Seven-year-old child reviews comics
This could be a short-lived gimmick, or it could be the Dionne quintuplets for our day. In The Kid’s Comic Book Reviews a man lets his seven-year-old son read comics and then transcribes his thoughts.
Robin is a cool superhero because he gets to hang out with Batman and beat up bad guys but he also isn’t a grown up. I like that.
What I didn’t like is that Robin really didn’t get into any fights with anyone. He did meet with the Penguin and paid him to find Batman, which was neat, but I thought it would have been better if he got into a fight with him. The only people that Robin got to fight were a bunch of regular crooks that weren’t anything special. I’d like to see Robin get to fight some cooler bad guys like Batman does.
It was a little hard to read when the story took place in the cave and when Nightwing and Robin were out of costume talking to the bad guys and trying to make deals. It was tough to follow at some places and it was a bit boring except for the parts where Robin was in the city trying to find Batman.
08/12/08 at 2:38 pm
My girls have been reviewing comics on Newsarama for a few years now. The column is called All Ages Reads:
http://www.newsarama.com/comics/080619-AllAgesReads.html
http://www.newsarama.com/comics/080721-AllAgesReads.html
All columns archived at allagesreads.blogspot.com
Tracy
08/12/08 at 7:37 pm
Look, I’ve only got time to read one set of kid’s reviews. Somebody get back to me on which one has better grades.
08/12/08 at 9:07 pm
The kid isn’t named Jess Lemon I hope.
08/12/08 at 10:06 pm
There’s an inner 7 year old in me that reviewed this “Robin” much the same way when I saw it at Border’s.
I think one reason kids don’t read the mainstream superhero books is because the stories/artwork/whatever is boring. But then again this is something that comics have always faced. Osamu Tezuka used to face the same issues when he wrote and drew stories for “Astro Boy”.
08/12/08 at 11:10 pm
Seven year olds use the word “crooks”?
08/12/08 at 11:43 pm
I recommend Tracy’s All Ages reads.
They’ve been doing it for years and the kids “Get it”.
Also…the books are aimed at All Ages.
The books the other guy is reviewing seems to be way beyond what a 7 year old SHOULD be reading.
08/13/08 at 12:58 am
Out of all the kids that I teach, in all the classes, they all read something different, but non of them are into DC titles. They all loved the Dark Night movie (the older ones) but they’re still sticking with Manga, Marvel, and even Archie. They don’t care what I think, or what anyone is saying on the internet and they aren’t going to take any time to dig deeper. They just know if they outright like it or don’t like it, and they vote with their money. End of story.
08/13/08 at 11:05 am
Thanks to everyone for checking out his blog. He’s been absolutely thrilled with all the feedback he’s received so far, especially from some of the pros whose work he’s reviewed.
As far as what he should or shouldn’t be reading, as Scott pointed out, I don’t pick the books for him. Unless he tries to read something like Punisher or Kick-Ass (which he has tried to pick up because he liked seeing ‘Kick-Ass’ on a cover and he thinks Punisher is cool) I let him choose what he wants.
He’s an intelligent kid. He followed the plot of Dark Knight and understood some of the more subtle details of the film even better than my father, haha. He does this with a lot of movies. And he has similar tastes with comics. He likes to be challenged by what he watches and what he reads, so if something looks like it may be harder for him to process, I don’t try to talk him out of it.
I didn’t think he would like Venom: Dark Origins because the symbiote isn’t in the book and that’s what he likes. But he actually enjoyed it and he ‘got’ it. He would have preferred if the symbiote was in the book, sure, but he still enjoyed what he read and was able to understand everything that happened in the story. His choices and reactions often surprise me but I like it that way.
08/14/08 at 1:10 pm
A rebuttal…
And now, via The Beat, a rebuttal (of sorts) to the 12-year-old girl demographic’s view of the comic shop by the seven-year-old boy demographic.
I’m sure you’ll be shocked at what you’ll find.
For another perspective, All Ages R…
08/15/08 at 3:20 pm
[…] The Beat had a number of interesting items for us to consider. First, there’s a story about a seven year old boy reviewing comics. If you want to know what is really what, ask a kid. They will tell you everything they think. (There are also two young girls and their mother who review comics on Newsrama called All-Ages Reads, as well.) Also, Nickelodeon has kids-choice comic awards? […]