Top 10 Comic Book Top Ten Lists of 2009!

We all know that year-end top ten lists are the last bastion of the lazy and desperate. An attempt to create content out of previous writings and get some time away from the damn computer to hoist some nog.

And a top ten list to start the new year off? Holy crap, that is even worse.

Any writer who tries that is too big a hack to even do his lazy top ten list when the season calls for it. Talk about deadline issues. They couldn't even come up with the creativity for a list of resolutions? A pox on their houses.

This then, is my start of the year Top Ten List for your enjoyment.

Now that everyone else has done my work for me creating their own lists over the holidays while I was in several countries... er, holidayizing, I can simply cherry pick a selection that I think may brighten your day and illuminate your mind. I also get to show off some writers who have brought me some enjoyment. It's win/win, right? So here's your chance to catch up on what other people think the cool kids should be reading.

TOP TEN TOP TEN LISTS of the DECADE

1 - Let's start with the National Post, who printed their Best Books of the Decade list. Indie comic artist turned literary darling Chester Brown's Louis Riel made the list and they mention the ascent of the graphic novel as well.

But scroll down and you'll find the more interesting "Top Ten": the Top Publishing Stories of the Decade. It's an excellent compendium of the storms that have rocked the publishing world for this first decade of the new millenium.


2 - Inkstuds. I wanted a podcast in here and this is one of the best and longest running, if you count its life on Vancouver radio. For the Inkstuds Best of 2009 comic book wrap-up, host Robin McConnell was joined by a "bevy of comics bloggers": Timothy Hodler from Comicscomics, Sean T. Collins of, wait for it, Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat, and Chris Mautner of Comic Book Resources Robot 6.


3 - Speaking of Robot 6, Chris Mautner and the gang went the extra-mile and have begun posting their list of the 30 Most Important Comics of the Decade. the reasons are varied but good arguments are made for all the ones I've seen so far.


4 - We move onto the A.V. club, the real-news other half of satirical newspaper The Onion's weekly print edition. These guys put the "pop" in pop culture with the AV Club's Best Comics of the Decade.


5. - The Architect's Journal. You might be interested in this list of the Top 10 Comic Book Cities as voted by the men who design real cities!


6 - Cardboard Monocle. After all this serious discussion of comics as an artform we're ready for something fun. This Art and Design Blog has put together a list of the Top 20 Comic Book Weapons. Some are cool, several are disgusting though you may be more shocked by what isn't included in favour of a few surprises. No utility belt (not a weapon, persay) nor a batarang to be found.

7 - Pop Culture Addict provides some laughs with their list of the Top 10 Lamest Superheroes of All Time. It's a bold declaration but they've hit the nail on the head with some of these suckers, though I think they favour heroes whose ridiculousness makes them at least entertainingly lame, as opposed to truly unreadable. The original list proved popular enough to spawn a sequel, Top Ten Lamest Superheroes of All Time II: the Next Ten. These guys would make the most awesome super team ever.

I think Arm Fall Off Boy has a real future.

8 - Comics212. The manager of The Beguiling, one of the best comic shops ever isn't afraid to share his opinions culled from extensive knowledge. Chris has begun posting Manga Milestones 2000-2009: 10 Manga that Changed the World. It really is a short history of manga in North America and a fascinating read.


9 - Comic Book Resources editor and writer Brian Cronin has almost finished (for some reason he's skipped #50-45) notating the Top 100 Comic Book Storylines Master List as voted on by their readers. Despite a Marvel and DC focus, they do cover some pretty terrific storylines and their impact. It's a pretty staggering read that you can chip away at oveer the next month.

10 - i09.com. Just to cleanse the palette, sci-fi site io9.com presents 10 of the Decade's Best SF Comics.

There you have it; a varied dance through the top ten list clutter form the last month.

If you truly can't get enough you can check out comic book blog, I Love Rob Liefeld (evening typing that gives me shivers), which has posted a Meta-List of the Best 130 Comics of 2009, combining the results of over 130 Best Comics of 2009 lists from reviewers and bloggers across the net. They are also kind enough to discuss the trends discovered once all the results were tabulated.

And for those with a lot of time to kill, Largeheartedboy has posted a one-stop resource for Best of the Decade (2000-2009) Online Book Lists, including comic lists.

I must confess, I am reeling after all this Top 10 Listing business. I think I may take asome time together to gather my thoughts or I may end up like this poor woman from one of io9.com's top ten sci-fi comics, Y-The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughn and Canada's own Pia Guerra.

Beavers Up!

