Jumping on the “Comics for Kids” Bandwagon —Naomi Hamer Brit, Fanny. Jane, the Fox and Me. Illus. Isabelle 978-0-14-317779-1. Print. Arsenault. Trans. Christelle Morelli and Susan Lang, John. Lone Hawk: The Story of Air Ace Billy Ouriou. Toronto: Groundwood, 2012. 101 pp. Bishop; A Graphic Novel. Toronto: Penguin, 2011. $19.95 hc. ISBN 978-1-55498-360-5. Print. 97 pp. $15.00 pb. ISBN 978-0-14-317466-0. Davila, Claudia. Luz Makes a Splash. Toronto: Kids, Print. 2012. 96 pp. $16.95 hc. ISBN 978-1-55453-762-4. Robertson, David Alexander. 7 Generations: A Plains Print. Cree Saga. Illus. Scott B. Henderson. Winnipeg: Davila, Claudia. Luz Sees the Light. Toronto: Kids, HighWater, 2012. 136 pp. $32.00 hc. ISBN 978-1- 2011. 95 pp. $16.95 hc. ISBN 978-1-55453-581-1. 55379-355-7. Print. Print. Robertson, David Alexander. 7 Generations: The Pact. Dawson, Willow. Hyena in Petticoats: The Story Illus. Scott B. Henderson. Winnipeg: HighWater, of Suffragette Nellie McClung; A Graphic Novel. 2011. 30 pp. $12.95 pb. ISBN 978-1-55379-230-7. Toronto: Penguin, 2011. 95 pp. $15.00 pb. ISBN Print. On 1 October 2011, The Beguiling, Toronto’s landmark kids!” (Little Island Comics). The headline of a Globe comic book store, opened Little Island Comics, a sister and Mail article published during the opening week bookstore that, in focusing exclusively on material of the store announced that, “At Little Island Comics, geared to young readers under the age of twelve, They’re Giving Superheroes Back to the Kids” (Dixon). claims to be “the world’s first comic book store for In this article, Guy Dixon bemoans the dark “adult” Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures 5.2 (2013) 165 tone and mature content of contemporary comic texts with the design, educational agenda, and curatorial and graphic novels. This new store, he suggests, is a practices traditionally associated with children’s fantasy respite for young people and comic superheroes bookstore and library collections. Peter Birkemoe, alike: “There’s a new little store in the Annex where owner of The Beguiling, highlights the pedagogic Spiderman and his fellow leotard-clad superhero friends agenda behind the new comic bookstore: “People are can take a break from the hard, dark times of the last 40 focusing on how well-suited this medium is to children years.” In a similar vein, Matt Demers, on the Torontoist who are learning how to read, or perhaps learning website, uses a folksy tone—one often associated with English for the first time. People who are usually fantasy narratives for children—to idealize the store as involved with young readers, like teachers, school a whimsical space in which families read together: “In librarians and parents, are sort of waking up to the fact the Annex, past Honest Ed’s and just down Bathurst that comics are perfectly suited for this” (qtd. in Dixon). Street, there’s a little island. An island where books The eclectic stock of the store reflects its potential spur imagination and parents are welcome to learn clientele of families with young children, adult comic right alongside their kids.” The interior design of the collectors, librarians, and teachers: recent popular store echoes this nostalgic discourse of family literacy comic series such as Bone, translated Japanese manga, and imaginative print-based learning, paradigms that vintage comic series such as Tin Tin and Asterix, graphic preceded the advent of cellphones and video games: novel adaptations of classic literature, picture books that bright colours, small-case lettering on signage, clean integrate comic elements, French-language texts, and a sightlines, and low-level display shelves to invite book significant number of Canadian comics aimed at young browsing by young people constitute the primary readers are available. A notable selection of its stock aesthetic. Not unlike children’s programs at the public includes texts produced by non-traditional publishers of library (such as hands-on art workshops, book signings, comics, including Canadian children’s book publishers and other family-oriented activities), public events held such as Kids Can Press and Groundwood Books. at the store also build on this family literacy message. In The recent creation of this comic bookstore for addition, bookstore staff members offer library services kids reflects changing trends in the production and to assist with the selection of comic resources for public, consumption of comic texts over the past two decades school, and university libraries. in Canada and internationally. The increased cultural Little Island Comics presents a new hybrid space that legitimacy of the comic as an artistic and literary form, combines the eclectic collections of comic bookstores the changing perspective of the comic as a learning 166 Naomi Hamer Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures 5.2 (2013) tool, as well as the current consideration of print texts publication of Canadian comic texts for young readers in the context of (some) adult fears of digital media and examines how these texts