Comicsgirl

Here’s a confession: I don’t really read webcomics.

Sure, I kept up with Diesel Sweeties for a while, but mostly, I have a hard time keeping up with them (this shouldn’t really come as a surprise, honestly, if you know I have trouble following monthly comics. That’s once every four weeks. Do you really expect me to be able to remember to read something every day or every week?).

But after seeing some of the creators behind ACT-I-VATE last night at Politics & Prose, I think I better start.

Featuring founding member Dean Haspiel and creators Jim Dougan, Joe Infurnari, and Simon Fraser (right to left in the photo above) this really surprised me.

Haspiel is obviously awesome, and I liked his story of how ACT-I-VATE came about — he started by showing a photo of himself, all alone, working at his desk. You see, he said, making comics is lonely, and he found out that if he posted stuff to his LiveJournal (yay, LiveJournal!) people would respond. It began that just his friends were saying things, but soon, people he didn’t know were leaving comments too.

He saw that some of his creator friends were experiencing the same sort of thing. He thought they could join forces and therefore combine their respective fanbases.

ACT-I-VATE is a noncommercial enterprise — it exists, more or less, to just promote these creators’ work. Infurnari echoed this sentiment, saying he liked having a portfolio of his work online and that he could get feedback immediately. Fraser liked that he got control over his work — as primarily a creator for 2000 AD, he said he didn’t often get a lot of say what happens to his creations. (That was actually a point that was brought up many times by everyone — comics, especially at DC and Marvel, are work-for-hire. Creator-controlled works are the exception and not the rule.) He said he travels a lot and likes that he’s able to point people to the site when they ask him what he does.

DC local Dougan’s story was a little bit more of an interesting one. He’s a writer of comics and not an artist, so he’s had to find people to work with, and while the point wasn’t so much made, it was clear that the Internet makes it easier for him (Hyeondo Park, the artist of his ACT-I-VATE comic, Sam & Lilah, lives in Dallas).

Haspiel also told the story about how he encouraged Dougan & Park to submit Sam & Lilah to Zuda first, with the understanding it probably wouldn’t win (everyone seemed to have words of praise for Zuda, though, and everything I know about Zuda makes it seem like it’s a good deal). They joked about how after Sam & Lilah lost, they actually scooped the winner with their press release saying the comic was going to be on ACT-I-VATE.

While the event was for the ACT-I-VATE Primer, that seemed a little secondary to most of the discussion. They wanted to do the book because there’s still a print audience (although Haspiel talked about how that’s probably fading) and that there’s not necessarily a crossover between webcomics readers and print comics readers (I’m probably somewhat of an example of that). It was a good way to push people to the site that may have otherwise not known about it.

Then they read from their comics, accompanied by Dougan’s wife Rachel. This was, for the most part, hilarious and utterly charming. Fraser did voices and Rachel sometimes playfully stumbled over her parts (she said she hadn’t rehearsed). Haspiel called for audience participation when it came to sound effects. I’m all for this and I now demand that everyone does dramatic readings of their comics during panels. This was awesome.

The Q&A section was better than most, and allowed me to realize much too late that I was sitting behind Mike Rhode of ComicsDC. (I seriously didn’t make the connection until a little bit later, otherwise I probably would’ve said hi. So I’ll just say it here: Hi, Mike!)

It was a good presentation and I left an ACT-I-VATE fan. I foresee spending many, many hours on the site now.

Smile Buy at Amazon.com

I hated every minute of having braces.

Yes, that’s a dramatic statement since I’m sure there were times I didn’t think about my braces too much (plus I did also sleep, so I doubt I was doing too much hating in my sleep). But ultimately, I remember nearly two years of aching teeth and discomfort.

I don’t regret having braces but I adored the day I got them removed. Of course, then there was the retainer.

In the autobiographical Smile (Scholastic, 2010), sixth-grader Raina Telgemeier trips and knocks out one of her front teeth (and pushed the other up inside her gums — cue the cringing now). This began four long years of trips to the dentist and orthodontist and other -ists as they try to repair her mouth.

