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.

Earlier this week, College Humor posted a fake trailer for a live-action Daria movie, starring Aubrey Plaza as the title character. As someone who has been watching Daria episodes lately (as well as a lot of Parks & Recreation — hey, Netflix, where’s last season? I’m waiting …), I found it completely charming. And there was a big part of me that wanted it to be real.

So I’m sure being a teenage girl is strange at any time. It’s not something that ever gets easier, after all. But I’d say being a teenage girl in the ‘90s was a fairly unique experience. Unlike a lot of times, we were offered a pretty broad range of role models. While Daria came later than I thought, it was a still a decade that started with Riot Grrrls and My So-Called Life and ended with Spice Girls and Britney Spears.

The ‘90s were also an interesting (both in the “good” and “bad” senses of the word) time for comics, and definitely saw growth from more “adult” lines like DC Comics’ Vertigo, which published both Kill Your Boyfriend and Death: The High Cost of Living.

I imagine some of you may think that 1995’s Kill Your Boyfriend wasn’t aimed at teenage girls. And maybe it wasn’t on purpose, but Grant Morrison’s and Philip Bond’s drug-, sex-, and violence-filled romp speaks more about being a teenage girl than you realize.

Our unnamed schoolgirl protagonist is basically your typical frustrated everygirl — she’s dissatisfied with the role she’s handed in life. She’s smart but undervalued. She has a dumb boyfriend that she has just because that’s what’s expected. Her parents belittled her and accuse her of having sex when she’s not. No one listens to her, no one respects her.

Is it any wonder she’d want to act out? Is it really any wonder why she’d want to break out?

I think it’s really left up to the reader to decide if everything that happens after she encounters a charismatic drifter in a fast food restaurant is real or fantasy. I don’t think it matters. As they indulge in a prolonged spree of murder, substance abuse and anarchy, our heroine gets to see the side of life she’s always been missing — one that allows who to be whoever she chooses to be, to try on new roles. She can be unabashedly sexual, dangerous and bold.

Morrison’s writing and Bond’s art are surprisingly playful and counteract the many dark elements of this tale. It’s a romp from beginning to end and it’s meant to be.  The final page is a little bleak, but I think mostly, Morrison and Bond are telling young women to choose a different fate — that there’s more than one path open to them.

While there’s definitely a lot of this that declares itself to be a mid-90s book from Vertigo, it doesn’t  feel dated. Some of the references and aesthetic firmly place it in its time, but there’s a freshness to the voice that I think could feel relevant to a lot of young women now.

While many women did and do love The Sandman, the Death books always seemed to be marketed toward a slightly different (and younger) audience. Tori Amos wrote the introduction to 1994’s Death: The High Cost of Living (let us not dismiss the huge impact Amos had on many of us as teenagers in the ‘90s); and the introduction to the later Death: The Time of Your Life was written by Claire Danes. Even the newer The Absolute Death collection had its introduction written by Gaiman’s wife, Amanda Palmer. For good or bad, Death’s stories are aimed toward women.

Despite her name being in the title, Death: The High Cost of Living isn’t actually that much about Death herself. It’s about a depressed/superficially suicidal teenage boy named Sexton. Written by (of course) Neil Gaiman with perky, manga-inflected art by Chris Bachalo, Sexton is presented as approachable and cute in a Kurt Cobain kind of way (it was the ‘90s!) and after his meeting with the sweet, gothy Didi (in a landfill of all places!) — Death during her one mortal day a century — changes his mind about life.

If you’ve read The Sandman, you know Death is quite a bit more complicated than just a cute and quirky girl who likes top hats and Disney movies and tends to charm people into giving her things. Her happy-go-lucky optimism serves as a counterbalance to her dark responsibilities. But out of the context of that mythology, she’s just another girl that serves her purpose for a male protagonist before dying. Separated from Death, Didi just feels like a means to an end.

In that way, it’s a story that feels different to me now. I was never a huge fan of the character of Death anyway, it was easy to identify with her in this book as a teen. There was a sense of “Well, I wear weird clothes and like strange things. Maybe some boy may recognize how cool I am too.” But as an adult, I recognize how many Sexton Furnivals there are in the world and I wonder why their stories get told more than women’s. Why did we get the story from his perspective and not Didi’s? Death: The High Cost of Living is a cute little fable, but it’s story overall is one I’m tired of.

