I would like to believe that the quality of the work that newcomers are doing will win out – but in all sincerity, that is not always the case. I will say to newcomers that the most important thing in any writing, to me at least, is emotional honesty. I have to believe in the emotional truth of the characters. If I do not, then you are wasting my time. I have to believe in them so I feel for them, I feel with them. And that isn’t a gender issue, it’s a human nature issue.
Also, while there are people in the mainstream – and here I’m talking editorial and publishing-wise – who are working to address the gender inequities, be aware that the comic book industry is still a sexist industry. And that may be because superhero comics – and I specify superhero comics – are a sexist medium. They are directed primarily, even to this day, at a fictional adolescent readership that is now in its forties! But they’re still guys.
I had a discussion related to this with the artist on Ghost Rider, Matthew Clark – we’ve been friends for over a decade. If you haven’t checked out the book, the new Ghost Rider is a young woman; I believe she’s supposed to be 16. And Matthew told me that they’d gotten an email from a young woman who thanked them for drawing her as a 16 year old, for letting her look her age. Man, you could just see how proud Matthew was! But such a thing shouldn’t be such an uphill-frickin‘-battle! It should not be a stop-the-presses moment every time a teenage female character is drawn to look her age.
So, what’s my advice to newcomers? I’m not sure I have any! My advice is, keep your chin down. Make sure your shell is pretty hard. Know the difference between constructive criticism and destructive criticism, meaning know the source. Stay off the Internet unless you have to. Don’t read your reviews.
And tell the truth. That’s advice I would give to anybody.
Comic Book Junkie
Jill Thompson graduated in 1987 from the American Academy of Art in Chicago and has been working non-stop as a cartoonist and illustrator ever since. She has illustrated books for nearly every comic book publisher in the United States, garnering acclaim for her work on Wonder Woman, Swamp Thing, Black Orchid, and the award-winning Sandman with Neil Gaiman. In 1997, Jill’s first children’s book, Scary Godmother, was released to critical acclaim. More books and a series of comics followed, and Scary Godmother has since been turned into a series of television specials.
I remember the exact moment I became a comic book junkie. Oh sure, I’d already been interested in comics by now. I had moved from loving Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts to Dan DeCarlo’s Betty and Veronica, Archie and Jughead comics, and spent hours upon hours drawing my own versions of these types of stories. I knew I wanted to be a cartoonist from the first time I had read anything with that lovable beagle Snoopy. When I told my mother that, “I am going to draw Snoopy when I get big!”, my mother pointed out that, “The reason you get to see Snoopy in the newspaper is because somebody already draws him. You’re going to have to make up your own character if you want to draw for the comics.”
So I did.
Of course it was a total Snoopy ripoff, a low rent first-grade version of Snoopy, but I was wearing my influence on my sleeve as far as the main character was concerned. I called him B Dog. He was a simple cartoon. Easy to visualize. Close your eyes, I’ll describe him to you. First of all, draw the capital letter B. Now on the back of that B at the top left corner, draw a big black teardrop for an ear. On the front of the top loop of the B, smack dab in the middle... draw a filled in circle for a nose. Inside the top loop of the B, draw a dot for an eye. Now at the bottom of the B under the loop, draw a flatter loop for a foot, and while you’re at it, draw a tail on the back of the B and you are finished!
When the house down the block was having a moving sale and they had an orange crate filled with Archie comics from the 1950s and 1960s that I was able to buy for some small amount of money, my comics took on a Dan DeCarlo influence. I copied those beautiful drawings, I made up my own Archie-style characters based on the kids in my neighborhood and I wrote stories. My ballpoint pen creations were foisted on my parents to read once I was finished, and they always read them “cover to cover.”
My little brother and I read that box of Archies over and over and over, digging to the bottom of the box to try and find an issue we hadn’t read in a while. We had read them so many times that we could just look at the cover and we knew exactly what stories were on the inside. What were we to do? Well, there was that “scary comic” that my dad had picked up for me... you see, sometimes my dad would stop at the newsstand on the way home from work on Fridays and he would pick up a few new Archie comics for me. When I saw him come home with his newspaper tucked under his arm and a flat green bag sticking out of that newspaper, I knew there was a comic or two headed my way.
