Like many of you, I've been hearing news about the Occupy movement for a little while now. However, since I am holding down a full-time job -- one which I would like to keep -- it doesn't make much sense for me to head over to the nearest Occupy camp and get fined and/or arrested, despite my supporting them conceptually. (That sounds a bit hollow, I suppose, but as I mentioned a couple weeks back, I don't feel I can financially afford to live and still hold my ideals.)
When the police ransacked the People's Library in New York last week, I was stunned to see that A) the Occupy Wall Street group had a library (thanks for the substantive reporting, news media) and B) they were essentially playing out the back-story of Fahrenheit 451. Kudos to the Occupy people for retrieving what books they could and starting the People's Library again. The least I could do was to send over some books from my collection, now that I knew they were taking donations like that.
I don't have a lot (any?) books that would be truly be relevant and/or poignant to the movement as a whole, but what I do have are comics. So I packed up a collection of graphic novels and TPBs to send over. It was a bit of a mixed bag of books -- some Marvel, some DC, some independent. Just some things to maybe let them escape for a bit. Packed them up neatly, took them to the post office and sent them off. (With a confirmation of receipt since the post office attendant was eyeballing me a little strangely after he saw the address.)
After sending the box off, I realized I should probably remove the books from my personal collection database before I forget what I've done with them. It was only then that I realized that about a third of the books I sent off were by Frank Miller.
I don't know Miller personally and have nothing against him. I still think he's turned out some fantastic comics over the years. But it still amused me to think that he is, if he hasn't already, inadvertently supporting the very group he decried. Had I realized that before I sent the books off, I might have seen JUST books by Miller.
Anyway, if you're interested in supporting the Occupy Wall Street People's Library, donations can be sent to:
The UPS Store
Re: Occupy Wall Street
Attn: The People's Library
118A Fulton St. #205
New York, NY 10038
If you've been... well, anywhere outside your home lately, you may have noticed the Christmas decorations are going up and carols being piped through the loudspeakers. And it gets you thinking that maybe you should start shopping for Christmas presents.
The past few years, I've tried being a little less conspicuous with what I give people. My favorite attempt recently was two years ago when I bought a pair of cheap, used laptops and converted them into digital picture frames. A little more personal (since I had to do the conversion myself) and not all that expensive (since they were ten years old). This year, though, I'm aiming for something a little different.
I've been becoming more interested lately in supporting more independent creators. Within comics, at least, I think there are some folks telling some really great stories that maybe aren't everyone's cup of tea, but ones that I can appreciate. What's more, they're by-passing traditional publishing methods in favor of doing their own thing. Which means that when a person buys their wares, a larger chunk of the money goes directly to them. So I've helped with a few Kickstarter projects, and have been buying more self-published works. I think my appreciation of this has increased since I self-published my own book.
In any event, with the recent Occupy movement bringing more attention to just how wide the income gap in the U.S. has become, it seems to me that I should be all the more interested in sending my money to individuals and smaller companies instead of the giant corporations who already make millions of dollars. Those companies aren't going to miss my business, I'm sure, but I suspect that the folks who are selling one book here and there will be very appreciative of what I can send them. So this year, I'm going to try to get the majority of my Christmas presents from smaller, indie folks who are just out doing good stuff.
It's early in my shopping for this year, so I don't know how well I'll do overall, but I've gotten two gifts so far that required personal emails from the creators to make sure they were putting together exactly what I wanted. And I have to say that, in both cases, it was pretty cool to get that kind of personal attention on some unique gifts. (I'd tell you what they are, but the recipients might be reading this.) The more I think about the idea, the more I like it. I'll try to do a follow-up post at the end of December to let you all know how well it goes over.
And *ahem* besides my book, I have some cool comic-related shirts for sale too. In case, you know, you might be interested in attempting something similar this holiday season.
I got a chance to look at an advance preview of Brenda Starr, Reporter: The Collected Daily and Sunday Strips: Volume One from Hermes Press, due out in January. It reprints the first years of Dale Messick's famous newspaper strip, covering 1940 through 1946. Which sounds like am almost unwieldy amount for one book, but the strip only ran on Sundays until late 1945, before it finally went daily.
I was interested to read these because my only familiarity with Brenda Starr comes from the strips after Messick retired in 1982. I was curious what Messick herself had done, especially in lieu of her position as one of the pioneering female cartoonists in what is still a male-dominated industry.
There are several note-worthy things about this collection. First, because it covers a substantial period, readers are easily able to see Messick's art evolve. The earliest strips aren't bad, but they definitely improve as things move forward. Not only do Messick's illustration skills get smoother, but she also gets noticeably better with her storytelling and pacing.
Second, Hermes has included several extras that shed some more light on Messick herself. There are pieces by Messick's daughter and grand-daugher, one by cartoonist Richard Pietrzyk and another by comic creator and historian Trina Robbins. Robbins' is, not surprisingly, the most fact-filled and provides the broadest look at Messick's entire career. The familial pieces, more focused on impressions and a few anecdotes, speak more to Messick's character. Combined, they all paint a rounded picture of her, despite being a very minor part of the overall book.
Third, Hermes includes some annotated process pages, showing not only Messick's creation process -- with layout sketches, scans of original art and color guides -- but also some references to the digital clean-up work they did for producing the book. This latter portion is a decidedly small part of the book but quite useful, I think, in reminding some readers that more work goes into these reprint productions than simply scanning the pages in. None of these process pages gets overly technical, but enough to educate the completely uninformed as well as provide a guide that those already knowledgeable about the process generally can figure out what Messick was doing more specifically.
