I’ve never read many biographies. I’ve always been a very fiction-oriented person, and where interests do extend into non-fiction realms, I’ve always been drawn more to science and technology than to personal or political history.

So, naturally, it makes perfect sense that I’ve now decided that I need to read one biography for each US President. I suppose it’s not totally random–certainly though the past couple of presidential elections, my interest in politics has increased considerably. But more and more of my fiction ideas are tending toward concepts rooted in historical events, so it’s time I started giving myself more solid grounding in the subjects that are inspiring me.

First up: John Adams. David McCullogh’s tome is on its way to me from the Wilmington Public Library at this very moment.

And yes, there’s a reason I’m starting with Adams — the Boston Comics Roundtable is working on its fourth issue, which will be on the theme of Boston history. I still need to script something for the issue, and I figure I might as well combine my current research project with my upcoming writing project and kill two birds at once by reading about a president from the Boston area. Otherwise, I do plan to go in order.

So–who has recommendations of particularly good presidential biographies I should read?

This past weekend I attended the first annual Maine Comics Arts Festival, organized by Rick Lowell of Casablanca Comics, and what can I say? It was possibly the most fun I’ve ever had at a comics convention! First off, it was located right in downtown Portland, which is one of my favorite places to spend a short weekend vacation. Lots of nice little shops (including Casablanca itself, which was already one of my standard stops when visiting), plenty of nearby places to eat, and the city stays active late into the night, with plenty of live music and good places to get a nice locally brewed beer.

The pre-show began Saturday night, with a ferry ride to Peak’s Island, where Rick hosted con exhibitors at the Peak’s Island Inn with complimentary appetizers and beer (courtesy of sponsor Shipyard Ale). It was a pleasure to be treated so generously—our participation in the show was clearly appreciated. After the first wave of exhibitors left (we had to exit by ferry, so there was no gradual tapering off of festivities) I shared a table with Rick, my good friends Shelli and Braden, Kean Soo, Zack Giallongo, and another gentleman whose name I didn’t catch. We had a delightful conversation about Muppet comics and TV shows of our youth (who else remembers the creepy yet touching moment when Red Fraggle, trapped in cave-in with Boober, and slowly running out of air, turns to her friend and asks the immortal line, “Boober…what is it like to die?”) I was particularly glad to finally have a conversation with Zack—for several years it’s seemed odd that I keep missing him, considering he seems to be friends with all my other friends. And now that I’ve met him, I regret that it didn’t happen sooner—he’s excellent!

I followed up the Peak Island party by joining several other members of The Boston Comics Roundtable at Novare Res, a “beer café,” which has a beer menu considerably longer than most restaurant’s food menus. (The Smuttynose Chai Porter is a real one-of-a-kind, and quite good. I recommend it.)

The convention proper started the next day at 10:00 AM at the Ocean View Convention Center, literally right on the water—with two full walls of windows facing the bay, letting in lots of sunlight, and nearby doors propped to admit the fresh ocean air, it was about as cheerful and well-lit convention venue as I can imagine. And that good cheer was only compounded by the youth turnout—I’ve never seen so many kids at a comics convention, clearly having a good time. There was some complaint from exhibitors that if they had realized the audience was going to be so kid-heavy, they’d have planned their exhibition materials differently, and there is already some discussion of taking the heavy youth presence into account when arranging the table distribution next year. That said, though, it was really good to see an event so welcoming to younger readers—it was the best kind of outreach, and kids and parents alike seemed to appreciate it.

There were some great talents at the show, which really made me wish I wasn’t on such a tight budget. All very indy, with lots of cool looking minis and self-produced books. The Center for Cartoon Studies had a great display, which I didn’t linger too long in front of, for fear that I would be too tempted to part with my limited cash. And I very much enjoyed chatting with my table neighbor, Sam Costello, who had some nice looking print editions of his Split Lip horror series.

