Hi there, library lovers. I feel bad that I haven’t had much to say lately, but unfortunately there isn’t much nice to say. Libraries are still having our budgets gutted, and some of us are getting a little tired of the battle. Libraries (unfortunately) can’t exist simply as caves in which librarians can live out our information dream-lives. We need funding to stay open, and pay to keep doing the job. Don’t nobody want to pay taxes, but the value of an educated public and plowed roads (for those of us who live in Soon-To-Be-Snowville) is too great not to pay. But I’m not going to talk about that anymore, because it makes me sad and angry. These pictures were taken of me while I wrote those first few sentences:

(Note: those aren’t me, except maybe the guy third from the left on the bottom. He might be me.)

When I think about libraries, I’m usually the second guy on the left, in the top row. Sometimes even the woman below him. Lately I’m the one on the lower right, and that’s off-putting for the lady who’s looking for Coming Home by Rosamund Pilcher.

So, instead of wetting your screens with my tears, I’m going to focus on some less-serious matters.

Actually the first one is quite serious, and involves The Contrarian Media being plagiarized by one of the world’s largest media outlets. Well, ok, that’s not quite true, but still, check this out: you all remember my post last month about the history of crashes? You know, the one that made you ask yourselves exactly how mentally healthy the average Contrarian staffer is? (Answer: the average is the guy third form the left on the bottom row. You know, the one who might be me.) Well, that post was published on July 28th, more than two weeks before this article on the BBC. I admit the author did a little more research than I did, and that his article corrects some errors in my information, so I suppose I will accept the article as a correction and not carry on with any recourse. Oh, also, I would have no legal standing.

Let’s move on. I know what you all really want to read about: men in tights. I found this article a few weeks ago on Wired Magazine‘s GeekDad blog. The brief piece focuses on a question posed by psychologist and professor Sharon Lamb. Lamb asks whether or not the comic books (and related movies) being published (or produced) these days are harmful to children: “Today’s superhero is too much like an action hero who participates in non-stop violence; he’s aggressive, sarcastic and rarely speaks to the virtue of doing good for humanity.” Lamb, echoing the infamous beliefs of Fredric Wertham, argues that the young male comic readers of our time are being forced to decide between adopting an identity of either shallow macho pseudo-manhood or lazy, unengaged slacker. Now I admit that we, as a culture, should be more mindful about what we are feeding to the brains of our children, and I’m the first one in line when it comes to reimagining gender stereotypes. That said, Lamb is missing a major point: while there are many comic books and graphic novels being written for kids, a fair number of the books she’s speaking of, and the movies made from them, are written for adults. Comic books long ago shifted away from being an item for the enjoyment of the young, and are now focusing on far more grown-up issues. The problem isn’t the fact that contemporary comics are too violent or intense, the problem is that lazy parents don’t bother to look into the difference between Justice League Unlimited or Amelia Rules and Grant Morrison‘s recent Batman books. Is a ten-year-old boy going to understand the messages of Watchmen, whether in book or film form? Doubtful. Did comic-god and magician Alan Moore intend kids to read his book? Also doubtful. It’s time to realize that, as opposed to blaming the comics industry, we need to learn about stepping stones between Garfield and Irredeemable. Parents, try Jarrett Krosoczka‘s Lunch Lady and the League of Librarians, though admittedly you may need to explain to your kids that not all librarians are evil (only some) and that not all of us want to destroy video games.

That’ll do for this installment, patrons. Live well, talk to your local government about funding your library, and talk to your kids about what they read. We’ll get through the hard times together…

I first read The Diary of Anne Frank in eighth grade. I suspect that’s the average age people read it in school, but I read it on my own. I’m not saying this to brag. I was simply a voracious reader who went to a truly awful junior high. During seventh and eighth grade, the teachers managed to not teach a single novel. Well, they taught abridged works (I maintain this does not count), but most of our our class time was spent on grammar.

At the end of eighth grade, when we were supposed to be learning about World War II, they had us practicing swing dance in the gym (this being the swing dancing craze of the late 1990s, and hey, swing dancing was popular during the ’40s so I suppose it’s somewhat justifiable…)

And in lieu of actually learning about anti-Semitism, Nazism and Anne Frank’s life, by, um, actually reading her diary, we did a lot of timelines about her life and Nazi Germany. Oh, and my teacher pronounced the “t” at the end of Margot Frank’s name.

