A Lunch Money Date

Yesterday I wrote about how Andrew Clements's Lunch Money uses comic books to explore the issue of commercialism in kids' lives; I posited that comic books' place in American culture makes them uniquely appropriate for that theme. Choosing comics as the field on which his characters maneuver lets Clements explore another theme as well.

Traditionally, American comics have been a gendered medium, with some titles published for girls and others--the greater part--for "fanboys." Now female readers drive the sale of "manga," but that simply reinforces the same divide. We even have imprints like Minx targeting just one sex.

Some categories of books display a similar gender divide, but that's a matter of content (sports, romance, trucks) or style (pink, which characters are on the cover) rather than format. (I'm not saying these divisions are firm, strictly enforced, or a good idea. But they exist.)

Lunch Money divides characters along that traditional gender line in portraying how they think about comics as they enter the story. The fans include:

• Greg's father, a comic-book collector
• Greg himself, who occasionally buys comics as investments and draws his own, also to make money
• Ted and Roy, Greg's customers in the sixth grade
  
• Mr. Z, the math teacher

The characters who start out cool or hostile to comics are:

• Maura, Greg's across-the-street neighbor and rival since kindergarten. After she's drawn a picture book, Maura tells Greg, "I know you said mine isn't a comic book, but I don't really get what that means. Prob'ly because I haven't looked at comics books much. Tommy has some, but I never got into reading them."
• Principal Davenport, who tells Greg: "This is a comic book, and in my view, comic books are practically toys, and bad toys at that. This is hardly what I would call a book."

The gender divide is mighty clear, isn't it?

Lunch Money can thus be not just a story about money, but also a story of crossing that gender gap, with comics as the bridge. Maura reads McCloud's Understanding Comics, and starts drawing her own comic books. They're still about unicorns and princesses, but they use the hitherto male language of panels, speech balloons, and sound effects. And eventually the school principal admits she's "read comic books for the first time in my life."

We also see another bridge between the sexes getting built. ***SPOILER*** Near the end of the book Clements drops the news that Greg and Maura have made "one awkward attempt at holding hands." And all because of comic books.

Where the Lunch Money Goes

Lunch Money is one of Andrew Clements's best "school stories." This one mainly follows Greg, a sixth-grader who's a little too interested in money. The book starts in a rare fashion, flashing back to Greg as a preschooler to show that this interest is long-standing. That's well below the age of the book's target audience, and well before its plot starts; Clements has the track record to get away with that, but it's not advisable for new authors.

I suspect Lunch Money was inspired, at least in part, by the increasing commercialization of American public schools, along with other public institutions: museums, public broadcasting, tax collection, national defense, and so on. Chapter 17 says:

On the first day of school Mrs. Sanborn had required that all the kids tape covers onto their new books. And the glossy book covers Mrs. Sanborn had handed out were loaded with pictures of high-school athletes wearing Nike shoes and Nike shirts and Nike shorts and hats and warm-ups. And Maura realized that every social studies book in the classroom was trying to sell her something.

This realization comes right after the school principal, citing school committee policy, has forbidden any students to sell comics books in school.

Given those themes, it makes sense for Lunch Money to use comic books as its main props. Greg creates tiny, hand-drawn comics about cavemen and superheroes to sell at his school. Maura, his long-time rival, starts to make little picture books about princesses and unicorns, but then a one-night reading of Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics reveals her to be a natural at sequential-art storytelling. (Kids, don't try this at home; McCloud's books require much more time to digest. Besides, Making Comics is now a more practical guide.)

The school principal tries to halt the sale of "small comic books" specifically. Bottom line: Lunch Money is about the debate over what's permissible in school and what's impermissibly "commercial," about the line between healthy commerce and money-grubbing.

Our culture has traditionally treated mass-market adventure comics as more money-grubbing than almost any other form of printed stories published for kids. This despite the fact that they're usually less expensive, at least in the periodical form, than "real books." Of course, comic books do contain ads, they're designed to make you buy the next issue, and without plastic bags and care they don't last as long as hardcover picture books. But still.

I think the main reason comic books are seen as perilously "commercial" is that they've been marketed and priced for kids themselves. In contrast, adults tend to pay for picture books and middle-grade novels like Clements's, and thus control the purchase. Comic books are one of the few things that Greg buys with his own money, when he's willing to part with it.

When our culture looks down on comic books as commercial, it may not be the actual expense that scares us but the financial autonomy of young consumers.