Evaluating Collections and Fantasy Comics

In the Weiner readings for this week, the main topic was collection evaluation. Which having recently done a reader's advisory guide, was a refresher on different resources to evaluate the quality of selections. In her article "Drawing Comics into Canadian Libraries" Collins discusses that the audience of comics has undergone some changes in the last few years. There is now a wider and more even spread across different age groups. Comics are enjoyed by children, teens, adults, and even seniors. She makes a good point publishers have picked up on these expanded audiences, but libraries still need to do some catching up by providing a well-rounded collection to entice readers of all ages. She also encourages libraries to look to local comics shops as partners in finding valuable resources to expand and improve collections with customer popularized materials that more traditional library resources may not include. 

The Monroe County Public Library in Bloomington already has a useful partnership with the local comics shop, Vintage Phoenix Comic Books, as they combine forces on the annual Comic Book Day program. The library provides the space and program plan of helping kids and teens create their own comics, while the shop provides prizes in the form of free comic books. The owner also sticks around for awhile to provide advice and encouragement to the participants. The storefront is below.


 

Now on to the fantasy comic we are reading this week. I went in to reading Castle Waiting by Linda Medley with high expectations as fantasy is my preferred genre in most other mediums. We had already had a fantastic example of what the comics medium could bring to fantasy stories with reading Bone by Jeff Smith. The art, story, and characters in Bone were so much fun and I was immediately drawn into the story. Fairy tale retellings have always been a favorite on mine. I really enjoyed the comics series Fables but got out of the habit of reading them. So when I opened up Castle Waiting I was happy to recognize the story of Sleeping Beauty, but in comic form. It was given a nice bit of humor, while still keeping to the recognizable story. I particularly liked the demon Leeds and his relationship to the evil witch Mald. A fun take on the evil master and side-cracking henchman.

I haven't finished much of the story, but I can already tell that I am going to enjoy this trip into the world of fantasy. My only complaint (and it is a very small one) is that the art did not immediately impress me or pull me into the story. I got more used to it as I went on, and I did like how each character's face is able to be individually distinguished, which is something I have had trouble with in some of the more recent comics we have read. I can't wait to finish the story and have already added it to my eventual buy list, as I can see it would be fun to reread at some point.