Chicks dig guys who sell comics.

Jennifer de Guzman has a problem. And it's not what she thinks it is. Jennifer's problem is that she's from another planet.

She wonders why women and girls feel "uncomfortable in comic stores. They were stared at, talked down to, and generally treated without respect."

Um, because comic books stores are run by comic book guys. These are aging boys and social outcasts. Yes, that's a stereotype, but even I've been in enough comic book stores to have met my share of surly fanboys who denigrate all forms of intellectual pursuits that do not include a superchick or superdude with heat-vision or adamantium incisors and wrapped in colorful spandex.

This is their world. They are the kings. And we, even though we are there to spend money and keep them in business, are nothing. Less than nothing.

Jennifer asks, "Why are so many direct market comics shops still female unfriendly?" Seriously? Because they are run by dorks. You enter the misfit überden and you expect the Algonquin Round Table?

And don't get me started on your female run comic shop world, "I doubt that my comics shop horror story would have happened in a store where women work or a store that a woman owns, and where it's expected that all customers be treated respectfully."

Yeah, until a man walks in the front door. Try being the lone dude in a store run by two women. I've had college "women" come down on me like a sack of bricks because I approached her for help. Her eyes narrowed and I could almost hear her brainwork something like, "Oh, you think you can have me because you're Gaia's gift to womyn? Well you can't have me because I am strength and power and I make the earth tremble, and you and your phallofascist world will just need to deal with me."

And I said, "Did you just think something really hard because this vein just popped out of your forehead. Do you need a doctor? I was just wondering where you keep Strangers in Paradise."

And yes, of course I'm kidding. Women love me. To death.

So look, if some loser finally saves up enough dough to realize his dream of running a comic book store, why crap all over him if he gets a little excited with a chick wanders in once a month for new comics? He'll argue with his best friend for the next 29 days about that hot chick who came in that one Tuesday and asked for the first Scott Pilgrim and maybe she'll be in again because it's been almost a month. And his friend will say, "Remember what you said when she came in? 'Sure, you can start with volume one, but volume four is when the story really breaks out.' And remember what she said? She said she read them all but she loaned volume one to a friend who lost it. And then you said, 'Only losers lose borrowed books.' And she nodded. She nodded like you were having a conversation. Man, she was hot. She was Barbara Gordon hot. She was Mary Jane Watson hot."

Oh, sorry, what the hell was I saying? That scene hit a little too close to home.

And speaking of Strangers in Paradise, I should get one of these shirts or maybe the coffee mug. God bless Terry Moore.

You BASTARD!

from Fun Home by Alison Bechdel. Used without any permission at all. If your dad tore up that library book, you get nothing, Fax mentis incendium gloria cultum, et cetera, et cetera... Memo bis punitor delicatum! Your father destroyed public property entrusted into the care of the library, so he is little more than a bibliomurderer. Good day, sir!

Trouble in Riverdale

Terrible news for Archie & Pals:

How budget cuts might affect the Riverdale Public Library
Wednesday, June 2,2010
BY RICHARD GAWEL
Suburban Trends

RIVERDALE — The state of New Jersey is broke. Governor Chris Christie's next budget includes billions of dollars in cuts affecting every level of public services. And while the debate over school funding has ignited passionate debate and captured the most headlines, a quieter dispute is emerging over state aid to New Jersey's libraries, which will be cut by 74 percent starting June 30 if the planned budget passes. The reduction in aid will drastically affect many of the libraries in Suburban Trends' area, including the Riverdale Public Library.

[no longer RICHARD GAWEL, but me]

One of those affected most by the closings will be "Moose" Mason, Riverdale's star football playing idiot. "D-uh, that's not nice," Moose said when someone read this story to him.

Although Moose's catchphrase, "D-uh", works to his advantage at the Riverdale Public Library. When Moose requests a book by starting, "I need D-uh..", the admittedly smartass librarian interrupts with, "Dubliners?" or "Double Indemnity?" Ironically, Moose is the most well-read resident in Riverdale, for all the good it does him.

Crafty Death.

I just finished my Crafty Chica journal-in-a-box that I bought on clearance. Yes, I made a journal. So I can write down all my hopes and dreams and desires. Here it is:

The kit comes with papers and glue and glitter and letters and other stuff to make your own journal. I went to the Miami Book Fair over the weekend and heard Scott McCloud give his history of comics and graphic novels and someone asked him what he was reading now and he said, Death Note. I read part of one issue online and saw that it's about a journal that if you write someone's name in it and say how you want them to die, they will die in that way. So I figured that Death Note was a good name for my journal.

