Comic Book Librarian

One of the reasons I started this blog is I'd noticed a number of librarians on various platforms advocating for comics and coming back to the same small list time and again. Another reason is I've noticed that well let's be honest, that list consists of a majority of Marvel and Image titles with maybe a couple titles, typically one each, of a few other companies and that's it. Those titles would also be whatever has made a big name/splash in the comic world like Lumberjanes , which is amazing by the way, but it's not the only comic Boom! Studios puts out and while Boom! is currently putting out a bunch of titles that are similar, it's not indicative of all Boom! titles. Seriously, don't assume Boom! only does all-age friendly titles because they don't. They, like almost all of the publishers, have a large variety of titles. That said when we're talking comics, we as librarians need to remember that our bubble of comics is not all there is (just ...

I initially had planned to make recommendations on Banned Books Week and as I usual, I started to do some research and I found out that A) I hadn't read all that many banned books, which is bizarre to me since I don't ever filter for content in my life which is why I wasn't aware of the banned books B) there is not that many superhero books that have been banned or challenged and that's what I mostly read. C) The books that are typically banned or challenged are pretty common library books. Sandman , Persepopolis, Y the Last Man , Maus , and Bones  just to name a few. D) and this is the most important one of all, Comic book Legal Defense Fund(CBLDF) , already has a pretty extensive list and they're better experts about censorship than I am. This is literally all they do is fight censorship and legal issues revolving around comics. So, they'd be the people to look at when it comes to Banned Books more so than me. I read comics and I'm a huge fan. I'm an a...

Banned book week is coming up (Septemer 24th-September 30th) and I'm sure you've all got displays in mind, but while you're thinking about displays I've got a few things to remind you about. First of all, I will probably do a recommendation list for Banned Comics next week. For this week, I want to talk about something more important. The time the US government nearly banned the entire medium based on lies. Back in 1948, a man named Frederic Wertham began a full out attack on comic books. He began to study and look at juveniles who were reading comics and their links with violence, drugs, and sex. He posited that comic books were teaching kids to follow this criminal behavior and began an open war against comics. His early attacks lead to the creation of the original Batwoman (Kathy Kane) and Bat-Girl (Betty Kane) to show that Batman and Robin were not homosexual and there was nothing untoward about their relationship. His actions and eventually book, The Seductio...

I know it's been a little bit since I've posted. Things have been a tad busy in my life, but I'm back again and there is something we should probably talk about. And that is the term Graphic Novel. Now I know that a lot of people think Graphic Novel is a catch-all term for any comic in bound in a larger book-like format. While that is partially true, that's not exactly the case. So let's talk about it. While the term Graphic novel has been around since the 60's, the term became popular and well known thanks to Will Eisner's A Contract with God. It is a series of stories based around the lives of poor Jewish people living in a tenement in New York City. This unique form of comic was marketed as a Graphic Novel to distinguish it from the better known superhero, sword and sorcery, western and romance comics that were coming out at the time and the name stuck. That said, the term was specifically meant for this type of work that was originally written and pr...