A huge long list of comics recommendations for an 11-year-old girl, by Rachel Edidin

[My awesome friend Rachel Edidin tweeted that she had “Just sent someone a huge long list of comics recommendations for her 11-year-old daughter.” Of course, I immediately asked her if I could post the list here. Thanks, Rachel!

Also, I added links. Where Rachel recommended a series of books I linked to the first in the series. Or just to a random choice, if the series didn’t have any apparent order. –Barry]

The following is a list I compiled casually–mostly off the top of my head, which is my excuse for many of the no doubt numerous omissions (Sock Monkey! How could I have forgotten Sock Monkey?!)–for an acquaintance who asked me to recommend comics for her eleven-year-old daughter. As I mention below, I wasn’t shooting for a comprehensive list, nor even a super thorough one: the titles I mentioned are, for the most part, ones that I’ve read and enjoyed and that I feel comfortable recommending with little or no reservation to an eleven-year-old (and her parents). The list is also tailored somewhat to the interests of this particular eleven-year-old, who likes adventure and space but isn’t particularly interested in fairies, romance, or soap-opera angst.

In short: Your mileage will vary.

The other major considerations that went into the list were accessibility–I wanted to include books she was likely to be able to find at her school or local public library–and content–no explicit sex or graphic violence, and a hashmark to indicate books I thought Mom might want to review before passing them along to her daughter (not just based on sex and violence–for example, I marked Tintin because I’d balk at giving it to a kid without a conversation or two about racism and colonialism; and The Rabbi’s Cat because I consider it to be generally a more grown-up book). I’ve deliberately erred on the side of caution in terms of content–I grew up with almost no restrictions on reading material, and at eleven I was cheerfully reading Marge Piercey, Angela Carter, and Tom Robbins, so I’m not entirely comfortable gauging what constitutes age-appropriate material. Here, for the most part, I’ve omitted books that I might recommend only to specific eleven-year-olds. I struggled over whether to include Street Angel and Sparks but ultimately decided to keep them on the list, mostly because of how deeply I identify with both books and how much I know I would have loved them as an eleven-year-old. Others of the titles on the list–most notably, The Rabbi’s Cat and some of the G. T. Labs books–might skew older for more academic reasons, but I’d consider them well within the capacity and interest of many smart eleven-year-olds.

You’ll also notice a dearth of licensed comics and adaptations (although I’ll be the first to admit that there are some splendid ones out there). There are a couple reasons for this. First, extensive established continuity is a major turn-off for me when I’m trying something out for the first time (this is the same reason the only ongoing superhero comics you’ll see on the list are ones whose early arcs can stand alone). Second, I’m a huge format nerd: I like the idea of introducing newcomers to comics that they will see first and foremost as *comics* rather than immediately associating them with works in other media.

* * *

* indicates how-to books about making comics.
# indicates books you should review before giving them to your dd. No explicit sex or super-graphic violence, but some adult themes. I’ve probably used this more liberally than is technically called for, but better safe than sorry.

In Print
Hereville, by Barry Deutsch (series; two volumes out so far)
American Born Chinese, by Gene Luen Yang (If her school library doesn’t have this, it’s worth writing a stern letter about. American Born Chinese is one of the best YA graphic novels ever written, and was the first YA comic to be picked as a National Book Award finalist.)
*Drawing Comics Is Easy (Except When It’s Hard), by Alexa Kitchen
Polly and the Pirates, by Ted Naifeh (series; two volumes so far)
Courtney Crumrin (series; four volumes so far), by Ted Naifeh
Usagi Yojimbo, by Stan Sakai (Note from Barry: Lots and lots of violence in this series, which I adore. It’s not really a kid’s series, per se, but a lot of kids will like it.)
The Courageous Princess, by Rod Espinoza
Groo, by Sergio Aragonés
Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade, by Landry Q. Walker and Eric Jones
Banana Sunday, by Colleen Coover
#The Adventures of Tintin, by Hergé (you might want to skim some of these for content; they’re older and very much products of their era in terms of their handling of race, etc. That said, I grew up on them and turned out okay. Smiley )
Ultimate Spider-Man (vol. 1-3), by Brian Bendis et. al.
Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, by Sean McKeever et. al.
#Street Angel, by Brian Maruca and Jim Rugg (definitely read this one first. It’s cartoony, but there are also some adult themes and violence)
#Castle Waiting, by Linda Medley (It’s been a long time since I’ve read this, so I don’t feel entirely comfortable vouching for the content) (I read this recently, and loved it, and vouch for the content. –Barry)
#Hopeless Savages, by Jen Van Meter (I haven’t read this in a while; it *might* be a bit mature. Review first.)
#Sparks, by Lawrence Marvit (I think I’m on my fourth or fifth copy of this; I keep giving them away. It’s one of my favorite comics. Might be slightly better suited to a slightly older reader, but I’d have loved it at eleven, so.) (Note from Barry: There’s a little bit of nudity in this one, iirc.)
#Runaways, by Brian K. Vaughn et. al.
#Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi
#The Rabbi’s Cat, by Joann Sfar (Not really a YA book persay, but I would have devoured it as a kid. Gorgeous, fantastic) (Note from Barry: There’s a little bit of nudity in this one, iirc.)
Emily and the Intergalactic Lemonade Stand, by Ian Smith and Tyson Smith (Might skew a tad bit young, but it’s a LOT of fun)
Anything by Hope Larson
Anything by Raina Telgemeier
Anything by Jim Ottaviani / G.T. Labs (Particularly Two-Fisted Science and Dignifying Science)