reveal assumptions are all factors that have influenced the increased about both comics and young people’s texts that production of comic texts geared explicitly to young influence (and often limit) their design, promotion, readers by non-traditional publishers of comics. In an and critical reception. article focusing on the burgeoning field of New Comics Studies, Charles Hatfield observes evidence in the The Cultural Legitimacy of the Graphic Novel United States of “a rising investment in comics among While the texts reviewed here are distinct in terms mainstream children’s publishers” and cites the launch of style and content, they are all underscored by a of Scholastic’s graphic novel imprint Graphix in 2005 pedagogic agenda on the part of authors, artists, and with the reprint of Jeff Smith’s multiple volume series publishers. Yet this focus on the pedagogic potential Bone as a stand-alone graphic novel in colour (361). of comics is a departure from the negative perspective Children’s publishers have also produced a number of of comics historically held by parents, librarians, and picture book–comic hybrid texts, such as Shaun Tan’s teachers. Joe Sutliff Sanders observes a shift in the The Arrival and Tales from Outer Suburbia, as well as perspective of comics as an education tool: “The time- the comic anthology Little Lit: Folklore and Fairytale honored cliché of a child hiding a comic book behind Funnies, edited by Art Spiegelman and Françoise a text-book is an eloquent image in this sense: comics Mouly, which highlights the work of famed comic and are understood to come between children and learning” children’s book artists. (75). Prior to the publication of Art Spiegelman’s Maus In the context of these trends, Canadian publishers I: A Survivor’s Tale; My Father Bleeds History in 1986, have increasingly jumped on the “comics for kids” librarians and teachers, as well as publishers and critics bandwagon with the production of a number of comic of children’s literature, often situated comics within texts across a variety of genres geared at young readers. the realm of series fiction and other popular texts. While these developments may arguably reflect changes Comics were assumed to be superhero-oriented and in the cultural legitimacy of graphic narratives, they also cheaply produced for mass market series consumption. reveal the continued presence of historically rooted In the period since Maus, however, the comic form, assumptions and nostalgic discourses about young particularly through the emergence of the graphic people as readers. This review article contextualizes novel, has increasingly gained academic and cultural some key trends that have emerged in the recent legitimacy as a media form. Graphic novels such as Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures 5.2 (2013) Naomi Hamer 167 Marjane Satrapi’s The Complete Persepolis, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, David Small’s Stitches: A Memoir, and Chris Ware’s Building Stories have attracted scholarly attention, are taught in university courses, and have won a number of awards for text and illustration. Most recently, Gene Luen Yang’s Boxers & Saints, a graphic novel boxed set that presents two parallel perspectives of young people during the Boxer Rebellion in China (from 1899 to 1901), was shortlisted for the National Book Award (USA) in the Young People’s Literature category. In Canada, publications by Drawn and Quarterly, the Montreal- based publisher of alternative comics (producing comic texts since Comic artists and 1990), and the individual works of Canadian comic artists such as scholars often aim to Chester Brown, Kate Beaton, Seth, Guy Delisle, and Julie Doucet have legitimate their work by achieved international recognition and success for their subversive distinguishing themselves and countercultural narratives in content and production style. In her article “Drawn from Memory: Comics Artists and Intergenerational from the popular view of Auto/biography,” Candida Rifkind situates her examination of the work children’s texts . of Spiegelman, Seth, and Ware in relation to the movement within the graphic novel toward artistic and academic legitimacy as a form: Clearly this is a medium experiencing a transition from ignoble beginnings to artistic legitimacy. Whether or not these increasingly respectable comics are a truly popular art form is difficult to determine, however, since the majority of works and cartoonists receiving attention come from the restricted-scale production of the underground and alternative comic scenes, not from the more widely distributed fantasy comics industry associated with superheroes and formula fictions. (400) 168 Naomi Hamer Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures 5.2 (2013) Most Canadian comic artists who have been given and outside of the academy—as simple and idealized scholarly attention and designated awards tend to representations, as thinly veiled pedagogic tools, or as distinguish themselves from the highly commercialized popular mass market serials.