long time no see...

No blogs lately, I've been working on the world's longest annotated bibliographies for the reading I've done so far this semester! I still have 17 annotations to write and found several titles I hadn't included on the bibliography last night. I'm also writing a separate professional bibliography in addition to my bookmarks on Delicious. Its the end of the semester!

On the positive side - I am looking forward to the May 4th release of Otomen 6 and Black Bird 4!

Neil Gaiman Fairy Tale Instructions Book Trailer

I vote this gets included because I love N.G. and its one of the coolest book trailers I've ever seen.

Patty Briggs! Patty Briggs!

So it was another exciting night this week at Murder by the Book. Patricia Briggs was there to sign books, speak, and answer questions. It was great to hear her talk, not just because I'm a big fan, but because she also talked about her graphic novels. She discussed the hold up she has been dealing with producing more graphic novels, caused by a falling out with her graphic novel publishers. She has parted ways with the original company, and is working with a new group who she says are much more professional than the last group.

One of the fans there asked her about how she got interested in writing books about werewolves and the other mythical beasts she writes about and ironically enough (at least for my purposes) it turns out the first time she read about werewolves was in the old Marvel title 'Werewolf by Night.'

I had fun chatting with her one on one about the differential in quality in the graphic novelization of so many of the paranormal titles, and we snickered over my flat out declaration that another novelists manganization was a train wreck. She said she felt like that particular author was very good at describing women's fantasies, which might not translate well into illustration. She also mentioned that part of what made Sherrilyn Kenyon's work so well was that one of her family members was in charge of producing it. It was a great night, and I enjoyed talking to the author and hearing her perspective, along with the highs and lows of getting her work out there.

Look! It's Patricia Briggs, and she's signing my graphic novel!

Photo by moi.

Jim Butcher Book Signing

Look, it's Jim Butcher, and he's signing my graphic novel.

Photo by moi.

Tonight I went to a Jim Butcher book signing and Q&A at Murder by the Book in Houston. Butcher's graphic adaptation of his Dresden Files series have made it onto the YALSA Great Graphic Novel list for 2010. It was a fun night, and he mentioned how much harder the graphic novel had been than he expected it to be. To paraphrase him 'They say a picture's worth a thousand words, and now you have to come up with 15 words to go with six pictures. Except you're the guy who originally came up with the six thousand words that got made into the six pictures.' I thought that was a clever way of looking at it, turning your book into a graphic novel is kind of like super editing for the author isn't it? It was a memorable night, and I made it out with my books by 9:51, which considering I was line #127 was awesome. I wonder when line number 250 will get to go home finally?

Makes me say "Meh."

Okay, first there was Charlaine Harris. She began writing about a plucky gal named Sookie.

Then cam Alan Ball, the guy who sexed up funeral homes on HBO.

Alan decided Sookie and her paranormal pals needed to be sexed up on HBO like funeral homes.

What could be next for Sookie - books, tv... oh, wait, of course... a comic book!

True Blood Comic Announced

This goes back to my whole theory of beating a dead horse till you get every penny out of its hide. Whap, Whap, Whap. When you constantly retell the same stories it can keep other artists unpublished even though they have great stories to tell. My whole reaction to this announcement was "Meh." I like the Sookie books, I like True Blood, but I've read the books and I watch the show... do I really need comics too? Its like the George Lucas business model applied to everything.

PRINTED IN FLIRTY PINK INK!

I finally got my hands on one of the manga titles from the Harlequin Ginger Blossom line that has been released by HQ and Dark Horse. I was vaguely terrified. You would think they had a recipe for success... two power house publishers working together, good illustrators and a story by a famous romance novelist. The illustrations are beautiful, but the plot is really thin (which is a generous description).

In summary: Girl meets Prince when her mother wins a date with him through a raffle at a romance convention. They fall in love immediately, but unfortunately, the prince must marry a wealthy girl to save his bankrupt country! Duty before love! They can never see one another again! Wait! It turns out the wealthy girl is secretly in love with the prince's personal secretary! Next they discover a diamond mine! Hurray! Now the prince and the commoner can fall in love forever!!!