DRAMACONgratulations!: With a new manga "Nightschool" and animated series My Life Me, Svetlania Chmakova's star is burning hot!

Russian-raised, Canadian artist, Svetlania Chmakova has been making quite a splash in the manga and comics world for the past several years. She's been nominated for an Eisner and a Harvey award. Publisher's Weekly named Dramacon one of the best comics of 2005. The following year she won a MangaCast Yomi for Best Global Manga of 2006. And in 2007b Dramacon was placed on YALSA's list of the Best Graphic Novels for teens.

According to this interview at HomemadeMech.com, Chmakova faced communication challenges after immigrating to Canada at 16 years old.

...I managed okay--the schools in Russia are paced a little differently so I was further ahead on some subjects than my Canadian classmates of the same age. I was literally falling asleep in math class, because the stuff that was being taught I'd already known for at least a year. But when it came to English, Creative writing, History, etc., things were much more, um... challenging. LOL

In the cultural sense, I adjusted very easily--Canada is a very accepting country with a strong multicultural community and people tend to be very friendly overall. I blended right in.

It seems only natural to me that Chmakova would gravitate toward graphic work to communicate ideas. Comics are truly an international language. the interview goes on to reveal that after graduating from Sheridan College's esteemed classical animation program, she found the animation had "dried up". After attempting to get an illustration career off the ground, Chmakova began to explore comics and fell hopelessly in love with the medium.

This Popimage interview conducted around the release of the second volume of Dramacon explains further:

I still love animation very much and would like to do some, time-permitting. But I've come to realize that I'm a storyteller just as much as I am an artist, so I am not content just drawing. I need to tell stories! The comics medium is perfect for me.

I bought the first Dramacon to try it out and immediately had to have the remaining two. At first, I was taken aback by the soapish quality of the story (I am not the target audience after all!). But soon, I was devouring the book. The storytelling was clear, compelling and drove me forward through the story, speeding me up and slowing me down as needed. The dang thing was so addictive I was itching to buy the next two right away. I contemplated purchasing the hardcover Dramacon collection this Christmas for my niece but one or two scenes forced me to wait until she's a wee bit older.



Chmakova is one busy creator with print and webcomics all over the place like "Chasing Rainbows" at www.girlamatic.com, "Svetlana Wheneverly" at www.wirepop.com, and "The Adventures of CG" at www.cosmogirl.com. A list of what's available can be found here at her website, www.svetlania.com.

Svetlania looks happy on her livejournal blog in the
"snazziest shirt" she "ever owned." Check out:
http://svetlania.livejournal.com

Chmakova is one the best known North American manga creators. Initially in 2005, she found herself caught up in a backlash against work by OEL (Original english Language), or non-Japanese, creators. Purists have softened their stance since, especially regarding Chmakova, as talent has shone through over preconceptions.

In this terrific Publisher's Weekly interview with Chmakova and JuYoun Lee, the editor of her new Yen Press series Nightschool, which premieres in Yen's monthly anthology Yen Plus this month, explains part of the initial problem.

One reason for the initial fan rejection of OEL manga was the weakness of some of the early properties, according Yen Press publishing director Kurt Hassler. “People who loved manga but had very little instruction were being given contracts early on, putting out full books without the kind of guidance you need on a professional level.” By contrast, he said, Japanese and Korean editors spend a lot of time working with their creators.

“The biggest reason for doing a monthly magazine in Asia is to let the artist grow,” said JuYoun Lee, the editor of Nightschool and of Yen Plus. “You get more feedback from readers, and you see how the characters get their own power—they go in a different way sometimes from the initial setup of the artist.”

With critical and that elusive commercial success for Dramacon and Nightschool secured, Chmakova has launched several side ventures, including speaking engagements and classes, how-to-draw manga manuals, toy designs and a return to her animation roots as designer and co-creator of the forthcoming Teletoon animated series, My Life Me.



Produced by Canada's Carpe Diem Film & TV and the international media company, TV-Loonland, My Life Me started out small as a glint in producer, director and co-creator J.C. Little's eye.

Little 's boutique animation company, naturally called Little Animation, has quietly built a strong reputation creating animation-filled, creative websites that get across important messages in fun, interactive ways. They've built sites for Dr. Jane Goodall, the English Literacy Foundation, Capoeira For Kids, culminating in the website, Little Animation For Kids (which features great games and teaches kids about the environment) and the Little Earth Charter, a website explaining the UN's Earth Charter.