By sheer volume, though, The Boston Comics Roundtable was biggest presence in the room—with five tables, we spanned nearly the entire length of the convention hall. You can see our exhibit in this photo by Aya Rothwell. Shelli’s artwork is in the extreme foreground, and in the far back, behind Braden’s hat, you can see my wife Brandy in a white shirt, standing behind my table. Everyone in-between is a BCR member.

I didn’t make very many purchases—it’s frustrating that convention season is in summer, when my personal funds are the shortest—but I did pick a quartet of Zack’s Novasett Island minis, as well as the first two issues of the Underburbs, which as been repeatedly recommended to me. My only other purchase was an official, ridiculously orange, con t-shirt. I don’t usually wear t-shirts with images on them, but I liked the sea monster. Also, I have an odd weakness for ridiculously orange t-shirts, and this was the most ridiculously orange t-shirt I’ve ever seen.

Sales for those exhibitors selling more adult-oriented material were generally pretty slow through the first half of the day, when the kids were really out in force. As the day went along, though, the audience got progressively older, and sales seemed to pick up. Personally, I actually did a little better than I have at my last couple of shows, especially with my big-ticket textbook.

The con was just the one day, ending at 5:00, which seemed like just the right amount of time for a smaller show like this one, though I was still sorry to see it end. The last thing I did before shutting down my table was to head back into the exhibitor lounge to get one last cup of coffee—yes, there was enough free coffee provided to exhibitors to last the entire show. That alone wins my heart. Then we packed up, and Brandy and I headed to David’s Restaurant for some of their exceptional clam chowder (a culinary must anytime we’re in Portland), then headed home again. I’ll certainly be back for the next one—even if I hadn’t sold anything, it was such an energetic and fun con that I would gladly come back next year. It’s the sort of con that sends you home really excited to get right back to making comics.

Via Steven Withrow, here’s Who’s Hungry, a short student film retelling “Hansel and Gretel.” It’s an especially dark and violent version, but very well done, and quite faithful to the structure of the original story.

This coming Sunday I’ll be exhibiting at the very first Maine Comics Arts Festival in Portland Maine, organized by the excellent Casablanca Comics. As usual, you’ll be able to find me tabling with The Boston Comics Roundtable. If you’re in New England, you should come to the show!

I’ve got copies of my full-length play, “Parens.” back from the printer and ready to sell. Buy it here!

“I will not embellish and I will not romanticize. Frankly, this is simply not a story of romance–it is a story of love. And the two haven’t a thing to do with each other.” -William

Parens. is the story of Brook and William, a wife and husband, the impressionable student and the lover of language, who now speak only through voice recorders, their lives encoded in battles over grammatical minutia.

It is also the story of Eloquence and Bill, the two children who ferry these messages back and forth, always bouncing from one parent to the other, struggling to find their place in a fractured family.

Weaving forward and back through three pivotal days, Parens. reveals a chain of events that will force Brook and William to finally confront the state of their family and to make the most important decisions of their lives.

97 pages, 5.5″ x 8.5″, perfect binding.

Last week, the Massachusetts Library Association held its annual professional conference, which is notable for comics fans in that the final day of the conference included a Graphic Novel Mini-Conference organized by Robin Brenner of No Flying, No Tights. This included a full day of panel discussions related to the comic book industry, as well as a handful of graphic novel exhibitors in the exhibition hall, and a couple of interesting events throughout the rest of the week. I wasn’t able to make it to all of the events, as I wasn’t a registered attendee. (Technically, I shouldn’t have been at any of the events, but well…you know…nonchalant whistle.)

On the whole, I was quite impressed with the quality of the presenters arranged for the show, and very much enjoyed the panels I observed. Brenner is to be commended on the job she did arranging these events for the conference.

But perhaps the most important note to take from this is what it says about the role GNs are playing in libraries currently that the conference organizers felt it would be profitable to arrange a full day’s worth of graphic novel events at a conference not in any way specific to comics or other areas of geek culture.

A particularly nice facet of attending comics panels at a non-comics show is that the presenters, even the most famous of them, aren’t inundated with fans, which makes it possible to pursue a real conversation with just about anyone.

