Comic Book Resources

Unbound: Gina Biggs on romance and independence

The interesting thing about Gina Biggs is not that she is the creator of a shoujo manga webcomic. Lots of people do that.

What’s interesting is that she has kept her comic, Red String, going continuously for six years, growing the audience as she goes; that Dark Horse, a publisher better known for manly manga than for quiet romances, published the first three volumes; and that she is a key member of Strawberry Comics, a collective of like-minded female creators who promote romance comics online.

While almost all the early global manga creators signed contracts with Tokyopop, Biggs chose to put her comic online and build an audience that way. After three volumes she is now self-publishing Red String and she says she makes about the same amount of money and works about as hard as when she was with Dark Horse. And best of all, she looks like she is having fun.

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I have a new favorite blog

Oh snap!

It's called Sequential Crush and it's devoted to romance comics, specifically romance comics published during the 1960s and 70s. This is no ironic, "oh weren't those old comics corny" smarm-blog, but a loving and occasionally fascinating look at the genre. For example:

Last night while working on my presentation for San Diego (which involves a lot of scanning), I came across this spectacular example of "love story graffiti" which I just have to share. In this particular case the pages of the book itself were not altered, but there was an addition made to the book! In between the pages of My Love #3 (January 1969) were these scathing words...

Click on the link to see what the mystery note contained. I'm certainly not going to spoil anything.

Straight for the art | 'Mod Love'

'The Hippest Girl in the World'

World of Kane presents "The Hippest Girl in the World" from the 1967 comic "Mod Love." There's no info about the artist, but it's drawn in a style I can only weakly describe as "pop psychadelic." Can you taste the colors man?

Robot Love | It's like fan fiction, only ... OK, it's fan fiction

Don't they make a cute couple?

In case all of the candy hearts and flower shop window displays didn't clue you in, it's Valentine's Day today, or as I like to call the holiday, "Oh Christ, not that again."

In our past life we looked at our favorite comics couples, but this we thought we'd have a bit of fun and play matchmaker by picking characters we'd most like to see shack up, regardless of genre or sexual orientation.

Below is our results. See if you can come up with some of your own unique romantic pairings in the comments section.

Aquaman and the Sub-Mariner -- They have so much in common.

Little Lulu and Charlie Brown -- After spending so much of her youth surrounded by hooligans like Tubby and Alvin, I'm sure Lulu would greatly appreciate a sensitive soul like Charlie Brown.

Jimmy Corrigan and the She-Hulk -- Call it a hunch, but I get the feeling Jimmy's got a thing for aggressive women.

Astro Boy and Jocasta -- Robot love baby! Robot love!

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