Every Saturday by Craig Lemon / May'98

There has been a lot of debate about how to revitalise the comics industry, and get the 'grass roots' of 8-12 year olds back into the fold. It seems to me that the way I encountered the comics world was ideal, but has been closed off in recent times - to whit, comics at newsagents.

I admit upfront that this piece is Brit-orientated, and I am in complete ignorance as to the American situation in the late 70s and early 80s, but when I was 9 or 10 in the late 70s, cheap US comics were available in most newsagents.

Every Saturday, I would 'go into town' with my parents to do the weekly shopping. Among the shops we went into would be at least one of several newsagents in the town, for my parents to buy their weekly fix of magazines, and for myself and my brother to spend our sweet allowance and pocket money on whatever we desired.

Whilst Mum and Dad were choosing their purchases, I, with my sweet selection pre-determined and made quickly, would wander around the shop aimlessly, eyes drifting over the magazine racks, to alight on the bottom shelf - the half-size (to me) US comics, with their brightly-coloured, shiny covers, and strange titles such as Captain America and Iron Man.

One day, I took the plunge and spent some of my precious money on a few comics instead of sweets - they were only 20p each, if I recall correctly.

Now, the comics on these racks were necessarily the most recent issues, nor could you guarantee getting consecutive issues, but I purchased several comics, the most memorable, and the ones to get me hooked, being a pair of Avengers.

It was these two issues that put me on the path, and led to a Marvel loyalty for a number of years - DC was the enemy, and had all the rubbish titles - until Alan Moore's Swamp Thing reprints starting appearing as black-and-white graphic novels in English stores.

Back to the Avengers. I can't remember the issue numbers, in the 190s I think, but the contents of both remain very clear.

The first issue I looked at opened with a picture of Iron Man and Captain America having been turned to stone by the touch of the Grey Gargoyle - I was immediately hooked by the concept of the heroes losing this fight in a previous issue that I hadn't read, and was worried for Cap (Iron Man was ok as it was only his armour that got turned to stone, not the man inside).

The fact that this was part two of the story didn't bother me, the recapping of events from part one was clear and simple enough to get this story moving quickly. The rest of the heroes went after the Grey Gargoyle, and through their actions and dialogue I could quickly determine who was whom, and what their main powers were. In my youthful opinion, the Beast was a bit crap, because all he did was a bit of jumping around and punched the villain, but, hey, he looked cool and said funny things, so he was ok with me.

The other issue saw the appearance of Red Ronan (I think the name's right), the giant red robot that went on a rampage across America when his 'driver' was torn away from the controls which were set on 'destory' or something. The Avengers spent the issue frantically trying to stop this behemoth from crushing everything in its path. This was am exciting read, non-stop action as it looked like the Avengers would fail, which, of course, they didn't.

Looking back on this experience now, what do I surmise? That when you're a kid, you're not interested in long and complicated storylines, you don't want to have to know years of continuity to find out who everyone is and what they can do. You're looking for something cost-effective, something concise, and something that can be picked up on a whim in a store - the comics have to be in your face on a regular basis if you're going to start buying them.

Today's comics generally fall by the wayside on all of these points, but they really all need to be sorted to gain the readers. The biggest problem is obviously availability. It's no good giving out free comics to kids to encourage them to buy more, if they have to travel to a comics shop, and when they get there to be faced with a mass of titles, most of which are indistinguishable from each other, many of which so steeped in continuity there's no chance of wanting to buy it from reading the first two pages, all of which are too expensive.

What's needed is someone to exploit the vast archives of old comics from the 60s, 70s and 80s, and produce a limited number (say 12?) of cheap reprints, using low-quality paper (kids are just gonna throw the issues in box or on the floor after reading). These comics should be for newsagent distribution only, and should contain one new editorial page to inform, and not hype, about the direct market and the other titles that company produces.

Cheap, available, simple and disposable. The recipe for success?

Disclaimer - all of the above nonsense is purely my personal opinion. No doubt most people may well disagree with some or all of my comments, but please feel free to e-mail me to discuss anything I write here.

Next time - Animal Man