I attended two panels in full: The State of the Industry and Graphic Novel Creators Panel.

State of the Industry Panel
Moderated by Robin Brenner and staffed by Brigid Alverson (MangaBlog, Good Comics for Kids blog), Calista Brill (First Second), Ali T. Kokmen (Del Rey and Villard comic imprints of Random House), Dave Roman (editor, Nickelodeon Magazine comics, creator Agnes Quill, Astronaut Elementary), and John Shableski (Diamond Book Distributors).

As someone who often hears about many of the issues discussed in these sorts of panels at comics shows, it was interesting to hear these same topics addressed between publishers and librarians, with the conversation less tailored to the interests of creators and fans. Conversation stayed largely on interesting practical matters.

In discussing current trends, webcomics were just about the first thing mentioned. Mention was made of webcomics putting out books that have pre-established audiences, as well as traditional book creators beginning to put their works online to bring in new readers. Some discussion was also made of publishers beginning to look to portable appliances like Kindle and iPhone as markets for paid content. (Librarians are already looking at ways to make use of the Kindle—more on that in my discussion of The Technology Petting Zoo below.)

Kokmen mentioned a related experiment where Del Rey gave away large numbers of the first volumes of long-running series, as a way of roping new readers into buying the rest of the series. He was very pleased with the experiment’s results. Overall, there seemed to be much support for the business model of giving large portions of content away for free as a route to building a large (and paying) audience long term. “Whats pretty clear ISN”T happening is that it’s stifling sales. Giving it away for free encourages people to pursue it further.”

Alverson addressed the challenge, for librarians, of locating and recommending good online comics content for kids, since the reference resources don’t exist yet. The value of keeping handouts of lists of age-appropriate webcomics was mentioned. The challenge for librarians trying to identify good kids’ webcomics was part of the inspiration of her “Good Comics for Kids” blog on the School Library Journal website.

Brill pointed out a particular lack of comics aimed specifically at kids in the 5-7 year old age range.

Roman also mentioned the (not at all surprising) fact that comics based on existing media properties are a much easier sell to kids than original comics creations. He’s had real first hand experience through Nickelodeon Magazine, where he has run both original and media-based comics. Kids are far more likely read comics if they already know the characters from TV.

Shableski pointed out that kids don’t tend to recognize the term “graphic novel.” Kids just call them “books.”

One of the more interesting discussions pertained to the issue of age ratings. Roman pointed out that labeling comics as “for kids” tends to kill sales—retailers are far less likely to order it, because comic shop customers won’t buy it. Hence, the creation of the “all ages” label. This reluctance to labeling comics with age ratings isn’t news to long-time comics readers.

According to Brill, though, the exact opposite is true for traditional book publishers and traditional book retailers—retailers organize their books by age ratings, and parents make constant use of those age ratings, so any book labeled “all ages” is impossible to sell. Highly specific age ratings are essential to traditional bookstore sales. Kokmen seemed to agree—while his imprints don’t put age ratings on western books, they are very diligent about age-rating manga books, and seemed to think that the practice was a big part of the success manga has had in bookstores.

Since libraries also sort books into age categories, and often need to be able to make on-the-spot recommendations of books they haven’t necessarily read, librarians seem to have an interest in the practice as well—it was pointed out, however, that the ratings don’t necessarily need to appear directly on the book, so long as the information is available through the publisher’s web site and promotional material. This is particularly important when purchasing and cataloguing the books.

Other topics discussed:

First Second has a long production schedule—18 months is standard for a full color book, only a few months less for a black and white book. As a consequence, they plan their lines out very far in advance—they’re publishing schedule is planned ahead for more years than you can count on one hand, according to Brill.

Publishers pay attention to prominent librarians’ blogs, and look to librarians for feedback on production & marketing issues. Librarians were encouraged to make a point of attending comics conventions (many already do) where they can get face-to-face discussions with the publishers and editors. This is particularly effective for comics publishers, since they tend to have small staffs, allowing librarians to get the ear of top-level people.

