Comics, Superheroes, and Pop Culture in Your Library

Brian RealPublic 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• Iron Man• Captain America• Thor• Hulk• Black Widow

X-MenSpider-Man

Justice League• Batman • Superman• Wonder Woman• Flash• Green Lantern• Aquaman

THE OTHER GUYS

• Started by former Marvel staff in 1989• Bought out by videogame company Acclaim in

1994• Later sold and rebooted in 2012

• Characters include Bloodshot, X-O Manowar, Rai, Shadowman, Harbinger, and Archer and Armstrong

• Breakout character and series is Faith

• Movies coming soon from Sony Pictures

• Started by a group of former Marvel and DC artists and writers in 1992

• Some superhero or superhero-like series include Spawn, Savage Dragon and, most recently, Invincible

• Now best known for creator-owned, mature audience series outside of the superhero genre, such as The Walking Dead and Saga

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

CONTINUITYMost 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 RETCONSFIND 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

Bought Marvel Comics outright in 2009. Owns comic rights to all Marvel properties, and film and TV rights for most Marvel characters.

Best known for the “Avengers” characters and movies.

Fox

Bought the rights to X-Men, the Fantastic Four, and related characters in the late 1990s, and keeps these rights as long as they make a movie each few years. The “X-Men” properties include Deadpool and Wolverine.

Fox owned the rights to Daredevil, but these reverted to Disney because Fox went too long without making a movie.

Sony

Owns the rights to Spider-man and related characters, including Venom. Sony has a similar deal as Fox, which means we will always see a new Spider-man film every few years.

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

Wonder Woman (2017)

Box Office:$411 million domestic, $819 worldwide

Rotten Tomatoes: 92%

Black Panther (2018)

Box Office:$659.5 domestic (and counting)

Rotten Tomatoes: 97%

Captain Marvel (2019)

Be Ready!!

RECENT EFFORTS AT DIVERSITYLike most new comic characters, most diverse characters have some connection to established characters

CLASSIC DIVERSE CHARACTERSMost 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-INSBuild 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 COMICSLook for Cartoon Series Tie-Ins

DIGITAL COMICS: HOOPLA AND COMIXOLOGYHoopla 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 COMIXOLOGYBoth 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 breal@calvertlibrary.info