If you ever felt animation and websites for young kid's were vapid, Little has done her all to prove you wrong. In this interview with Green Living Online, Little explains she was an ad producer who grew tired of selling sugar to kids. A natural next step for Little was developing her own series. After coming up with the original idea, Little brought on board my friend, Cindy Filipenko, freelance writer, story editor and all around classy dame.

I met Cindy years ago when she was the Director of Creative Development at Vancouver's Bardel animation. She was one of the most approachable execs out there. She was about to start story editing Silverwing, the animated series based on Kenneth Oppel's series of fantasy novels. She's also the co-writer (along with Geoff Berner) of the animated holiday special, The Christmas Orange.

Cindy Filipenko and Geoff Berner's
The Christmas Orange.

I caught up with Cindy last week and begged for some of the details of the show's production. With Chmakova rounding out the creative team, the team began development in earnest throughout last year. Cindy was impressed with Chmakova from the start.

"My Life Me was J.C.'s idea. And she brought me in. J.C. also brought Svetlania on board. Svet's design is incredible. She's a real artist. She's so committed. When she's working on the show in Montreal, she works at the director's (Little's) triplex. And if J.C. weren't making casseroles and pulling her away from her desk she'd be there from morning to midnight."

The manga style influenced more than the character designs. The heightened portrayal of character's emotions and actual, black and white comic book panels reveal their hidden thoughts. It looks like the production team's dedication is paying off. According to Cindy...

"My Life Me got lots of attention at Cannes. It was sort of the belle of the ball because it looked so different and hip."

You can check out My Life Me's manga-meets-Archie-Comics look for yourself. TVLoonland.com has a five-minute trailer. It's bouncy and fun has a lot of info packed into it. This clip was designed to help sell the show to network's so it's also interesting to see how they spend time sharing details of the series' web component.



Want more links?

There's also plenty of info and artistic goodies at Svetlana's website, here.

Svetlana herself has expressed a liking for www.mangablog.net.

And finally, clicking here will take you to an early reaction to the greenlighting of My Life Me.

Beavers Up!

TGIF TCAF!: The Comics are dead, long live the comics! And, hooray for the Toronto Comics Arts Festival!

It's a time of upheaval in the publishing industry and in the comic industry as well. The end of 2008 and early 2009 saw layoffs and schedule readjustments at Digital Manga, Tokyopop (including several books and series cut from their publishing slate), and at Viz Media so a recent restructuring of Devil's Due is no surprise. And

Some have blamed the economy for the slowing of the manga sales juggernaut, others say supply has simply caught up with demand as the market has seen freakish growth over the last decade. Even small announcements like new Ontario tax credits for publishers (examined here at the Quill & Quire website) fail to excite anyone with the possibilities.

With all this and all the crazy hubub over Diamond's new wholesale minimum cut-off policy, it's kind of refreshing to read the business-as-usual attitude from Drawn & Quarterly's Associate Publisher Peggy Burns in Chris Mautner's Robot 6 interview over at www.comicbookresources.com. After hearing so much frustration about the death knell of the old stylefloppy comic book, she sums it up from a purely business perspective.

Look, when our artists decide to create their work in the pamphlet format, they are making a decision that this will just be sold in comic stores. When the main distributor for comics stores decides to institute minimums that may affect their work in pamphlet form, we — as both their publisher and not just their biggest fan — have to have an honest conversation with the artist if this is the best way to publish their work and if we, as a company, can continue to publish it as a pamphlet to a declining audience that is beyond our control, no matter how good the comic. The alternative of publishing books to an increasing audience is a win-win situation for everyone involved — author, publisher, retailer, distributor. This may sound like a sacrilege — such an obvious mixing of art with business. I would imagine our artists and fans know that we place art before commerce about 99% of the time, more often than not, to our disadvantage.

So many established publishers are hesitant to make a decision about what to publish and how to adapt at a time like this, it creates a bit of a vacuum and opportunity exists for those who will take it. As Steven Grant notes in his latest Permanent Damage column on what it really means to "break into" the comics business, there are more avenues for doing comics available to all than there have ever been before.

The "comics business" is far bigger and more fractured than it was in 1978, when I broke in, and Marvel and/or DC are no longer "the comics business," no matter how much fanzines and newssites and their own propaganda push that notion. "The comics business" is all over the place: newspaper strips, online comics, manga, animation, mini-comics, indie comics, alt-comics, original graphic novels... It doesn't matter whether any of these have the critical mass to challenge Marvel/DC "hegemony," it only matters that your contribution pulls in enough eyes to make it worthwhile for you. Which doesn't necessarily mean you'll be making money in a hurry, or at all. The question isn't really income but audience. Build a large enough, faithful enough audience and you will end up making money. There are all kinds of ways to make money.

