I’m headed off on tour with my band for a couple of months, so this column will go on hiatus for a wee bit. But I’ll be back in the late fall with more comics!

In the meantime, I wanted to mention some options for how to get your hands on comics. There are tonnes of amazing comics out there, but buying them new can be really expensive. Here are some more affordable options.

Comic Shops
Your local shop is probably the most obvious place to find comics, but it can also be the priciest. However, most comic shops have dollar bins, or quarter bins, where you can find awesome old comics that are a little the worse for the wear to sell at full price. Also, comic shops across North America take part in Free Comic Book Day, the first Saturday in May. In Halifax, our shop does it up right and we turn the day into a mini comicon, with artists doing sketches and interviews with creators. And we give away thousands of free comics.

Public Libraries
Most have a great selection of comics, and often get new comics in the week they come in. Halifax Public Libraries have everything from Manga to Superhero stuff to arty indie comics. Check your local library for comics – sometimes all graphic novels will get cataloged improperly and be in the kids or young adult section. If you don’t see a lot of comics at you library, demand them! Most libraries have a system where you can request books, and they’ll purchase them.

Batgirl was a librarian by day. I bet she could recommend some great comics.

Zine Libraries
The Anchor Archive in Halifax has lots of indie comics and self made comic zines. I’ve never been to the zine library in Toronto, but I hear it’s equally well stocked. Zine libraries rule because you get to read comics that you probably wouldn’t find anywhere else.

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There’s been a lot of talk about teenage pregnancy in the news and in films, lately. But what’s often left out is how marginalized teenage mothers are, and how institutions often discriminate against these women, rather than support them.

Katherine Arnoldi’s graphic novel, The Amazing True Story of a Teenage Single Mom, beautifully tells the story of her struggle as a young mother. Arnoldi got pregnant at 17, and with little support from her family, she worked long hours at a factory, waitressed, and generally busted her ass at low paying jobs to provide her daughter and herself with their basic needs.

Arnoldi talks about the conflict that comes from being being a mom, who loves her daughter and wants the best for her, and a teenager, who wants the opportunity to travel and get an education. She feels her whole life is ahead of her, while constantly being told that she’s given up any chance at a future.

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Recently, after a stint of reading a bunch of great comics, I got inspired, and thought, “I’ll make comics!” Or maybe I had just read a bunch of sexist comics not fit to use as kitty litter and thought, “God, I could make a way better comic than that.”

I quickly discovered a difficult truth: making comics is hard!

I can’t draw! Characters’ facial expressions are impossible to capture and drawing hands, wtf? Also, combining words and pictures - how does that work? I know I like reading stories this way, but why? How do I make a story that’s interesting and not just me rambling on about my cat? Or how can I make me and my cat look really great?

Luckily, there are some amazing resources available.

Jessica Abel and Matt Madden recently put out a book called Drawing Words and Writing Pictures. It’s a beautifully designed and endlessly useful comics resource. Abel and Madden have structured the book as a comics course, so each chapter is a lesson with history, instructions, examples and homework. For anyone who has graduated or dropped out and misses structured education, this book is like a comic correspondence course. Every aspect of the complex world of comic-making is explored: pencilling, inking and lettering, character design, story structure, and even publishing.

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How can one person draw so many perfect pictures? Every one of them beautiful, silly, sexy and adorable! And, many of them are pornographic.

Colleen Coover, a Portland, Oregon based artist is best known for her series Small Favors, which is porn. But it’s the kind of porn anyone can get behind (pun intended?), because it’s hot, but also super cute and funny. Coover designed the book to “celebrate sex and the pretty girls who enjoy sex,” so many women enjoy it. But this is no toned down erotica. There are some seriously sexy happenings in these books.

Small Favors follows the story of Annie, and her magical friend, Nibbil, who is a part of Annie’s subconscious that’s gone wild. Sort of an id she can make out with. Nibbil can shrink until she fits into Annie’s palm and grow back to regular size at will. Annie and Nibbil get into all sort of sexy adventures involving kitchens, doctors’ offices, picnics and parties. The fantastical elements of Small Favors remind us that porn is fantasy. Anything can happen because it’s not real.

Coover also does some mainstream comic work, and she draws her superheros like she draws her sexy ladies: cute as all heck. Check out this awesome Mary Marvel.

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Comics are great for using weird, pseudo-science to explain fantastical characters and plots. The Scarecrow is dosing all of Gotham with a poisonous gas that causes scary, psychedelic trip-outs and makes everyone kill each other? Buh? What? Well, he’s poured it all into the water system and now he’s using a giant microwave which vaporizes the water and make the air poisonous. Oh, okay. That totally makes sense.

