Comic Book Artist

My 6 year old has illustrated and written almost a dozen comic books. His first was a couple years ago. He used Spider-Man stickers for the characters, but he actually drew the cityscapes and the webs shooting from the sticker- Spider-Man’s hands. He then dictated the text to his mom who wrote it at the top of the pages. He has loved Spider-Man since he was about 2 years old—last year was the first year since then that he didn’t dress up as Spidey for Halloween.

Then he moved up to drawing everything, characters and all. As he’s learned to read and write some in Kindergarten, he’s been even writing his own text. By his sixth birthday, he had four or five comics to his credit.

In the past few months, he’s been interested in the Captain Underpants novels by Dav Pilkey. It’s a hilariously silly series, and he laughs out loud every time we read one of the stories—even the ones we’ve read half a dozen times. In these novels, George and Harold make comic books about Captain Underpants, and sell them in their school yard. My boy took this idea and ran with it. He’s made about six Spider-Man comics with the intention and expectation to sell them to his friends.

He draws out all the characters and scenes, colors everything, and then writes all the text. He gets me or his mom to staple the pages together for the finished product. So far, though, he hasn’t sold any of them. He’s given them all away to family members. We’ve got Spider-Man versus Electro, Spider-Man versus Doctor Octopus, Spider-Man versus Venom, Spider-Man versus robots, Superman versus Electro, and some rematch battles. His books include a cover page with the title, and the back cover with “The End.”

He’s drawn Captain America for me twice: once for a Father’s Day banner, and the image to the right for my birthday card. The birthday card shows a “bad guy” hanging from the ceiling, where Spider-Man webbed him up, and a robot knocked to the ground by Cap. (The second image to the right is from my 2 year old.)

His love of comic books came from his love of Spider-Man; he knew of Spidey before he knew anything about comic books. It was because of his obsession with Spidey that I bought him a couple comic books. I read the books myself before reading them to him, to make sure the story and images were suitable for a 3-6 year old. We’ve read them and he’s looked at them so much they’ve come apart. I’ve collected the separated pages and keep them stored in my comic collection boxes.

He’s seen my boxes of comic books, and knows I have a huge collection. He occasionally asks me when he’ll be able to read them. I’ve told him, when he can read them, he may read them. I also reserve the right to hold back on that “may” until he proves he can read them carefully. I haven’t saved these books in plastic sleeves, with cardboard backs, in long, specifically-sized boxes to let a kid (my son or not) accidentally tear or bend them. I’m a bit obsessive about taking care of books—comic books, game books, and regular reading books. (I even have a well-maintained, full set of my 1977 World Book encyclopedias that I refuse to let my wife throw out.)

So far, he’s proving that he wants to take care of books. He takes care of his personally-created comic books. It upsets him when his 2 year old brother gets a hold of them and scatters them about the house. He’s coming along nicely as an obsessive comic book geek. Makes a daddy proud.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com