I was tempted to start this piece by discussing which cost me more on an ongoing basis: my six year old son, or my comics reading habit?

Well, I know which gives me more joy, more grief, more thrills and more heartache and, with all due respect to Warren Ellis, it's not PLANETARY.

However, over the past year or so, the two things I least begrudge spending money on have collided violently. Not literally (though we came close the other day when my little engine of destruction almost ran straight into a huge pile of my comics...) but figuratively, since he's now started to ask me to read him a comic book when he goes to bed. Now, I've so far avoided TRANSMET and BARRY WEEN, but it has forced me to think seriously about what I should read to him, and get him to read to me.

Because, of course, at six years old, he's now reading to his mother and me.

It's brought to mind a question that often gets asked among comics fans and professionals: why don't children read more comic books?

OK, the obvious answer to that one is that their parents don't buy comic books for the children to read. But that's a vicious circle, and doesn't address the main issue.

'I'm staggered anyone thinks a child can learn to read from comics.' One of the problems, of course, in analysing the relationship between comics and children, and specifically how to get children to read comics, is that it's almost inevitable that for the adult that's making the judgement call, his or her own prejudices will come into play. Leaving aside the question of whether it's important for children to read comics, as opposed to any other form of writing, two of the most common arguments offered in support of getting children to read comics are:

(1) it teaches them to read; and...

(2) it's tough enough getting kids to read anything. It's more likely that they'll read something that has pictures as well.

I'm unsure which of these arguments irritates me more. For a start, I'm fairly staggered that anyone could honestly think that a child actually learns to read from comics. What do they learn? That, with the exception of some Marvel books, you only use lower case when someone's whispering? That grammar and punctuation is optional? That, despite British parents maintaining that the word colour has a 'u' in it, Spider-Man disagrees?

The second argument is as daft an argument as I've ever heard. If a child wants to read, then a story with pictures in it may well help them understand the story. If a child isn't interested in reading, the pictures may even get them interested in what's going on in the story. What it won't do is get the child reading the words if he or she doesn't want to read them.

What is a suitable comic for a child to read? I know that if you asked twenty comics professionals, you'd get some common answers. And if you asked a group of comics readers, you'd get some more titles suggested, and some of them would be the same as suggested by comics professionals.

But you know what? I'd lay odds that there would be some titles suggested that some would decry and yet others condemn.

After all, that's exactly what happens when you ask what titles adults should be reading...

So, as I said above, you come to the inevitable conclusion that what an adult read and enjoyed as a child will influence what the adult suggests for the child to read. "It was good enough for me!" comes the cry. Or even "Well, I liked it..." However, this neglects one simple, obvious, crucial point; one that should be conclusive in its effect: they don't make the same comics any more that we read as children.

'Have comics changed so much that kids don't want to read them?' What? You disagree? You, over there in London. You cite THE BEANO, THE DANDY and 2000AD as good examples? And you, in New York? You offer The X-MEN, SUPERMAN and BATMAN as equally good examples.

However, not one of those titles has remained unchanged over the past, say, thirty years. Now, usually that's a wonderful thing for us adults. We've seen the illusion of change in the characters, but nothing other than illusion.

But let's just take one of the books I mentioned above: X-MEN. Pick up a recent issue of Grant Morrison's NEW X-MEN and what are you going to read about? Cyclops using his optic blast to blow the head of a mutant apart to save him from an otherwise excruciatingly painful death. A few pages later, you see the obliteration of tens of millions of people. An issue earlier, we were fortunate enough to see Professor Xavier pull out a firearm and threaten to fire it through his head to prevent being 'taken over' by an evil mutant.

Does anyone seriously want to dig out a copy of an X-MEN book from 30 years ago and say that anything comparable is in there?

Now don't get me wrong - I really enjoy Morrison's work. All I'm saying is that I wouldn't choose to read it to my son. Or to give it to him to read to me.

That won't surprise Morrison. He said in a recent Wizard interview that his target audience is 14-year-olds. (Not sure what that says about me, but that's a subject for another time.)

So let's get this 'comics haven't changed' crap out of the way right now. Yes, they have changed. But have they changed to the extent that children wouldn't want to read them, or wouldn't understand what the hell it is that they're reading?

I happen to think that there are both UK and US produced comics that are good for children to read, both in terms of sparking a nascent imagination and in terms of enhancing a child's already existing reading skills. ALISON DARE is a prime example, as is the licensed POWERPUFF GIRLS comic.

But, even if the parent does find a comic they're happy for the child to read, the problem comes with getting the kid to read them. So, what makes a child interested in a specific comic?

Well, as with any writer, I do my research, and in this case, I'm lucky enough to have a willing assistant. He's the six year old son I mentioned at the start of this piece. Say hello, Philip.

...

There you go. One word from me and he does exactly what he wants. Well, since I'm not going to wait for him to finish watching SCOOBY DOO on telly, I'd better refer back to the other night when, as I was putting him to bed, I asked him why he liked reading some books and not others.

'Why did Philip have problems reading comics? The answer was simple...' To my real surprise, the answers were ones that I'd not considered previously. For a start, as far as Philip was concerned, there's a big difference between 'reading' a comic book, i.e. understanding what's going on in the story, and 'reading' the comic book, meaning actually reading one word at a time, and linking it to the artwork.

In a tribute to the artists, and their interpretation of the script (for which the writer also deserves credit), Philip didn't have a lot of problems in understanding some comic book stories, even just by looking at the pictures. I should say that at this stage, I'm limiting these comments to the US 'animation' style comic books like SUPERMAN ADVENTURES, GOTHAM ADVENTURES and X-MEN: EVOLUTION.

So why did he have problems actually reading the books? The answer, when it came, was simple in one respect but no less far-reaching. And it astonished me. It was something that had never occurred to me, and when I asked around, with friends, and other comics fans, not one of them had considered it either.

To quote Philip: "The words are too small."

Now this confused the hell out of me when he first said it. Did he mean that the words are too simple? No, he meant exactly what he said. The words are too small. The typeface is literally too small for him to comfortably read. And though both his parents wear glasses, according to his latest eye check his sight is fine.

And then, to test the hypothesis, I grabbed something that I bought a while back, Jill Thompson's The Little Endless. Yes, it's a prose book with painted art, rather than a comic book, but Philip read it happily to me, giggling away, asking me questions throughout. When I asked him why this was so much easier to read, his response, as expected, was: "The words are bigger..."

Could it really be that simple? Could we get more children reading comic books if it was just easier to read them?

It's something to think about.

Lee Barnett is an accountant and comic book writer. His first story for Marvel appears in X-MEN UNLIMITED, due on the shelves in August.

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