On July 1, 1998, the first incarnation of Comicsgirl officially launched. The internet was a very different place then and no, I didn’t think I’d still be trying to hang onto this 20 years later. I mean, 2018 was completely the future! I have no idea if that teenager who thought it would be cool to make a website would be happy or sad I’m still doing this. I may have been overly ambitious, but it was 1998 and there was a need!

I admit to being naive in some of the language I used but I do admire how generous I attempted to be, even if I was — admittedly — really imperfect at it.

The early days of Comicsgirl are long since gone from the internet, for the most part. There’s still the Wayback Machine, so let’s revisit some of the things I wrote (not all are from the earliest version of the site — the oldest version I could find was from October 1999, but close enough!) Also, I just tossed these images in — they weren’t ones from the original site (and the introductions to these posts did have creator/publisher information and such).

About The Sandman:

The Sandman was an ambitious project about the Lord of Dreams and his family, The Endless (Destiny, Death, Delirium, Destruction, Desire, Despair), and the mortal (and often not so mortal) dreamers they encountered. The Sandman delved deeply into mythology, history, and literature. It has been said that The Sandman is a story about stories, and I will easily agree with that.

The Sandman, mainly because it was a nontraditional comic book (meaning that it generally lacked men in tights and capes fighting crime), appealed to many women. Neil Gaiman’s personal estimate of its readership is about 50/50 split between males and females. Three and a half of the seven Endless are female (Death, Despair, Delirium, and sometimes Desire), and many strong female characters play prominent roles in the storylines. Even though some of the female characters may be strippers, or murdered, they are never presented as being mere sex objects or victims. From the coldly independent Thessaly, to the sweet, lonely Nuala, to the quick intelligence Johanna Constantine, every woman in The Sandman has self-worth and is presented as being nothing less than whole. One character remarks in The Sandman that “All women are remarkable.” Everything about the women in this title would agree with that. Highest recommendation possible.

About Elfquest:

Elfquest is a fantasy comic book concerning a group of elves named the Wolfriders. These elves evolved after a race of being accidentally landed at the wrong time on a fantasy world. They struggle against humans who believed them to be demons, cruel trolls, and even other treacherous elves in a struggle for survival in a world where they do not belong.

Elfquest, which was written and illustrated for many years by a woman, has an abundance of female characters, each multidimensional with her own strengths and weaknesses. The female elves are treated on the same terms as the male elves, and neither gender is made to look superior or inferior. The writing and artwork deals with them both equally. While the women are sometimes scantily clad and well-figured, the men are drawn exactly in the same manner, and neither is offensive. The stories are excellent, the art is great, and Elfquest is just downright fun. Highly Recommended.

About Batman: The Dark Knight Returns:

In this dark and historic miniseries, Frank Miller explores what effect superheroes have on society. Ten years after Bruce Wayne retired from being Batman, a new crime wave has hit Gotham City. Although he is older, Bruce Wayne feels the drive and desire to become Batman once again, and does so not realizing how the world has changed since the last time Batman appeared.

I almost did not want to review this, because the question came up…is The Dark Knight Returns “female-friendly”? Well, it’s not “friendly” in any way, although it is a monumental work–as relevant today as it was ten years ago, and it probes deeply into the psyche of one of the world’s most beloved superheroes, but is it something female comic book readers would enjoy? I can only speak from experience that I am a female comic book reader, and I liked it a lot.

I would like you to be warned–this is no simple superhero tale. It is violent, unnerving, unrelenting. Those aspects of the book can’t be ignored. But The Dark Knight Returns is also about the sweet, fatherly relationship Batman has with the new Robin, a thirteen-year old girl, and Batman’s continuous attempt to save himself from the torture of the memory of the violent killing of his parents he witnessed as a child. These aspects humanize the book. It’s not just mindlessly violent, nor a thoughtless tale of fighting crime. It’s about one man’s misguided mission to save his city from crime–to stop what happened to him from happening to anyone else. In that regard, the book is worthy of being read and something will be gained from doing so. So reservations about “female-friendliness” aside: Highly Recommended.

Yeah, and that’s enough of that. Did I mention I was a teenager and this was more or less 20 years ago?

In all honesty, though, doing this has brought so many good things into my life. People were generous with their comics and I got to read a lot of things I wouldn’t have otherwise. I was once vaguely considered an “expert” and people even interviewed me about my site! It lead to getting involved with Small Press Expo and that’s been amazing. I’ve made countless friends — including people I absolutely consider to be my family. It indirectly (and directly) lead to job opportunities. It has been frustrating at times, sure, but I think there’s a good reason that even after 20 years, I haven’t wanted to let go of this.

Mostly, it’s been such a huge part of my life and I’ve loved it so much.

I’ve watched the internet change from websites (remember when I used to run a webring? Do you even know what a webring is?) to blogs to … whatever space we’re in now. I like change but I hope I can keep up.

I had fun going through my site and rereading things. I’ve collected a few of them.