So my mom took me to Annie’s Book Stop, the one bookstore in Rutland, VT, and actually a pretty good one, and we bought The Diary of Anne Frank. I read it, and, even though I obviously knew how it ended, I fervently hoped Anne would somehow escape. (I also fervently hope that isn’t a spoiler.)

Since it was first published, The Diary of Anne Frank has been adapted many times for movies in various countries and languages. Now, it’s getting the graphic novel treatment. According to Bust.com, “The Anne Frank House Museum in Amsterdam has launched the biography — with author Sid Jacobson and illustrator Ernie Colón — as a way to get a wider audience (AKA teenagers who won’t pick up anything without pictures or web links) to read the diary, mainly in an educational setting.”

The press around the new graphic novel is largely neutral or positive, although message boards are more charged, with people complaining about “kids these days” not reading to accusations of blasphemy (have they never heard of Maus?) to idiots taking a break from anti-government manifesto-writing/rifle-polishing to cast doubt on the original diary’s authenticity as well as that of the Holocaust… or maybe these trolls are actually Mel Gibson getting back to his anti-Semitic roots in between threatening his baby mama.

I think a graphic treatment of Anne Frank’s short but meaningful life makes sense. Look at the success of Art Spiegelman’s Maus and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, about, respectively, the Holocaust and Islamic Revolution. And while some readers may be “over” this kind of literary-historic treatment, others continue to be moved by these works and are inspired to keep learning about the Shoah and Iran.

Whatever medium gets students learning is, to quote Martha Stewart, “a good thing.” Never Forget Anne!

The “Henry Rollins hearts Glenn Danzig” meme predates the internet — I remember giggling over the idea of R&D shacking up back in the early ’90s. But it’s even more timely in the light of California’s high-profile gay marriage debates. I’m assuming Rollins and Danzig are both still residents of the state.

Apparently, the back of the comic has a pullquote from Rollins that says, “Has Glenn seen this? Trust me, he would not be impressed.”

Description:

The premise of this Cantankerous Titles-released comic is explained at the front of the zine: “Henry and Glenn are very good ‘friends.’ They are also ‘room mates.’ Daryl and John live next door. They are satanists.” What follows is ultra-metal violence and cryfest diary entries, cringing self-doubt and mega-hilarious emo-meltdowns. Who knew Danzig was such a vulnerable, self-conscious sweety-pie? Who knew Rollins was such a caring spouse? Who knew Hall and Oates were so infernally evil—yet so considerate?

You can order this awesome title from Atomic Books for a mere 4 bucks.

[Hat tip to Shane of the Government and Carolyn of the Canines]

Anyone who was a child in the ’80s certainly remembers the fleet of shitty animated cartoons in the afternoons and Saturday mornings. This was around the time when the industry was deregulated and transformed (pun intended!) into a platform for advertising, targeting America’s youth as the great new frontier market. During the Reagan administration, legislation was passed which dramatically increased advertisers’ ability to market products to children, increasing the allotment of time per program in which they could run spots and include commercial content directly related to programming.

Before the industry was deregulated, advertising on children’s programs was limited to nine and-a-half minutes on weekends and twelve minutes per hour on weekdays. Since then, commercials have taken up as much as eleven minutes per hour on weekends, when viewing by children is heaviest, and up to fourteen minutes per hour on weekdays.

-Jeremy Gerard, New York Times

The Media Education Foundation has these facts to report:

In a nutshell: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had tried to ban all advertising aimed at children eight and under, but the toy and cereal industries fought back and eventually won, convincing Congress to pass the FTC Improvement Act of 1980.

The FTC Improvement Act actually did the opposite of banning advertising to kids: it mandated that the FTC would no longer have any authority whatsoever to regulate advertising and marketing to children, leaving marketers virtually free to target kids as they saw fit.