The best part... the whole book is "PRINTED IN FLIRTY PINK INK!"

I can safely say that I have never read a Debbie Macomber novel, and never will after this. This imprint is just a bunch of wasted potential, the dialogue is stilted, the story is too stream lined to be believable, the FLIRTY PINK INK is obnoxious, and its expensive! The Bachelor Prince is about half the length of your normal manga, is 9.99, and treats its readers like they have the IQs of chihuahuas.

The Harlequin Pink imprint is aimed at ages 12 and up, there is another imprint (Harlequin Violet) for ages 16 and up. I don't know if those are PRINTED IN FLIRTY VIOLET INK!

Ashame of you Dark Horse! Ashame of you!

Want to see this terror for yourself? Dark Horse has a preview on their website. Although disappointingly the preview is not PRINTED IN FLIRTY PINK INK!

You know how you know you're a nerd...

You look at the clock at 8:30 at night and realize that you can still make it to the public library before it closes at 10:00. You then proceed to check out Fruits Basket #14, Absolute Boyfriend #5, Incognegro, and Embroderies. You then realize you can't remember the last time you went to the library and checked out a traditional novel.

Aside from that, it was another one of those experiences at the public library where you're left kind of wandering around looking for what you want and trying to establish what version of shelving they've decided to go with. This is a big county library, on a junior college campus and has all the bells and whistles you could dream of. It also has graphic novel/manga shelving schizophrenia. There are some graphic novels and a couple manga titles in the adult 741.5 section, then when you enter the "Teens" area there is a stand alone shelf full of traditional graphic novels. Next to that is a hand lettered sign that says "Manga is found at the end of the YA Fiction shelves." Everything I've read emphasizes that manga are graphic novels. So why does no one really shelve them together? Why do Spiderman, Batman, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, and Othello get to party together, and Tohru Honda, Princess Ai, and the others have to hang out in their own section?

One of the things I really hoped to get a clearer idea about during this semester was how things were shelved... unfortunately, I'm learning that no one else is sure either.

For a sidebar, I went to get my oil changed today, and was happily reading a copy of Fruits Basket to pass the time, and a teenage boy looked at me and said "Fruits Basket?" I smiled and nodded to which he replied "Cool."

My thrown down title for people who say graphic novels are for kids:

Pride of Baghdad by Brian K. Vaughn-

Makes me weep every time. It takes the story of the escape of a pride of lions from the zoo at the beginning of the Iraq War and reimagines the story from their point of view and through flashbacks of their former lives. If I taught in a high school, I'd totally buy a class set and make them read it. There are so many ways its been described before, I just think everyone should read it.

NYTimes

Dick Giordano Passes Away at 77

R.I.P. Dick Giordano

Wrapping up Women's History Month

SLJ's article on graphic novels about Women

I was glad to see this article focusing on graphic novels for and about women for March. It features one of the Female Force compilations of the comic books, and I hate to say it, but I just don't dig them. I'm not a fan of the art work or some of the subjects... Meredith Viera? Barbara Walters? Powerful women, yes, just not really appealing to the age bracket and type of kid I teach. I'm sure the kids will all line up for the more recent installments on Stephenie Meyer and maybe J.K. Rowling when they are released in August as a graphic novel.

Everything Old Is New Again

I find it interesting that so many of the graphic novels for elementary students seem to be rehashes of books that have come before. Nancy Drew graphic novels, the Hardy Boys, and now even the Babysitters Club have been born again in graphic novel form. Don't get me wrong, I love me some Nancy Drew (not deeply intellectual books, but I was trapped for long summers at my Meme's house with no air conditioning, no TV, and a collection of Nancy Drews every summer), but why are publishers so content to recycle? It seems like the money spent rewriting some of these stories and paying new illustrators could be used to publish some newer titles. I think one of the reasons manga is so successful with readers is that it is a new book, not a rehash of something that has come before.