I wish I had also read Kill Your Boyfriend as a teen alongside Death: The High Cost of Living. I think they play off each other nicely. Teenage girls deserve more than the one story they’re usually given.

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

I’ve always understood that these books aren’t necessarily for me, but for that friend who keeps expressing interest in comics but balks when I try to hand her a graphic novel (this is a metaphorical friend for me — you, however, may have one). This friend is well suited to an anthology — if there’s something she doesn’t like, well, it’s over pretty quickly.

But I think within the past couple of years, series editor Jessica Abel and Matt Madden have figured out the voice they want these books to have. I do think guest editor Neil Gaiman did a good job with last year’s collection, but looking back, there was some of a sense of “Look at all these hip and cool indie creators!” about it. He made fun and thoughtful choices and I would’ve gladly given it to a friend newly interested in comics. I just didn’t need to own it myself.

In Alison Bechdel‘s hands, The Best American Comics 2011 (2011, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), on the other hand, is a book I would absolutely own (as well as, of course, give it to my friend interested in comics).

I love Bechdel already, but she absolutely won me over in her introduction to this collection where she pointed out how few women these collections have contained (and calls herself out for not doing that great of a job on that part — there’s a chart and everything) and also points out she didn’t manage to include any black creators in this collection. I admire her willingness to show the shortcoming in terms of diversity of this volume.

I admire the diversity of selections Bechdel has picked. Yes, of course creators like Chris Ware and Jaime Hernandez show up here, but so do Kate Beaton and Gabrielle Bell, who both deserve to be included just as much. There were even some creators I wasn’t familiar with, such as Kevin Mutch and Angie Wang. As many comics that have passed through my life in the past year, it’s a thrill to see something new.

I also love Bechdel’s willingness to embrace and showcase the weirder side of indie comics, from Michael DeForge‘s grotesquely colorful “Queen” to the excerpt from Dash Shaw‘s Body World. Surprisingly though, the book never feels alienating or like there’s an attempt to be shocking. There’s definitely some dark subject matter and imagery, like Gabby Schulz (Ken Dahl)’s “New Year’s, 2004” and Julia Gfrörer‘s “Fear of Fire” but those stories are balanced with lighter ones, like Joey Allison Sayers‘ “Pet Cat” and Jillian Tamaki‘s “Domestic Men of Mystery.”

As all collections go, not everything here is going to appeal to everyone, but I think that’s partially by design. Still, Bechdel has selected comics that are both accessible and representative of where independent comics are now.

The Best American Comics 2011 is beautifully and thoughtfully compiled collection of comics. Forget about that friend you usually buy these collections for. Buy this one for yourself. (But then maybe let said friend borrow it when you’re done.)

Advance reading copy provided through NetGalley.

I already knew this, of course, since I’ve met them before, but the two of them are incredibly smart, witty and fun. They’re clearly good friends and have an easy-going rapport with each other. While I know they’ve made presentations like this before, it didn’t feel over-rehearsed or artificial. They were very natural on stage.

The majority of the audience last night did seem to be those who attended productions and other events at the Folger, but there was a group of the messenger-bag types (like myself) and, surprisingly, a few parents with older children (preteen to middle teens, I’d say). But overall, it wasn’t really a crowd of comic-book readers. Obviously, this title is reaching a type of person who usually doesn’t read them.

McCreery and Del col started out with how the idea for the comic was born (Kill Bill had just come out and so they were joking about other “Bills” they could kill. In one of their many jokes about being Canadian, they said they rejected William Shatner because he was one of them) and that they originally thought it could be a video game before shelving the idea for a while.

They then ran through a basic summary of the plot (including a sneak preview of issue #9 that will be out next week) and a rundown of the characters. They discussed the changes they made to the ones they’ve picked and said that while they’ve played loose with some of the details, they try to keep them recognizable and just extrapolate what would’ve been next for everyone.

Most telling for me was when McCreery mentioned that he has a lot of teenage girls telling them they really like the take on Juliet in Kill Shakespeare. I tend to agree — Romeo & Juliet is not my favorite play by Shakespeare, but Juliet was the driving force and decision-maker for most of the events there. It’s great to see her get to be strong.

