The news is out: I am now working at Image Comics as their PR and Marketing Coordinator. Today was my first day and it was a whirlwind.

Please note that Sarah deLaine, who previously held that title is still here — she is now the Event Coordinator and focusing on conventions, trade shows, and [...]]]>

The news is out: I am now working at Image Comics as their PR and Marketing Coordinator. Today was my first day and it was a whirlwind.

Please note that Sarah deLaine, who previously held that title is still here — she is now the Event Coordinator and focusing on conventions, trade shows, and other events. She has her hands full with Image Expo only five weeks away! We’ll be coordinating our efforts — I’m handling press and media leading up to the convention, while she is taking care of in-convention matters.

I am very tired and need to go to bed, but before I do, I have to thank everyone who has congratulated me, wished me well, and told me they enjoyed working with me at SLG.

I had a hard time at the start of the day, thinking about the place where I started my career and my ten great years there, and then trying to cope with being apart from my son, who is two and going into daycare for the first time. However, the support the comics community has given me has helped so much and made me very grateful I am part of this industry.

I also need to thank SLG’s Supreme Commander Dan Vado, who hired me and mentored me through all the intricacies of the comics world. When I took a job as a production assistant to help me pay my university tuition, I never thought I would be Editor in Chief in a year and a half. But Dan believed in me and entrusted many aspects of his life’s work to me, which gave me the opportunity to learn and gain confidence. His flexibility and understanding allowed me to earn my master’s degree while I worked and to take on limited responsibilities while I cared for my son. He inspired me to do my best for the creators we published, and I hope I did as much good as I was capable of. I can sincerely say I would not be in the position I am now if it were not for him.

Dan isn’t my boss anymore, but I hope he, and everyone else at SLG will always be my friend.

This is a post that I’ve been trying to write for a few days.

Friday was officially my last day at SLG Publishing, the company where I began my career in the comics industry and worked for ten years, most of them as Editor in Chief. My decade at SLG was, I suspect, like [...]]]>

This is a post that I’ve been trying to write for a few days.

Friday was officially my last day at SLG Publishing, the company where I began my career in the comics industry and worked for ten years, most of them as Editor in Chief. My decade at SLG was, I suspect, like no other decade anyone has spent working anywhere. I had great co-workers and got to work with fantastic creators, all of whom I will miss very much. (Though because this is comics and a community like no other, we will always stay in contact.)

There’s too much I want to say, so I just won’t try.

SLG President Dan Vado and me at Comic-Con International 2008

More behind the jump.

I’m always hesitant to participate in “Best of” year-end lists because I don’t ever feel like I’ve read enough to declare anything the best. I don’t get around to reading a lot of important works until well after they’re published, and this year is no different.

Instead, I’ll make a list of comics and [...]]]>

I’m always hesitant to participate in “Best of” year-end lists because I don’t ever feel like I’ve read enough to declare anything the best. I don’t get around to reading a lot of important works until well after they’re published, and this year is no different.

Instead, I’ll make a list of comics and graphic novels that were published in 2011 that I especially enjoyed.

Blabber Blabber Blabber: Everything Volume One by Lynda Barry (Drawn and Quarterly)
Lynda Barry is a singular voice in comics. No one else is even close to being like her. This first volume of an omnibus of her work collects her early comics, with her commentary. Nothing is more helpful to aspiring writers and artists than an insightful master’s examination of her craft’s development. Barry encourages copying drawings the artist admires, the kind of exercise that used to be part of an artist’s apprenticeship but now are often avoided in an age when individual expression is supposed to be the purpose of art. She’s famous as a teacher who helps people develop their creativity now, a pedagogical impulse that is apparent very early on in her career, as many strips encourage readers to try their hand at drawing. (Publishers Weekly review here.)

Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton (Drawn and Quarterly)
I’m one of those Beatonites who has been reading this strip online for the last few years. Tech geeks may rule the school now, but Beaton gives us history and literary nerds something to snicker about as we revel in both her cleverness and our own. Her way of giving historical figures contemporary attitudes and vocabularies to make the past seem present is key to her work’s charm, as is that expression of crazed determination she’s so good at drawing.

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle, adapted by Peter Gillis, art by Renae deLiz (inks and colors by Ray Dillon) (IDW)
The individual issues were published in 2011, but the collection was published in January of 2011. Like so many women my age, I loved the animated The Last Unicorn as a child. This beautiful adaptation brings in a little more of the prose style of the novel and just makes me happy.