I've been watching the same thing happen when some of the adult aimed graphic novels. I liked the fact that the graphic novel that was made based on Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson series was used to tell the origin story of the character, but now with the increasing success of her books the publisher has elected to base the graphic novels on her already published books (much like they are reissuing the original paperbacks in hardback). I liked the back story, why not keep working on original story telling? The same with the Harper Connelly series by Charlaine Harris, I like the Harper series, much better than the Sookie series as a matter of fact... but why redo the books as graphic novels? Why not some original stories? Its just frustrating, I want some original stories!

Harper Connelly Graphic Novels

Crogan's Adventures

While at Emerald City I spent some time chatting with one of the editors at the Oni Press table (Polly and the Pirates, Scott Pilgrim) and he recommended this new series following the Crogan family. So far there are only two volumes that have been released one about a pirate and another about a French Legionnaire, but the author intends for there to be sixteen volumes in the series. I thought they were fun, and I think boys will really enjoy them. Check them out at Oni's website which has a free 2 page preview of Crogan's Vengeance and a 26 page preview of Crogan's March.

Well now, I'm back from outer space...

Photo by me, July 2009, LaPush WA

I'm back from my spring break adventures and am ready to get back to work. I had a lot of fun in Seattle at the Emerald City Comic Con and got a chance to check out some graphic novel titles for kids, talked to some publishers, editors, and some authors. I was even lucky enough to run into an author I'm fan of and get a book signed complete with a drawing (total embarassing fan girl moment). Very exciting! I also watched Stan Lee walk by, and snickered at the fact that he and Leonard Nimoy are making a living signing sixty dollar autographs.

I've started reading the new Twilight graphic novel, and so far I've found it to be a fairly faithful adaptation of the first third of the first novel. I'm kind of torn about it, I do think some of my readers will finally be able to read the material instead of carrying the book around as a fashion accessory. I do like that Young Kim (the artist and adaptor) was given free reign to create her own visual images for the graphic novel seperate from the familiar faces of Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, and company.

However, deep in my rebellious little heart I'm kind of cynical about it. Now the publisher will be able to break each novel down into multiple volumes and Stephenie Meyer and company will make even more money. I rather unfairly just had a mental image of her swimming through money like Scrooge McDuck. This is the same reservation I have about the James Patterson Maximum Ride series, rehashing the same materials to make money.

The graphic novel isn't a bad product, at least if you compare it to the body glitter and sparkle candy, and is a good adaptation. I could confidently purchase it before a library from any grade 5th and up and be confident that it would be a popular title.

Randomly Annoying

I was cruising along yesterday searching for articles on girls and graphic novels, and one of the annoying things about using such general terms to search is the stuff you come up with. Frequently, reviews pop up from things like School Library Journal and other publications. I stopped and read one of the reviews, and it made me grind my teeth.

I know the author wasn't trying to be offensive, and I'm probably the only person in the universe who did take offense. The reviewer talks about how this particular manga title didn't break new ground, blah, blah, blah, but it was okay. That's fine, we don't like everything, I've never read the book, I'm not looking to add it to my collection, so I don't really care if she liked the book or not. Then came the final line, where she comments that 'manga readers won't care that it's not a great story and doesn't break any new ground, they'll just be happy with a new title to read.'

Really? They'll just read anything as long as it has drawings of big eyed people? They don't care if the story is any good? They'll just read anything you put out there?

I find that attitude offensive. 'They' won't just read anything because you put it out there. Why should we spend our limited budgets on crap books nobody wants to read? Young adults don't need to be patronized by their librarians. Ugh.

Challenges in Managing and Maintaining Your Graphic Novel Collection

While interviewing librarians I also asked about special challenges in managing and maintaining their graphic novel collections. I received a variety of responses.

All of the librarians answered that wear and tear on the books was one of the greatest challenges they faced on a day to day basis. With a great number of titles only available in paperback, those volumes tend to wear out faster than other library bound graphic novels.

Two librarians specifically mentioned funding their collections as an additional expense. Many graphic novels are serialized, and budgets need to be built around possible standing orders for new books as they come out. A number of manga titles are parts of large collections (Fruits Basket 23 volumes, Tsubasa 24 volumes). This can make ordering tricky when dealing with library vendors, one librarian mentioned that when they tried to complete her libraries Naruto collection, she ended up being shorted volumes 4,9, and 13 because they were on back order.

