2011 has been a banner year for superhero movies, with no less than five major motion pictures dedicated to the spandex set. X-Men: First Class was a little gloomy for my tastes, and the less said about Green Lantern, the better, but I loved Captain America and even the offbeat third-stringer Green Hornet. The only DVD I pre-ordered, though, was Thor.

Having never actually read any comics with Thor in them, my perception of the character was based on Norse mythology, which is why about half an hour into the movie, I leaned towards my friend – a lifelong Marvel fan – and whispered, “You never told me Thor was for girls!” And I was only being a little bit facetious. After all, this is a movie about a (very, very, very) handsome prince with long flowing hair who struggles through adversity in order to earn his birthright and the love of his life. It’s a Disney movie with more punching and fire-spewing Scandanavian robots! Honestly, if a cartoon bluebird had perched on Thor’s finger while he was galloping across that rainbow bridge on his pretty white horse and all three of them had burst into song, I wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised.

Or, to put it another way, this is the only superhero movie I can think of that spends any time on the female gaze (lingering shots of George Clooney’s Bat-nipples don’t count). Look, obviously I don’t think men and women are genetically predisposed to like certain things – this is a website about women and superhero comics, after all. But Thor, besides being a funny, touching, well-acted epic with absolutely gorgeous cinematography, is chock-full of things women are socialized to appreciate: a climax that’s as emotionally wrought as it is physically exhilarating. Character growth that’s about learning to be peaceful and thoughtful and responsible instead of warlike and arrogant. Family. Romance. Interconnectivity. Chris Hemsworth’s bare torso and twinkly blue eyes. (Sigh!)

Plus, in a genre where women tend to revolve around the central hero like helpless satellites with great hair, the women of Thor are wonderfully refreshing. Jane Foster is a scientist first and foremost; sure, Thor’s dreamy and all, but she’s mainly focused on retrieving her research, which is confiscated by SHIELD early on. Darcy gets all the best lines, and hell, just the fact that the comic relief character/assistant scientist is female is astonishing. Sif is as accomplished a warrior as any of the male gods, and never needs saving – just a reminder that retreating is sometimes the better part of valor. Only Frigga gets a rushed, one-note treatment, and even then it involves her killing a frost giant with a sword.

Thor’s not a perfect movie – at times it felt a little rushed, something that has never been said before about any Kenneth Branagh movie ever – but it’s an excellent one, with some of the best treatment of female characters in the genre. And it’s out on DVD, so if you missed it in theaters, now’s your chance!

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Stan Lee’s writings on comics–and indeed, his early comics–have the kind of enthusiasm about making comics that I did when I was nine and first decided to learn how to do it. Since then, my enthusiasm has been tempered by the frustration and effort involved trying to understand the production and theory in greater depth.

Books like this are a shot in the arm!

It starts with a little history of the field–as one might expect, Stan’s own experience is recalled in more detail. I’m not weeping over the brevity of the section on the Nineties, though.

Chapters two, three and four talk about drawing, specifically materials and anatomy. Really, this is too large a part of the process to rely on this book alone unless the art part is not going to be on your plate–but, fortunately, there’s a list of recommended reading included, and I can vouch for the ten of the fourteen on the list that I own. Books, I haz them.

Chapter five and six have some of the great rarer stuff. Five talks about design choices, as they apply to character acting and panel action; six gets into character naming and costumes. Anecdotes!

Chapter seven is dear to my heart. Environments, or backgrounds as they are often dismissively called, are discussed, yes, but there’s more! The book discusses how to use Google’s SketchUp to help with perspective for objects like houses–and in some detail. So, for you who are desperately terrified of complex perspective, this one’s for you. (I don’t blame you.)

Chapter eight is worth the price of the book alone.

Why? Because it deals with one of the most difficult and technical parts of comics–and the part of the mix that makes comics what they are.

Layouts, people! Stan discusses eye path, cinematic continuity, camera angles, clarity… and then there’s the true chewy gold centre for aspiring comic makers.

Mistakes. Oh yeah, that’s the good stuff. Jezreel Morales produces a four-page layout of an action scene with specific problems, which Stan then discusses–not only what’s gone awry, but why. It includes my pet peeve, rampant abuse of panel break-out!

Another useful element is a sample 3-age breakdown/layout by Wilson Tortosa, which is designed to be worked up to completion or expanded upon in new ways by a developing artist. How cool is that?

