There are a couple of interesting pieces on comics in libraries, a topic that obviously interests me a whole lot.
The first is a local overview in a letter to The Comics Reporter. Mason Adams uses the occasion of the Roanoke (Virginia) Valley Bookfest to check out the holdings of some local book lenders. Adams is a comics fan and writer for the Roanoke Times.
Steven Grant tackles the topic in this week’s Permanent Damage column at Comic Book Resources. Grant takes a somewhat spandex-centric look at the growing place of graphic novels on library shelves, but it’s an interesting read. And as usual, there are some gems of bluntness:
“Of major concern to many librarians are excesses we could easily get by, if we abandoned the notion that the medium and the art of comics are somehow improved by being a boys’ club of unfettered pandering to our own basest instincts. Mainly characterized by triple-E cups and degrading male-dominated sexual content. Strange as it may sound, apparently girls, a large portion of the library comics audience, don’t like things like that. Which might be grounds for schism right there, since, apparently, many artists seem to be attracted to comics not to tell stories but to indulge those particular fantasies.”