A public librarian mentioned that there is a difficulty for her finding reviews of graphic novels from a lot of the traditional resources. As a result of this she turns to alternative resources to find reviews and alerts on new and upcoming series.

The same public librarian and one of the high school librarians were the only ones who mentioned being familiar with the content and making sure they put material in the appropriate part of the collection. The high school librarian I interviewed seemed to be the most familiar with her collection in order to know what she had on her shelves. Some of the other librarians admitted being unfamiliar with some of the titles and series in their own collections.

Although rationally, I know its impossible to know every title in your collection and to have read them all, I believe it is very important to know your collection. I also believe that most of the hurdles mentioned in the librarians interviews can be addressed. I've noticed that more publishers are starting to address the library market and are producing hardier versions of their books. As the genre continues to grow in popularity, I think this trend will continue. Even Tokyopop is putting out hard back multi volume collections of some of its most popular manga titles.

Cause I Think Its Funny

Shelving, Shelving, Where the heck is that book?

When I started working on this project I checked out a ton of graphic novels and manga from the public library. While there, I noticed they had the same issue I had run into before... the dreaded shelving issue.

In the school where I work, the majority of graphic novels are in 741.5, with the exception of graphic nonfiction. Every year I check out the graphic biographies and put them out in my classroom, and every year the children are shocked to find out they exist. These are titles the kids are interested in reading once they know where to find them. Usually you won't find a fifth grader reading about Alexander the Great (at least not where I work), but once my students see the graphic biographies they're ready to read them.

I was even more befuddled when I tried to figure out what was happening at the local branch library. They had the usual three sections for 741.5: children's, young adults, adult, but in the interest of making them more accessible (and I would guess easier to shelve) they had put out a seperate shelf that held only manga titles. I would assume that the original intention was to make them easily accessible to patrons, unfortunately there was an unintentional side effect. I don't know if it was poor training or general laziness amongst the employees, but in many cases you have to check the manga shelf, the young adult section, and the adult section to find what you were looking for. I have had to look in all three locations to find serialized volumes of Fruits Basket, Vol. 7 might be in adult, Vol. 12 in young adult, and all the other volumes elsewhere. It makes things very confusing. I wanted to ask, but I couldn't picture myself walking up to the branch librarian and saying "I noticed you have a very inefficient shelving system for your manga, can you give me your rationale?"

As a result of this confusion I decided to send a questionnaire out to various librarians to see how they handled shelving and a number of other issues. The results of the shelving question were interesting. The majority of public librarians responded that they kept everything in the 741.5 section, while school librarians seemed to have optioned for a separate graphic novel section. Although they seemed to uniformly pull the fictional graphic novels and place them in a prominent, easy to find area, they were inconsistent with their treatment of the nonfiction graphica. Only two of the librarians I heard from incorporated their nonfiction graphica into their separate graphic novel collections, the rest kept them filed with biography or in the appropriate nonfiction section.

Personally, I think that if you're going to go to the trouble to create a separate section for fictional graphic titles, you might as well create a section for the nonfiction ones as well. Many of the librarians answered the questionnaire that boys were the primary readers of the graphica (I'll address that separately later), and research shows that boys enjoy reading nonfiction titles. It only makes sense to me, to emphasize the availability of nonfiction graphic titles as well. Individual graphic biographies tend to get lost in a sea of other biographies. Give the more serious graphica as much of a chance to shine as you would Naruto. What's the line from the Kevin Costner movie - "If you build it. They will come."

Bleh...

I was at work at 6:30 am and came home at 10:00pm, so not much on my mind tonight.

I did finish reading the first volume of the manga version of the James Patterson Maximum Ride series and concluded that it's better than the actual novels.

Sometimes you really don't need everything for your collection!