Developing artists may enjoy chapter nine especially. It discusses pencilling styles, and showcases some very different, but quite effective, pencillers and discusses the development of style over time–Al Rio starting out as a clone of J. Scott Campbell? Having only become familiar with Rio fairly recently, it’s heartening to see how much a style can grow. But then, I can barely picture the stark differences between early Deodato and modern Deodato, and I own a good chunk of his Wonder Woman run. Does not compute!

Speaking of Deodato, there’s some process pages where the book demonstrates how to use photoreference properly–that is, as to support your carefully-considered layout design, not as a replacement for purveyors of pornface. Derivative pornface at that.

Chapters ten, eleven, and twelve deal with inking, lettering, and colouring, and covers are discussed in good detail. The final chapter is concerned with portfolios and getting work in the industry. The indexes include, as mentioned, the reading list, some schools offering courses in comics (all American), and even places to find art supplies.

As a primer on the many and varied aspects of production, I haven’t found a better one. Some of the content is similar to How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way, but unlike that book, this has quite a breadth of artists in it and has a broader focus.

It’s not without problems–there’s a section on representing ethnicities that’s not really worth listening to. This is a standard, pervasive problem with almost every drawing book I ever encountered–everybody’s got that European body and face. Blah. Hunt ye down Joumana Medlej’s resources for ethnotypes instead. Also, there’s some of the usual stuff about female characters needing to remain sensual without heavy emphasis on muscle… of course, the last full illustration in the book is Frank Cho’s physically powerful Red Sonja with a big axe on her shoulder, so take that as you will. There’s a few issues like that, but nothing that makes me want to kill-kill-never-stop.

It’s a big field, and Stan’s experience is put to good use discussing not just the practises but also the reasoning behind them. And call me a keener, but I’d rather have a slab of a book that gives a more complete picture than a dozen skinny ones–and this book isn’t even a slab. For real facility, you will need to supplement this book with others in the field in question. But the reading list has some excellent material, and I do encourage checking out some of the titles listed.

Seriously, this is at the top of my list on technical grounds alone, but it’s also served by Stan himself–you know he loves comics, and that comes through. That kind of spirit is a tonic for me when I’m banging my head against the latest production problem, and makes me remember why I love comics in the first place.
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John Allison’s Bad Machinery follows on the heels of his brilliant Scary Go Round, which ran for seven years of (largely) understated English surrealism and fantasy. Bad Machinery stays in the same universe (and in the West Yorkshire city of Tackleford), with a few beloved characters still around, but shifts its focus down a
generation to the twelve-year-old set. The girls (bright Shauna, impulsive Charlotte and troublemaker Mildred) and the boys (shy Jack, ambitious Linton and good-hearted Sonny) engage in a friendly rivalry to solve mysteries and right wrongs. Obligingly, Tackleford is full of that sort of thing – spirits, monsters, trolls and magic pencils abound.

Moving from the teens and twenty-somethings of Scary Go Round to the children of Bad Machinery lets Allison give his natural gift for dialogue full rein. His cast of smart, guileless kids all have distinctive voices and a sharp phrasing which was SGR’s hallmark. Awkward relationships are as engaging as monster hunting when rendered in in his colourful, expressive style.
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I don’t read Marvel. No particular reason, I’ve just always been a DC girl, and the thought of diving into another shared universe is a bit daunting. But I’m a sucker for plucky teen heroines, and after picking up the first issue of Spider-Girl on a friend’s recommendation, I was hooked.

Luckily, writer Paul Tobin makes it easier for newbies to jump on board. He skims over the details of the universe and the character’s backstory in a way that’s informative, not confusing, and more importantly, he wastes no time in making the reader care about Anya and her world. The first issue presented such a likable, engaging picture of our heroine, and sold me so well on her interpersonal relations, that when she suffered a major personal tragedy in the second issue, I cried all over the place.

Which is not to say that the series is a downer. On the contrary, Anya is a relatively upbeat, feisty kind of heroine, and the pages are crammed with Spider-banter. Tobin manages to hit an impressive balance between serious and often tragic themes and a genuinely fun read.

Oh, and hey, did I mention that Anya is Latina? And that she has several strong relationships with other women, including Sue Storm? Because those things are both awesome.

As for the art – well, it’s a mixed bag. Regular penciller Clayton Henry has a clean, sleek style that works well with Tobin’s writing, but the series has been plagued by fill-ins – some slapdash, some just not a good fit for the script. I’m not sure if this is cause or effect, but the series has unfortunately been cancelled and there are only two more issues left before it’s gone.

