A little update

Hi all.

There has been a distinct lack of posting from me recently, for this I must apologise.  My life has got really busy recently.  I've started training for a 10k race and despite how fit I thought I was before, it's pretty tiring.  It's good fun, but man oh man do I get wiped out by some of the sessions.  If you're interested in the detail, I write reports on each training session on my other blog, and you can read them here. Anyway this has left me with less time and more importantly, energy, to blog.

The other thing which is taking up some of my time, is I have joined the Radio Bamf team.  Radio Bamf is a weekly comics podcast where 5 of us record each Sunday and talk about comics news, reviews and odd points of view.  I'm having an absolute blast doing it but it does take time to prepare for it and record.  Because of me and my particular passions I do tend to say if books are kid friendly, or new reader friendly.  We cover all sorts of stuff but mainly superheroes and indies.

You can listen in various places, but I'd say start with the host website, We Are Arcade.  There are links to youtube, itunes and the podomatic host sites too.  While you're on there you might want to check out the anime and gaming podcasts too.

Bringing the conversation back to this site, I don't want the posts to dry up and this blog to die a death, so to accommodate my changing energy levels I think I'll be writing shorter less in-depth reviews.  Posts may be just a few sentences long, or a few paragraphs, and they'll probably have less art, but I just can't manage full reviews right now.

Of course, I am still accepting guest reviews and am always happy to get new regular bloggers.  If you are interested in this please leave a comment, email me on paicomics at yahoo dot co uk, or tweet me @saranagacomics.

Update

Hi everybody.

We're overhauling the label system on this here blog to make it easier to use.  The new labels each have a category - Char (for character), Writer, Genre, Art, Publisher, etc.  However, we're only halfway through this somewhat mammoth task.  Today we've gone through all 248 published and scheduled posts and sorted out most of the labels, but a few more (e.g. the LGBT, Disability, CoC and About tags) have yet to be given an overall category.  Also, all links to labels within blog posts are not yet updated.

So, please bear with us if links are broken and labels seem a bit strange.  Hopefully we can get this all fixed within the next few weeks.  When completed, I'll put up a post saying it's all done.

Thanks for your patience.

Meet the team!

Given the new reviewers we have gathered over the last six months or so I thought it was high time we gave you a bit more information about the regulars! Here goes nothin':

Eyz: I'm a graphic designer from Switzerland. I have first studied Mathematics & Physics, then went into art & communication later. What I would really want to do for a living would be drawing comics and illustrations - but this goal is currently "on hold". In the meantime, I keep a blog and make silly comic strip parodies.

You can find Eyz at his blog G33K life. Eyz also did our banner for this blog, and I'm loving it.

James: The wandering mind of James Ashelford generally runs towards mysteries, science-fiction and character comedy in just about any medium but particularly comics. Quite apart from enthusing about graphic novels here he blogs about all and sundry at A Less Than Reputable Source from wargames to comics to classic radio comedy.


Debi: Debi moved from London to New York when she decided that one postgraduate degree wasn't enough and she still wasn't ready to get a real job. Having spent her twenties studying dinosaurs, she's now
studying educational theory so she can make all your children love dinosaurs just as much. If science museum educators could get away with wearing tights and a cape, it would be her ideal job.

You can find Debi at Thagomiser. Debi is our newest reviewer so we look forward to seeing her reviews soon!

Lissbirds: When she's not obsessing over comics, Liss obsesses over classic movies and ballet. Her sole ambition in life is to own a lemur. And to publish a novel. Oh, and to become Supreme Dictator of the World and institute a four-day work week, National Squirrel Appreciation Day, and make it a law that all men must wear hats, preferably Fedoras. In her spare time she enjoys sarcasm, lolcats, and things that are purple.


You can find Liss at Comics Make Me Happy.

Our guest contributers can be found on twitter, and if you want to find out more about them visit this list for everyone involved in the blog.


As for me, I'm Saranga. I live in the UK and have loved comics for most of my life, although for years and years I was far too embarrassed to actually buy them - that only started when I was about 23. From there my fannishness just blossomed and now (aged 31) I buy between 3 and 12 issues a week. When not nerding out over comics I learn British Sign Language and am intending to qualify as an Interpreter, although that may take a few years yet. I also blog at Pai where I talk about comics, feminism, Ddeaf stuff, politics, Smallville, Buffy and more comics. You can find me on twitter @sarangacomics.

This blog was my idea, I decided to set it up as there seemed to be very little resources helping people get into comics - most blogs assume you already read comics, and that's not very helpful to the newbie. I am eternally grateful to my co-bloggers for their enthusiasm and dedication to this site. I hope you all are finding it interesting and useful. As ever, if you have any questions or remarks, leave us a comment! We do our best to respond.

We've made some changes...

You may have noticed some changes in the blog!  We have fiddled around with the layout and changed the background.  The reformatting is by no means complete, but the changes thus far are as follows:

First time here? Read this!  Previously called Aims, Objectives and Information, this has been moved to the left of the blog.

