Comics, Superheroes, and Pop Culture in Your Library Brian Real Public Services Librarian Calvert Library WHO AM I? • Public Services Librarian, Calvert Library • MLS, University of Maryland • PhD, Information Studies, University of Maryland • Adjunct Professor: Reference and User Services, Public Libraries, Archives • Author: Rural and Small Public Libraries: Challenges and Opportunities (Edited Book) and Rural Libraries in the United States: Recent Strides, Future Possibilities, and Meeting Community Needs (ALA Report) • Avid Comics Fan THE BIG TWO COMICS PUBLISHERS Avengers Justice League • Iron Man • Batman • Captain America • Superman • Thor • Wonder Woman • Hulk • Flash • Black Widow • Green Lantern • Aquaman X-Men Spider-Man THE OTHER GUYS • Started by former Marvel staff in 1989 • Started by a group of former Marvel and DC • Bought out by videogame company Acclaim in artists and writers in 1992 1994 • Later sold and rebooted in 2012 • Some superhero or superhero-like series include Spawn, Savage Dragon and, most • Characters include Bloodshot, X-O Manowar, recently, Invincible Rai, Shadowman, Harbinger, and Archer and Armstrong • Now best known for creator-owned, mature • Breakout character and series is Faith audience series outside of the superhero genre, such as The Walking Dead and Saga • Movies coming soon from Sony Pictures THE DC UNIVERSE • Founded in 1934 • DC stands for “Detective Comics,” which was the name of the publisher’s main publication • Created the first superhero when Superman premiered in Action Comics #1 in 1938 • Batman followed shortly after in 1939’s Detective Comics #27 • Warner Bros. has owned DC since the 1970s • DC moved from its original home of New York City to Burbank, CA in 2015 • This put the comics company closer to its parent company’s movie, television, game, and other production units THE MARVEL UNIVERSE • Founded as Timely Comics in 1939 in New York City • Major publisher of mystery, western, and romance comics • Early superheroes included Captain America, Namor the Submariner, and the original Human Torch • These characters actively found the Nazis in stories written and published during World War II • Gradually stopped publishing superheroes after the war, due to market demands • Changed name to Marvel in 1961 • Published Fantastic Four #1 in the same year, which launched the modern marvel universe • The Fantastic Four was followed in the next few years by Spider-man, Iron Man, Thor, the revival of Captain America, the Avengers, the X-Men, and more in a highly interconnected universe in the next few years • Most of these comics were originally written by Stan Lee • Disney bought Marvel in 2009 CONTINUITY Most of the original titles in which the major superheroes appeared are still being published today, many without any significant breaks or hiatuses. That is a lot of story to keep track of for your collections. RUNS, REBOOTS, AND RETCONS FIND MAJOR STORY POINTS AND FOCUS ON COLLECTING THOSE Run: When a single author and / or writer stay on a comic for a period of time. These long story beats are now often gathered in collections with the author or writer’s name as part of the edition title. Reboot: When a story is restarted to remove continuity baggage and attract new readers. Unlike movies and TV series, there is usually some in-story reason for the reboot. This can involve time travel, conflicts between multiple dimensions, et cetera Major line-wide reboots for DC include the crossovers Crisis on Infinite Earths, Infinite Crisis, and FlashPoint, while Marvel had the Secret Wars crossover in 2015. Retcon: When elements of the past are changed in comics to make them fit a more modern narrative, or to remove some baggage. This can include minor things, like showing cell phones and the internet in flashbacks to the origin of a character created in the 1960s. CROSSOVERS! They’re like the biggest blockbuster movies ever, where the only budget needed is ink and paper CROSSOVERS AND MESSY CONTINUITY: NOW IN A THEATRE NEAR YOU! THE MARVEL MOVIE RIGHTS MESS Disney Fox Sony Bought Marvel Comics outright in 2009. Bought the rights to X-Men, the Owns the rights to Spider-man and Owns comic rights to all Marvel Fantastic Four, and related characters in related characters, including Venom. properties, and film and TV rights for the late 1990s, and keeps these rights Sony has a similar deal as Fox, which most Marvel characters. as long as they make a movie each few means we will always see a new Spider- years. The “X-Men” properties include man film every few years. Best known for the “Avengers” Deadpool and Wolverine. characters and movies. Fox owned the rights to Daredevil, but these reverted to Disney because Fox went too long without making a movie. COMING SOON? INTEGRATED MARVEL UNIVERSE Sony still owns the Spider-man movie rights, but they made a deal with Disney / Marvel Studios to produce films in the series. This lets Spider-man appear in other MCU films. Meanwhile, Disney is in the process of buying Fox’s non-news and sports properties, which includes X-Men and Fantastic Four. MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE INCLUDES TV DC MOVIES AND TV: DIFFERENT UNIVERSES DIVERSITY IN FANDOM: THE NEXT BIG THING Black Panther (2018) Wonder Woman (2017) Captain Marvel (2019) Box Office: Box Office: Be Ready!! $659.5 domestic (and counting) $411 million domestic, $819 worldwide Rotten Tomatoes: 97% Rotten Tomatoes: 92% RECENT EFFORTS AT DIVERSITY Like most new comic characters, most diverse characters have some connection to established characters CLASSIC DIVERSE CHARACTERS Most diverse characters have some connection to established characters SUPERHEROES AS MULTIPLE GENRES (OR, HOW TO JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER) SUPERHEROES AS MULTIPLE GENRES (OR, HOW TO JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER) TAKE A BREAK FROM CONTINUITY! ORIGINS AND ENDINGS ELSEWORLDS AND ALTERNATE UNIVERSES • Usually much more self-contained than longer in-continuity story arcs • Easier to maintain in your collection and hand a patron a full story DC ANIMATED MOVIES • Adapts major comic book stories without much continuity baggage • Usually PG-13, sometimes even Rated R VIDEOGAME AND MOVIE TIE-INS Build on the Hype and Your Patrons’ Interest in Other Media KID FRIENDLY COMICS “Adventures” in the Title is Almost Always a Good Sign KID FRIENDLY COMICS Look for Cartoon Series Tie-Ins DIGITAL COMICS: HOOPLA AND COMIXOLOGY Hoopla and Comixology are both great websites for figuring out reading order, finding work by the same author, figuring out how long a “run” on a series occurred under a writer or author, or so forth. Here we can see a link on Hoopla for the latest run of Action Comics. DIGITAL COMICS: HOOPLA AND COMIXOLOGY Both websites are useful for determining what issues a collected edition contains. This normally follows the format of the print versions. Questions? Comments? Concerns? E-mail me at [email protected].