I found a few references to this case when I first started researching for this class and its one of those situations that leaves me kind of wobbly. Christopher Handley of Iowa is apparently a manga collector. He’s the kind of guy who has to have it all, the kind of collector who has literally thousands of books and magazines in his collection. He’s so in to collecting manga that he has it shipped to him from Japan. Enter a postal inspector who opens the package, decides the pictures in the manga depict people under thirteen in sexual acts and turns them over for prosecution. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund described the beginning of the investigation like this:

Mr. Handley's case began in May 2006 when he received an express mail package from Japan that contained seven Japanese comic books. That package was intercepted by the Postal Inspector, who applied for a search warrant after determining that the package contained cartoon images of objectionable content. Unaware that his materials were searched, Handley drove away from the post office and was followed by various law enforcement officers, who pulled him over and followed him to his home. Once there, agents from the Postal Inspector's office, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, Special Agents from the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, and officers from the Glenwood Police Department seized Handley's collection of over 1,200 manga books or publications; and hundreds of DVDs, VHS tapes, laser disks; seven computers, and other documents. Though Handley's collection was comprised of hundreds of comics covering a wide spectrum of manga, the government is prosecuting images appearing in a small handful.


This is where the disconnect between what’s acceptable for publication in Japan and the U.S. comes in to play, along with the knowledge of the person who’s doing the looking. Some people see obscenity, some people don’t.


It’s just a case that makes me kind of sad, I am interested in the fact that Neil Gaiman weighed in and has been helping the guy pay for his defense (along with the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund). I think in many ways Gaiman is right, if we judge all graphica by the same standards that were used here, lots of people would be in trouble. Especially since the wording of the law is so open to interpretation. From what I can tell this could be especially troubling for manga, where because of the artistic style any number of characters could appear to be under the age of thirteen.


I understand that people want to protect children, but this sounds like a case that got out of hand. Do I think that Chris Handley showed poor judgment in what he chose to buy? Yes. Do I think he and the federal government should have spent the last four years wrangling over this? No. It just makes me sad. I understand why Mr. Handley chose to plead out at this point, I’m sure six months in jail is preferable to this continuing in court. I can’t imagine risking another five years of my life if convicted.


What Handley’s lawyer has to say:
http://www.tcj.com/news/christopher-handley%E2%80%99s-attorney-comments-on-his-case

Other articles and commentaries on the topic:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/02/obscene-us-manga-collector-jailed-6-months/#ixzz0hFqjFe1v

http://www.cbldf.org/pr/archives/000372.shtml

http://www.cbldf.org/pr/archives/000416.shtml

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/05/manga-porn/

http://otakureview.today.com/2008/12/11/the-case-against-christopher-handley/

|

I am embarassed to admit that I'm experimenting with pictures from free code source sites to try and find things to make my wiki more interesting. Unfortunately, its not working. :( For some reason I can get all these ridiculous things to show up here, but not there. Sigh.

I will now use 'emo' graphics to express my feelings:

|

Not to mention... how many of these images are legal? There are great images of anime charcters, and they are marked copyrighted, but in these days of internet image free for allness can anyone police them?

One size fits all...

I was talking to various people this week, and it kind of made me sad how many people thought that hard to interest readers = graphic novels. Picking books for students just isn't something where you throw things at the wall and see what sticks. You have to know their interests and spend a few minutes asking them questions to make them think about what they like. I try my hardest to provide the students I work with in the classroom a wide variety of reading materials. I have students who would much rather read a graphic novel about Bigfoot than something else, but I also have students who would rather read a book from the Percy Jackson series than a graphic novel or manga any day. There are also so many forms of graphica out there aimed at adults that deal with really heavy stuff, that I hate for people to be under the impression that its just a 'comic book.' For me, this semester is an extension of that. I want to find things that I think students will enjoy and want to read to add to my collection, I also want to make sure I'm not just purchasing crap to make sure I have enough 'girl' or 'boy' oriented material. I want to provide students with quality reading materials, no matter where they're shelved.