But sometimes there would be some other types of comics mixed in with the Archies. These were things I called “scary comics” because most of the time, someone on the cover was grimacing, wracked with pain, or generally in mortal danger. And there were some old Bernie Wrightson House of Mystery books in there too, which were meant to be creepy. Being a bit of a scaredy-cat, that was all it took for me to avoid them. But, with our lunchtime reading becoming almost committed to memory, I had to resort to drastic measures. I dug down to the very bottom of the comic box where the scary comics lived and pulled out a couple. How scary could it be? Not bad. Pretty colorful, actually.
Now, I’m not sure what the other comics were that I pulled up with it, but my addiction to comics was going to kick in full force once I opened up this issue called Uncanny X-Men #131. I got thrown right smack dab in the middle of “The Dark Phoenix Saga.“ And who was running right down that Chicago back alley towards my curly haired self? Why, that would be my comics heroin, oxycontin, coffee, cigarettes, booze, sugar... whatever the most addictive thing is that you can think of. In my case, it was Kitty Pryde. A 13-year-old Chicago area girl whose mutant powers were just manifesting. She kind of looked like me! She was the same age as me! I lived in the Chicago area! Boy oh boy, I identified with her immediately. I hit the ground running right along with that character. Lord knows, I always wanted magic powers, super powers, some kind of amazing powers (who doesn’t?), and here was a comic filled with a bunch of women who had powers beyond belief.
There was Phoenix, who had the power to read minds, levitate, use her telekinesis to smash a car, and save the inexperienced, but also superpowered, Kitty. Storm controlled the weather and could fly. Even the evil White Queen, though a villain, was a powerful telepath as well.
I dove right into that world and never looked back.
After that first fix, I was using my babysitting money to mainline as many comics as I could get my hands on. I ate, slept, and dreamt comics. I would scour the drugstore racks to pull out any title that might be my beloved X-Men. I had no concept of back issues or when comics came out. I went every day just because maybe there would be a comic on the magazine shelf or on the spinner rack that hadn’t been there before. I begged my father to bring me some more of these X-Men comics and he did. However, none of them were in order. They were random issues. The X-Men comic that had gotten me hooked had been a random issue left in the newsstand. So I was getting all sorts of parts of stories. But nothing complete.
Then one day, my father mentioned that he drove past a whole store in the adjacent town to ours that seemed to be a shop devoted solely to comics. He took me over one Saturday, and there my habit began in earnest. Whereas before I had spent my babysitting money on random comics shoved in a wire rack near the ice cream cold case at the drugstore, I now was introduced to the world of bagged and boarded back issues. I was hooked on the story and here was a veritable, albeit expensive, buffet for me to feast upon. I’d ride my bike over every Saturday when the shop opened to buy whatever back issue I could afford and a few new comics – because Rick, of Rick’s One Stop Comics, was a very good “dealer” who was always saying things like, “If you like that Wolverine character, he makes a cros
s over appearance in this comic.” Or, “Have you read any Spider-Man? I think you’d like Spidey, Jill.” It wasn’t long ‘til I was picking up nearly every comic that had the Marvel logo on it. I’d try anything, but I’d continue with it only if I liked the art.
Rick introduced me to all the classics that I loved – John Byrne, John Romita, John Buscema (Sal, not so much, but I felt I had to be loyal to the Buscema name) – and I soon was able to understand how different inkers could make pencillers look different. I slowly expanded my comics world view to other companies with The New Teen Titans by Marv Wolfman and George Perez. I had found my hobby, my culture, my ambition.
I knew what I was going to do when I grew up. I was going to be a comic book artist.