Audience is the true grail now, not assignments.

The year before he was inducted himself, I managed to convince Quebec bande dessinnée legend Pierre Fournier to serve as a judge on the Hall of Fame Committee for the Joe Shuster Canadian ComicBook Awards. I remember how confused he was over the distinction we made between comics and comic books.

"In Quebec," Pierre assured me (and, as near as I can tell from my limited perspective, in Europe and most of the non-North American world), "there is no such distinction. The comics are the comics whether they appear in the newspapers, in a graphic novel, on the internet or in a comic book." In short, comics are bigger than the form in which they appear. That may define how they are presented in each case, but it doesn't define the medium itself.

The Comics aren't dead, people. Neither is music. They way we interact with and receive them is ever-changing, though. Want proof? Events like the upcoming Toronto Comics Arts Festival celebrate comics in all their varied glory. More information on this year's event can be found here.

When I see the massive public attendance and enthusiasm for the bi-annual event it always reaffirms to me that the comics aren't dead, nor is a general love and passion for them. The form is merely adapting to new forms of distribution.

Embrace change and you discover that all the things you love about comics are still around, somewhere.

Beavers Up!

Quick Update - Tory Little's New Site, Paradise Con and the return of Onomatopoeia!

I covered Canadian comic creator and animator Tory Little (Angora Napkin, Chiaroscuro) in a recent post. His long-promised new website and blog are up and running at last.

Go to MeanwhileStudios.com for new updates and Troy's blog, CaffeineAndSleepDeprivation V2.0 for personal updates, comics and behind the scenes artwork. It's just been put up but Little promises more posts soon.

Sequential, the essential Canadian Comix News and Culture blog run by Max Douglas (Salgood Sam) and Bryan Munn, has announced the return of self-proclaimed Comic Book Activist Robin Fisher's Onomatopoeia Show after a three year break and her move from Vancouver to Montreal. Years ago on one of my first visits to Vancouver, Fisher was the first comic person I met when I found out a comic shop was blocks from my hotel. She was engaging, helpful and absolutely a perfect ambassador for comics. I became a fan of the show. Glad to hear it's back on the airwaves.

It's every Sunday (today!) from 3 to 4 pm on 1690 AM in Montreal. But the rest of us can hear it at www.cjlo.com. The Onomatopoeia Show has us digitally surrounded with its home website located at Cartoongal.com, and a Twitter page is here. Fisher also has previous episodes up on Podcast Alley and a Facebook page for the show. Fisher isn't kidding when she says she's back.

This year's Paradise Comic Con has been cancelled due to difficulty arranging a suitable date and locale. Paradise goes out of way to make an artist and fan-friendly event despite the many financial, competitive and venue challanges they have faced over the years. I hope Peter Dixon and the rest of the guys are able to work it out for 2010. They were the first people to allow to become involved with a Con on a pro level and have always been true gentlemen to me.

Beavers Up!

The Pursuit of Dan Cooper RCAF: FBI explores link between DB Cooper and comic book hero

© Dan Cooper – Albert Weinberg, Le Lombard
(Dargaud-Lombard s.a.), 2009.

In 1971, a nondescript man calling himself Dan Cooper paid cash for a one-way ticket from Portland to Seattle aboard Northwest Orient Airlines. Shortly after take-off, Cooper informed a stewardess that he had a bomb with him and wanted her to sit by him. He opened his briefcase long enough for her to catch a glimpse of red sticks and wiring inside and made her write down his demands. He wanted four parachutes and $200, 000 cash in twenty dollar bills.

In Seattle, Cooper exchanged 36 passengers for his parachutes and money but kept the flight crew aboard to fly him to Mexico. But somewhere between Seattle and Reno the bold criminal leapt out of the plane with his parachute and his ransom money and disappeared into American legend. A comic book escape, for sure. but what if a comic book inspired Cooper's plan in the first place?

I used to joke that famous air pirate, D.B. Cooper, was probably Canadian comic book test pilot Dan Cooper. Maybe he'd been drummed out of the Royal Canadian Air Force for going AWOL one too many times to fight off spies and invading aliens. After a dishonorable discharge with no pension the once heroic Dan was forced to use his aeronautical skills to stage a daring robbery so he could have a proper retirement fund.

Who knew that years later my tenuous link between fact and fiction would get a confirmation from no less than the FBI?

