Comicsgirl

The Associated Press writes up the exhibit currently on display in New York (why they didn’t think it was important two weeks ago, when it opened, I don’t know). Unlike the Vancouver Art Gallery’s version, this one focuses exclusively on Japan’s contributions in pop culture.

I am going to try to get up to New York and see this exhibit, even if it’s just for the day. It runs through June 14 at The Japan Society. Yeah, because of the National Cherry Blossom Festival currently going on, I kind of have Japan on the brain, but I’m pretty excited for this. We have the catalog from the Vancouver version here and while I haven’t looked at a lot, it’s neat.

I tend to get annoyed with statements like this from the AP article:

What’s also clear is that in Japan, manga and anime — unlike, say, Marvel comics — are not just for kids. Many of the images are violent and sexually graphic, such as Satoshi Kon’s 2006 animated film “Paprika.”

Because, you know, some people think Marvel isn’t exactly for kids either and while Kon’s Paprika is definitely for grown-ups (and I mean that in the best way — it’s a story for mature people, not just those who still giggle when they can see “boobies” on screen), it’s a pretty tame example as far as anime goes, if you ask me.

But I’m not going to grumble too much about it because apparently, some people have yet to get this message. At the Freer’s Cherry Blossom Anime Festival this Saturday, there was a family with a couple of 8- to 9-year-olds at the screening of Evangelion 1.0. Don’t do that! (Mind you, the Freer had this listed as PG for some reason, and it’s not.)

Image of a Junko Mizuno figure, taken from the Associated Press article.

The Beat pointed to an article on Women’s Wear Daily that has the lowdown on Marvel’s new licensing deals for products for girls and women including jewelry and makeup as well as the more obvious things like T-shirts.

Paul Gitter, who is the president of consumer products, North America, for Marvel Entertainment Inc., says when doing such things, they have to be “very careful” not to “alienate our core” audience — in other words, boys don’t want a bunch of girls wearing T-shirts with Spider-man on them. Or something.

Vice president of product merchandising at Marvel, Susan Fields, also says “Hulk was a big component for us when it came to being eco-friendly, with T-shirts featuring the character and sayings like ‘go green.’ ” I wish I could make this stuff up.

But overall, I’m really pretty OK with this. I’ve often wished that comic book T-shirts came in girly styles (I am not someone who wears an XXL) and maybe in earlier days, some Marvel lip gloss would’ve been a fun purchase for me.

Still, with Marvel’s other attempts at reaching out to young women (including the recent adaptation of Pride and Prejudice) makes me believe they don’t really know what they’re doing (but since these are licensing deals, the actual product development will probably be in the hands of people who have experience making products for women).

I don’t think this will get women reading comics, though, and I don’t think that’s really the point. After all, plenty of women connect with the character of Wonder Woman but have no interest in picking up comics about her. This is just about taking the cool iconography of comics and selling it to people. But I’m also OK with that.

Image of Marvel lip glosses, taken from WWD.com

Some of the creators of this sent it along to me and I’m glad they did. It was made by a group of students from the University of Bergen in Norway as a part of a scriptwriting class.

Director Stian Hafstad wrote that he wanted to make a script people would related to and that in terms of the desire for superpowers, it’s the “slightest possibility that it could happen to anyone makes it worth dreaming about.” He also said he wanted to explore male friendships and that maybe for some “finding an archenemy is easier.”

I really liked this — it’s a surprising meditation on what makes a hero and also what makes a friend. Watch it embedded below or click through to see it in HD.

This is an amazingly strong project for these students. I wish them the best of luck in what they do next.

The most recent episode of the TV series Heroes featured a scene that seems to have upset a lot of people around the Internet. You can watch it here at Hulu and it starts about 17 minutes into the show.

If you don’t want to watch it, here’s the summary (please note that I do not watch Heroes, but I know enough about it and I did watch bits of this episode and this scene in particular):

Claire, the blond cheerleader-type, decides for various reasons to go get a job at a comic book store. Never mind she doesn’t read comics. The store owner/manager/whatever asks if she can work Wednesdays. When she doesn’t get it, he tells her that’s when new comics come out. He then asks her if she wants to fly or have invisibility. Claire is further confused and decides to leave. The manager-type says she can have the job because all the guys are looking at her and she’ll probably sell comics.