If you have any interest in Messick, Brenda Starr or newspaper strips, I think this looks to be a handsome and useful volume to add to your collection. I haven't seen many other reprints of these strips before, but Hermes has done a far superior job to ensuring these strips look/read well than any of Brenda Starr reprints I've seen previously.Brenda Starr, Reporter: The Collected Daily and Sunday Strips: Volume One is due out in January 2012.
Remember: HERBIE hates you, too. Wardrobe by Matt Geuther.
You're thinking, "Sean, did a cat jump on your keyboard or something? What's up with the post title?"
No, that was deliberate. Shujaaz.FM is actually the title of a Kenyan comic book that was started in February 2010. It's about a Kenyan boy called Boyie who finds himself unemployed and unable to continue his formal education. So he hacks together a pirate radio station and uses it to broadcast a message to his peers, trying to help them improve their lives, both individually and collectively. Here's the video summary that introduced me to the concept...
The comic is available on the official website for free. As of this writing, fifteen chapters. As far as I can tell, though, the comics and the site are entirely written in sheng (a contemporary Kenyan slang that's kind of a mish-mash of Swahili and English) and, since it's very consciously directed towards Kenyan youth, I doubt it will get a formal translation any time soon. Understandable, but a bit disappointing since I would like to read it myself.
In any event, it sounds like a fantastic project from pretty much every angle. Lots of Kenyans are being employed to put the book together, it has a strong positive message for its readers, who are able to read the books for free, plus it's using any number of entry points (Facebook, radio, comics, etc.) to catch people's attention. From the sound of it, catching people's attention pretty effectively at that!
I'm thrilled to see this kind of thing in action, and I wish that I could hear more about cool international comic stories like this. Well, you can consider yourself mildly informed about this one at least!
Botgirl Questi has a new post about why she quit Klout. Also included (and why I'm linking to it here) is one of her sporadic comics.
Care2 has a piece about Triangle Rose, allegedly the first comic book about the gay experience of the Holocaust. As far as I can tell, the book is only available in French right now (creators Michel Dufranne, Milorad Vicanovic-Maza and Christian Lerolle are French, after all) but it sounds like it would be a powerful read. Even if it doesn't get translated into English for an American audience, I expect it will open the doors a bit for more of this type of story to be told. (Hat tip to the S.O. for the link.)
Neil Cohen has another one of his online surveys up examining how easy/difficult it is to read comic strip sequences. Plus you get the opportunity to win a $50 gift card just by participating!
Mike Towry writes about starting a "new 'old school' comic convention in San Diego" in 2012.
Earlier this year, Thwipster launched as a new online retail site for with "daily deals for your inner geek." They're got graphic novels and statues and toys and the same type of material you'd find in a local comic shop. But only a VERY limited stock. You can't browse through finding the latest releases, or pre-order the Next Big ThingTM, or even find that really great, super-popular book that EVERYBODY is talking about. As I'm writing this, they have exactly 18 items available for sale.
So why shop there?
Because they have great prices. They don't carry a wide range of goods but what they do have is priced really, really well. A lot is priced from 30-40% off the regular retail price, and I've seen some items discounted by as much as 80%! Not surprisingly, that kind of pricing helps to sell things out pretty quickly.
Which is the basic business model. By offering great deals, but only for a VERY limited time, they increase the sense that what you're getting is really special, so you're a little quicker to hit the "Buy Now" button. That might sound a little cynical, but Thwipster isn't doing anything that hasn't already been shown as perfectly viable and accepted model by eBay and Groupon and dozens of other sites you've probably already heard of. Plus, Thwipster seems a little more honest and up-front about that aspect of it.
I actually went ahead and put in an order with them last week. The two Kamandi Archives hardcovers were on sale for $20 each! They retail at $50 and I'd been eyeballing them off and on for a while now, so I opted to give these Thwipster guys a shot. I placed the order last week Sunday, and they shipped my books out at the end of the week; they arrived today.
The packing struck me as interesting. Just a normal cardboard mailing box, but inside the two books were packaged very similarly to how Amazon packages books: they were bound together in plastic with a cardboard backer to keep them from shifting around. The only real difference was that Thwipster used cling film instead of shrink wrap. Despite Amazon doing that for years, I think this is the first instance I've seen anyone else emulate it. The two books were both brand new, still in their original cellophane wrappers, so everything looks to be in great shape for me to sit down and read through Jack Kirby's apocalypse.
The site, like many others, encourages you to sign up for their Twitter and Facebook accounts, and subscribe to their email newsletter. In their case, though, it makes more sense than many other sites, since they use those outlets to let you know what deals they might have that day. (A key factor in their model, remember, since those books might not be there tomorrow!) Had I not been following them on Twitter, for example, I would likely have missed the deal on those Kamandi books.
With so few items to worry about, the site itself is pretty simple and easy to navigate. There's not really any searching-for-that-one-Superman-title-among-dozens-of-others problems; they either have it or they don't. And you can figure that out with a five-second scan of their home page. The deals are at least good, frequently great. Your biggest concern with them is making sure you don't buy too many things, since they're all so cheap. If they're able to keep these deals coming, and continue on with good customer service, I suspect they'll soon be a good-sized player in the comics retail industry.
(I do wonder how they're able to sell some of these items so cheaply without losing money, though. They must have some Mephistophelean deal with Diamond. Or maybe Thwipster just loots Diamond's warehouse periodically. Either way, I'm not asking questions, lest I find some mountain of a man named Guido at my front door!)