…One result of deregulation was that it became possible to create a television program for the sole purpose of selling a toy, essentially turning kid’s shows into program-length toy commercials. And sure enough, the year after deregulation, all ten of the best selling toys were based on media: Transformers, G.I. Joe, Carebears, Voltron, Mask, Cabbage Patch Kids, He-Man, Super Gobots, WWF Figures, and My Little Pony.

…Children now spend $40 billion dollars of their own money and influence another $700 billion in spending annually — roughly the equivalent of the combined economies of the world’s 115 poorest countries.

The shows were fucking terrible from an artistic standpoint, with serious continuity flaws and simply awful art and animation. Some of the associated toys were pretty bad too, but what the creators of these cartoons successfully provided was the relevant mythology around which children could structure their play.

A significant part of childhood cognitive development is participation in dramatic play (when kids act out scenarios with scale objects, such as a doll house or farm set, it is referred to as “miniature dramatic play”).

Dramatic play permits children to fit the reality of the world into their own interests and knowledge. One of the purest forms of symbolic thought available to young children, dramatic play contributes strongly to the intellectual development of children (Piaget, 1962). Symbolic play is a necessary part of a child’s language development (Edmonds, 1976).

-The Center, part of the College of Education and Human services at Western Illinois University

Recently, I got an urge to watch one of my favorites from the mid-’80s, a rock ‘n’ roll fantasy called “Jem,” later “Jem and the Holograms.” The show’s premise: Jerrica Benton, who had recently and suspiciously lost her father, inherits one half of Starlight Records and Starlight House, a home for foster girls. When Evil Record Executive Eric Raymond refuses to provide funding for the dilapidated Starlight House, while simultaneously presenting the obnoxious and sociopathic Misfits (sadly, no Danzig) as Starlight Records new flagship act, Jerrica is forced to take drastic action to preserve her family’s legacy (presumably Jerrica does not have access to a good entertainment lawyer). A pair of magical earrings are mysteriously delivered to her, which she soon finds are linked to a fabulous computer called Synergy, “designed to be the ultimate visual entertainment synthesizer.” Led to Synergy’s secret lair, housed in an abandoned drive-in movie theater, she and her friends find themselves outfitted with not only the magical hologram-generating supercomputer, but also glamorous fashions, musical instruments and a totally rad convertible roadster. Thus equipped, the friends form Jem and the Holograms, a pop group aimed to defeat the Misfits in a battle of the bands, which will win Jerrica total control of the record company as well as a feature film deal and a mansion.

The Holograms’ songs themselves were poorly written but well executed (Jem’s singing was performed by Britta Phillips, later of the band Luna and composer for The Squid and The Whale) — essentially music-video-style backdrops for fantastical montages of Jerrica and her boyfriend traveling over rainbows astride unicorns, etc. The show delivered exactly what it promised — all of the glamor, glitter, fashion and fame that any human mind could handle within 30 minutes.

“Jem” was a show and a line of Hasbro toys marketed towards girls, intended to edge in on the behemoth Barbie brand. However, the Jem dolls proved to be large and awkward, their clothes easily fitting onto the body of a Ken doll, transforming him into an ever-lovable drag queen (but certainly not the terrifying supreme she-male embodied by Barbie herself). Mattel simply offered it’s knock-off line, “Barbie and the Rockers,” and subsequent efforts to market a girls’ doll, such as merchandise spin-offs of Disney‘s pathetic princess heroines, were licensed to Mattel under the mighty fashion doll standard of Queen Barbie and her sundry, innocuously ethnic friends.

The children who grew up in the era of cartoon commercials are now evidencing a backlash, particularly in terms of feminine gender roles. Politically conscious feminist parents are rejecting the model of pink and sparkles and princesses altogether. In the various educational and toy retail fields in which I have found myself employed, I’ve wondered, sometimes aloud, why a parent would discourage a child from aspiring to be the leader of a nation (or merely fabulous).

Recently, I have been watching the Bill Moyers/Joseph Campbell series “The Power of Myth,” in which Campbell outlines the psychological symbology of the collective unconscious through storytelling. In certain episodes, Campbell speaks about coming-of-age myths in which the protagonist enacts adventures to the end of maturity and self-realization, as well as experiencing a sense of spiritual wonder that creates a sense of connectedness to society and the universe.