Johanna Draper Carlson

One of the web sites I've been using and enjoying while I've been working on this project is comicsworthreading.com. I was curious about what had inspired Johanna Draper Carlson to turn writing reviews for mediums like Publishers Weekly into a web site. I sent a brief (five question) email interview to Ms. Carlson to satisfy some of my curiosity, and she was cool enough to write back. Here's what she had to say:


What prompted your interest in graphic novels and comics?
I actually don't remember. I've been reading comics all my life, ever since I was a kid getting Superman Family Dollar Comics and Wonder Woman issues. But I dropped in and out during teen years, high school, and college. I finally got back into it for good when I went to grad school in popular culture, and I decided to start studying fandom online. I graduated in 1992 and kept talking about comics online afterwards.


What inspired you to start your own review web site?
I started reviewing on Usenet. I decided to start my own website in the late 90s as a place to collect what I'd said, so people could refer back to previous opinions. I was using space my ISP provided, then I bought the ComicsWorthReading.com domain name in late 1999. I was hand-coding the site back then, and I switched over to WordPress as the site engine in 2004.


I can't imagine not reviewing at this point. I like to share opinions on what I read and see what others thought as well.


When you read comics and graphic novels what do you look for to make it worth reading?
It depends on the material. Mostly, I'm looking to see if the book and author successfully meet what they're trying to do. You can't evaluate an ambitious literary/artistic graphic novel with the same criteria you'd use for the latest installment of shojo manga, but you can talk about what was good and what could be improved.




Is there any advice you would give school librarians about selecting comics, manga and graphic novels to their library’s collections?
Know your audience and what they want. I know librarians have to balance sometimes competing needs, especially when it comes to kids and young adults -- what they want to read may not be what their parents want to see. Also, there can still be a perception that the medium is for younger people, so librarians may face static when acquiring graphic novels for adults, especially those that deal with mature subjects and content. There are resources out there to support you in these areas.


I encourage them to use the many resources available to them, including reviews, both general audience and those specifically aimed at the library market.


What’s your must read list for comics and graphic novels?
I put up a page on my website answering just that question: http://comicsworthreading.com/cwr/ hosts lists of "essential graphic novels are must-reads for anyone interested in the medium."

A big thanks to Johanna Draper Carlson for taking the time to email me back! Hopefully I'll have more mini-interviews to post soon!

Ack! Word overuse strikes again!

I try to recognize my flaws in my writing - my tendency towards run on sentences, my love of the comma. However, looking back over this blog I also have to acknowledge my overuse of the word cute.

Attempting to solve this dilemma I will consult a thesaurus. Instead I could say:

• adorable
• attractive
• ambrosial (that's a nice one)
• appealing
• charming
• captivating
• darling
• dainty
• beautiful
• delightful
• pleasant
• pretty
• darling
• dear
• delectable
• delicious
• dreamy
• fetching
• precious

I think that's a good start, now I just need to remember to use them. Perhaps a sticky note on my computer screen.

Black Bird Online Preview

I love the way so many sites let you read/preview online.

Here's a preview of Shojo Beat's Black Bird.

Saving money much to the corporate bookstore's chagrin

I spent part of my morning in the big box bookstore reading away. I figure, they wouldn't have benches if they didn't want me to hang out.

My friend Joy emailed me the names of some of the Manga that is popular with her kids at the high school library, so I decided to read a few volumes on the sly. I had never heard of Kitchen Princess, which she named so I pulled vol.1 and began to read. It's a pretty cute, fairly typical love triangle as far as Shojo goes. I did think the addition of the recipes that the heroine uses in the book was cute. I also picked up a copy of vol.2 of After School Nightmare (I got vol. 1 from the public library)and read that while I was there. Its an interesting combination of a horror novel and strange love story all in one. I'll have to keep reading that series, I'm not sure I can do it justice without reading the whole thing. I also read the first volume of Mixed Vegetables, where a girl decides to date a boy in her cooking school because his family runs a famous sushi restraunt, and she wants to be a sushi chef. Unfortunately, her parents own a bakery so she's expected to become a baker. Mayhem ensues when it's discovered the boy is using her because he wants to become a pastry chef. Convoluted anyone?