Del Col and McCreery also showed some before-and-after examples of how comic pages get made, which was probably more interesting to the rest of the Folgers audience than it was to me. (They continually praised artist Andy Belanger, who couldn’t be there since they were making him stay in Canada and draw their comic.)

They both talked a lot about that reading Shakespeare on the page can be kind of overwhelming and boring but his work is pretty well-suited to comics (I feel like comics do have a great deal in common with theater — more so than film). They’ve said that both teachers and students have been pretty excited by Kill Shakespeare and it’s created more interest in the source material.

In one of the night’s lighter moments (and there were many), Del Col said he wants action figures, because to him, that “equals success.”

The audience question-and-answer portion was a mixed bag, as they usually are. I was most surprised at the answer to a woman’s question of “Is this your day job?” They both said yes, and McCreery said before they started, they worked very hard on crafting a business plan. I think that’s an excellent thing.

The Sandman and Neil Gaiman came up a few times in the Q&A portion, since, you know, Gaiman did write some stories involving Shakespeare in his comic. People wanted to know if that was an influence, and McCreery said he was kind of intimidated by the comparison, but that Kill Shakespeare is a different thing. It’s not better or worse, but just different.

That did make me think about something though — The Sandman reached (and still reaches) a lot of people who don’t read comics (and in fact, there are a lot of people who just read The Sandman and don’t ever branch out beyond that). It’s hard to say if Kill Shakespeare will still be read 20 years from now (but you never know) but it is connecting with non-comics audiences right now. It’s a very different comic than The Sandman, sure, and Del Col and McCreery are very different writers, but they do share Gaiman’s interest connecting with fans. I think there are worse comparisons.

ComicsDC‘s Mike Rhode questioned the loose geography of where Kill Shakespeare is set. Del Col pointed out that they just mention it’s in a “strange land” that’s vaguely European and vaguely in the middle ages. They compared it to the island from Lost before joking it was actually set in Canada.

Someone asked about their future plans, and both said they have more Kill Shakespeare planned out (they would love to use The Tempest) and they’re currently writing a screenplay and want to do video games and more.

But ultimately, they’ve been happy with Kill Shakespeare and the reaction it’s received so far. Both seem genuinely appreciative of it. McCreery said he just wants someone to pick up the comic and think “It’s not Shakespeare, but it’s not half-bad.”

Del Col said that should be the blurb on the back of the book.

Lenore: Cooties
Buy at Amazon.com

Roman Dirge‘s Lenore is about a dead 10-year-old girl. Which is to say, Lenore will basically be a dead 10-year-old girl forever. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by her longevity.

I don’t actually remember when I first knew about Lenore. I knew about the comic although I never really read it, but I do remember watching the animated shorts made for Sony’s Screenblast (you can view them on Dirge’s site). Still, Dirge’s comic, along with Jhonen Vasquez’s Johnny the Homicidal Maniac did a lot to bring in non-comics readers to comics, partially due to their sale at mall stores like Hot Topic as well as the two creator’s association with Invader ZIM.

I’m happy Lenore has found at home at Titan Books and Lenore: Cooties (2010, Titan Books) is the third and final volume of Dirge’s original run of Lenore.

This isn’t for everyone. A comic about a dead 10-year-old, her ex-vampire friend who is now in the form of a ragdoll and her obsessive suitor/stalker Mr. Gosh is going to have pretty limited appeal, after all. And then you combine that with all kinds of gross-out humor and gore, and well, this definitely becomes the sort of thing teenagers enjoy giggling over and hiding from their parents.

It’s self-consciously subversive, obviously, but what Dirge is doing here is actually playful. It’s certainly twisted and pretty sick, but it never feels overly cruel. I don’t feel there is a compassion underneath all the comedic gore — that’s not the point of this, after all — but Dirge is obviously having fun seeing what he’ll let himself get away with. It’s hard to not feel a bit charmed by that, even if this isn’t for you.

Dirge’s art has a kind of make-it-up-as-he-goes-along feel to it, with his trademark thick black outlines and handwritten word balloons that threaten to take over some panels. Still, he has a good sense of comedic timing, even when his punchlines are disgusting, and I enjoyed how much it kept throwing the unexpected at me.

(And if the “real life” strip of Dirge’s father scaring him as a child by doing things like hiding under his bed to grab his ankle and hiding in his closet are to be believed, Dirge has obviously come by this perspective naturally.)