Along the way, she grow into herself. She deals with leaving her childhood behind as she experiences first crushes and fights with friends. There’s even an earthquake. Telgemeier’s art is animated and cute. It’s curvy and dynamic and filled with exaggerated facial expressions. It moves the story along and I love the subtle changes Raina goes through as she moves from girl to young teenager.

Telgemeier is only a few years older than I am so I could relate to the time period in which she came of age. I was delighted at how she wasn’t in a particular rush to grow up (she was a girl who loved video games and The Little Mermaid) and her family is loving and supportive. This was a refreshing portrayal of being a young teenager to me, and very easy to relate to.

(The scene where Sammy gives Raina a Valentine’s Day present and it’s painful and awkward for both of them? Yes, that happened to me, too.)

The dental aspect is handled in a playful way. Something that should be horrifying is rendered as fun. Onomatopoetic words such as “snap” “poke” and “twist” accompany scenes of the tightening of braces and Telgemeier’s art is always so lovely that nothing is ever too gross. The only scene that made me squirm was when Raina had her gums cleaned. Still, I did have my teeth ache in sympathy throughout the book.

While I didn’t (thankfully!) experience the kind of dental trauma that Telgemeier did, I still saw a lot of myself in her story. Smile is a quick and fun read. It’s a lovely book for any older child worried about middle school (or braces!) and for those of us who have been there. And that just about covers everyone.

Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade Buy at Amazon.com

I first wrote about Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade all the way back here, but I never picked it up for whatever reason.

But after a little stuffed bull said it was the most fun comic of 2009, I decided I needed to get it. Luckily, I have a very loving boyfriend who bought it for me for Valentine’s Day.

This is absolutely wonderful. I don’t know if I’d call it perfect … but I kind of want to call it perfect.

Eric Jones’ character design is beautiful — original and playful, cartoony and animated while still looking like a comic book (I love the appropriately strong, square jaw on Superman). The colors are bright and solid. I think we need more comics that look this delightful and fun.

Landry Q. Walker’s writing is surprisingly witty for an all-ages title. Sure, I read a bunch of kids’ comics and I like them, but I never once felt this was too young for me. The humor is dead-on — slapsticky in places, but also full of funny lines and silly plot twists.

I like how our Supergirl Linda Lee is awkward when she’s not trying to save the world (and sure, awkward when she is) but she’s always upbeat and willing to laugh at herself. Her “evil” clone Belinda Zee is everything she’s not — outgoing, popular, petty. I think that’s a nice touch, showing that usually our “enemies” are just like us. Linda’s nerdy best friend, Lena, has her own secret, but I like how that gets resolved too.

Bully mentioned how much he loved how Linda grew up throughout these issues and I think that’s the coolest thing about this comic, and very unexpected. I think the creators could’ve just gotten away with having this be a fun little comic, but they did something deeper. Sure, maybe the metaphor of “growing into superpowers” for adolescents is an obvious one, but here, it works. Linda finds out who she is and what she’s capable of, all in about 140 pages. And the message never bogs it down — it’s subtle and affecting. And still, always, fun.

I really want Cosmic Adventures in the 9th Grade now, but I absolutely adore this and I’m happy to have it. Why don’t you have it yet?

Newave!: The Underground Mini Comix of the 1980s Buy at Amazon.com

I wanted to like Newave!: The Underground Mini Comix of the 1980s (Fantagraphics, 2010). Part of me actually wanted to love it. Taken as a book that records a history, it’s pretty awesome. But as a book that’s supposed to entertain or inspire, it missed its mark for me.

Collecting mini comics from the 1970s to the early 1990s (despite what the subtitle says), editor Michael Dowers certainly had an aesthetic in mind. So mostly, this book is full of post-Robert Crumb-inspired art by adolescent males (even if it’s they’re just “adolescent” in terms of mindset and not actually age). There’s plenty of graphic sex and graphic violence, mostly done in a tittering kind of “ha ha, look at how shocking we are!!” kind of way.

I completely understand that most of this book just doesn’t appeal to me. I didn’t feel particularly offended by any of it (although there are some disturbing things) but just bored. There are only so many drawings of women with grotesquely large breasts I can look at before I lose interest. You, of course, may be different.