It was fun making my journal. I don't know if it has the same powers as the Death Note journal, but if you want to leave me some names and death scenarios, I'll be happy to write them in the book to see what happens. The only limitation is that it can't be anyone famous, and it can't be me. But if you have someone you think should die, then let me know and we can see if the "shinigami" does his job.

(Not responsible for misspellings and having the wrong people die. Oh, and not responsible for having the right people die. The above is for entertainment purposes only: shinigami are not real.)

Free manga.

Every couple of weeks, I find these lists on my desk for graphic novels that someone expects me to order for our library.

So I go through the list of over one hundred titles and check off everything that says "Batman." Then I check off all the Spider-man, X-Men, Avengers, Superman, Justice League and Little Lulu. After that, I'm completely lost.

Eventually, I'm left with nothing but manga. Or MAHN-ga, as the fanboys (or otaku) say. And I read titles like, Beautiful Love Supermarket or Girl Love Assassin or something else with love in the title.

So I have to rely on reviews from Amazon or IGN or maybe some blog. And the previews and descriptions usually tell about a shy girl with hidden powers to fight evil or a cursed samurai or a crazy super vampire high school or a monster baby horror demon or a half-something-half-something else (but whatever it is, her skirt is really short), which never help me to decide what to order.

So I was really glad to find a couple of sites where I can read many of these titles for free. One is Manga Fox (which has a lot more ads) and the other is One Manga (which has not so many ads).

The pages aren't convenient to read in that you need to scroll up and down to see the whole page. Luckily, my monitor and graphics will rotate 90° so I read the pages more easily.

But still, I didn't know about these sites before, so now that I've found them, they're making the selection process a lot easier. Or harder. Because now I spend half the day reading all this crap.

(Did I say, crap? I meant cool stuff. Reading comics - yeah, I love my job.)

Boldly Going to Court.

It seems I need to engage the services of an attorney.

Apparently the Fox network has stolen my hilarious idea and used it to create its own show about "lower level" workers on the Starship Enterprise called Boldly Going Nowhere.

This is my own unique idea, that no person in the whole world had ever imagined before I did it in January 2008. No one. No one ever had the idea to parody Star Trek before. Not in the 40 years since it was first broadcast on television has anyone even considered making a comedy about the crew of the Enterprise. I did it first.

Anyway, if you never read them, please read a couple of my hilarious cartoons. That I did first. Before them. Thanks.

Oh, and by reading, you agree to be deposed in the coming litigation against Fox. Thank you.

Here are, "Black Shirts,"
Book 1
Book 2
Book 3
Book 4
Book 5 (5.24 and 5.25 got reversed in the book)
Book 6
Book 7
Book 8

(Really? Do I need to say that I'm kidding???)

the.effing.librarian loves comics.

I was just reading something and came across a comic strip called "Here," by Richard McGuire (reprinted from RAW Vol 2 #1, 1989, which looks like it's available used for under $5 from Amazon).

I read this strip, only six pages, and was completely amazed. And it's not just me. Searching for info on this strip, I found lots of criticism and praise for the narrative technique. It's not often that you read something that requires multiple viewings. I found myself flipping back and forth from page 3 to 2, then 4 to 2, then 5 to 3; there is so much going on in each panel that isn't clear until some subsequent panel a page or two later.

I've always loved sequential art or comic art or whatever you want to call it. Through the 1970's (later seventies, I'm not that old) and 1980's, when I would visit other cities like Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York City or Washington D.C., I would seek out the comic book stores and look for underground comics or anything that wasn't Marvel or DC. When I started library school at FSU, I found a listing in the OPAC for a special collection of rare underground comics from the sixties and I spent a couple of weeks trying to get permission to see them. I don't remember if they ever let me have access.

Eventually, I just collected too much crap, so I stopped searching. Like most things, too much is just too much; you can go from being a fan to being a creepy loner who exists on the other side of the reference desk making repeated ILL requests for Hungry Chuck Biscuits #1.

So lucky for you, some website has scanned all of Richard McGuire's "Here." It really is freaking awesome. There is even a live action dramatization of the comic created by a film student. The video is interesting, but since it only moves forward in time, it loses most of the narrative depth of the static panels. But still, it's interesting that someone made the effort.

And visit Ordinary People Change the World; it's not about comics, it's about people, like us.

I must be a technotard.

I just read about a comic book called Murderdrome that was designed specifically for viewing on the iPhone.

I just saw the video of how the comic can be read on the iPhone, and I swear, I have no idea how anyone can generate any level of emotion even approaching excitement for this.

