I am so pumped about women and comics lately. Not only are there some amazing ladies making comics, there are amazing ladies who make funny, cute, smart comics, live in my town, and are totally cool people in real life! Well, there’s one anyway. Faith Erin Hicks is an awesome cartoonist who happens to live in Halifax.

Faith is best know for her book Zombies Calling, which came out last year and was released by SLG publishing. The book follows a young woman, Joss, and her pals as their seemingly ordinary Canadian university is attacked by zombies. Joss, a movie fan and postmodern gal, realizes she can survive by following “the rules” of zombie movies. For example, when she decides to fight back against the undead attackers, she suddenly gains awesome ninja skills and is stronger than the Hulk.

My favourite part about Zombies Calling is that it’s not just about fighting against zombies, it also fights against the expense of post-secondary education in Canada! When Joss’ friend asks her why she doesn’t seem afraid of zombies, Joss answers that she’s way more scared of her student loan than having her brain eaten. Too true, friend.

The story also touches on some complicated issues of sexuality (like, being a virgin over the age of twenty), without getting too heavy.

The art is adorable, and Faith perfectly renders her nerdy but cute protagonist. Also, could these zombies look any more awesome? Nope!

(more inside…)

One of my favourite things about working in a comic store is when someone comes in with a look of complete fear and confusion. Usually these are the people who have never read a comic before, or haven’t read a comic in decades or who just found out that comics aren’t always about Superman.

Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home is one of my favourite books to recommend to a non-comic reader (or I should say, new comic reader). It’s literary, intelligent and complex. It’s been recognized in mainstream press and was on the New York Times best seller list. Also, the art is real purty.

Alison Bechdel created Dykes to Watch Out For, a long-running comic strip that appeared in queer newspapers. Fun Home is her autobiographical story about growing up queer, in a funeral home, with a closeted gay dad.

The real meat of the story deals with Bechdel’s relationship with her father — their constant clashes, his obsessive, controlling tendencies, his secret gay affairs with his high school students, his suicide, and Bechdel’s reflections about how she was not so different from him.

(more inside…)

Ever thought your parents were evil? Ever feel like you were raised by super villains?

Playing on suspicions we all might’ve had about our families at some point, the kids in Runaways discover that their parents are part of an association of the most powerful super villains in LA. They band together against their parents (and other bad guys) and run away to make up for the destruction their parents have caused.

Runaways is a monthly series (one issue comes out each month, they’re later collected into books), put out by Marvel comics. It’s a mainstream comics series, but it has some of the most inclusive representations and stories of any comic series.

For example, Runaways features some of the best female characters in comics. There’s Nico, who learns her parents’ magic, becomes a wizard and eventully becomes the leader of the team. Karolina, who realizes she’s both an alien and queer. Gert, smart and sardonic, who would probably read Shameless, and has a psychic connection with a razor-toothed dinosaur. The youngest member of the team, Molly, is also the strongest. She’s a mutant and can beat up just about anyone.

The Runaways kids are diverse in gender, race, sexuality and even body types. Writer Brian K. Vaughn does an amazing job of having diverse representations without having any token characters. The kids talk about race, and sexuality (it’s part of who they are) but it’s only one part of their complex characters.

(more inside…)

Comics are totally rad! But the world of comics can be hard to navigate, and a little off-putting for radical minded folks.

I love comics. But when I read some of them, I’m sometimes forcing myself to look past the sexist, racist, ableist, classist and heteronormative aspects of the writing and art. In comics, you don’t always see representations of people who are not white, middle class, able-bodied straight men. When you picture a super-heroine, what usually comes to mind is the sexist image of a crazily-proportioned lady, with giant breasts and an impossibly tiny waist.

Often when characters who don’t fit the norm actually show up, they’re tokenized. The queer characters usually have a brief, sexy and tragic story line, and then disappear so that the straight characters can take the spotlight again. For characters of colour, race tends to be their only defining feature, and they have no story line or personality outside of their race.

Add to all this the hostile and male-centric atmosphere of many comic shops, on-line forums and conventions, and you’ve got a medium that many women or people of colour, or queer folks, or ability activists, or allies just steer clear of.

BUT! There are so many really great comics out there! Really amazingly awesome stuff! The comics industry is getting better, and more diverse all the time. There are comics creators who represent a huge spectrum of gender, race, class, ablity and sexuality. There are comics with characters who are interesting, complex and completely stereo-type busting. There is beautiful, hilarious, perfect art that represents all sorts of people and a range of experiences.

I’m going to post about some of these amazing books and awesome creators.
(more inside…)