FBI sketches of air pirate Dan Cooper (left, centre)
Artist rendition of air pilot Dan Cooper (right). Hmm.

Two years ago the FBI reopened the Dan Cooper case (internally referred to as the NORJACK case, for Northwest hijacking) and posted what few details they could on their website here (also referring back to an earlier posting on the case found here). It was a calculated appeal to the public for help with one of its most famous unsolved cases.

The agent assigned to the case, Larry Carr, was inspired by the amount of speculation the robbery continues to create on chat rooms, websites and internet forums. Though the FBI had interviewed hundreds of people and found what evidence they could, most of the FBI case fits into a small file box according to this LA Times article on the announcement.

Previous agents failed to turn up many additional leads over the years (they were able to extract a DNA sample from the hijacker's tie, which he removed before leaping out of the plane), so Carr got creative and opened the case up to Joe Citizen, offering up evidence that until then had remained under wraps in the FBI files. Since the FBI couldn't commit resources to a long-cold case Carr began to think outside the (evidence) box. If he could harness these interested people and create an army of investigators, more clues could be found.

So far, it seems to be working.

Tom Kaye, a paleontologist, has been working with a team of scientists and Cooper searcher Brian Ingram, who found $5,800 of the ransom money along a Columbia River sandbar when he eight years old. The team is conducting various experiments, like examining pollen found on Cooper's tie to see if it is found only in certain parts of the country. They are also trying to pinpoint exactly where Ingram found the money and, using satellite maps, determine if it was buried there by Cooper or floated to the location over time. As Kaye put it on the FBI's latest update:

“The FBI threw out the challenge,” he said, “and we've taken the bait.”

But what of our potential link to our comic book Canadian? The FBI update knows a good hook when it sees one.

© Dan Cooper – Albert Weinberg, Le Lombard
(Dargaud-Lombard s.a.), 2009.

Here's how the Bureau website explains the connection, accentuating the fun aspect to encourage press write-ups and intrigue. It's a tease to get people interested and helping.

...as it turns out, Dan Cooper is very much alive-on the pages of a French comic book series that was popular when the hijacking occurred. In the fictional series, Royal Canadian Air Force test pilot Dan Cooper takes part in adventures in outer space and real events of that era. In one episode, published near the date of the hijacking, the cover illustration shows him parachuting.

Seattle Special Agent Larry Carr, who took over the Cooper case two years ago, believes it’s possible the hijacker took his name from the comic book (the enduring “D.B.” was actually the result of a media mistake). That’s important because the books were never translated into English, which means the hijacker likely spent time overseas. This fits with Carr’s theory that Cooper had been in the Air Force. Carr discovered the comic book connection on D.B. Cooper Internet forums, where fascination with the case is undiminished.

So, the potential for a legitimate connection is there.

This post was inspired by the delightful, improbable story that appeared here in yesterday's National Post under the headline "Did a Canadian comic book inspire the FBI's greatest mystery?". Technically, the answer to writer Randy Boswell's question is no, since Dan Cooper is, in fact a French comic book series created by Belgian artist Albert Weinberg. But the character of Dan Cooper is, indeed, a strapping Canadian.

© Dan Cooper – Albert Weinberg,
Le Lombard
(Dargaud-Lombard s.a.), 2009.

After studying law, Weinberg entered comics and spent his early comic book career as an assistant for Victor Hubinon before flying solo on Hubinon's Joe la Tornade, then drawing Luc Condor for Héroïc Albums. In the 1950's he worked for Tintin magazine, for whom he created the heroic Dan Cooper of the Royal Canadian Air Force. Cooper starred in a lengthy run serialized in the weekly Tintin in 1954 according to the awesome site, coolfrenchcomics.com.

The series always dabbled with sci-fi but Weinberg also made an effort to link his tales with the news of the day, even stationing his hero at the real RCAF Station in Marville, France while serving in 1(F) Wing, Canada's first NATO fighter wing. The character proved enduring enough to remain in print for decades. Long enough to potentially inspire one of the world's most famous hijackers, it seems.

If you read French you can enjoy an entire Dan Cooper adventure here, thanks to this 1(F) Wing home page in memory of former RACAF Ren L'Ecuyer.

© Dan Cooper – Albert Weinberg,
Le Lombard (Dargaud-Lombard s.a.), 2009

Although I think the real Dan Cooper would have learned about parachutes from any number of sources, being inspired to take the name of a comic character is quite plausible. It certainly fits the cheekiness of the hijackers style. Heck, Elvis Presley's performance outfits (with the capes etc.) were inspired by Captain Marvel Jr.! And the link is government approved, so you now have your newest bit of party trivia ready to go.

