Romancing The Stone: Spiderman Vs. Vampires - A Review?

I've been exploring my didn't-know-I-had-one vampire fetish lately, just wanting to read comics involving vampires and have fun comparing and contrasting them all. My thought in deciding to do this was that it would be, well, fun. Right? Doesn't that sound like fun?

Spider-Man Vs. Vampires # 1
Written by Kevin Grevioux
Art by Roberto Castro, Walden Wong, Sandu Florea, Sotocolor, Kalisz, Fabela & Mossa
Published by Marvel Comics 

Unfortunately last week's comic (Baltimore: The Plague Ships) and this comic are pretty un-fun in my opinion. I'm finding that in these super hero comics that involve vampires, it's never really about the vampires. It's about the hero, being all hero-y in his certain way. This comic really, really, honestly made me think of The Electric Company. (And hey, while we're reminiscing, remember THIS?!)

Anyhow, I had trouble reading this before bed. Kept falling asleep. So, I packed it in my bag today and meant to read it on the train. It wasn't until I was in the presence of 16 four-year-olds that I remembered it was there.

See, today I had the honor of performing for a small class of children. They were having a Pajama Gala. (No, not just a Pajama Party - a Pajama GALA.) I asked why they were having this party, and I was told that it was in honor of the Pajama Program, a charity that provides new pajamas and new books to children in need. They all wore their pajamas to school and each brought a book to donate to the charity. They had asked me to come in and sing my book songs.

As I reached into my bag and pulled out my books, while saying, "which story would you like to hear?", one little girl said, "you forgot one." Without thinking I said, "Oh, that's not a book, that's just a Spider-Man comic."

I went on to sing a song. And when it came time for the next song one of the boys said, "How about that Spider-Man one?" And several of the children looked at me expectantly.

"You know, I haven't written a Spider-Man song yet. But maybe I should. Do you think I should write a song about Spider-Man?" I then got told by several boys about their favorite heroes, and I suddenly took in that we had three boys in Batman pajamas. And they all wanted to tell me their favorite hero. 

As a matter of fact, the teachers had latched onto their class's interest in superheroes and were currently engaged in an ongoing unit and discussion about how we can use our own powers to help others. Hence, the Pajama Gala.

It was a lot of food for thought. I'm currently in the process of compiling a list of books that I would like to work on and seek the rights to. So as I was at the bookstore today, and I started looking around to see what picture books might include superheroes.

Not too many. In fact, there were none. Over in the Bargain Book area, there were a number or Spider-Man and X-men books, but they were large, wordy things, useless for preschoolers, useless for sing-alongs.

So, here I am thinking...there's this deep interest from the kids in superheroes, but no truly age appropriate books for preschoolers. They all get a little too violent, or they lack the simple word structure. And most importantly, they lack rhyme.

When I was sitting there this morning, amongst some burgeoning little fans with Spiderman vs. Vampires in my bag, I felt ashamed. It's such poor subject matter for children, and what a poor role model I was for having it with me and (basically) teasing them with it, to boot. It's not just because it's about a silly, nonsensical thing, but because it's not good. It's just not a good comic. I couldn't even finish reading it because - it's terrible stuff! It's all empty conflict, a bunch of meaningless violence. The only fully developed character is Spider-Man. The rest of the comic is just a random, anybody-could-fit story. It's silly. Just silly.  

So how am I supposed to come up with a song about a superhero or superheroes when there's nothing to really write about? Sure, I'll look into the kids comics, but I know I'm not gonna find what I'm looking for. I've already bought a stack, some of which are really beautiful comics--things like Magic Trixie and Little Mouse, but what these kids wanted was a Picture Book about super-heroes, and I don't think I'm going to be able to provide that for them. An easy to read, somewhat simple story with an antagonist, protagonist, set-up, conflict and conclusion. A book that a young child can enjoy reading without needing lots of help, and also enjoy reading about good triumphing over evil; truth telling over lying; sharing over selfishness, etc. If Marvel is trying to sell more books by, you know, making one about vampires and spider-man, and then zombies and Spider-Man, etc., just stop. Who could possibly be looking for something like this, something so bad and shallow? Stop, drop and turn around and target the kids. They want to be a part of this super-hero thing, this comic reading world...they want it so much! Give them something. Give them something age appropriate and inspiring! (And give ME something so I can write a song about it!)

So, yeah....this did not turn out to be a review about Spiderman vs. Vampires, did it? I mean, kinda....but not really. I am just suddenly filled with passion about the need for superhero picture books. Who's with me? Let's write!!

Comments

[Kurtis]

I strongly recommend Tiny Titans from DC - cute, simple, and about superheroes.

[Mory Buckman]

Agreed. That seems to be what you're looking for.

[Mike Walker]

Yeah, there needs to be a book like Spidey Super Stories on the shelf for kids again. You can find back issues of it on ebay for 3 or 4 bucks, but yeah, the best Spider-Man stories for kids are 30 years old and out of print...

[Deco]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: my 5-year-old daughter is waiting for the "Princess Batgirl" book. She loves superheroes - esp the girls, but there's just not enough princess in 'em.