Comicsgirl

Archive for the ‘general’ Category

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.

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.

Pride & Prejudice #1

I didn’t know about this before today, when a story about it came up in one of my searches. Newsarama has all the details, but please ignore all the “I may actually get my girlfriend to read a comic!” comments.

I like the general concept, although it’s really nothing new (Classics Illustrated were around from the 1940s) and I like that they let Nancy Butler — an accomplished Regency romance writer — handle the story.

I just wish the art on the inside wasn’t so poorly suited to the story. Hugo Petrus looks like he’s drawing a superhero title rather than women in beautiful Regency dresses and I dislike Marvel’s coloring style (why can’t anything be a solid color? Why does everything need to be shaded?). I love Sonny Liew’s art for the cover — that’s a comic I want to read. The inside stuff — not so much.

I wish Marvel understood what would actually appeal to women. Making a Jane Austen comic — while notable and pretty cool — isn’t enough if they won’t follow through all the way.

Still, I may try to pick this up once it’s collected and give it a chance.

Congratulations go out to Eleanor Davis and Drew Weing on their engagement.

DC Comics wants to help you figure out what to read next now that you’ve seen/read Watchmen. And you know, sell you stuff in the process. (It’s a nice feature, though, seriously. The jump from seeing a comic book movie to reading a comic book isn’t always an easy process.)

Turner Classic Movies, the last smart channel left on cable, shares Lost Scenes from underground movies. Flash-based interface is kind of annoying, but click on “print” for readable PDFs.

And finally, Dark Horse announces Sequential Pulp imprint. Jennifer Contino gets the whys and hows from publisher Michael Hudson. I think this is a really cool concept and I have faith Dark Horse will do it right.

I’ve been dealing with life-related issues and reading actual non-comic book books (gasp!). I have a few things in the works, but no promises.

The Comics Reporter reports that Viz is restructuring. This makes me sad. I realize they’re not immune to the recession and the downturn in publishing because no one is, but I like Viz. I need my Nana!

Mania.com has a nice profile of Mark Crilley. I didn’t realize Miki Falls had been optioned by Paramount. Where have I been?

Media Bistro poses the question and gives a few answers, most of which fall into the “maybe” category.

I do know that a few of my friends, with no disrespect to their local comic book stores, have turned to mail-order subscription services for their floppies to save money. With the prices of floppies ever increasing (some of which are $3.99 per issue now), I do wonder how long the floppy issues have left. I know, I know, plenty of people have sounded the death knell of single-issue comics before, but the price may push plenty of people to stop buying. (I don’t buy single issues too often, mostly out of laziness so I’m probably not a good one to ask.)

I wonder if a sort of Japanese manga-phonebook style model may work for some comics — say for $16, you get 5 comics (like, for example, all of the X-Men titles) all bound together every month. Sure, it may not have the super-pretty Photoshop colors, but you’d still have a cost-effective way to read comics. And maybe, eventually, individual titles/storylines could be collected in pretty color for a premium price. I’d go for that, personally.

But obviously, for a lot of people who are trying to pay bills and keep their jobs, luxury entertainment items like comics will probably fall away. I think comics (and publishing) in general can weather this, but I think we all know there are rough times ahead.

• 14:01 Had brunch and stopped at The Superhero Supply Store for superhero supplies. Just now headed to the con. #
• 14:02 Probably no actual blogging until I am home, though. #
• 15:54 The Graphic Novels: A New Literacy panel was cool, even for someone who is not a teacher, librarian or parent. #
• 16:06 Last hour. Still crowded, but less so. I managed to lose my friends, though. #
• 16:34 And I’m done. That’s enough for me. #
• 19:18 On the train. Sore from heavy bags and exhausted but happy. #

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• 07:55 And I’m off! #
• 13:15 This is ridiculous. #
• 14:04 This never ends. #
• 14:17 I have yet to spend money. #
• 14:31 OK – first purchase was an Aranzi Aronzo mug. #
• 16:04 First comic purchase is "I Saw You" edited by Julia Wertz. #

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(I’ve been dealing with awesomely fun dental issues this week, which is why this is a little delayed.)

The people at Toon Books were kind enough to send me review copies of this spring’s upcoming two releases, Benny and Penny in The Big No-No by Geoffrey Hayes and Luke on the Loose by Harry Bliss. Both are, as expected, wonderful. Like before, the fact they’re “comics” seems pretty secondary to that they’re just great books for young readers.

I haven’t read the first Benny and Penny book, but the title characters of Benny and Penny in The Big No-No are an adorable pair of brother and sister mice. The dynamic of big brother/little sister is clear from the beginning as the two sneak into the neighbor’s yard to steal back Benny’s pail. Or at least what they believe to be Benny’s pail. Instead, they make an enemy — but then a friend — of their new neighbor, a little girl possum named Melina. The playground conflict of judging someone before you know them is sweetly and simply presented. Hayes’ soft, colored-pencil artwork recalls a lot of the children’s books I read as a kid — Beatrix Potter and Mercer Mayer are obvious ones, but there is some of the wholesome nostalgia of Tasha Tudor. This will become many children’s favorite book.

Bliss’ Luke on the Loose, however, is much more wacky fun in comparison to the quiet innocence of Benny and Penny. Luke is a 4-year-old who decides chasing pigeons is much more interesting that his father’s boring adult conversations. This is one part Peanuts strip and one part classic Sesame Street. Bliss’ New York is lovingly idealized and safe — the kind of world that city kids grow up in — and he fills the book with plenty of joyful visual gags. I loved the sequence on pages 18-19 as pigeons — then Luke — go flying past a man trying to propose to his girlfriend at a sidewalk restaurant. The faces of the couple, the waiter and a fellow diner are wonderfully expressive. The book is a comedic delight and one that adults will love as much as the children they’re reading it to.

Both books are set for release on April 15. Buy these for the children in your life. Or just buy them for yourself. They are both remarkably lovely.