Marzi by Marzi Sowa and Syvlain Savoia (Vertigo)
This is an engrossing and affecting memoir that offers insight both into a young girl’s perspective and life in Communist Poland on the cusp of revolution. (Publishers Weekly review here.)

The Royal Historian of Oz by Tommy Kovac and Andy Hirsch (SLG)
Though willing to have a sense of humor about Oz fandom, this story still shines with love for L. Frank Baum’s creation. It’s set in a run-down future, with a man who longs for escape and wonder and his down-to-earth teenage son as its main characters who find themselves running smack into the reality of Oz. This was produced while I worked at SLG, but it really was midwifed (so to speak) by the company’s president, Dan Vado. I just did production work on it, though I had the advantage of being able to read Tommy’s delightful scripts and see the process of Andy bringing it to life with his art.

Sergio Aragonés’ Funnies by Sergio Aragones (Bongo)
I was a fan of Sergio Aragonés before I even knew who he was. As a kid, I used to hang out with my cousin Greg and read MAD, and I loved his pantomime “A MAD Look at..” This monthly comic has some of those great wordless strips, but my favorite feature is the biographical story in every issue. Aragonés tells stories about his childhood in Mexico with great warmth and recounts the innocent exploits of his youth with humor.

Wonder Woman by Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang (DC)
This is the book that got me, for the first time ever, to buy a monthly comic published by one of the Big Two. Its mythic take on the iconic character reminds me of something Vertigo would have produced at its apex. It’s smart and it trusts its readers to be smart, too. The art is stupendous, and Diana has the right air of almost haughty distance that befits an immortal Amazon (and, as it turns out… well, SPOILER). I hate the damned choker, though.

A few months ago, I heard about a project after my own Smiths-hearting heart. It is an anthology of comics stories based on Smiths songs, called Unite and Take Over. Funded by Kickstarter, it has proven to be something people want — so much so that a second volume is being planned. I was [...]]]>

A few months ago, I heard about a project after my own Smiths-hearting heart. It is an anthology of comics stories based on Smiths songs, called Unite and Take Over. Funded by Kickstarter, it has proven to be something people want — so much so that a second volume is being planned. I was very excited when the editor, Shawn Demumbrum, asked me to contribute a story volume two.

My song is “Reel Around the Fountain,” which I call an “erotic indolence” song. I’ve been wanting to write an essay about the conflation of sleep and sex in Swinburne’s poetry and Smiths lyrics, but without a real reason for doing so, I’ve been putting it off. So I put some of that energy into writing an eight-page script about desire and growing up (and not growing up). It’s going to be drawn by the talented Traci Hui, whom I’ve know for many a year now.

The book is scheduled to be released in Spring 2012.

Photo by OnceandFutureLaura. Used under a Creative Commons license.

GeekGirl Con‘s time had come. Women have had panels devoted to them here and there — with, for the most part, the same topics, the same panelists, and, alas, the same problematic moments — at behemoth geek convergences like Comic-Con International for years. Could [...]]]>

Photo by OnceandFutureLaura. Used under a Creative Commons license.

GeekGirl Con‘s time had come. Women have had panels devoted to them here and there — with, for the most part, the same topics, the same panelists, and, alas, the same problematic moments — at behemoth geek convergences like Comic-Con International for years. Could they have a convention of their own? Would it be a success?

After the past weekend’s GeekGirl Con, we now know: Yes and yes! I wrote about GeekGirl Con for Publishers Weekly before it began. In my interview with her, the convention’s public relations person Kiri Callaghan said they were expected a turnout of 1000 attendees. They did better than that — the convention sold out, with 1600 attendees, not counting guests. [Update: The number is now estimated at 2000 attendees a day, according to GeekGirl Con president Erica McGillivray.]

I was lucky enough to be a last-minute addition as a guest (though I had already planned to go), and was on a panel with Rachel Edidin from Dark Horse and Mariah Huehner from IDW and Conlan Press. We talked about what it’s like to be women in the comics industry, which is so often fraught with debates about sexism and representation. Our panel replaced one that had been canceled and people were still trickling into registration at the start of it, but thanks to some tweeting by Rachel, Mariah, and me and some re-Tweeting courtesy of Gail Simone, we got a nice little audience who seemed interested in what we had to say.

Among them was Heidi Alayne, who asked for us to review her portfolio. We advised her to start posting her lovely comic Summoned Creature as a web comic to start building an audience. This was the first indication to me of what GeekGirl Con proved to be all about: Doing It Yourself.