I'm not criticizing the comic because there isn't enough shown for anyone to evaluate. But man, I guess I was expecting flying cars or something, but to see static 2" x 3" panels get dragged across the screen, I just don't get it. I hoped the machete was going to swing out and cut off someone's finger and not just sit there like a 1940's Superman comic book. But you can download it to your iPhone, you say. Woo-hoo! I still don't care.

Why does the future continue to be more of the same, but just more expensive?

It would have been more fun to see a video of a guy tape a tiny Tijuana Bible to the iPhone screen and then flip through the pages.

Zombies and mummies and Elvis, (oh, my)

Mini review of Meow, Baby! by Jason. ISBN 1560976950.

Zombies eating people under an umbrella while it rains. Vampires, mummies and skeletons chasing people then stopping for photo ops before continuing the chase. A "Terminator" slapping himself after forgetting to use his catch phrase. Most of these wordless comic strips by Jason are pretty funny.

Some of it gets a little sexual (a few panels are a lot sexual), but otherwise most of these cartoons are great examples for teens to learn the art of telling a story without words. If your library teaches kids how to do webcomics, some of Jason's strips can be really helpful (and most are pretty funny).

I really liked one with the vampire out at a bar, but he couldn't hook up so he gets a beer and some snacks and goes home to watch TV; and just as he's nodding off, Professor Van Helsing jumps out and plunges a stake through the vampire's heart. I know I hate it when someone interrupts my nap to kill me.

I remember after I saw The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price (and not that completely stupid "blockbuster" starring Will Smith) and wondered what it was like for the vampires he hunted. Like if they published a newspaper with headlines like,

DAYTIME KILLER STRIKES AGAIN
"We were completely helpless," reports the lone survivor of the brutal mid-day attack. "Once the sun is in the sky and he knocks down the door and lets in all that sunlight, there's no way to defend yourself. And the garlic! He it throws through the window like a bomb, and you don't have any choice but to run, screaming, into that deadly blinding light. Look at the burns on my face! I barely escaped with my life. He's a menace and must be stopped."
Council members have sent good will ambassadors to the human's lair, but their pleas have fallen on deaf ears, often meeting a brutal and irrational reply from him.
Many demand a stronger response from our leaders. "We are a civilized race," says the Council Leader, "why can't we all just get along?"

I'd love to see a movie told from the other side.

In this example from the book, the Martian is kidnapping women (because Mars Needs Women), but only after getting sidetracked by the fantastic collection of library books available to all visitors. [c2005, Jason]

Black Shirts, book six

If you need to catch up on the plot, click the tag for toondoo and read the old strips. But the guys are on the starship and one guy thinks he's a lady.



if it doesn't work, link is here.

Black Shirts, Book 5

our guys are still in the mirror universe and feeling a little... killy (see, homicidal. Then why didn't I write homicidal? 'Cause "killy" sounds so cute).

ok, there is no Book 5. I can't get the site to make my book. well, it made a book earlier, but I had to fix something and now I can't get it to make another one.

but the new strips are numbered 5.21-5.25 on this page: http://www.toondoo.com/user/effinglibrarian

sorry.

(here's a link to the strip with a minor mistake)

Comics!!!!!!!!!!! (non-nerds look away)

I haven't been into comics since I was in library school, which was when comics went through a period like gold and oil are going through now, and I was able to sell comics like Harbinger #1 for $75 six months after I bought it for $2.50 (because of the coupon, trust me, it was a big deal, look it up).

I think that was around the time that I could find someone like Mike Mignola sitting all by himself at a comic book store with nobody waiting for his autograph; ditto for William Tucci and the guy who draws Too Much Coffee Man (I can't explain it, either. Some stuff was super hot, and some not at all. I mean, Tucci was practically begging people to buy autographed copies of Shi).

Anyway, I don't buy (m)any comics now. In the past two years, I've only bought the Invincible hardcovers.

But this news might change how much I buy in the future. I don't know where this will go, but it looks like someone is trying to establish a remainder book market for graphic novels. For most books, this isn't a big deal because discounts make purchasing graphic novels pretty painless, or much less painful than buying the individual issues. I mean, I'm not a collector, so I don't plan to wear gloves when I handle these books or bag them for posterity, hoping to use them as a downpayment for a house. I just want to read something without worrying about getting chocolate on it.

So if next year, I can go to EdwardRHamilton and find some obscure graphic novels for 80% off the cover price, I'll probably buy a few books I wouldn't normally buy (and wouldn't dare spend library money on), like I did with the anime DVDs I got a few weeks ago from RightStuf.com (they had a good sale).

Collecting comics is a young man's game: gone are the days when I would sit across the street from a comic book store and sell back issues of Batman out of the trunk of my car at half-off. But I can still appreciate an engaging story and stylish art, just not at full price.