As for me? I wonder why an FBI agent would give such credence to a theory that, really, is a bit of a reach. Then I realized the answer was staring me right in the face. I am convinced that Dan Cooper the comic character is alive today and searching for the man who muddied his name... as FBI Special Agent Larry Carr!

Don't believe me? Check out the proof and decide for yourself!


FBI Special Agent Larry Carr, assigned to the
Norjack (Dan Cooper) case two years ago...

...Comic book test pilot Dan Cooper,
forever linked to a popular criminal.

Special Agent Carr, Dan Cooper. Separated at birth?

I wonder.


*The speed of the internet never ceases to amaze me. Less than a day after mentioning this to Comic book Resources' Brian Cronin, a link to this article appeared in his terrific Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed column. Brian does a great job of exploring those dark corners of the industry where innuendo, assumption and tall tales diverge from or converge with the truth.

For a new blog like this, a tip of the hat from Brian means a lot. Thanks so much!

Beavers Up!

Comics: March To Legitimacy

One of the many reasons I have found Facebook so distracting lately (I joined two months ago) are members like Karen Green, whose Facebook notes on comics and Comic Adventures In Academia column over at Comixology.com are always worth a read. Her perspective as a scholar, librarian and comic fan always shed new light on her topics.



Her latest CAIA post provides an overview of the Graphic Novels and Academic Acceptance panel she moderated at the New York Comic-Con. The discussion entered into two streams, teaching comics as form worth serious study and teaching the creation of comics.

The debate is a challenging one with each person's background, personal strengths and preferences guiding what aspect they teach. The same debate continues to rage in the Film School world with the academics teaching criticism, history and how to read film while practitioners teach how to make it. I have always believed a combination of these approaches is necessary for a complete education in any art form.

For a complete write-up on that fascinating panel discussion check out Paul DeBenedetto's blog Wednesday's Child (cleverly named, I'm guessing, for the fact that new comics in North America are always delivered on a Wednesday).

The panel also discussed the continuing challenge of getting comics accepted as viable subject worthy of study. Some panelists have encountered strong resistance to adding courses on comics whereas others have avoided ghettoizing them, preferring instead to add comics here and there to their "regular" course reading lists. I'm not surprised this approach considerably lowers academic resistance.

It's a slow crawl to acceptance as an art form.

Karen recently pointed her Facebook community to the New York Times installation of a Graphic Books Bestseller List.

Apparently there is some debate as to whether the Times introduced this to keep their bestseller list "pure" of such a childish things as comics. The same cries rose up in 2007 when the Times introduced their Children's Bestseller List, arguably as a way of keeping those damned Harry Potter books off the bestseller lists to make room for real literature. An example of this point of view is this outraged column by the Huffington Post's Michael Glintz, who made some valid points in between some indignant posturing.

Imagine if the people behind the Nielsen Top 10 TV show listings decided that reality shows were "taking away" valuable attention from dramas and sitcoms. Let reality shows get their own list and the official Top 10 only include "genuine" TV shows, like CSI and House and Grey's Anatomy.

Imagine if Variety decided animated movies were just for kids and didn't belong on the box office Top Ten list, when more adult films like Knocked Up and Ocean's 13

Imagine if Billboard decided to banish country music to Nashville and reserve its list of Top Ten album for "real" music like pop, rock and hip hop.

Of course, that would be absurd. Any list of top TV shows that didn't include American Idol would be a joke. Any ranking of hit movies that ignored Shrek The Third or Ratatouille would be foolish. And any ranking of top CDs that pretended Garth Brooks and Carrie Underwood didn't exist would be bizarre. needed the space.

And yet that's exactly the status of The New York Times Bestseller list.

This isn't just about bragging rights for J.K. Rowling. This is about accuracy and fairness...and about the next Harry Potter. One major reason the books became a phenomenon in the first place was because they broke onto the New York Times
bestseller list. At many bookstores, any title that does so automatically gets placed in a prominent position and receives a hefty discount. Adults who read about the success of the books didn't have to skulk into the children's section to buy a copy. They found it right there in the front of the store next to new releases by Stephen King and John Grisham.