The exhibitors, the panels, the seminars, and the workshops all centered on this theme of being active, whether it was making your own jewelry or your own comic; whether it was writing books, movies, and TV shows or analyzing them — or dressing up like characters from them. The fans at GeekGirl Con were more engaged than any I’ve encountered. They weren’t there to collect free swag or make deals. They were there to be active in their community and have fun.

Mateo made some new friends.

The environment was a joyful one. Children in costume ran in the courtyard and played in the aisles during the Geeks Raising Geeks panel. Mateo followed Batgirl around (the same Batgirl who famously asked Dan Didio a question), played with Stormtroopers and Mandalorian mercenaries, as well as with other kids. Gail Simone asked to look at his Fisher-Price Batgirl, which is a moment that all of her fans can only wish they had. At the Geeks Raising Geeks panel, the panelists showed that geek moms are essential in nurturing the next generation of geeks.

I hope the spirit of the convention can be carried into New York Comic Con, into WonderCon, right on to Comic-Con International. It showed that geek girls aren’t rare, aren’t novelties, aren’t eye candy; they are integral part of the community — and they just may have a thing or two to teach those who are still stuck in a boys’ club mindset.

I had very long hair the [...]]]> Comic book conventions mark the passage of time for me. This weekend I will be attending my tenth Alternative Press Expo, and I can hardly believe it. The convention has developed into a vibrant San Francisco-style celebration of arts and crafts, with a focus on comics and graphic novels.

I had very long hair the first time I went to APE. For some reason that stands out to me. It was held in a cold Fort Mason building and there was a security guard who didn’t understand that exhibitor badges meant we get to in early to set up.

Last year, Mateo was nine months old when we went to APE. Now he’s a running, talking kid with skinned knees and opinions he’s not afraid to voice. I’m more or less the same.

I’ll be looking at art — I need to find an artist to illustrate a story for a Smiths anthology. I’m writing a story based on “Reel Around the Fountain.” If you’re an artist and love The Smiths and are interested, please email me at blog@jenniferdeguzman.com.

On Monday, I sent G4 president Neal Tiles a link to my post and Feminist Fatale‘s post about Chris Gore’s conduct at the “Oh, You Sexy Geek” panel. On Tuesday, I was pleased to receive this response from him:

I realized something this year, as I attended Comic-Con with my eighteen-year-old niece and eighteen-month-old son: Comic-Con is fun again. No booth duty means no stresses about changing out signing areas, answering questions, or finding time to eat. Now I have time to rekindle my love of comics. The booth was always on the [...]]]>

I realized something this year, as I attended Comic-Con with my eighteen-year-old niece and eighteen-month-old son: Comic-Con is fun again. No booth duty means no stresses about changing out signing areas, answering questions, or finding time to eat. Now I have time to rekindle my love of comics. The booth was always on the verge of chaos at Comic-Con. With no set schedules, there was a sense of guilt about leaving the booth for any purpose. My first year officially working the booth, a co-worker gave me a dressing down because I had taken an hour away from the booth to eat. The last year I worked the booth, I put that aside because I was three months pregnant and exhausted. I needed to eat when I was hungry and nap when I was tired. That was a revelation.

Pressure to work and long, uninterrupted hours on your feet  are bad for one’s perspective of comics. It inculcates weariness with the industry, and along with it a strong cynicism and jadedness — which in turn lead to attitudes that infect your thinking and the attitudes of those around you. Without leisure time to look at the small press area and Artists’ Alley, you can lose the perspective that comics is, indeed, about art and story and not an endless process of setting out books on tables then removing them, of asking people in lines not to block aisles, of being asked to review yet another portfolio of superhero pencils.

So instead of standing at a booth and being filled with an angsty sense of discontent, I was looking at comics. I was looking at comics so much that I missed all of the panels I wanted to go to (though to be fair, bad scheduling on the part of a grumpy, nap-needing toddler also played a part). I talked to friends about comics and stories and industry issues. I talked to friends about what was going on in our personal and creative lives.

And here’s what I scored:

Hark, a Vagrant! by Kate Beaton — Drawn and Quarterly had a limited quantity of advanced copies signed by the author. I got number 268 of 300. Phew! I have loved Kate Beaton’s work for a long time. Her comics are reproduced well here. Her self-published book Never Learn Anything from History, had some production problems with anti-aliasing, but Hark, a Vagrant! looks great. The book design is fun, too.

