The media in the US has been abuzz for the past couple of years with stories about "tweens". That's people between the ages of 9-12, and they're the newest demographic to be targeted by advertisers. They're young, media savvy, and these days they have a disposable income. In fact, they spend an estimated $100 billion a year, and that's before you consider how their tastes influence family consumer purchases.

They are the reason that dozens of movies, TV shows and musical acts every year feature teenagers and pre-teens, in an attempt to create and build upon a market for this audience. They are why the Olsen Twins are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. They are why Hilary Duff and Amanda Bynes and Mandy Moore are plastered on the cover of every other magazine on the stands.

These kids are raised on the Disney brand, watch the WB network, go to Britney Spears concerts and read Teen People, outfitted in Gap Kids and Sketchers. They IM each other on their computers, tote around cell phones, and don't know that Michael Jackson used to be a musician unless their parents tell them.

Supposedly, they're too busy playing video games and watching TV to be bothered with something like reading. That's the reason they haven't read a comic since their parents picked up an ARCHIE digest for them years ago. Of course there's a wide selection of manga books that have been selling millions of copies for a few years now, but they don't count since they don't get listed on the Diamond bestseller list.

'Tweens are young, media savvy, and spend an estimated $100 billion a year.' The truth, of course, is that we happen to be in a golden age of children's and young adult literature. Some people have babbled for years about how kids don't care about reading. But there are others out there who have been busy writing books. Great books. And they're finding a very receptive audience.

Sure, JK Rowling has more books in print that almost any other living writer, and last year released her fifth Harry Potter book in the largest first printing in the history of publishing. To say nothing of being the basis for one of the most insanely successful franchises in movie history. But Rowling is so unbelievably successful that, if it were just her, it would be easy to write it off.

But then there's Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials Trilogy, a worldwide bestseller whose last volume won the Whitbread Prize for Best Book of the Year in the UK. There's Eion Colfer's Artemis Fowl books, featuring a twelve year old genius and his manservant Butler fighting fairies who have gone underground and high tech.

There's the perverse joy in every page of Lemony Snicket's A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS and the eeriness of Neil Gaiman's CORALINE. There are books by Laurie Halse Anderson, Sarah Dessen, David Levithan, Louis Sachar and others, all of whom are writing the books that will be the classics of tomorrow. Then there's Megan McCafferty, Louise Rennison, and Cecily Von Ziegeser, each of whom throw away better work than could be found in the pages of Marvel's recent TROUBLE miniseries.

Maybe it's not entirely the fault of the comic companies that they don't understand what's happening and have failed to take advantage of the situation. That barometer of the cultural zeitgeist, entertainment journalism - an oxymoron to put "jumbo shrimp" in the shade - seems equally incapable to understand the market or the popularity of these books. The journalists recycle what the publicists have told them, and the critics seem to show little understanding of the process that the storytellers undergo in trying to write for children in an increasingly corporate environment that seeks to marginalize creativity in favour of marketing.

'We happen to be in a golden age of children's and young adult literature.' So what can the companies do except turn to consultants and marketing experts who don't know anything either, but will at least say with a straight face that they know what the kids want. Most of what they come up with isn't very insightful, and much of it fails, but the eye is always on finding the formula that will best increase the profit margin.

And the phenomenon isn't restricted to book publishers. In comics it presents itself in the form of "manga-like" artwork. (Or is "manga-inspired" the right phrase? They're both meaningless, but the phrase should at least sound good.) It presents itself in the form of more collections and an emphasis on bookstore distribution. The idea that this is the key to the success of real manga is absurd, of course, as it ignores the most blatantly obvious difference between manga and American comics; Manga is not about superhero stories.

Right now there are millions of kids who are obsessed with Harry Potter and books of its kind. They're not going to be satisfied by bodybuilders in spandex beating each other up. They're a tough audience, but the truth is that if the comics industry really took a step back from the tunnel vision that dominates the business, and took a good, hard look at what kids are really interested in, then they might be able to produce something that'll fit better with what this audience is after. And I'm not talking here about just one book every few months, but a true, concerted effort to produce comics aimed at that audience.

American publishers are at least trying to make some effort to put a dent in the 'tween' market, or to acknowledge that such a market exists beyond the die-hard, Previews-reading, message board-haunting comics fans, but they're not moving fast enough or pushing hard enough.

DC is taking aim at young kids with digest collections of THE POWERPUFF GIRLS and SCOOBY-DOO. A number of small publishers are putting out titles as the Gilbert Hernandez-edited MEASLES, Paul Dini's JINGLE BELLE, Crossgen's MERIDIAN and SCION, and Image's LEAVE IT TO CHANCE. Creators like Mike Brennan, Ted Naifeh, Jeff Smith, Jill Thompson, J Torres and Trina Robbins are all producing the right kind of work, even if they remain hugely outnumbered by an industry still focused on making product for a superhero audience that just isn't going to grow.

As absurd as it sounds, the major American comic book companies seem intent on forfeiting an audience that every company in every other industry is desperate to target.

Alex Dueben is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer.

This article is Ideological Freeware. The author grants permission for its reproduction and redistribution by private individuals on condition that the author and source of the article are clearly shown, no charge is made, and the whole article is reproduced intact, including this notice.