Rick informed me about past continuity, what was coming out when, and introduced me to other comics I might like because of my taste in art and story. I dare to say I was his sole female customer. I don’t think I ever saw another girl in that shop. Was it brightly lit? No. Was it organized? Pretty much. Compared to shops nowadays, it was actually rather diverse. Rick even had a corner devoted to British comics like 2000 AD, independent publishers like Eclipse, underground stuff like R. Crumb (but he wouldn’t let me look at those ‘til I was old enough), and some well-worn, thick, Japanese mangas. No one knew what they were about, but they were there. Did it smell like old paperbacks and paper? Of course! It was amazing! There were rows and rows of stories waiting to be read. All waiting for me to earn enough money to buy.
My habit seemed to know no bounds. Soon, I was buying bags and boards to keep those X-Men books safe from the elements. Not safe from me, because I read them over and over and over! My love for them was actually destroying them at the same time.
Then one day, Rick dropped the bomb of all bombs on me. How could this comic thing get any better? How could this world expand even more?
“You gonna be going to that comic convention they got downtown?”, said Rick so matter-of-factly.
“What’s a comic convention?” I asked.
“Down there at the American Congress. It’s all comics dealers with their comics and they got some of the artists and stuff, they come in sometimes.” Again, Rick said these magic words as if everyone already knew the incredible information he had just shared.
“I’m selling tickets to it. Here!”, he said, and handed me one. I don’t even remember what the price was, but I think I rode my bike home the same way Charlie Bucket ran after getting the Golden Ticket in the Wonka bar.
My father graciously gave up a Sunday to escort me to downtown Chicago and wander around a hotel ballroom filled with boxes of comics, the odd movie poster, old pulp novels and the like. Once again, I was probably the only girl attending this show; any other females I saw were dealer’s wives or girlfriends. But I didn’t care. The place was full of guys who liked comics. That was good enough for me. People I could ask about stories and art! I bought a John Buscema Conan portfolio, and I think I got my dad to buy me a back issue of X-Men that Rick’s shop didn’t have.
My father was a sport, staying with me ’til late in the afternoon before he pulled the ripcord on my adventure. I picked up a flyer on the way out and to find that these little conventions seemed to happen every six weeks or so. Now my comics habit had a new habit. And I had just enough time to save up some more money.
Little did I know that Rick had one more surprise for me. “So, Jill...” He said one Saturday afternoon, “You know that John Byrne guy? The one who drew the X-Men you like so much? Well, He lives in Evanston, you know, so, he’s gonna be at that next convention downtown...”
... but that’s a story for another day!
From Pogo to Girl Genius: A Life in the Funny Papers
Delia Sherman writes stories and novels for younger readers and adults. Her most recent short stories have appeared in the young adult anthology Steampunk! and in Ellen Datlow’s Naked City. Her adult novels are Through a Brazen Mirror, The Porcelain Dove, and The Fall of the Kings (with Ellen Kushner). She is currently writing middle-grade novels. Changeling and The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen are both set in the magical world of New York Between. Her newest novel, The Freedom Maze, is a time-travel historical about ante-bellum Louisiana. When she’s not writing, she’s teaching, editing, knitting, and cooking. She lives in New York City with partner Ellen Kushner.
My mother wouldn’t let me bring comic books in the house when I was a kid. Archie, Little Lulu, Casper the Friendly Ghost, even Donald Duck, were forbidden to cross the threshold. True Romance and Spider-Man and Superman – don’t even think about it.
I presumed that this was just another Mama thing, like her embargo on jeans and chewing gum. But, when I recently Googled “comics unhealthy 1950s,” I turned up a bunch of articles about a book called The Seduction of the Innocent, written in 1954 by Dr. Frederick Wertham. In it, Dr. Wertham claimed to prove, through scientific study, that reading comic books – crime and horror comics especially, but even superhero titles like Superman and Batman – was likely to encourage children to become sadists, racists, homosexuals, and/or juvenile delinquents.
Almost immediately, a swarm of distinguished psychologists rushed into print with articles pointing out Wertham’s sketchy methodology and the barking-mad illogic of his conclusions. But it was too late. Portions of The Seduction of the Innocent had already appeared in The Ladies’ Home Journal and Reader’s Digest. Comics became one of those dangers concerned parents warned their children against: You’ll die of the bends if you swim after a meal. It’s dangerous to take candy from strangers. Comics will turn you into a menace to society.