I know I read another girl oriented book while I was there, but it was so memorable I've forgotten it... and didn't write anything down. The big bookstore did make some money off me as I slunk away with vol.4 of Otomen. I can't help it, its my kryptonite.

I also happily dropped ChocoMimi back in the slot at the public library. I'd be happy never to see that travesty again in my life. It was so insipid, it hurt me to read it. At first I thought it was just me, so I gave it to one of my girls to read, she made it a few pages and said "I can't do it, it's just too stupid." Glad its not just me. The only highlight in the book is the dog who thinks he's a samurai, he's the highlight.

I also started reading Rapunzel's Revenge by Shannon Hale and the graphic novel adaptation of Coraline by Neil Gaiman. I know the Coraline is an award winner, but I think it will suffer with students because of the appeal of the visuals in the recent film. I do think its a faithful and well done interpretation of the novel.

That was my Saturday in a nutshell, unless you count writing a paper for another class, dealing with intermittent power outages, grocery store trips, and cat wrestling.

I've been reading too much manga...

which caused me to make onigiri for dinner tonight! Ha ha. I even made up all my own fillings, to make sure it was vegetarian and vegan friendly.

I'm having trouble finding fictional graphic novels that I think would be good for students at the intermediate (5th-6th) level. There are the generic Rosen Graphica which provide biographies, history, aliens, etcetera, but its a difficult age to look for. Much of the material is too young, or too mature. Sigh. Not all fifth grade girls want to read Baby Mouse or Happy Happy Clover, but aren't old enough for some of the other titles.

I got the new Goldsmith book from ALA (The Reader's Advisory to Graphic Novels), and right now I'm kind of disappointed. Its very basic, which I'm sure some people need, but is a little simplistic for my purposes. Perhaps I'll be less disappointed the further I get into it, I think the main thing that is sticking in my craw is having to pay $45.oo for a 120 page book. I've never understood why professional titles are soooooo expensive.

I'm also trying out del.icio.us for bookmarking some of the review web sites I'm finding. I'll see how I like it.

while browsing today I found...

This is an interesting commentary on i09.com from last year about manga and public perception by Jason Thompson, and today there was a post on the addition of graphic novels to The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Both are interesting commentary, the Jason Thompson post on manga itself and American/western perception of the genre, and the second that graphic novels are becoming more and more recognized for their content.

The Ongoing Drama Called 'Cantarella'

I've been trying to read a mix of both popular and critically acclaimed graphic novels and manga for this project. So, I've really been looking around, checking best seller lists, YALSA lists, etcetera. While perusing the ALA catalog the other day, I noticed that they had a poster designed by the artist who wrote/drew Cantarella, and is mentioned as being on the YALSA Recommended Graphic Novel list for 2006. Obviously, I think to myself "Huh, I should check that out."

Easier said than done.

In doing this project, I'm reading ALOT. I currently have 39 books checked out from the county library, all graphic novels and manga (manga is serialized, and is like pretzels, who eats just one?). I figured, surely the county library system has this book, its recommended, and they have a catalog that is made up of 3 counties and a junior college system. They'll have it.

Nope.

Surely the city library system will have Cantarella, I live in the fourth largest city in the country!

Nope.

School district holdings? Nope
Borders? Nope
Waldenbooks? Nope
Independent book stores? Nope
Used book stores? Nope

I finally found it at one BN location. All I can say is that after this, this book better bring it. I'm afraid to start reading the darn thing after all the drama just to get it. I may just hold onto it like some shopping holy grail, never to be read, I'll just recite the story of trying to buy it.

Sherrilyn Kenyon | Borders Media

Sherrilyn Kenyon Borders Media

Just thought this was interesting. When asked about the manga and her interest in the format she mentions the fact that she is dyslexic, and only learned to read because of comic books.

