Comments on: [GUEST POST] K.D. McEntire on Why There Are So Few Superheroes in Young Adult Literature

By: Michaele Jordan

Michaele Jordan — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 18:44:28 +0000

Part of the problem, I think, is that geeks and boomers have so aggressively claimed comic books that the only people left who think they're for kids (even teenaged kids) are the kids. And if there is one thing that kids have absolutely no interest in, its stuff for kids. So they cede the field to their toy-oriented elders.

By: Fritz Freiheit

Fritz Freiheit — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 11:57:28 +0000

utilsabound,

In response to: "Super heros are irrelevent and the youth don't care about them, only nostalgic older men."

This seems to contradict the popularity of superhero comic books (including cosplay and conventions), superhero movies, superhero TV shows, superhero cosplay, and various online venues where superhero art flows past. So, no, I don't think superheroes are relevant only to nostalgic older men. (Then there's the argument that superheroes are modern form of myths.)

Fritz.

By: utilsabound

utilsabound — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 14:25:55 +0000

One possible brusque answer is that "Super heros are irrelevent and the youth don't care about them, only nostalgic older men." (just generalizing, of course there will be exceptions)

By: Fritz Freiheit

Fritz Freiheit — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 20:11:02 +0000

I meant to post a link to A Brief Overview of Superhero Fiction:

http://fritzfreiheit.com/wiki/A_Brief_Overview_of_Superhero_Fiction

Fritz.

By: Fritz Freiheit

Fritz Freiheit — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 20:07:11 +0000

K.D.,

Your point about the perceived YA audience being girls is a good one, but there is an overall lack of superhero fiction. Earlier this year I put together A Brief Overview of Superhero Fiction, and even when I loosened the criteria I found that there has only been on the order of seventy super novels and anthologies published in the last fifty years. Spured by your posting, I went back and looked what percentage of these were YA novels, and it turns to be about %20. I don't know what percentage of published novels are YA, but anecdotally (i.e. looking at what I find in the bookstore), it seems that there is a higher percentage YA superhero books than the adult.

Fritz.

PS - I'm publishing my first novel Dispensing Justice next month, and as the Fates would have it, it is a YA superhero novel. (See DispensingJustice.com for more info.)

By: Marc

Marc — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 19:04:46 +0000

She's not saying there's no action in YA books, she's saying you don't see comic book superheroes in YA. She's right, too. My wife reads nothing but YA so I've been in that section more times than I should probably admit to without sounding creepy and yeah, you'll see werewolves getting it on but not a single superhero.

By: Josh

Josh — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 22:19:16 +0000

I think the general perception is that SF's written for teenaged males anyway. A quick perusal of the cover art on the shelves seems to agree with me.

By: Phoebe

Phoebe — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 18:43:12 +0000

In the Young Adult aisle you'll find protagonists whose growing sexuality ranges from traditional human-on-human heterosexuality to homosexual bestiality

I . . . what?

As a YA SF writer and blogger, I'm really disappointed to see articles like this one (and Simon Haynes' post last month about the lack of MG SF, a claim not grounded in any iota of fact), bemoaning the lack of X in teen novels, when X is often a genre on the up-and-up, at the SFSignal. What about TH Mafi's Shatter Me? Marie Lu's Legend? . . . The Hunger Games trilogy? Divergent? Seems like there's lots of action-packed stuff being written for teenage girls these days.