Aspie/Autie "Tweens" question for the parents

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Hi, I'm starting to work on a new project (with board member SouerTrooper), a comic book to help Aspie & Autie kids understand social "rules" in a fun, humorous context. Things like saying "hello" or "correcting" their teachers.

I'm doing the artwork, and I'm wondering what style of art would most appeal to Aspie & Autie kids in the 4th through 8th grades, the "tween years," I believe they are called.

NT kids at this age seem to prefer a lot of detail over stylized simplifications, and I'm wondering if this houlds true for kids on the spectrum also?

Put in different terms, would lots of detailed, realistic pictures grab and hold the kids' attention, or would it be overstimulating and interfere with their enjoyment of a comic? Are your kids into the clean simple lines of Disney at this age, or perhaps the lush and overworked Marvel comics?

thx!

Ya know... You could ask the kids themselves... That would be my idea for learning about what WE like. But I guess you can ask the parents of the kids instead. Plus the title of this post is missleading

I am asking the kids as well. :D

I figured you folks were also privy to the kids' taste in cartoons and comics though. That the parents might have extra insight as to what works well with their kids. The caveat with asking the kids directly is that I feel like EVERy kid is going to respond to the question, so I will have a hard time knowing the age of the respondents.

I'm worried about accidently drawing an overly simplified comic that's supposed to be helpful, only to have the kids feel like they're being "talked down to." So if I get a lot of input from 5 year olds, the pubescent kids will think it's "stupid kid stuff."

Was not intending to mislead with the title. What did I do wrong? :(

You can just post a preview here and i`ll try to judge

Haha, will do! I'm still in the conceptual phase right now, will "draw" in my head for a week or so first before it hits the paper. Stay tuned!

My middle school autie daughter prefers the clean lines approach.

I suggest multiple versions. Do a clean lines version and also a detailed version. The modern market is geared to customization. Itunes has clean and explicit versions of songs. You could also have two versions of this product for two different cutomer preferences.

Both my kids (one AS, one NT) seem to respect and relate to a variety of styles when they are well done, and have less patience for styles that are poor copies of something else. My AS son seems to respond more to the vision than the specific, and will actually prejudice against things if they are too popular and trendy.

So, personally, I would start with what you think artistically conveys the concepts best, and maybe survey when you've got some worked up styles you, as an artist, like.

You could ask the kids over in Kid's Crater...

My sons and many of their peers really respond to manga style comics and graphic novels. Stuff like Pokemon, Yu Gi Oh and Bakugan are popular.

I really like your turn of phrase " lush and overworked Marvel comics". I think boys may respond better to that drawing style than girls. Unfortunately there seems to be a major separation of the sexes during the tween years.

For Disney-style simple lines without going too young or girl-centric, I am picturing something like the style of Bone by Jeff Smith? But that is way more comic book-ish than Disney. I would search out currently popular graphic novels and cartoons within your target age group and look for things that would work well with your own drawing style. Diary of a Wimpy Kid is wildly popular amongst my sons' age group, that might be one to check out.

I would definitely say that stylized would be preferred over realistic, at least for my sons. I would say a simplified manga style would work well and have broad appeal.

And BTW I think this is a great idea!

Thanks for the input! I put a thread up in the Kids' Crater, too, but it hasn't seen much activity yet.

I do love the "Bone" series, myself.

The more I think about this, the more I am leaning towards a mixed style, where you have stylistically simplified characters who inhabit an incredibly detailed world. A technique that allows the reader to more easily identify with the characters, and get drawn into sharing with them the wonders of the complex world that they live in.

That sounds fantastic! I would be very interested in seeing that and sharing it with my sons.



I think that whatever drawing style you choose, content can be as sophisticated or realistic as you choose to make it. My sons and their ASD peers (grade 6) are all HIGHLY intelligent young men (we don't know any ASD girls), who struggle socially. So you are correct in thinking that the content would have to be non condescending, logic-based and somewhat sophisticated in order to engage them. Example: the only book on Aspergers that my sons have related to and enjoyed was Be Different by John Elder Robison. He speaks about social situations in detail and is in no way condescending. It might be a good book to check out for tone.

Good luck!

I will ditto what Annotated Alice said, my son is very much the same. I will note, he is more interested in characters and their accessories than he is in detailed backgrounds, so keeping the background clutter to a minimum would be helpful. He does, however, love his costumes and accessories and responded well to a theraputic video game called "Secret Agent Society" largely because they had all kinds of gadgets and weapons (all of which were illustrated metaphors for different social skills.)

I don't think condescending should be a problem on my end (or Burnbridge's) as we are both autistic. I have no reason to look down or condescendingly on the kids!

Of course not! I think I chose the wrong word. What I meant by "condescending" was material too young or to simplistic for a certain age group, so they feel "talked down to". I just read a storybook for Aspie kids the other day that was absolutely dreadful. It was clearly written by an adult in "child's language" supposedly from an Aspie kid's perspective, and my sons would have found it downright insulting even though they would be in the book's intended age range. The author of this book was a psychologist, and I presume NT. Obviously you have a huge advantage being autistic yourself, still sometimes it's tricky to get the right tone for that tween age range. I guess my point was when in doubt write more grown up than little kid-ish.

Yes - for example, one of my son's favorite comics is "Manga Shakespeare," which uses the actual language from the plays. Not all Aspies are like him in that way, of course.

This is such good advice, thank you.

I recall now that I had finished reading both the World Book and Encyclopedia Brittanica by the 7th grade...and I understand that's not all that unusual for Aspie kids.