The hysteria was widespread enough to spawn a Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, chaired by Senator Estes Kefauver (senators just don’t have names like that anymore). The Subcommittee did not, in fact, find that comics actually encouraged adolescent boys to pillage, murder, and rape, but as far as the press and the public was concerned, it might as well have. At the same time, other scientists, less rabid than Wertham, published studies that suggested that all comics, even the family-friendly ones, were bad for children’s eyes, IQs, nervous systems, socialization, and reading comprehension. [28]
By the late ’50s, the verdict was in. Comics might not be actively evil as such, but they were definitely the mental equivalent of living on soda-pop and sugary treats.
Which Mama didn’t allow in the house, either.
Therefore, whenever Mama found me hiding behind the wire spin-racks at the drug store or in front of the comic shelves in the nickel and dime store, my nose deep in the latest issue of Action Comics with Supergirl or Donald Duck, she’d pluck the comic out of my hands and put it back on the shelf. “Comics make you stupid,” she’d say. Or sometimes, “Only stupid people read comics.”
I can’t say I paid a lot of attention – other than being annoyed that I could never get to the end of a storyline. It certainly didn’t stop me from sneaking peeks at comics whenever I got a chance.
It was the pictures, I think. When I was a kid, almost all children’s books had little black-and-white chapter heads and spot-illos, plus maybe a color frontispiece and a couple of full-color plates, scattered through the text like raisins in rice pudding. The work of artists like E.H. Shepard (The Wind in the Willows), Edward Ardizzone (The Glass Slipper), Garth Williams (Miss Bianca), and Jessie Wilcox Smith (A Little Princess) trained me to see how an image could interact with and enrich the words of a story. I’d pore over the illustrations in Howard Pyle’s version of The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood not so much to see what Robin Hood and Little John looked like, but to peer into their world of quarterstaves and longbows and deer running through the dappled glades of Sherwood Forest.
I was also a big fan of the funny papers.
The funny papers were the only part of the daily newspapers that held any interest for me – until I was in my teens, anyway, and realized that the news actually had something to do with me. My parents subscribed to The Sunday Herald Tribune
as well as The New York Times (which didn’t and doesn’t and never will run comic strips). Every Sunday, Papa and I would squabble over who had first crack at the comics like (Mama always said) a pair of five year olds.
The funnies didn’t count as bad-for-you comics because grown-ups read them. Mama (who didn’t really like novels unless they were Classics) was above such things, but Papa was a fan, in a low-key, grown-up way. Our Sunday squabbles would usually end up with our sharing the funnies, so that he could explain to me why Krazy Kat was funny and what was going on in Apartment 3G. Neither one of us could make head or tail of Sunday’s Dick Tracy (we didn’t get the daily Tribune, which contained most of the plot), but we liked his two-way wrist radio. It was Papa who brought The Incomplete Pogo into the house. Since it contained sharp political satire and was famously full of clever puns and malapropisms, not even Dr. Wertham (or Mama) could have called it stupid.
I read Pogo so many times, the spine broke and the cover fell off and half the pages fell out and the whole thing had to be held together with a rubber band. The political satire zipped right over my head, but I loved Pogo and Albert Gator and Howland Owl and Churchy LaFemme, their friendships and their tiny dramas – also the wonderfully wacky word-play, which put Papa’s repertory of lame puns to shame. I used to know verses and verses of “Deck us all with Boston Charley, Walla-Walla, Wash and Kalamazoo!” (it would be impossible to know them all, since Walt Kelly changed them every year), but they’ve slipped through the cracks over time, along with the names of the girls in Apartment 3G and the principal of Miss Peach’s school. What remains is a deep affection for swamps and the short, smart-guy hero/tall, goofy sidekick pairing that made me a fan of Rocky and Bullwinkle from the first time I saw the opening credits, and the knowledge that comics could be smart and subversive as well as fun to read.
Chicks Dig Comics: A Celebration of Comic Books by the Women Who Love Them Page 17