There were some really lovely things I did like, though, such as William Clark and Mary Fleener‘s “Dead Girl” with its high-contrast, stylized art, Tom Christopher’s pop-art inspired “Vivian” and Molly Kiely‘s dreamy “Lulu.”

It’s only coincidence that two of pieces that stuck out for me were by/co-created by women. But it is worth noting that these seem to be the only two female creators featured in this book. I understand that comics — even underground ones — have always been male-dominated, but I’m also pretty sure that women were making minicomics in the ’80s.

But I think that may go back to the issue of the aesthetic choices of this book — Dowers was including the comics he was interested in and liked, and those aren’t necessarily the ones I am interested in or like.

Still, I think that does make Newave! feel less like an overview of minicomics and more like selections from one guy’s collection.

Newave! does include essays about minicomics and interviews with some of the creators. These are fun and provide a great look at how all of this came about. The chunky shape and size of the book is also fun (it’s only slightly larger than a sheet of 8 1/2 by 11 paper folded in quarters, evoking the size these comics originally appeared in).

I’m disappointed this book didn’t excite me more — I love minicomics and I enjoyed learning a little bit of the history of them (at least, a certain type of them). But ultimately, this book isn’t really for me and it’s not something I’m going to revisit.

A review copy of this book was provided by the publisher.

Yes, this month we get two books. I always find February to be a terrible month so I think having two books is a way to counteract that.

And I wanted to do a superhero title. I wanted to do a superhero title that had an all-female creative team. I tried to find something that had either one woman doing both the writing and the art or two different women taking the main roles.

X-men: Firestar Buy at Amazon.com

I’m sure this exists but I just couldn’t find it (if you know of any, please tell me). Writers were easy, but finding artists were harder — I know they’re out there. For instance, I really wanted to include something by Marie Severin, but collections that are just of her pencils seem to mostly not exist (part of my goal here is to point people to things they can buy easily. I don’t want to send people after individual issues).

So yes, Firestar and Birds of Prey: Of Like Minds.

The collection of the Firestar limited series from the ’80s, revealing the character’s origin story. It’s a slight book, sure, but it’s a lot of fun. Mary Wilshire’s art is honest and appealing — it’s maybe a little dated, but in a charming way. Angelica Jones is all flowing hair and teenage emotions, and Emma Frost is awesomely icy here. And you can always laugh at the fashions (I loved Angelica’s “formal” dress. But surprisingly — or not — Emma’s outfits haven’t changed much over the years).

Tom DeFalco’s story is simple and melodramatic, but highly entertaining. I get the feeling this is probably going out of print, but it’s cheap enough that it’s worth seeking out (and the original issues don’t seem like they’re that much more expensive).

Birds of Prey: Of Like Minds Buy at Amazon.com

Everyone, of course, loves Gail Simone (the whole #gailhateswomen thing notwithstanding). Those of you who weren’t around in those days don’t know how cool it was when people figured out the Gail who wrote “You’ll All Be Sorry” at Comic Book Resources was the same Gail behind Women in Refrigerators. We’re lucky to have women like her in comics.

Birds of Prey: Of Like Minds isn’t the very first story of Birds of Prey but it is Simone’s first, and provides a good entry point into the title.

I love Simone’s deft handling of the characters here. Her women are well-rounded — intelligent, thoughtful, funny, but also prone to making mistakes. She has a wonderful talent for letting women be in peril without making them victims. I love this and need to read more of Simone’s work. Ed Benes’ pencils are strong and clean. This is just appealing all around and I’m going to be buying more soon.

So that’s this month’s books. I promise I’ll go back to one for March.

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And just to piggyback on this post, I am associate editor of Geek Girl on the Street (in case you haven’t noticed from Twitter). There will be some comic stuff there (like my preview of Crogan’s March) but there will also be plenty of other geekiness that won’t necessarily fit here.

It’s a new but growing site and I think we’re doing a lot of fun things. Follow us on Twitter and add us on Facebook.