I was surprised to recognize, in the storyline of the “Jem” series as well as the standard princess tale in general, this myth of the transition into adulthooed. Read any familiar Grimm‘s fairy tale, such as “Cinderella,” “Snow White” and the like, and you will see similar content. A beautiful child falls from grace when she is suddenly bereft of parental guidance, often at the mercy of a hostile Id-like force (evil stepsisters, perhaps). In exile, the heroine takes on a typically mystical persona, often one in which she is secretly magical and glamourous, awaiting the opportunity in which she can be recognized as the proficient heir to a great kingdom. Often, the kingdom itself is the realm of magic and universal love, represented by a marriage and consecrated by humane acts such as the forgiveness of her former oppressors or benevolence towards the less fortunate. And that, my friends, is a fully-realized and mature adult.

This myth is not just a gender-specific coming-of-age tale, but one of a person realizing that their place in the world is bound to a sense of beauty grace and love. It is the magical, rock star aspect of a person, and our culture at its best encourages females to adorn the psychological environment with a sense of wonder and elemental power. The archaic use of the word glamor denotes magic and enchantment, and the urge to permeate the experience of maturity with these qualities is a noble urge indeed. This tale, told in the show “Jem” and in other forms via the Hasbro cartoon canon, was a story of this urge. Its appeal is therefore no mystery.

Perhaps the later realization that this story was told to us so we’d pester our parents to spend at Toys R Us put a sour taste in our mouths. The princess story was transformed into yet another tale of commodities, of a shrunken plastic body for sale, covered with rhinestones, yet not good enough to be Barbie. But if you believe this, you will believe that the major label’s current flagship act is the best music available, and Eric Raymond wins total control of Starlight Records forever.

You don’t have to buy the clunky man-doll and the mute plastic key-tar to believe in the power of sparkling, magical pop music and unicorn montages. You can still understand that it’s all just a hologram, an illusion. But every once in a while, if not often, we need someone to come along wearing a ton of rhinestones and glittery body paint, winning the day with their fabulousness and glamor and living happily ever after in the Starlight mansion.

That, for certain, is real. And truly, truly, truly outrageous.

From BigFatWhale:

Possibly some of you, like myself, have been deeply entrenched in the winter doldrums. January, the nebulous season after the heady trip of Christmas lights, holiday parties, and New Year’s drunken splendor/debauchery, can drop a soul’s morale right on it’s ass when Old Man Winter’s blustering is no longer buffered by December’s pagan hoot-n-nanny.

As of late, I have found the weather dreary, the bank account drained, and my exuberance stemmed. Luckily, I am in a fine position to self-medicate with colored pencils and a large paper bag. Last week I began to circumvent my insomnia and restlessness by creating pictures of the cutest, cheeriest possible creatures (and a couple cranky ones) I could imagine. The following are a sample, and I hope that they make you smile like they did for me. If you like those, check out another fleet at NortonAnalog.

Feel the Love!

Wolfinsohn’s decision to call it a day doesn’t come as all that much of a surprise. Originally updated every other day, recent episodes have been fewer and farther between. The online comic will be sorely missed, but as hinted at throughout the series some of Wolfinsohn’s work may be headed for TV (which while not as cool probably pays better). I just hope he’s not headed for Mexico.

A while back, we told readers about a new graphic novel called Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom, by artist-writer Bruce Brown. Well, Bruce tipped us off that it’s about to be published (I’ll be pre-ordering my copy today).

The book concerns the adventures of a six-year old boy named Howard Lovecraft, who gets his grubby kid paws on the dreaded Necronomicon and is whisked away to a frightening realm populated by tentacled monstrosities and other creepy creatures. Where was this comic when I was a lad?

