Poll: Kid-friendly comic books/graphic novels?

[EternallyBored]

Depends how kid-friendly you want things, also what genre you're looking for. As others have mentioned, Bone is some classic family-friendly fantasy, and even has a large backlog you can spend a while reading through. Both Marvel and DC have had superhero lines in the past that have been pretty kid-friendly.

While not very popular in the U.S., Disney prints a number of comic books using its main cartoon characters in mostly one-shot slice of life comedy stories, these are actually pretty popular outside the U.S., and are a decent throwback to the old Disney shorts with Mickey, Donald, and Goofy.

The company IDW is pretty much the king of licensed third party comics at this point: G.I. Joe, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers, MLP, even Doctor Who and Star Trek have lines under them that while not excatly violence free, tend to be more family oriented. So if you're looking for comics based on a family oriented licensed property that isn't owned by Marvel, DC, or Disney, then IDW would be a good company to look into to see if there's anything that interests you.

More kiddy comics that aren't super-hero based tend to get a bad rap, Bone is really the only big name in the genre, but some lines of more kid friendly have been selling really well lately so that may be changing slowly.

 

[mecegirl]

I thought that the Princeless comics by Jeremy Whitley was pretty good. She may like it.

 

[Queen Michael]

Girl Genius is extremely well-written, and is on my list of the 100 greatest comics ever made. Completely appropriate for a twelve-year old in every way. And it's available on the web, too--right [ULR=http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20021104]here.[/URL] It starts out good and gets even better. In my opinion it doesn't reach its full potential until the second book, though.

 

[Flatfrog]

My daughter just turned 13 and she definitely enjoyed Sandman - she was perfectly able to take the harder-core stuff (although she didn't read A Doll's House which I would say is the most disturbing book). She's been reading Runaways too and Fables. But mostly she's into the Manga stuff which isn't really my scene - she's a huge fan of Death Note and... various others which all look the same to me

 

[Plinglebob]

Personally I always go for Asterix and Tintin. Not sure how popular they are in the US, but they're big in Europe and really entertaining.

Regarding the poll, I've always said comic book.

 

[SilverBullets000]

I'm more of a manga person myself, but the Sonic comics are okay. The art work ranges from bad to great imo, but the stories and the unique take on the universe was enough to keep me into it.
They're in the middle of a reboot though, so I'm not sure how they'll turn out afterward. Still, it's light enough for kids to read~.

And Bone too. Bone is probably better since it isn't a serialized comic as much as it is a thick graphic novel now, but the artwork is absolutely stellar and the story is great. It's pretty much the perfect thing to get kids into comics in general.

 

[gagagaga]

Uh.. I read Bone and Mouse Guard when I was her age and remember enjoying them. So I guess those?

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Berserk, Preacher, Koroshiya 1 and Gantz are all wonderful comics for the whole family to enjoy!

OT: Kidding, kidding! But seriously, Asterix is a really fun, funny and also slightly educative comics series suited for all ages. Also, if you can, get your hands on the Donald Duck comics by Don Rosa. They're incredible and the artwork is fantastic. The man's been called the new Carl Barks for a reason. Sadly, he retired in 2008 but he left behind a great legacy.

Does she know Avatar: The Last Airbender? If so, the comics The Promise and The Search are great.

 

[Whitewillow]

PS: I also wanted to resolve a debate with a friend without wasting a whole thread. Thus, the poll. Personally, I prefer the term comic book. "Graphic novel" sounds sort of pretentious to me.

I always just used it to refer to the book's form factor: The magazine type books are comics, while the digest issues get the Graphic Novel designation.

This.

For graphic novels, Bone is good, as is Polly and the Pirates and Girl Genius. For comics I'd recommend the Asterix series and the Tintin series. Those were some of my favourites. If she doesn't mind reading them online Widdershins, GaMERCaT, Dominic Deegan, The Bean, and Gunnerkrig Court are all good. All of this depends on which genres she likes, of course.

If she likes manga that would involve a whole other list.

 

[Adaephon]

As everyone else has already said, Bone is just a fantastic book that manages to hit that very pixar/miyazaki/narnia-esque style of being equally fun to read for both kids and adults.

Jeff Smith (guy who wrote Bone) also wrote a DC mini-series called Shazam! And the Monster Society of Evil that is just as good, plus it's a good book for a little girl (my two daughters love it) because the main characters are a little boy and a little girl so they can relate pretty well.

Slightly more serious, but still pretty kid friendly was the Jimmy Palmiotti/Justin Gray run on Power Girl, though there is some sexual stuff, it isn't shown off or used in an adult manner (an alien warlord tries to "mate" with Power Girl, but the punchline is that the "mating" is done via a computer and takes about 5 seconds, there's a few boob jokes, a young kid tries to blackmail her by using photos he took of her changing, and the costumes can be a little suggestive) but that's just done by using a lot of goofy humour and it never really sexualizes anything so I find it to be fine for kids.

The Keith Giffen/John Rogers run on Blue Beetle (the Jaime Reyes version of the character) is wonderful, plus while it does have a fairly serious tone there isn't really any sex or gratuitous violence or even foul language that would put it out of kid-friendly range. The older Blue Beetle (Ted Kord) is just as good, but it does feature a fair bit more gore (people getting shot in the head for example) so you might want to wait on that until she's older to get her into that.

Anything Silver Age is kid friendly in that the Silver Age writing style (DC anyways, I'm not a big marvel fan) is just so odd and goofy that even when they were being serious, it always felt very campy and sort of cartoony, but younger kids might not be able to enjoy them as well since they are written differently than modern stuff is.

All-Star Superman is really good too, but once again a younger kid might not be able to appreciate the more mature themes about sacrifice and morality, and a non-comic fan might not enjoy the parts where the psychology of characters like Superman, Bizarro, Lex Luthor, Jimmy Olsen, and Lois Lane are examined.

Finally, Nextwave. Nextwave is a comedy mini-series that uses a bunch of d-list Marvel heroes (plus one or two new heroes) who run around fighting an evil terrorist cell/corporation and their various soldiers and monsters who fight for them. The violence is very cartoony, though a little gratuitous, there is very little sexual content (the only sexual references I can think of are where the girls in the group are talking about being hit on by the Avengers, and once where they suggest that Captain America might be gay, but that all takes place in one or two pannels and there isn't much else like that in the rest of the series) and the swearing gets covered up too. My 7 year old daughters loved it, so I assume your 12 year old sister will too.