Vitriol aside, Glintz's argument on the Kid Lit front has validity. If literature aimed at a younger audience outsells an adult lit book, it should be above it on a best-seller list. And yes, the Harry Potter books are read by hundreds of thousands of adults as well, otherwise there's no way it would have sold so robustly. Much of the debate came form a concern over "ghettoizing" children's literature. But according to the Times article that announced the list, booksellers praised the additional list that allowed more room for more books to gain the attention a NY Times bestseller notice offers. That is hard to argue with.

Adults who read youth fare with crossover appeal (often fantasy works like Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials books or the Twilight series currently taking the world by storm) will continue to seek out those books no matter what list they are or are not on. In the continually splintering world that is today's media, having a separate list for various genres is a valuable resource and marketing tool.

I think the concern over whether a graphic books list "ghettoizes" comics is overstated. Comics is different medium than literature, sharing only the presentation in "book form". It requires a different set of linguistic and visual code-breaking to read and offers many techniques that writing alone does not. It deserves and requires its own list (or set of lists, as the Times has broken up theirs into three categories: softcover, hardcover and manga).

My main concern is how is the list calculated, since graphic novels sell the majority of their stock outside the mainstream bookseller market. To a layman like myself it appears the Times may have this covered, combing figures from a number of sources to get what may be a considered a fairly accurate reflection of sales:

Rankings reflect sales of graphic novels, for the week ending February 28, at many thousands of venues where a wide range of books are sold nationwide. These include hundreds of independent book retailers (statistically weighted to represent all such outlets); national, regional and local chains; online and multimedia entertainment retailers; university, gift, supermarket, discount department stores and newsstands. In addition, these rankings also include unit sales reported by retailers nationwide that specialize in graphic novels and comic books.

The subject of categorizing the lists properly is touched upon by another librarian, Robin Brenner, in this round table chat found on her Good Comics For Kids blog at Schoollibraryjournal.com. Yes, the lists will likely be dominated by Marvel and DC for the foreseeable future, possibly creating a public perception that comics are still super-hero books aimed at children. But that's merely a factor of the publishing and marketing reach of the big two. I believe we will see the subject matter and type of graphic novels bringing in the big numbers slowly grow to include more challenging work. What can I say? I'm in a Pollyanna mood today. :)

On Facebook, Green summed up the process of gaining acceptance thusly:

Based on a comment made by Bill Savage during our NYCC panel, I recently looked into the process by which the novel became a subject for academic study. According to one article, massive popular sales led to reviews in literary journals; the reviews led to acquisitions by academic libraries and the novel's introduction to an academic community; critical scholarship followed. This was in the 18th century.

Sound familiar?

Very familiar, Karen. So we move forward, step by step.



In my view, the first huge step, and by step I mean breakthrough, that propelled comics onto the literati radar came from the tremendous commercial and critical success of Art Spiegelman's Maus. Spiegelman had street cred among cartoonists for his underground comicx work, the art world due his publication Raw, and the literary through work with prestigious magazines like the New Yorker. His unique position straddling so many worlds enabled him to gain a toehold for his unique, cartoon memoir.

The Pulitzer Prize Committe was impressed but ended up giving Spiegelman a special award, finding his work hard to classify. I can almost see their confused faces. "Gee, it looked like comics, but the effect on me was like having read powerful literature What do we do now?" Maus raised the level of whether comcis were true to a true debate in the critical world. In the Maus write up for the "Witness& Legacy - Contemporary Art about the Holocaust" website, Stephen Feinstein describes art critic Adam Gopnik's attempts to wrestle with this question in the pages of the New Republic ("Comics and Catastrophe," New Republic, 22 June l987):

Is Maus art? The art critic Adam Gopnik has tried to answer this interesting question:

If you ask educated people to tell you everything they know about the history and psychology of cartooning, they will robably offer something like this: cartoons (taking caricature, political cartooning, and comic strips all together as a single form) are a relic of the infancy of art, one of the earliest forms of visual communication (and therefore, by implication, especially well-suited to children); they are naturally funny and popular; and their gift is above all for the diminutive.

Gopnik goes on to suggest the truth is actually the opposite and that cartoons represent "a relatively novel offspring of an extremely sophisticated visual culture."

I personally suspect the success of Michael Chabon's Pulitzer Prize winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavelier and Clay, and the author's subsequent defences of everything comic and pulpy in magazines and online articles was the next huge catalyst that shook up many people's perception of the comic art form as being an actual ART form.

Even the Times early review of the book by Ken Kalfus, can't help but apologize for the comic book roots of the tale with grudging acknowledgments suggesting Chabon elevates the form.

Despite the creative straitjackets within which the cartoonists worked, Chabon plausibly identifies in the successful comic book many of the qualities of genuine artistry: craftsmanship, provocative themes and the artist's personal investment... ...In ''The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,'' Chabon may romanticize the comic book, but it's unillustrated prose that he makes love to... ...Novels conventionally draw a good deal of their power from surprising plot turns. ''The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay'' fulfills its quota of surprises, but most of its unexpectedness resides, comic-book-style, in its challenging situations, lushly written, in which you know beforehand that the heroes will prevail. It would make a nice comic book series -- the cousins square-jawed and ham-fisted -- but the depth of Chabon's thought, his sharp language, his inventiveness and his ambition make this a novel of towering achievement.

Amt Befner accomplished a more insightful summary of the pros and cons of Kavelier and Clay's comic book and pulp inspirations in her Salon.com review, despite at one point succumbing to the tendency to add "Bat! Bif! Bam!" sound effects to her article, as almost every journalist with little experience of comic books has done for the last forty years, thanks to the Batman television series of the sixties.

Their harebrained schemes lead to fame and fortune, often in a matter of days. Their loves are requited. They hobnob with the likes of Orson Welles, Salvador Dali and Joseph Cornell (whom Joe is said to resemble, in that both are "striking out for the sublime in a vessel constructed of the commonplace, the neglected, the despised"). Stan Lee knows their name. Greedy bosses prove to be good men with the boys' best interests in their hidden hearts of gold, and their enemies are foiled in the nick of time. This leads to some rather implausible last-minute saves, including one especially improbable sequence in which a well-timed phone call to Eleanor fucking Roosevelt (someone happens to have her number) saves the day...

...Luckily, the reader loves Sammy and Joe, too. They are lovable. (In fact, reading this book makes one wonder why so many authors are so ready to saddle their creations with ennui, thwarted ambitions and disillusionment.) Their last-minute saves and superhuman luck and pluck, moreover, are central to the theme of the book, which is the beauty and necessity of escape in all its forms...

I believe that Kavelier and Clay's popularity, critical success and Chabon's highly public love for comics as a medium put an acceptable, articulate literary face to a much-maligned form. In the aforementioned NYCC Graphic Novels and Academic Acceptance panel, blogger Paul Debenedetto describes Northwestern University professor Bill Savage's approach to teaching comics this way:

Bill's approach to teaching comics is twofold. First, what has done while teaching comics is to never put a class together that was "just comics", because it turned into a niche course students took to have fun, which wouldn't have any real academic merit and, as Savage said, "would get me fired"; thus, he picks his battles carefully...

...Second, he tries to integrate comics into courses he teaches based on subject matter (100 Bullets in a course on crime fiction, The Golem's Mighty Swing in a course on baseball) in order to make some change toward teaching comics. And he says it has worked. A lot of his peers have begun to teach books like Maus, which besides being a useful text for a class on WWII and the Holocaust, helped bring comics toward respectability by taking on such incredibly serious subject matter in an art form that was considered unrespectable. Now he has students that write Masters Theses on comics. Academic respectability is on a certain level a matter of "just doing it".

I believe Chabon's work helped legitimize comics in much the same way, sneaking a celebration of the form and history into a poetic, well-written literary work. The point may be arguable but since the release of the Chabon book, the Times itself has come a long way.

Take for example, this 2002 Nick Hornby article, "Draw What You Know", in which the popular author reviewed comics for the Times. In it ,Hornby struggled with the perception of comics as an acceptable, legitimate art form and spends a good portion of his review explaining himself.

Jump ahead two years and we find the Times publishing a lengthy 2004 article from Charles McGrath. "Not Funnies" is essentially, a defense of the form; a line in the snobby sand. It takes a great deal of time explaining why the comics form is one to respected by the literati and takes great pains to cover artists whose work reflects a more personal, artistic or journalistic perspective. McGrath came loaded for bear, basing the article on his group interview with respected creators Seth, Chester Brown, Adrian Tomine, Joe Sacco and Art Speigelman, who hosted the coffee clatch at his Soho apartment (pictured below in photo by Jeff Riedel of the Times).

Since then, the New York Times has provided respectful comic coverage for several years most notably from writer George Gene Gustines.

All in all, I have to throw my hat in with Karen on this new Times Bestseller list. Like me, she is excited at the prospects:

...whatever the cause the effect will be significant. They've now given an official imprimatur to graphic narrative. Which is AWESOME.

Debenedetto followed up his New York Comic-Con coverage with a terrific interview with Karen Green. you can find here, at his Wednesday's Child blog.

Beavers Up!