Part of me was concerned that HP Lovecraft‘s visions had been adapted for a childrens’ narrative — not because I was worried about kids’ fragile, eggshell minds, but rather that such a treatment would run contrary to the misanthropic, cosmic horror at the heart of Lovecraft’s works. Then I saw the art:

There’s a cool interview with Brown over at the Lovecraft News Network (yes, there IS such a thing), where he explains why a Lovecraftian graphic novel aimed at kids is a perfectly reasonable idea:

LNN:  I don’t think it is a stretch to say that Lovecraft’s fiction is neither designed for children nor is it particularly accessible to them, yet this has not stopped his themes and motifs from lately being exported to them en masse in the form of projects like yours, which repackages them for a younger audience. What continues to surprise me in almost every case is just how well this transition works out. What is it about Lovecraft’s dark themes that allows them to be so successfully adapted at what are ostensibly polar opposite ends of the literary spectrum: heavy-handed adult “horror” and children’s literature?

Brown: Up till The Frozen Kingdom, I have not heard of anyone trying to adapt Lovecraft to children’s literature. However, I believe it was an incredibly easy fit. Think about it, he crafts these tales of scary monsters that come from the seas, outer space or simply that dark shadow in the corner of the room. If you consider older fairy tales, it seemed to make perfect sense.

I guess it kind of does. Now for a shameless plug: stay tuned for the full-length CD and digital release of Eldritch Musicks by The Contrarian, which is inspired by the likes of HP Lovecraft, Arthur Machen, Thomas Ligotti and. . . Blue Öyster Cult. We’re finalizing the artwork right now, but I expect it to be available by December.

Greetings, patrons and patronesses! I get to spend all week (when not behind the desk) trimming brush and cutting off tree limbs, ’cause I need the extra $$$ to supplement my meagre librarian’s salary. Prior to collapsing into restorative yoga poses, I wanted to weigh in on a couple library-related stories for y’all:

News from the Book Price War Front: As I discussed in my last post, Walmart and Amazon have gone into battle over who can offer the lowest price on hardcover bestsellers. As you may have heard, Target has entered the battle, offering selected titles for $8.99 — matching Walmart’s price. Walmart subsequently dropped their price to $8.98. Plus, if you buy three books or more, one of their toothless employees will give you head in the packing room (please note: this is not true).

At the time of my last post, I had yet to hear about Sears‘ offer: send them the receipt for books purchased from any of the above companies, and Sears will give you a credit for that amount to be used on their own online store when making a purchase of $45 or more.

On the surface, this seems like a great thing for the book buyer, and even more so for libraries, who often buy in bulk. Problem is, the big stores can handle losing some money on books, while the independent stores — which are already treading water at best — will surely close should the discounts branch out to more than just ten bestsellers. In this instance, the publishing companies will be forced to severely cut costs, resulting in inferior physical products. Most reports are focusing on the problem of less money going to authors, but the problem for libraries will be when the books start being made with cheaper paper and glue. Sure, a cheap price is great, but if we have to replace the book after it circulates three times, we end up spending more money.

That said, my library saved approximately $30 this month as a result of these discounts. On our budget, we have to be thankful for that.

So. Everyone knows librarians are pretty smart, right? Well, not all of us. The joint winners of the Fuckwit Librarian of the Year Award are Sharon Cook and Beth Bovaire, former librarians in the metropolis of Nicholasville, Kentucky. Sharon and Beth decided that The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the brilliant and highly literary comic book series by the grandmaster of the form, Alan Moore, is pornography, and therefore refused to let a 12-year-old girl check the book out. Those familiar with the book will remember that it does show breasts, but think for a moment: how much great art would be left if we remove every item that depicts breasts, butts or penises? Hell, 80 percent of the posts on this site would have to be removed.

What the Twin Fuckwits forget is that librarians are not here to decide what is appropriate for our patrons to read or view. We are here to provide it for them, and let them decide. So parents may not know that these books contain “adult content?” That’s their fault, not ours. Thankfully, the two were fired, and they are now the laughingstock of the entire library community. Way to go, Sharon & Beth: you’re dinosaurs, but not nearly as smart.

Here’s me giving my disapproving-librarian look:

(Please note: this is not me. Or is it?)

Author’s note: I forgot to mention that, while Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is most notably not pornography, his extraordinary collection Lost Girls most certainly is. Just this month, he published 25,000 Years of Erotic Freedom, a book expanded from his original essay for Arthur Magazine. Point being, Mr. Moore has proudly written porn, which makes the comments made by the Twin Fuckwits even funnier.

That was a couple weeks ago for me. More drawings in the works!