I transported my digital camera 3000 miles to San Diego, only to find it D.O.A. on the one day I took it to the convention and actually had a few hours to wander around and take pictures. Hopefully it’s just the batteries…but, anyway, this was forwarded to me. Front to back, that’s Chris Reilly, Steve Ahlquist and me at the Slave Labor booth.

(Click for larger image)

The power of Potter (7/25/05)

The article linked above is about the new Harry Potter novel, but contains some good press for comics as well, including a swell quote from yours truly:

If Harry Potter doesn’t lure kids in, maybe comic books will. That’s what librarians are finding, as they reel in book-wary students with comics, graphic novels, and manga, the genre of Japanese comics. “Kids exist in a visual world, and comic books are a natural mode of text for them,” says Ben Towle, cofounder of the National Association of Comics Art Educators, which is promoting the use of these works in literacy programs as well as other school subjects.

Skeptics may still think of comics as trash lit. But Michele Gorman, an Austin librarian, is a believer. “They’re fun, but they’re not always easy to read. The vocabulary can be advanced, as can the imagery,” she says. That’s why she’s focusing on the library’s comics collection. After all, Maus by Art Spiegelman, the graphic novel telling of his father’s story of survival during the Holocaust, is as powerful as (if not more than) any plain-prose volume, and Jeff Smith’s Bone series, about three cousins who get separated in a weird world, is often compared with The Lord of the Rings .