The washed-out colors (except for the deep bloody reds) in this edition are a nice addition to the original black-and-white artwork. Also featured is an art gallery, bonus strips, and a foreword by none other than Neil Gaiman, who praises Lenore as his favorite little dead girl in all of literature.

I will say, at this point, you will probably know if Lenore is for you. If it is, you really can’t do any better. For me, it doesn’t quite match up with my sensibilities at this point in my life, but I was more entertained than I expected to be.

Review copy provided by Titan Books.

I’ve felt a little critical of The Best American Comics in the past, and that could just be that I wasn’t that familiar with them, but I’ve always felt they had a somewhat limited perspective on literary comics. You were going to find the approved creators — you know, the kinds of people who create “graphic novels” and those that your non-comics friends would possibly read, but not much else.

And then I read Neil Gaiman was the guest editor for the 2010 edition. Yes, I kind of rolled my eyes at bit there. I like Gaiman as a writer, yes, and his contributions to comics have been notable, but they’ve mostly been in the past and his work is fairly mainstream (maybe not initially, but I think once he’s showing up on CBS Sunday Morning, yes, he’s mainstream). He wouldn’t have been my first pick to put together a book of the best comics of the year.

However, Best American Comics 2010 is pretty cool and I think a lot of that is because of Gaiman’s perspective. I think since he’s not as closely connected to comics as someone else would’ve been, he’s more open-minded in his selections. The stories being told are what’s important here — not who is made them.

Yes, you have a lot of the usual suspects (too much Chris Ware for my tastes, but then, I’m not really a Ware fan), but you also have Theo Ellsworth, Bryan Lee O’Malley, C. Tyler, Lilli Carre. In other words, you have a lot of my people. It’s a wonderful mix of high-profile releases, like R. Crumb’s The Book of Genesis and Jonathan Ames and Dean Haspiel’s The Alcoholic and smaller releases, like Jesse Reklaw‘s Slow Wave and Fred Chao‘s Johnny Hiro.

That’s awesome. That’s what comics is. It covers a broad range of styles and subjects. It encompasses creators and publishers of all ages, experiences and fame. This didn’t feel like “Oh, here’s a bunch of creators you’ve probably heard of and one guy who got a Xeric.” It felt more like “This is what was great in comics between Aug. 2008 and Sept. 2009.” I loved seeing a lot of the comics I loved in that time period showing up here.

Is the perspective still a little limited? Maybe. But overall, this ended up feeling a lot like a collection of comics I’ve read or would read.

So yes, it’s still not for me, since I’ve read a lot of these comics (and I bet you have to). But would I give it to a friend or family member who was interested in comics but didn’t know where to start? Absolutely. That’s what this book is designed to do and it does it incredibly well.

Advanced reading copy provided by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt through NetGalley.

I have two more Toon Books to review, which I should to get to this week (tomorrow, perhaps).

This is his favorite trailer for Coraline:

I was very grumbly and ambivalent on this movie at first — mostly because it wasn’t going to be my vision of Coraline (it’s probably the book of Neil Gaiman’s I most related to) but then I was won over by how awesome it looks. I am very excited to see it.

(And I will, one day soon, review P. Craig Russell’s comic version of it. When I remember what pile of books it is in.)

I certainly didn’t think my idea was unique and I have no clue if Eric San Juan knows of it. But it’s a lot of fun to see someone else’s take on the series. I loved re-reading it and discovering new things in the process. It delights me that someone else is doing the same thing and recording his thoughts on it. Obviously, I don’t agree with everything he’s said, but I’m also surprised at some of the conclusions we both came to, like that Dream Country is where Neil Gaiman finds his voice in the series. I’m also surprised at where we differ — he likes Season of Mists much more than I did this time around.

I also admire his ability to write about each volume every week day — I could barely manage one per week.

Both those things are interesting on their own, but not so much worthy of their own post.

But I do feel the Coraline trailer is worthy of one.

OK, so it wasn’t a comic (although I did quite like P. Craig Russell’s comic version of it, which I’ll get around to reviewing here eventually), but I like Coraline. I was dubious about the movie at first but I’m now squarely in the “WANT TO SEE NOW” camp on this one.

I do think it’s funny that Neil Gaiman is not mentioned anywhere in the trailer. Not that I noticed, anyway.