Official MLA live-blog report, Part 1, Part 2

Graphic Novel Creators Panel
Moderated by Robin Brenner and staffed by Dave Roman (Agnes Quill, Astronaut Elementary), Stan Sakai (Usagi Yojimbo), Chris Schweizer (The Crogan Adventures), Gail Simone (Wonder Woman, Birds of Prey, etc.), and Raina Telgemeier (Babysitters Club, Smile).

This panel was a little lighter, focused more on the usual creator anecdote type stuff, rather than real practical matters. Still, it was a lively and fun discussion. The audience was a bit sparse for this one, but it was the final panel of a week-long conference, so it’s not surprising that a lot of people just wanted to get home.

Some topics touched upon:

Writing for mainstream (re: superheroes) leads to developing an audience faster than doing your own thing, but most folks enjoy having total control over their creative work.

Collaborating is most fun when your collaborator is an established friend. Schweizer particularly stressed that he wouldn’t be eager to wo
rk with someone he doesn’t know, but at the same time, he realizes that sometimes his own art style isn’t what best suits a particular story idea he has. When that happens, he’ll look to his friends for a potential collaborator, but he’s very picky. Simone, of course, works with new artists more regularly than the other creators on the panel, and enjoys the experience—but even she says that if she isn’t friends with her collaborator at the outset, she usually is by the time the project is done. Roman and Telgemeier had the most unusual collaboration experience—their artist on the X-Men manga they recently wrote is Indonesian, and doesn’t speak English, so they’ve never even spoken to her. Instead, they’ve worked more closely with the translator. [EDIT–I seem to have confused two different stories from Roman. The artist on X-Men does speak Engligh, thought they’ve still worked with her indirectly, via an editor. It’s one of the Avatar comics artists who Dave communicates with via a translator.]

As in the earlier industry panel, the issue of creating for kids came up, and how the different creators consider their audience. Schweizer commented that he isn’t writing specifically for kids, but does consider that kids are reading the books. This is mostly an issue when dealing with violence—he wants to include enough violence to give an accurate representation of the time periods he’s writing about, but he isn’t looking to make it gruesome, so the worst of it happens of panel. Of course, there’s no stopping kids imaginations—he described receiving a letter from a young boy, who commented that his favorite part was when “the mean pirate” got his head cut off. While said pirate does die in the book, the death is not on panel, and know details are given about how he died—the boy provided that information himself. Roman pointed out that as an editor at Nickelodeon, he receives constant feedback from the kids themselves, which has made him increasingly conscious of his audience.

In describing her scripting process, Simone commented that a 22-page comic usually requires upwards of 50 pages of script. (This was particularly striking to me—in my own scripting, I follow a strict rule that one page of comic=one page of script.)

There was some discussion of adaptation—a member of the audience asked whether the creators had read a novel that they felt would make a great graphic novel. Most of the creators seemed to feel that it’s pretty rare that a novel could be profitably adapted into a graphic novel. Schweizer pointed out that what he tends to enjoy most in prose novels isn’t specifically the plots so much as the language—so if you’re going to change the language into visuals, then you’re losing the aspect that drew him to the novel in the first place. Simone further pointed out that efficiency requires that a prose novel will have to be substantially abridged to create a graphic novel, and the more you abridge it, the more pointless it seems to adapt it. Telgemeier, of course, has done significant adaptation in her Babysitters Club books, and enjoyed the process—especially since the original novels are all out of print, so her adaptations have allowed new audiences to discover those stories. Roman pointed out that Telgemeier’s adaptations benefited from fairly simple abridgement—the original novels tended to include a lot of repetition of visual details, which is unnecessary in a visual form.

