major publishers would never let this kind of fat go untrimmed, but in a “Bone” book, it isn’t fat, it’s luxury.

The story begins very breezy and light: the adorable Bone creatures get lost in a valley beset by evil creatures yet buoyed by funny, charming people destined to greatness. It begins to bog down in later volumes with magical-fueled plotting that makes up its own rules as it goes, but the story remains quite readable, and kids and adults alike find the characters too compelling to put down. They’re just too irresistible. The art is consistently amazing, switching at will between goofy Disney cartoon and breathtaking landscapes. Pages of panels will sometimes employ a movie-like “fixed POV” where the “camera angle” stays the same while small, almost insignificant details change from panel to panel. The effect is like watching a movie at times.

Through no coincidence, Warner Brothers is working on what may be a trilogy of “Bone” movies. Consider that a book that could give you ACTION …

… and BEAUTY …

… is also capable of clever COMEDY:

It should be a lock for a blockbuster.

3. The Incredibles

BOOM! Studios is ignoring conventional wisdon by being a startup company (founded: 2005) with a significant portion of its wares aimed at a kid audience. Thanks to a license with Disney/Pixar, it publishes several familiar character stories, including an “Incredibles” series by EIC and comix legend Mark Waid. “Licensed story” often means “cheap cash grab” or “boring, under-thought plot” but under BOOM! the stories are just as fun and smart as the source material.

You know who loves this? Youngest Daughter. (I’ve already mentioned she’s a sucker for the movie, that wonderful, discriminating little wonder.) BOOM! also released a successful Muppet Show title that (shh!) Youngest Daughter will find in her stocking this year.

4. Tiny Titans

Art Baltazar is responsible for 90% of the cuteness in the galaxy. Just look at his cast pic of the Tiny Titans, the shrimp-sized version of DC’s Teen Titans:

Awww! The Tiny Titans monthly comic is rather uncategorizable. Baltazar’s super-sweet art aims in two directions: at the ankle-biter set, as well as adults who can appreciate the irony and comedy of  turning angsty teens into kindergarten stick figures. The jokes split that difference, too, as one part Bazooka gum wrapper, one part deep inside joke. My boys liked the comic cuteness — it’s Twinkie-sweetness didn’t put them off at all; I think they totally got the humor behind it.

I don’t always get the DC inside jokes, but Baltazar and author Franco (he of the single name) remember their classic Harvey comics well enough that these super-light reads still have more in common with Richie Rich and Capser than a DC Comics superfan panel at Comic Con.

That’s not all

These are just what’s clicked in my house. There is more to choose from out there: the amazing classic Disney comics by Carl Barks still hold up — these are the old Uncle Scrooge adventures to strange lands, and man, they don’t make ‘em like that any more. We’ve dabbled in more old stuff like Tintin and Asterix, though the jokes were either a little highfalutin or dated for Oldest Boy to connect with. (We’ll try again in a year.) And heck, even Archie, still exists in all his undead variations:

If you can’t find something to read, it isn’t Archie Comics’ fault. Youngest Daughter maintains a perpetual fascination with Betty & Veronica, though she remains a bit unsure about those oafish Riverdale boys.

The choices are there. Now, what are you planning to buy the little nippers on your list Christmas?

The childishness of comics, or: Hey, Kids! Comics aren’t just for you any more

A recent University of Illinois study supports what I already knew to be true: Comics are just as useful as books to foster good reading habits in kids.

Here’s my hero, professor Carol Tilley:

… and she says:

“Any book can be good and any book can be bad, to some extent. It’s up to the reader’s personality and intellect. As a whole, comics are just another medium, another genre … If you really consider how the pictures and words work together in consonance to tell a story, you can make the case that comics are just as complex as any other kind of literature.”

This is great news for dads like me who need ways to engage a reluctant reader (or who just, you know, like seeing kids be happy when they read). But it’s no surprise either. Comics are just like any pretty medium that can catch the eye, and pretty things always make children stop and gawk.

There’s just one problem: the variety of comics available for kids is teeny weeny compared to picture books, chapter books, video games and Disney Channel sitcoms.

Where did all the kid stuff go?

If you want to make a comics fan cringe, tell him, “Hey, didja know comics aren’t just for kids anymore?” Yeah, no kidding, pal. Comics haven’t been for kids for about 25 years.

Sure, they used to be. Under the Comics Code Authority (a ’50s era self-censorship stricture the industry foisted upon itself to avoid government regulation), comics were restrained by a preachy, black-and-white morality. The result was pure goofy kids stuff. But those kids who loved it grew up, and their comics followed suit, bringing along murder most foul, torture, rape, pillaging and … social issues. You know, characters could be gay and stuff.

(For posterity’s sake: Note that independent comics have a long history of doing all this and more. But R. Crumb’s butts-and-shrooms fixation of the ’60s and Will Eisner-esque hard-knock biographies of the ’80s were never considered great early-reader material anyway.)

The fact remains, though, that comics are a compelling medium for kids — superhero comics even more so. After all, that kid-to-comic loyalty is what made the industry viable to begin with. Art Spiegleman, the living legend of comics who gave us the Maus graphic novels, recently edited a volume of classic pulp-era comics, and in a recent interview he captures the nostalgia-fueled love comics fan have for their funnybooks:

“Comic books were considered the most disposable ephemera, yet clearly those who grew up with them cherished them,” Spiegelman said. “It seems like some of the most important literature for children in the middle of the 20th century is in these comic books.”

That’s some love, right? Yet comics has precious little to offer its younger readers these days. Why? It’s tough to be a competitive medium when:

A.)  Parents and other media gatekeepers still dismiss you as “disposable ephemera.” That is, until …

B.) … those gatekeepers reconnect with you expecting a nostalgic visit to their youth, but are shocked by the density and adult themes of modern fare.

C.) Comics companies put out “all-ages” books intended for younger readers that wither and get canceled because the market can’t support it. The young readers are out of the habit of reading you!

Not all is lost. My young readers and I have found good comics as more companies and creators get experimental with attracting young eyeballs. Author Michael Chabon (I’ve geeked about him before) has come around to the same way of thinking. In 2004 he gave a fairly famous address at the Eisner comics awards where he lamented, “Children did not abandon comics; comics, in their drive to attain respect and artistic accomplishment, abandoned children. … Now, I think, we have simply lost the habit of telling stories to children.” Strong and cynical, but he’s come around a bit since then;  in a recent interview he said:

Since I gave that talk – entirely coincidentally, I’m sure – tons of cool stuff has emerged. When my kids go to the comic book store … they find all kinds of cool stuff. … Even the Big Two (Marvel and DC), seem to be putting out a fairly consistent line of titles aimed at younger readers. And there’s all kinds of cool independent books as well.

I like his point about how a lifelong love of comics can loop back into the creation of high-quality material:

I think all of the popular media I grew up enjoying were sort of mature mediums in the sense that they were being created by people who had grown up loving the stuff to begin with. You know, that can be a blessing and a curse, and some things can get overly fan-ish and vanish up their own posterior orifices, but it can also be a recipe for really savvy and multi-layered kinds of storytelling.

I agree, and my kids and I have enjoyed some savvy, multi-layered comics for kids. Next post, I’ll illuminate some of our collective favorites. Stay tuned, and keep your Christmas shopping list handy.