What’s Your Superpower? Maybe Reading?

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Here are the two reasons you should insist your kids not read comic books. Wink. Wink.

An item in the news today underscores why this is vitally important advice for all moms and dads.

Before we get to that news event, here are the two reasons why you need to set a firm foot down with your kids:

If you tell your children not to read comics, that they are bad for them, that superheroes aren’t real, that they are a waste of money and time, that your offspring need to spend their time more productively, like maybe reading the Bible or doing their homework, you can be virtually guaranteed that they will, drumroll please:

Defy you.

And this bit of reverse psychology is exactly what you are aiming for. First of all, they will be learning to read. Secondly, as they accumulate and secretly hoard their comic book collection, they will unknowingly be building their retirement savings.

Proof?

Here’s that news item, this from the Associated Press:

DALLAS — A single page of artwork from a 1984 Spider-Man comic book sold at auction Thursday for a record $3.36 million.

At that same four-day comics auction, Superman’s debut in Action Comics, one of the few copies known to still exist, sold for $3.18 million.

I used to think my parents were such a pain, the way they harrangued me about my comic book obsession (my faves were Green Lantern, Batman, and the Flash). But maybe that was all part of a devious plot on their part to encourage me to read.

Which explains the six-foot tall stack of comics in my closet. And it also explains how Mike Yokum and I basically skipped a chunk of seventh grade hiding out in the gym equipment locker reading comics while pretending we were organizing a science fair (it was a disaster—mostly because, well, we were reading comics and not actually doing any science).

Do I have a million-dollar issue buried somewhere in that collection? It would have to be a special issue, so it might be unlikely. But there’s no question that comics helped stimulate my interest in reading—and, ultimately, a career in writing.

Thanks, Mom. Thanks, Dad. Thanks Hal, Bruce, and Barry.

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