On the plus side, I’m definitely going to be picking up some of Anya’s back issues, and following her further adventures wherever they happen to take her. You’ll make a true believer of me yet, Marvel!

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The Eighth Doctor and Izzy Sinclair are back in a series of exciting adventures with intestinal jungles, Frida Kahlo, the Daleks… Wait, Izzy who? Well, herein lies a tale:

Doctor Who Magazine, the official, er, magazine, has been running Who strips since it was Doctor Who Weekly in 1979. When Paul McGann became the Doctor and there was no TV series or (at the start) book series using him, the Magazine leapt at the chance to have their ‘own’ Doctor to do things with. This is the third of four weighty graphic novels detailing his strip adventures, and the third with comic companion Izzy Sinclair, a teenaged sci-fi geek whose first response to the Tardis was disappointment that it wasn’t techy enough.

It’s also the first – ever! – run of DWM strips in colour, and the first strip of Oblivion is all about playing with that, as the Tardis is eaten by a huge outer-space snake robot who has a fleet of ships and feral, utterly implausible alien packs running around in its intestinal jungle. Scott Gray is a writer looking back to the 60s Who-related strips, the mad ones with Quarks wielding armies of robot maids and Giant Wasps and the Doctor meeting Father Christmas, as well as Silver Age Marvels. Like the best of such writers, he takes the visual splendour and madcap invention of those days and supports them with clever plotting, humour, and a lot of heart and emotion. Emotion, in fact, will play a large part: the seemingly harmless adventures and encounter with action-star fish-girl Destrii take a sharp, nasty turn near the end, and Izzy is left in a very dark place that the Doctor may not be able to solve. Not that this will stop him…

“I’m not scared of monsters. They’re scared of me.”

While two trades come before this, Oblivion is very new reader friendly: an earlier character, Fey Truscott-Sade, may be the main point of confusion but all her details are explained in-strip (WW2 British spy, bonded with an alien superbeing) and is also the better collection: there’s one story running through the whole thing, overseen by one writer, with a firm and powerful ending. It also comes with an array of behind-the-scenes data on the writing and a nine-page strip where the Master battles Victorian literary supervillains in the Land of Fiction (no, really). It’s also got the strongest showing for female characters: Izzy and Fey both get a lot of meaty scenes and are distinct characters, and the supporting cast also includes historical artist Frida Kahlo in an important role.

And if you want more, Eccleston/Tennant era showrunner Russell T Davies was such a big fan of the Gray strips that he not only sent in fan-mail (one of them gets quoted in the backmatter), they were offered the chance to do the canonical regeneration into the Ninth Doctor, as detailed in the fourth trade. That’s right, this stuff is canon: so now you have to buy it, right?
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When Raina trips and knocks out her two front teeth, it sets off a long process of painful orthondontia and oral surgery. It couldn’t come at a worse time, since she’s just started middle school. Suddenly she’s dealing with cruel, catty friends, confusing new crushes, her own changing body, and friends who are growing up at different rates than she is – plus a mouthful of metal on top of it.

I already knew Raina did a wonderful job of depicting tweenage growing pains, thanks to her fantastic work on the Baby-sitters Club graphic novels, but this autobiographical story is where she really shines. Her anxieties and confusion are so relatable it hurts (especially if, like me, you also did severe damage to your two front teeth as a kid and had a string of painful dental procedures as a result. I realize that’s not a common affliction). Everyone who’s ever been a pre-teen girl – and probably a fair number of people who haven’t – can probably find something of themselves in Raina’s hurt at being ostracized by her friends, or her difficulty grappling with awkward crushes, both as the crusher and crushee. And on the off chance that you can’t relate to any of that – well, the writing is still compelling, funny, and heartbreaking, so it’s pretty much a win/win.

As always, I’m in love with Raina’s bright, cartoony, expressive art, which makes the gags ten times funnier while still bringing home Raina’s moments of isolation, and makes her ongoing dental nightmare horrible but not gruesome. I could look at this artwork for hours, even without dialogue.

Oh, and did I mention Raina’s circle of friends is noticeably multiethnic? Shocking but true!

Smile is a funny, painful read that really captures the angst of middle school without ever losing its optimism. I would recommend for it any girl struggling through her tween years – or anyone else.

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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 >>

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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