Online
Butterfly, by Dean Trippe and Jemma Salume
Lunchbox Funnies (all-ages webcomics network)
Rice Boy and Order of Tales, by Evan Dahm
Minus, by Ryan Armand

Books I Haven’t Read But Which Come Highly Recommended by Librarians, Teachers, and Other YA Comics Fans I Trust (no content markers, since I’m not personally familiar with the books)
Skim, by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki
Rapunzel’s Revenge, by Shannon Hale, Dean Hale, and Nathan Hale
Bone, by Jeff Smith
*Adventures in Cartooning, by James Sturm et. al.
Sidekicks, by J. Torres et. al.
The War at Ellesmere, by Faith Erin Hicks
Zombies Calling, by Faith Erin Hicks
I Kill Giants, by Joe Kelly and J.M. Ken Nimura
Sardine In Outer Space, by Emmanuel Guibert and Joann Sfar

…And A Special One-Item List of Really Fantastic YA-Friendly Fantasy Graphic Novels I’m Editing Which Will Be Out in 2011:
The Last Dragon, by Jane Yolen and Rebecca Guay

“Little Orphan Annie” Comic Strip Ends After 86 Years

After 86 years of amazing adventure and right-wing preaching, the comic strip “Annie” (originally called “Little Orphan Annie”) ends today. Surprisingly, it’s not ending happily:

“Annie got kidnapped more than any child on the planet,” Maeder says.

And that, dear readers, is her predicament now.

She’s been spirited away to Guatemala by her war-criminal captor. Warbucks is huddling with the FBI and Interpol but there aren’t many clues.

Annie’s captor says they’re stuck with each other. Welcome to your new life, he says.

And there it ends.

You can read the final strip here.

At first, I felt irritated that Tribune Media (the owners of Annie) didn’t continue Annie long enough to let it end happily. But on rethinking, I kind of like it. We can take it on faith that Daddy Warbucks will eventually shake off his funk and rescue Annie, and that Annie and Warbucks together will defeat the kidnapper and go home for a while until the next dictator or mobster or union boss kidnaps Annie. It’s appropriate that the comic strip doesn’t really have an ending, because Annie’s adventures seemed endless.

Of course, I would have preferred that the comic strip end back in 1968, when creator Harold Gray died. Although Gray’s successors on the strip include some excellent cartoonists (Leonard Starr, for goodness sake!), none of them were able to bring Gray’s slightly frightening intensity and vitality to the strip.

(Click on the panel to read the entire strip.)

I like Gray’s artwork a lot. The tiny heads and enormous hands feel expressionistic. And I love how Gray’s artwork almost always seems claustrophobic; ceilings feel uncomfortably close to characters’ heads, even when Gray draws outdoor scenes. Gray’s drawing tells a story very efficiently, but where it really shines is in getting across Gray’s fictional world, a world which despite Annie’s relentless optimism, was frightening and difficult, and in which the new death threat or kidnapping was always just around the corner.

Gray’s claustrophobic artwork was also a good match for his political views, which were spectacularly narrow. Gray’s reaction to the great depression was to preach that anyone could make it if only they embraced hard work and optimism (and socked out the occasional thug); anyone talking about larger economic issues behind structural unemployment would have been dismissed by Gray as a whiner. (I really regret that Gray never showed Daddy Warbucks punching out Keynes.) Gray had an awesome ability to deny reality; but even though a world in which anyone can make it with a little pluck and some help from a redheaded orphan isn’t realistic, it is a fun fantasy to read in a comic strip.

I haven’t yet seen much blogging about the end of Annie (except for this post on Comicscomics). But here’s some interesting past blogging about Little Orphan Annie: Illustration Art has “Harold Gray: An Appreciation,” featuring several very large (if you click on them) reproductions of Gray’s artwork and the blog’s patented “you kids get off my lawn” attitude towards modern comics. Jeet Heer quotes some Art Spiegelman comments about Gray’s work, plus in the comments a reader is quite funny on the subject of what a lousy parent Daddy Warbucks was. And Madinkbeard, reviewing an old reprint collection, makes a number of very interesting comments about Little Orphan Annie.