Cursed Pirate Girl by Jeremy Bastian — I bought the graphic novel and a print after Valeri showed me a print she’d bought. Bastian somehow achieves extremely fine linework with a brush, and he hand-stains his prints with tea to make them look aged. I started reading the book on the plane, and it’s charming and more than a little surreal.

Remind by Jason Brubaker — I picked this up primarily because it’s gorgeous, a well-designed hardcover with a foil-stamped and debossed cover, and art with deep blacks and murky (in a good way) watercolor-like colors. It’s about a girl named Sonia whose cat isn’t all that he seems. The back cover copy had the phrase “sleepy coastal town,” my favorite setting for stories and vacations, so I was sold. A lot of others were, too; each copy of the first print is stamped with a number — I got 1068 of 2000.

Sergio Aragones Funnies #1 — As Brian said, “It’s like all the best parts of MAD!”

I looked at Lucille by Ludovic Debeurme at the Top Shelf booth for a long time. It’s a lovely book with minimalist art about a girl struggling with anorexia. It’s a big, heavy book, so I decided that I would buy it off-site so I didn’t have to lug it home in my suitcase.

I picked up some other things, too . For Mateo we got an Ugly Doll hat, a Yoda print by Grant Gould, a little Chewbacca plushie (he kept kissing it, so of course we had to get it), and a tiny painting of a tiny Mateo and a tiny Mr. George by Katie Cook. For myself, I got a necklace from Stellanova. I had the octopus already, so this time I got the ‘apapane. I also got a Bumper Boy purse holder.

Part three of my Comic-Con blogging coming soon — the trends I noticed!

It’s too bad that the only panel I attended at Comic-Con this year was “Oh, You Sexy Geek.” I was, unfortunately, disappointed — and, at the end, disgusted. The discussion was dominated by America’s Next Top Model winner Adrianne Curry and actress Clare Grant, whose expressed opinions on feminism, the depiction of women in [...]]]>

It’s too bad that the only panel I attended at Comic-Con this year was “Oh, You Sexy Geek.” I was, unfortunately, disappointed — and, at the end, disgusted. The discussion was dominated by America’s Next Top Model winner Adrianne Curry and actress Clare Grant, whose expressed opinions on feminism, the depiction of women in media, and the male gaze (a phrase that, surprisingly, was never uttered during this panel), were about two inches deep. It’s fun to dress up as characters, they said, and they’re drawn like that, so whatareyagonnado? Also, added Curry, Americans are way too prudish nudity! It’s not like that in Europe!

Next to them, Bonnie Burton spoke the most, and she seemed more interested in performing to the audience than using her considerable knowledge about geek girl culture to elucidate any of the issues. She is incredibly witty, yes, but there’s a point where using humor to talk about a subject just becomes stand-up comedy, and her stand-up distracted from the discussion. Other panelists wanted to discuss the real issues instead of the particulars of costume chafing — Jennifer Stuller, I believe, even said to the moderator Katrina Hill, “You promised me I wouldn’t be the only humorless feminist on the panel!” — but their voices were, for the most part, marginalized. Feminist Fatale mentions how Stuller’s attempt to discuss the depiction of women in the media was rebuffed. (Grant said that we should just ignore it — because, you know, not paying attention to something makes it stop having any effect on anything!)

Worst of all was G4′s Chris Gore, the lone man on the panel, who showed his female co-panelists just how much he respects them by showing up nearly an hour late and proclaiming as he sat down, “I speak for every other man in this room when I say I want to put my penis into all of these women.” This elicited uncomfortable titters from the audience and panelists. How often are women place in that position? Of being diminished by a “joke” that, even if meant to make fun of their sexualization, still makes you feel nervous and without a good way to confront its incredible inappropriateness. I’d like to say that if I were the moderator or on the panel, I would have called him out on it, but I know how being in that kind of situation can make you suddenly silent.

Later, Seth Green raised his hand to comment, and Gore commented that he was glad to have another male voice (perhaps he was seeing how most women feel, often being the only female voice in discussions) and that he and Green could “double team” the panelists. This got fewer titters than awkward silence from the panelists and audience. Green, however, went on to make a very articulate comment encouraging geek culture to be more inclusive. He also talked about his work with the Girl Scouts about media literacy — teaching girls how to interpret the images and messages the media sends them. Why wasn’t he on the panel?

Gore’s behavior was disgusting and reprehensible, and I think I will write to G4 about his conduct. Overall, I left the panel feeling dissatisfied and slightly enraged.

More on the good stuff that I got at Comic-Con later, as I unpack and am delighted once more by the creativity and talent found on the floor of the convention hall.