Comic Book Librarian

I feel like I'm running behind on a lot of stuff right now, so there will probably be a few posts this week to make up for it. Sorry about that,. So June is typically considered Pride Month in the US, though local areas may have their own pride at different times. I'm going to start doing a series of posts on LGBTQIA comics that I recommend, but I'm going to do this a little differently. My idea is to break it down into parts, the first focusing on gay and bi men, then lesbians and bi women, then trans*, queer, intersex and asexual, then  finally circle back and focus on books that do a bit of all of them well (namely team books). I want to do it this way for a couple of reasons. First, while LGBTQIA is a community for various reasons, each individual group has it's own wants/needs/desires, so a book with a lesbian lead may not speak to an asexual teen as well as another book. The second reasons is to highlight some of the areas where comics as a medium are lacking ov...

So the Black Lightning trailer has already hit the internet and if you haven't seen it.. well go see it. Right here . I'll wait. Promise. OK seen it now? Awesome right? I'm stoked. There are a couple reasons for that, but yes we're going to have an African-American live action hero from DC/Marvel on actual TV. On top of that... well here's a mild spoiler.. it's in the trailer, so again.. if you haven't seen the trailer.. this is your last chance to go see it before I spoil something for you.. So here we go: Black Lightning is married with 2 daughters, Anissa Pierce and Jennifer Pierce, they become heroes in their own right as Thunder and Lightning. So we are getting basically 3 African-American heroes in this show off the bat. Also, if they follow comics.. Anissa is a lesbian, so DC TV just went even more female queer. Also announced are Titans and Young Justice on DC's streaming option, whatever that is going to be. So I'm going to do reco...

As you all know (or should know.. if you don't you will now), the Wonder Woman movie is hitting theaters June 2nd (or maybe June 1st depending on where you live). Either way, it's coming soon. DC has also officially announced that June 3rd is Wonder Woman day! Participating comic book stores will be giving out free Wonder Woman comics and cardboard tiaras and bracelets. The Wonder Woman merchandise and advertisements are all blitzing big now and while it may be difficult to get some new items right now in time for Wonder Woman, here are some Wonder Woman comics and books about Wonder Woman I recommend. Legend of Wonder Woman Etta Candy tries to find the perfect outfit for Wonder Woman Legends of Wonder Woman  by Renae de Liz and Ray Dillon. This is a perfect all ages origin book for Wonder Woman. Starts off with her as a child on Themyscira and follows her all the way through her becoming Wonder Woman in World War II. It's a really beautifully drawn book and the story...

This is a new segment I'm going to do on things to look out for in the future. I'm doing this as a kind of recommendation, also kind of speculation about what is going to be hot/good to jump in on board on. See, I read comics monthly like most fans rather than trade waiting (that is what we call it when you wait for a collected edition of several issues to come out usually months after the actual comics are done). This way I can recommend cool things and not have to always wait until last minute to find out the name of the trade to tell you to go buy that.. cause that's not always the best way to do it (covers change, things get pushed back last minute, ect). So onto the Comics to look out for: Unstoppable Wasp   by Jeremy Whitley and Elsa Charretier - Unstoppable Wasp is about Nadia Pym, daughter of Hank Pym and his first wife, Maria Trovaya. Nadia was raised in the Red Room, the same extreme Russian training facility that the Black Widows (yes there are a few) were tra...

This was a question someone reached out to me and asked me to tackle, so here we go.. Let's get a few things out of the way first shall we? Yes, Captain America is essentially a Nazi now or at the very, very least being used as a Neo-Nazi/white supremacist propaganda. And yes, that is extremely troubling and flies in the face of the late great Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, the creators of Captain America, who like many early comic writers were Jewish. Also, no you do not have to personally support any of these books. You don't need to buy Captain America, Secret Empire , Thunderbolts , or any the tie in stories. You just don't. You should, however, buy it for the books for your library if you think they will circulate and justify your purpose as a library (like if you have a huge white supremacist population and you think they'll read it). That's ultimately the reason to have any controversial material and there is legitimate reasons to have material that is pushing ...

I realize I had glossed over this in the first post, so I'm circling back. So who am I? Well my real name is Jason Smith, I say real name because as you can see I use an online moniker, Dinah L. Soar. There are a number of reasons for this and I shall get to them in due time, hopefully in this post. I have a Bachelor's in English from the College of Charleston and a MLIS from University of South Carolina. I have worked for almost 2 years in academic libraries, first at a for profit and now as a part time librarian. Yes, that means I am looking for a full time job, but that's not what this is about. So basic info out of the way, let's dive into the other important stuff. I started reading comics in middle school and by that I mean reading actively. Before that I had picked up a copy of the Teen Titans Index #1, which had background information on all the Teen Titans and New Teen Titans, but it hadn't really inspired me to find the books or maybe I didn't r...

Greetings everyone, So I figured I'd start out with the obvious.. why is there ANOTHER comic librarian blog? There are tons out there and they all cover this! So what am I going to bring differently? To be honest, I'm not the other people. I'm myself and I have my own opinions and views of the comic world, so there is that. I've been a comic fan since I was in middle school, read and own over several thousand comics and I follow a lot of the trends and things that are going on in comics. I'm also a huge fan of the Golden Age of Comics, which started about 1938 into the 1950s, actual end date varies on who you talk to but it definitely ended in 1956 with the appearance of Barry Allen as Flash, and obscure/lesser known characters and titles. I'm the guy who is going to be able to tell you the entire history of Yellow Peri, if you care. But besides all that, I've also talked to a lot of librarians about comics and read comments and suggestions on comics a...