Favorite posts (that aren’t reviews):

• Can we stop pretending all comic book stores are now awesome? Plus bonus followup: The Big Bang Theory’s Alice is the future
• Girl Scouts have a Comics badge! (Girl Scouts have since created Comic Artist badge for Cadettes)
• In defense of Cathy
• Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki at Politics and Prose
• Library Con at Petworth Neighborhood Library & Comics by Women (Bonus presentation! I will still happily be on your panels!)
• Near Miss: Minx
• Remembering BoHoS: A conversation with Maggie Whorf
• Revisiting The Sandman (also known as “that time Neil Gaiman linked to my site.”)
• Revisit: The Tick Omnibus (You will be happy to know I did get my Man-Eating Cow action figure since then)
• Super Art Fight at the Red Palace

My favorite reviews:

• A Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes
• A Drunken Dream and Other Stories
• Insufficient Direction
• Laika
• Through the Woods
• Skim
• Smile

Three reviews by special guests:

• Molly on Sisters
• My mom on The Book of Genesis: Illustrated
• The Destruction of Spider-Man: A Review of Turn Off the Dark by my friend Steve Kopian (despite what the name on the post says! Also check out Steve’s work at Unseen Films.)

Despite the fact I haven’t updated this site in nearly a year, I don’t consider it “dead” — I’m just … taking a break. I have some plans for the next era of this site. I’m getting there! I may even bring the podcast back! But really, thank you to everyone who has ever indulged me with this. You’re all a delight.

(I tracked down Whorf a few years ago and talked to her about all of this. For more background, please read Remembering BoHoS: A conversation with Maggie Whorf. There’s no need to repeat all of that here.)

Does BoHoS hold up? No, not really. Whorf had a good grasp on what it was like to be a teenager at the time, and her stand-in lead, Catherine Wheal, provided an easy entry point for readers (you know, if you were a teenage girl who could relate to a protagonist with blue hair) and that carries over pretty well, but jagged, technicolor art by Byron Penaranda and the dated references to Hanson and MTV’s Tabitha Soren place this firmly in the late ’90s. This is not one for the ages.

I actually read BoHoS at the time (the publishers reached out to me — an early web address for Comicsgirl is actually listed in the back of issue #2) and it may be the only Near Miss comic I read as it was actually being released. It’s far from perfect, but it’s still a comic I have a lot of affection and appreciation for. There was nothing else like it at the time and I’d say there really hasn’t been anything like it since.

True to Whorf’s zinester roots, the back of each issue had essays, reviews and poetry from other teenage girls as well as links to web sites of interest (this was the late ’90s — the Internet was still young for many of us). I liked that beyond the main story, it just wasn’t about Whorf. It was about other teenage girls that may not feel like they fit in and it wanted to give them a voice.

And certainly, teenage girls have always found places to share their thoughts, but I do wonder what shape BoHoS would’ve taken in today. I look at Tavi Gevinson and Rookie (and the fact that comics publisher Drawn & Quarterly was the one to put out Rookie: Yearbook One) and I just wonder what would’ve happened if Whorf had been in a world where she could’ve created a blog instead of a zine.

Which isn’t to say BoHoS was ahead of its time. It was very much of its time and not really worth reading beyond it being a piece of comics history. Still, it continues to delight me that nearly 15 years ago, a teenage girl got to write a comic that was published by a major publisher.

I think that continues to be an important thing.

Near Miss is a semi-regular feature that will be appearing on Comicsgirl throughout 2013. This project is sponsored by Big Planet Comics.

Published in 1998 by Flypaper Press/Image, writer Maggie Whorf tells the story of four friends — the contemplative Catherine, the sarcastic Amy, hippie Vicki and rock-star wannabe Stew — as they navigate late ’90s pop culture. References to Hanson, Kevin Smith movies and Dawson’s Creek do feel a little dated now, but the emotions and interactions between these friends still remains genuine. Byron Penaranda’s quirky angular style and the candy colors give the comic a bright and distinctive look. The issues also featured essays and commentaries by teenagers and women about topics ranging from dating to pop culture.

Inspired by the latest round of “women making comics for women,” I decided to track down Maggie Whorf to get her thoughts on her experiences with BoHoS via e-mail.

The comic had its origins after Whorf and two friends created a zine called “Whore-Hey,” which was “filled with the teen angst of three over-taught and highly privileged private school girls,” Whorf wrote, adding “We also said fuck. A lot.”

This, along with the fact that they were selling their zine on school grounds, led to some trouble for the three — they were suspended for three days. (The punishment “wasn’t very effective,” Whorf wrote and that the girls’ parents were proud.)

After attracting some media attention, Flypaper Press came calling and Whorf was the one to respond.

Whorf says she had creative control over the comic: “There was an amazing sense of freedom and my opinions were always respected. I was set up with a great editor and she taught me how to break down a scene and write with the panel in mind.” and that she “created the characters, the storylines and supervised the design.” She does admit “There were times I was treated like a commodity” but also understood “The story of a 16-year-old girl writing a comic book was the thing they could sell.” She wrote that she “loved it” and “felt very grown up” during the whole process.

After some movement on pitching it to production companies, Whorf headed off to college, thus ending her comic book career (for now, anyway).

I asked Whorf if she had been comic book fan previous to BoHoS and she wrote that she used to draw pictures of X-Men to sell to friends in elementary school and came back to comics through Tank Girl. She wrote that she’ll “always love Batman” and loved the Civil War run. Other than that, she hasn’t kept up with any of the other attempts to entice teenage girls to read comics, like DC’s Minx line. “That’s kind of shameful, isn’t it?” she wrote.

Whorf is currently working for “a large internet company” and writes a fashion blog call The Pudge.

I was delighted to be in touch with her and even more delighted to hear her experiences with BoHoS were good ones. As for the comic itself, it’s never been collected, but issues are pretty easy (and cheap!) to come by on eBay.