Dr. James Kakalios, a Physics professor and comics lover, wrote a book called The Physics of Superheroes. He uses quantum physics, electromagnetic theory and astronomy to explain the whys and wherefores of all your favourite superheroes.

A couple of excerpts from his lectures are now up on YouTube. I love this one, about the Atom, the hero who has the ability to shrink to a minute size.

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Your average comic blog is easy to find in this crazy world called the internet. Just google “Final Crisis,” and you’ll find pages and pages of boys talking about comics. But there’s one that outblogs all the other blogs ever blogged.

Living Between Wednesdays is the best, most hilarious, funnest comics blog out there. It’s written by my co-worker/band-mate/BFF, Rachelle Goguen, but personal bias aside, it totally rules.

Rachelle has a deep, undying love of comics, coupled with a critical eye for sexism.

She is also hilarious. This is one for my favourite posts, about an Archie comic where Dilton starts a band.

Living Between Wednesdays might be best known for Rachelle’s Rating the Super Hunks posts. This is where she posts pictures and rates super hero guys on personality, sexiness of powers, costume, etc. My favourites are Daredevil and Iron Man. The comments page often turns in to a debate between readers who are outraged that like, Cyclops only got 7/10 on personality or whatever.

Rachelle also posts about the sexist crap that so often appears in comics. Her post about the now infamous Mary Jane statue started a huge inter-debate. The statue was of Spider-man’s wife, Mary Jane, looking anatomically insane, bent over with her boobs hanging out and a thonged butt, washing Spider-man’s suit in a bucket. Totally gross. Lots of people were outraged, while others argued that it was not sexist, but just “fantasy” so it’s okay to be totally unrealistic.

You can count on Rachelle to point out sexism in comics in the most hilarious, snarky way possible. I think she’s really part of a driving force that’s changing women and comics. It’s like, you know how when some dude says something creepy to you, and you’re by yourself, you feel all angry, and sad and scared? But when you’re with your friends, and a dude says something creepy, you can laugh at what a total idiot he is and basically think of the meanest possible things you can say about him? Yeah, that’s how Rachelle is making ladies feel in the comic world. Totally BACKED!

A few weeks ago, DC comics announced that they’d be cancelling the monthly Catwoman comic series. The next issue of Catwoman will be the last. It’s one of those times where I wonder if DC stands for Douchebag Comics.

DC has like, thirty super-hero titles starring men, and maybe five that are about women. (And sorry, but most of those suck. Birds of Prey is consistently good, and Wonder Woman sometimes, but, like, Supergirl is just awful.) C’mon, DC! Catwoman is my absolute favourite super hero. Don’t do this to me!

Catwoman, aka Selina Kyle, was once a Batman villain/love interest, but is now a wicked super-heroine. Or more like, an anti-heroine. She protects Gotham city’s east side, and she particularly looks after sex workers, and other marginalized people who she sees as being ignored by super heroes like Batman. She has a more complicated morality than most super heroes. She’s an expert thief, and steals from drug dealers and crime lords to do things like a build a community centre. But she also keeps enough money to buy herself fancy jewellery and nice cars. Catwoman looks out for her community, but still lives large, all on someone else’s dime.

I hate to use the term ‘role model’ but…

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I just got home from a week of touring with my band, and let me tell you, St. John’s, Newfoundland is a totally rad place.

While we were there, my guitar player mentioned on stage that it was Slayer Day, a day to celebrate the metal band. But several audience members immediately thought of that other Slayer, and called out “Buffy!!!” I love that Buffy has permeated people’s consciousness so much. Buffy was the slippery slope of nerdiness that lead me into comics. And now there’s a regular Buffy comic series, which acts as a gateway comic, luring girls in and getting them hooked on other comics.

For those who maybe don’t know - and think of Satan, not vampires, when they hear “Slayer” - Buffy Season Eight is a monthly comic series that tells what happens to Buffy and her pals after the series ended. It’s scripted by series creator Joss Whedon and, like the show, some issues are written by him, some by other writers. But our boy oversees the whole plot, so this is canon Buffy. I’ve been really enjoying the comics, and could blog all over the internet about it. But I want to point out one of my favourite parts of the series: Jo Chen’s covers.

Check this out:

Amazing.
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This on line comic strip was brought to my attention by Cate, Shameless‘ awesome new web editor.

Coco Wang is creating these amazing online comic strips based on news stories about the earthquake in China. They are the personal stories of the people affected, the stories that are missing in our CBC media coverage. The comics are moving, funny, inspiring and completely devastating.

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