MLA Live-Blog Report

Also of interest
Get with the Program! Teaching, Programs and Hands-On Demonstrations using Comics
Stan Sakai and Chris Schweizer
Discussion of the educational value of comics, including building literacy skills, such as vocabulary and reading comprehension, as well as teaching storytelling skills. I only caught the last ten minutes or so of this presentation—Sakai gave a live demonstration of thumbnailing a comic page by prompting an audience member for details of what she did on her way to the conference, which he drew out sequentially for the audience. Sakai is a very warm and entertaining presenter.

MLA Live-Blog Report

Graphic Novels 101, with John Shableski and Robin Brenner
Introductory level discussion of comics for librarians looking to address them in their libraries. Largely a history of comics, from Ben Franklin to the present day, followed by a discussion of issues librarians face in dealing with graphic novels. Resources for librarians were discussed, including another discussion of age ratings, and systems for cataloguing graphic novels, such as shelving non-fiction comics by standard Dewey call numbers, rather than lumping all GNs together.

MLA Live-Blog Report

Earlier in the week was the “Different Ways of Storytelling,” panel which included cartoonist Lynda Barry and non-cartoonish Thrity Umrigar. I wasn’t able to attend this panel, but you can read the MLA’s official live-blog report. Apparently, Barry commented at one point that her most reliable source of income is “selling stuff on eBay.” This comment seemed to be made in the context of the decline of comics in alternative newspapers.

MLA Live-Blog Report

The Novel World of Digital Storytelling
Elizabeth Thomsen
Not specifically about comics, but addressed a number of tangentially related storytelling forms, and other experiments in popular online creative activity. Topics addressed included fan fiction, machinima, blog-to-book publishing, collaborative storytelling projects, six-word memoirs, and a recent phenomenon in Japan of school-age girls writing stories via cell phone text message (some examples of which have since become best sellers). Webcomics came up briefly, specifically addressing Brian Fries’ Mom’s Cancer, and the fact that it became a published print work after being completed online.

MLA Live-Blog Report

Exhibition Hall
Unfortunately, I didn’t see much of the exhibition hall. I only attended the last day of the four-day conference, so a number of exhibitors had already packed it in before I arrived. What’s more, since the show had a designated lunch time, the exhibitors mostly went for lunch all at the same time—specifically, right during the time when I was in the exhibition hall, so I mostly got to see a bunch of empty tables.

One particularly interesting table was The Technology Petting Zoo, where I got to see a side-by-side comparison of the original Kindle and the Kindle 2.0. The display on the 2.0 really is everything they say it is—noticeably better than the original, when I first saw it, I didn’t realize it was an actual functioning device—I thought that the default graphic of Mark Twain that it was displaying was a paper insert on a mock device. So, I’m officially impressed. I don’t like the odd flicker you get between page turns, but I’m sure that’s something that will improve quickly in future iteration. My wife and I were split on which was more comfortable to hold—I preferred the slimmer, evenly balanced 2.0. Brandy preferred the more ergonomic and rubberized original. But, it’s worth noting that the original is only ergonomic if you want to hold it primarily in your left hand—Brandy did. I didn’t.

I spent most of my time chatting with Roman and Telgemeier, since they’re always lovely people to ch
at with. I also had a nice conversation with Brigid Alverson, and got to briefly say hello to Chris Schweizer. Later, I had opportunity to chat with Callista Brill, as well (recognizable from Mark Siegel’s Scott Pilgrim review from Unshelved), who was very excited about The Eternal Smile, Gene Yang & Derek Kirk Kim’s very new book. As I mentioned at the beginning, one of the great things about this sort of show is how accessible the comics creators are. I didn’t talk to Stan Sakai or Gail Simone, but I probably could have—I just felt awkward doing so, since I haven’t read either of their work. (I did buy the first volume of Usagi Yojimbo from the conference fundraiser table, though.)

Amy bonus content! Added to the archive today, “Amy Does What She Can” was our contribution to the Webcomics Hurricane Relief Telethon that followed Hurricane Katrina. It’s a little cheesy, but I like it anyway.

After a few weeks off so Grug could do trivial things like get married and go on his honeymoon, Gingerbread Houses is back!