Learning the Lingo

My eyes are almost crossed from trying to learn some of the terminology associated with manga. First, there are the two major divisions: shojo and shonen. Easy enough then, shojo for girls, shonen for boys. Wait, but then there is seinen, which is aimed at young men. Along comes the next reference, to shonen-ai which means boys love, which apparently has offensive/pedophiliac overtones in Japan. Hence books that have a m/m romantic story line are commonly referred to as BL. Next came yaoi, which are apparently explicit and pornographic. Which led me to wonder what story lines with f/f love stories are called… yuri! However, then it turns out there are two kinds of yuri too! Yuri shojo, which is more of a love story, and yuri shonen which is apparently kind of ‘pervy.’ And apparently if you're a fan in the U.S. you can use the term 'otaku' to describe yourself, which means you're kind of a super fan, but in Japan its a derogatory description of a super fan.

Ack! Can you imagine trying to find books to add to your collection and stumbling across a whole new vocabulary? This would be the point of my independent study… finding out these things now! I was pretty sure I could find my way around the graphic novels, but I’m really learning a lot when it comes to manga!

Random Disappointment

There’s a big trend in making graphic novels out of some of the more popular urban fantasy books (Patricia Briggs, Jim Butcher, Laurell K. Hamilton), and interestingly a couple of the paranormal romance authors have manga series that are being created around some of their more popular books. I knew that Sherrilyn Kenyon had spun her Dark Hunter series off into a manga series, which didn’t surprise me, as she is known as a big manga fan and mentions manga and graphic novels in her own books. I was a little surprised when I found a manga version of a Christine Feehan book yesterday at the book store. It was an epic disappointment. The quality was so poor it was ridiculous, I have no idea what the publisher was thinking. The illustrations were amateurish, and the plot was cut to shreds. Her entire series of books are fairly sexual, and the graphic novel cuts from the heroine being in her underwear on one page to dressed and flying through the air on the next. I’m assuming that they were trying to tone down the sex in the storylines to make the books more marketable to teens, but it didn’t work. There’s just a huge variable in quality between the two, which I’m assuming comes from the difference in the two authors’ familiarity with the manga format.

Dark Hunter Sherrilyn Kenyon

Dark Hunger Christine Feehan

Emergency Room Readers

I was sitting in the emergency room the other night, waiting the interminable wait (once you stop bleeding they put you in the slow lane), and all I had to read was Vol.1 of Tokyo Mew Mew. Best funny looks I've ever gotten from people in the waiting room with me. Once again, I fell victim to the "you're not supposed to be reading that, you're a grown up" look. It was pretty hilarious. Not to mention the fact that, after having lost that much blood, Tokyo Mew Mew was probably the height of my reading comprehension ability.

Begin at the beginning...

Just to set this up- this blog is part of my independent study project for my library science degree. I’ve decided to spend this semester learning more about graphic novels and manga and their role in the school and public library. I’ve been a public school teacher for a while now, so I’ve seen how well they work for motivating hard to interest readers, and I’ve seen how much kids flat out enjoy reading them.

I’m kind of jealous of kids today, and how easily available graphic novels and manga are. You can wander into any major chain bookstore or independent and find a huge selection to choose from. My own experiences were very different. Around 1985 a TV show appeared on my television, called Robotech. It was love at first sight. Lisa and Rick made my pre-teen heart flutter. My father had raised me on a steady diet of Godzilla and Dr.Who, so I was already predisposed to loving sci-fi. Robotech had everything I needed, aliens, battle mecha, and a love story. It was my first exposure to anime, and it stuck. I loved Robotech, I wanted more. The only problem was, there was no place to get it. My father ended up buying tickets to Star Trek conventions to get me into the exhibit room, which at the time was the best place to get anime materials. I would wander out of the sales room laden with books in Japanese, movies, comics and albums.

Despite starting out with a bang, I drifted away from my interest because it was hard to find, and the only other alternative was comic books. While there were some comics I liked, I’m not a super hero fan, and many American comics are all flash and bang. I was also entering my hard core feminist phase and was offended by all the female super heroes in spandex and bikinis. How did they fight in those things?

I’ve been enjoying reading the manga I’ve found so far, and I know that had it been available to me as a young adult I would have been an addict. I may become an adult addict, I’ve already found a few series that I may keep reading long after I’m done with this class.