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.

Newave!: The Underground
Mini Comix of the 1980s

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.

Abstract Comics

Every couple of months or so, another article will come out considering the question of “Are comics literature?” Much has been discussed about the value of graphic novels with attempts to place them alongside prose books.

Less has been discussed about comics as art, however.

Abstract Comics (2009, Fantagraphics) tries to make the case for the latter. On one hand, it succeeds beautifully. On the other hand, it’s really hard to say if some these are truly “comics.”

The book is designed beautifully — editor Andrei Molotiu presents this book like an exhibition catalog and the oversized pages are filled with rich blacks and vibrant colors. It’s maybe not quite a coffee table book, but it’s a lovely one to leave lying around to flip through idly.

The content serves as a great introduction to a genre of comics that few people knew existed. Molotiu takes somewhat of a scholarly approach to the content, placing the concept of abstract comics within art history in his introduction. He makes a good case.

Obviously, some of these are absolutely what I think of comics. Robert Crumb’s “Abstract Expressionist Ultra Super Modernistic Comics” is done in his classic style, even if it lacks a narrative, and Mike Getsiv‘s “Shapes,” with its swirl of colors, has plenty of movement. Henrik Rehr‘s “Storms” is powerful as it builds, evoking the chaos of storms. Mark Gonyea and James Kochalka also provide interesting contributions — abstract, certainly, as the title of the book would imply, but very much grounded in the traditional sequential form of comics.

Other works in the book, I think it’s a stretch to call comics. In fact, I think it’s a stretch to even say they’re sequential art. Tim Gaze’s series of splotchy patches of black ink, segmented randomly, are appealingly disorganized, but they don’t seem to move from one to the next with clear transitions. Richard Hahn‘s bicolored paintings, divided into tiny, uneven boxes, are lovely and soothing, but don’t say “comics” to me at all. I understand that some of this is just a matter of personal opinion — you may think they’re comics whereas I don’t — but some of this feels like a stretch.

And you may have noticed that everyone I’ve listed so far is a man. There is not one woman creator featured in this book. The Abstract Comics blog features a couple — such as Satu Kaikkonen and Nina Roos — so I’m going to think their work was discovered too late for inclusion here and it wasn’t some intentional oversight. Still, I would’ve loved to have seen more diversity in the creators featured in this book.

Overall, this is a cool concept and I was surprised by it. I think it’s definitely going to cause some debates about what comics are and are not, and that’s a good thing. I’m going to enjoy revisiting this book, even if I don’t agree that all of the works featured here are comics.