Comicsgirl

The Legend of the Endless Sky: Chapter 1 — Mark Thisse

In a futuristic world, people live mostly above the clouds and never go down to the ground. Or at least, that’s what I think. There’s a thief named Kenyan and a ship captain named Trent, who get mixed up with each other and the law. This story may be going somewhere, eventually, but the first chapter is a little confusing. I’m not really sure what the world is or who these characters are. Thisse’s art is open and likable, though. There is a joyfulness in his style that I like a lot and it kept me entertained even when I wasn’t really sure what was going on. I admire his ambition with this, but so far, The Legend of the Endless Sky doesn’t quite work.

We Are Friend — Rachel Maguire

Maguire tells a wordless tale of a traveler who faces all kinds of obstacles — darkness, wind, dust storms — before finding a kindly robot to travel with. While the story is short and fairly simple, Maguire’s art is lovely and animated, rendered in layers of black, gray and white. Each panel and each page is fun to pore over, from the little faces of beetle-like creatures to the dramatic angles of the house were our traveler finds the robot. From the basis of this one mini-comic, I know I will be keeping an eye out for more of Maguire’s work. We Are Friend is delightful fun.

A couple of days ago, Rob at Talkin Bout Comics shared his experiences in leading his Girl Scout troop in earning their Comics badges.

Wait. Comics badge? I’d never heard of such a thing. Nothing that cool existed when I was a Girl Scout.

It turns out that this is a juniors badge from the Girl Scouts of the Virginia Skyline Council and can be used by other councils with permission. You can read a PDF of the requirements.

I was fascinated by this so I tracked down the leader of the troop that developed this badge, Jessica Otis, and she was awesome enough to answer my questions via email.

Otis wrote she grew with comics — superhero stuff and her “mother’s old battered collection of Classics Illustrateds and Classics Illustrated Juniors which are still my absolute favorites” — but the badge’s origins actually started with a broken iPod. While in the Apple store, she played with Comic Life and thought it would be fun for her Scouts to use. She knew a lot of her girls read comics and liked to draw and figured this would be something they enjoyed.

After her Scouts loved the program, Otis wrote “I went looking for a badge I could slot the activities into, found nothing, then suggested we write up our own.”

Otis wrote she wanted to make sure the badge was “all-inclusive” and covered as many kinds of as possible, which is one of the things that struck me when reading through the activities. She wanted the requirements to “focus more on the actual creative process” of making comics than any one particular type of comic, allowing the Girl Scouts to find what they’re most interested in, whether its strips in the newspaper or manga or web comics.

If you’re involved with the Girl Scout organization, I encourage you to introduce this badge to your troop. I can only hope it will lead to a new generation of comic book fans and creators.

Image of the Girl Scouts Comics badge, taken from Girl Scouts of Virginia Skyline Council.

Robot6 at Comic Book Resources pointed to The Smithsonian Museum of Natural History’s Flash-based comic “The Secret in the Cellar.” It’s maybe not the greatest — the art is sort of generic and the interface isn’t the best — but it’s still sort of fun and give a good glimpse into the archeological process behind the discovery of such things. And honestly, it fulfilled its purpose — it made me want to go see the exhibit, which I may not have been that interested in otherwise.

I would love to see more comics like this from the Smithsonian museums. It feels like a good way to reach an audience they may not otherwise. It’s a good use of new media.

Image taken from “The Secret in the Cellar”