This scene was not nearly as bad as everyone made it out to be. The manager person seemed pretty patient in dealing with someone who didn’t know anything about the job she was applying for and while he was obviously nerdy, he just struck me as being a typical slightly awkward comic book guy. Maybe the line about “all the guys are looking at you” was questionable, but at the same time, maybe the manager thought it would be nice to diversify his staff a bit.

But instead everyone has decided that Heroes is making fun of their core audience and girls totally read comics and comic book stores are never ever like that. Ever.

Let me make one thing clear: I know there are a lot of amazingly cool comic book stores out there. I’ve been to a bunch of them. Isotope in San Francisco, certainly. Big Planet around here, yeah (I especially like the Georgetown one). Forbidden Planet in NYC is, of course, phenomenal. Vault of Midnight in Ann Arbor is fun. Everyone seems to adore Rocketship in Brooklyn. And a little stuffed bull really enjoyed his trip to Bergen Street Comics.

But I don’t think a handful of stores in major metropolitan areas along the coasts (and one in a liberal university town) is necessarily representative of all comic book stores.

Because for every one of these great comic book stores, there are probably dozens of comic book stores like Stories in Richmond.

One of the Stories is near my mom’s house in suburbs of Richmond. It is exactly what you think of when you think of a comic book store — tables covered with long boxes of back issues, old collectible toys hanging from the walls, dimly lit and packed full of stuff and the “adult” section a little too visible. Now, Stories is fine for what it is — it’s a comic book store and it’s not trying to be anything else. And while I never felt particularly uncomfortable going in there, it really wasn’t a place I ever felt too excited about going to, and given the choice, I’d go somewhere else.

And yes, it’s still there. It’s still like that today. Stories, to me, is much more typical of comic book stores than any of the others I mentioned above. Those are the exceptions. This is still, unfortunately, the rule.

I do feel like I should point out that the employees at the comic book store I went to as a young teenager were always really nice to me. The worst thing any of them ever said to me was to tease me about my hat and ask if I was trying to be “Blossom” (it was the ’90s, OK?). But I also remember going into comic book stores and feeling invisible and ignored. And this still happens.

Once, a year or two ago, I was in the Big Planet store in Vienna. When I first went in, there was a dad and his young son looking at Bone or some such, and then a young hipster couple looking at graphic novels. They departed and young men came in and started talking about typical comic book stuff. No one, to my knowledge, was really saying anything terrible or sexist, but I suddenly had the sense that I was an intruder in a boys’ club and I didn’t belong there. I left soon after.

And this was a store I like, a store that basically does everything right. It’s well-organized, bright and colorful and comfortable (it should be said that the Vienna store is probably the most suburban of the Big Planet stories). It was the underlying attitude of the patrons that changed that store for me.

Girls and women reading comics isn’t the novelty it used to be and I think that’s awesome. I love that. When I was teenager it did feel pretty lonely and I’m glad it doesn’t seem as lonely now. But there are still some comic book stores — and obviously, fans — that are slow to catch up with the changing times. If you thought that scene in Heroes didn’t represent reality, well, I’m glad that you see comic book stores and fans that way. But to me, even though I know there’s plenty of cool stores and cool fans, it still felt pretty accurate.

Screenshot taken from Heroes episode “Shades of Gray,” captured from Hulu.com

I sometimes order shoujo manga phonebooks from Sasuga Books. Originally, I did this because I needed a few for projects and while that’s still my purpose now, I also just like to get them because they’re gorgeous — comics printed in pastel-colored inks sometimes on colored paper. They are so much fun to flip through (and relatively cheap, all things considered — they usually run about $9 or so).

My most recent shipment arrived and it came with extra goodies — my issue of Ribon came with a plastic pencil box and stickers and my issue of Ciao! came with an ice-cream cone shaped bag, a strawberry-scented eraser, a two-color pen and a heart-shaped carabiner.

Do I need any of these things? No. Was I delighted to find that my manga phonebooks came with them? Yes.

Understandably, I don’t think most usual comic book fans are going to want a sparkly pink pencil case to come with their issues of Superman but I think most wouldn’t hate a little plastic figure of some sort.

No, I’m not really serious about wanting to see this happen, but with comic prices hovering around $4, maybe the industry needs to rethink things. These free gifts are certainly gimmicks but to me, they’re ones that work.