Be a hero: get good grades and free comics!

Be a hero, kid: get good grades and free comics!

One of the things that made this past Canada Day fun for me was the release of a new comic in one of my favourite franchises – Captain Canuck. Over the years, this all-Canadian hero has taken many forms – starting with a series published in the 70s but set in a fantasy future of the 90s where Canada was a world super-power and humans were actively colonizing space and encountering hostile aliens, helped by the unearthly powers of our own maple-leaf draped superhero.

Although this series only lasted half a decade, the Captain has been “re-born” in the form of a couple of other comic characters since, wearing similar costumes as the original but getting by on bravery and skill rather than super powers. I was also helped crowd-fund an animated web series about another Captain incarnation, whose apparently substantial powers have yet to be fully explained, but whose use of non-lethal weaponry stands in stark contrast to most American action offerings.

One of my favourite things about Captain Canuck being able to interact with his creators, like funding the series or meeting character originator Richard Comely, who regularly appears at various Ontario comic stores to sign comics, do custom drawings, and interact with fans young and old. The most recent edition even features a variant blank cover where Richard can draw in your own custom image!

Mr. Comely was in Barrie just yesterday, hosted by Big B Comics, but if you missed his visit, I’m sure he’ll be back another time. Last time I was at Big B was for another reason, though – so my daughters could access the Comics for Grades promotion.

I wrote about this last year, how Big B generously gives children free comics from their extensive back catalog for each A grade on their report card, to reward academic effort and promote the joy of reading. This year, they’ve sweetened the deal, giving a comic for a full letter-grade improvement between first and second terms, even if your child didn’t make it to A. So if she got a C in science in the fall but advanced that to a B for the end of the year, she gets a free comic, too.

Summer is a great time to get outside and play superhero, but there will also be rainy days when the kids end up in front of a TV or computer or video game. How about making sure they have some exciting reading, to brighten their minds without electronic input? The Comics for Grades program continues until the end of July, so dig out those report cards and see if your children are eligible to get some free fun summer super reading at Big B. My kids have moved on from their earlier super-heroes to the worlds of Adventure Time, the Regular Show, Richie Rich, Bart Simpson, and other silly stories told in picture and prose, which just shows that there are genres to suit children of many tastes. I hope yours develop the same love of the graphic reading arts.

Published as my Root Issues column in the Barrie Examiner as "Comics can inspire children to start reading"

Erich Jacoby-Hawkins is a director of Living Green and the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation.