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Gworg is an incorporated non-profit feminist organization dedicated to fostering an attentive, empowered comics fan community, to encouraging respect and high-quality character depiction, and to assisting the professional development of women working in the field of comics. Anyone who supports these aims is eligible to become a member, and all members are able to vote, stand for office, and nominate others to the Board.

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The first comic of 2008 is brought by Jessica Plummer, GW Board member, and one of the writers of the new GW blog Sequential Smarts, a resource on comics used in the classroom.

Well, it’s a new year, and what better way to kick it off than with a blast from the past? January’s book of the month is The Baby-sitters Club Graphix, a series of four graphic novels based on Ann M. Martin’s hit kids’ series (specifically, Kristy’s Great Idea, The Truth About Stacey, Mary Anne Saves the Day, and Claudia and Mean Janine). Adapted and drawn by Raina Telgmeier, the books center around a group of tween girls and their babysitting business.

If you’re a typical child of the 80s and early 90s, you remember the setup of the series: when Kristy sees how hard it is for her mom to find a sitter for Kristy’s little brother, she organizes her friends Mary Anne, Claudia, and Stacey (and later Dawn) into a babysitting club to enable parents to reach a whole bunch of sitters with one phone call. Babysitting forms the background to all of the books, but these four graphic novels, taken from the earlier and less ridiculous volumes of the original series, are really about Kristy learning to deal accept her single mother dating and her family changing, Stacey coping with diabetes, Mary Anne finding her own hidden strength, Claudia forging a stronger relationship with her sister as their grandmother falls ill, and, above all, friendship.

I was a big BSC fan as a kid, and these books retain everything good about them (except, alas, for the ludicrous 80s fashions) while jettisoning some of the goofier aspects of the series. The first is rather awkwardly paced, but by the second  seems to have found her rhythm. And the art! It’s cute, and energetic, and distinctive. The characters are all easily distinguishable – a sadly rare feat in a book starring all girls! – and dress with their own distinct senses of style, which I’m sure all grown-up fans of the series remember as a major draw. Everything about it, from the expressions to the layouts, is fantastic. It takes me twice as long to read these books as it normally would because I’m spending so much time gazing rapturously at the art. All in all, these are great, fun reads for both adult fans of the old series and kids meeting the Baby-sitters Club for the first time. Read how we rated it >>

This little gem is about two girls growing up in the Ivory Coast in the 1970s.  Both are making the choice as to how they will secure their future.  Aya, who chooses education and for whom the book is named, is not the main character.  Instead the plot follows her friend Adjoua while Aya watches, sometimes criticizing, and sometimes attempting to help, from the sidelines.  Adjoua has chosen marriage to the son of a rich man as her way out.  We watch with Aya as Adjoua carefully lays a trap and snares the rich son and with Aya we are left wondering who was really caught in the trap.  This book is rich in nuances and the lives and culture of these two African girls.  It is beautiful and worth reading.

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Glister Butterworth lives a strange life. There’s a ghost in her teapot and a troll under the nearest bridge; her house takes regular holidays in foreign parts, and her bedroom shifts around when she’s not looking. But Glister takes it all in her stride. Her life in Chillblain Hall, near the village of Gravehunger Moss, Whixleyshire, may be chaotic and weird, but it’s never, ever boring.

I can’t praise Glister enough; it’s so funny, so charming, so fresh, and so individual that I want to buy truckloads of copies of it and hand them out to strangers, just to make them smile. Andi Watson has a deft touch with both humour and the serious side of life, and the sprightly, fairy-tale feel of Glister doesn’t obscure his quietly resonant insights into life’s difficulties. For all that she lives in a haunted sentient house near the borders of Faerieland, Glister feels like a real girl, and she deals with the bizarreness of her life in a refreshingly no-nonsense manner. Delightful from beginning to end.

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Rapunzel’s Revenge succeeds at everything: gorgeous, lush artwork; an imaginative and unashamedly – but not polemic – feminist take on the fairy tale; a beautifully-written script; a fictional setting that plays with all the best tropes of the Old West while acknowledging the actual ethnic composition of that West; endearing, flawed good guys; selfish, human bad guys; a controlling, horribly believable villain; and a heroine who takes care of business by using her hair to whip, lasso and acrobatically disable prison bars, evil-doers, and a huge freaking sea-serpent.

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The adventures of teenage flying superhero, Go-Girl, her best friend Haseema Ross (girl detective) and her friends, family and school. Sweet, good-natured fun against computer games gone bad, slightly evil supervillain teams, art thieves and nasty prom queens.
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Grief and laughter are closer together than we’re usually willing to admit. Jokes and the Unconscious explores this disconcerting fact through the story of Sasha, a young woman whose father has recently died of cancer after a lifetime of being an oncologist himself. Sasha’s grief is messy and unwieldy, permeating everything and refusing to become neat and manageable, despite the troubled nature of her relationship with the man who has died; in this way Jokes and the Unconscious captures the uncontrollable nature of loss better than any graphic novel I’ve ever read.

The sheer unflinching honesty of Jokes and the Unconscious makes it uncomfortable to read at times, but that same honesty makes it intensely compelling. It’s a powerful, astonishing read.
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Fabulous, funny, sharply-written stories about four sibling superheroes (Alex, Julie, Jack and Katie) and their fantastic adventures. Includes frequent team-ups with adult groups like the Avengers, X-men or Fantastic Four. They’re out of continuity, so no familarity with larger canon is required.
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Ten years ago, a space shuttle vanished from orbit with seven crewmembers, and the Earth ceased all manned spaceflight in response. Then the shuttle returns, fundamentally changed, and a space program that has given up on reaching the stars must pull itself back together long enough to figure out what happened. Orbiter presents itself as a mystery, but more than anything, it’s the story of a world that learns to dream again.

As much as the writing is great, it’s the artwork that makes the book. Colleen Doran brings the characters to life with a wonderful subtlety of expression and gesture; you know exactly what everyone is feeling, and you’re right there with them.

Like most of Ellis’ best work, you come away with the sense that he universe is stranger than we have ever imagined, and that is terrifying, and that is awesome. If you’ve ever looked up into the sky and felt an ill-defined longing, you’ll enjoy this one.
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