Underneath this is a list the most popular posts over the last month, so if you don't fancy trawling through the archives to find new books, have a scroll through these posts to see if anything catches your eye.

Under this is the blog archive, listing posts by month and name.

On the right hand side is the list of regular contributors, recent comments (so come join in the discussions!), and labels.

Although the revamp is still in process, it would be good to know what people think.  Leave us a comment!  Does the overall colour scheme work for you?  Is it easier to find extra information now?  Are the font and text colours of a decent size and colour?  Do you have any other comments?  Let us know!

We are one year old!

Yes, we have made it to one year!  I'm pretty proud of what we've done here, so why don't we take a look at what we've done in the past year, by looking at some numbers.  We've had 4 amazing reviewers producing 100 reviews covering the following things:

40 superhero books
31 non superhero books
9 manga
11 webcomics
3 themed months - Halloween, LGBT history month and Valentines day

13 posts discussing comics, the point of them and what new readers need to know (including 2 giving specific consumer advice)
Developed a list of 71 recommended comics shops, both online and in the real world, situated all over the world.

7 All Ages books
10 teenage books
14 books for mature readers
6 posts on comic related events around the world

We've showcased a huge variety of art and writing styles and I think we've also demonstrated the diversity that exists in modern comics - we've had 19 books with LGBT characters, 25 with Characters of Colour, 4 with disabled characters (I think we need to improve that figure).  We've covered a lot of genres: comedy, crime, action, romance, animals, war, biography, mafia, fantasy and so on.

If there are particular styles or genres of book you'd like to see please let us know!  Either email us or leave a comment on any of the posts.  We like feedback!

A few thanks are needed here.  Firstly, a huge huge thank you to my fellow reviewers - James Ashelford, Lissbirds and Mothee.  They are all bloody great and inspiring writers who put my words to shame.  I would not have been able to keep this going without their help and contributions.  They are all great and you should go read their personal blogs now.

A quick note about how we operate:
None of us are paid for this.  We don't work for or have any connections with the comics industry. We have been sent solicits of new comcis, but we only review them if we think they are any good and appropriate for this site.  Basically, we do this out of a love for comcis and a desire to write.

Another round of thanks to everyone who has linked to the site, commented on it, gave ideas for books, suggested what was important for new readers, recommended a good comic shop or otherwise given input.

We're not going away, we've got lots more books planned to cover and we hope you stick around and keep on reading. :)

Just a quick round up and update

Any of you using Blogger's follow function might have notification of a post that doesn't exist... I accidentally hit publish on a draft post listing all books to review and now it is showing in the reading list pane on the dashboard.

In other news, all blog posts have been tidied up and typos removed.  I will also take this opportunity to remind you of this post, explaining how to use the site.

In case any readers are not familiar with blogs, there are various ways to navigate round the blog.  You can use the labels at the bottom of each post to find other books with similar themes, or other books by the same penciller or writer etc.  You can also navigate by month using the blog archive on the right - simply click on any year or month and it will list all post titles from that month.  Lastly, you can enter something into the search box in the top left hand corner.

If you want an overview of the why the site was set up or want more information about comics please browse the Aims, Objectives and Information box on the right hand side.

Thank you all commenters and readers!  I hope that you are all finding the site interesting and are getting some good recommendations.

Lastly, don't forget that you can join our facebook group  (no longer active) or follow Saranga on Twitter where she tweets about comics, feminism, deaf issues and sometimes UK news.

Blog slowdown

I am sorry to announce that this blog will soon experience a slowdown in posts.  The reason for this is that one contributor, Saranga, is currently on the hunt for new employment.  Reviews will still be posted, but in a much less regular fashion than before.

To help us out in this period, if anyone would like to become a reviewer for the site, whether you fancy submitting one review or becoming a regular contributor, please email us on paicomics [@] yahoo dot co dot uk.  Tell us what you'd like to review and include either a link to your website or blog, or include a sample of your writing.

Thank you for your patience and we hope to be back to a regular posting schedule soon.

New feature on the blog!

We've added a Reactions box under each blog post.  You can choose between Useful and Not Useful, all you need to do is tick the relevant box.

Please do tick away, we love feedback and would like to know how you're finding the reviews!

How to use this site

UPDATED - 23rd September 2012

There are several ways you can navigate around this site. Menus on the right and left of the screen contain useful posts that serve as good starting points.  Click through to read more.

Welcome one and all

Welcome everybody, to this new project with the lofty aim of recommending comics to people who have never read one before, or who haven't read one for a long time.

We will cover superheroes, manga, alternative and web comics.  We will not recommend anything where it is necessary to know decades of continuity.  We will only recommend books that are available in a trade (collecting 6 to 8 of the monthly magazines) format so that you can get them from regular bookshops.  We are keen on people using their local comic book shop but understand that they can be somewhat intimidating if you've never been in one before.  To aid this, there will be a list of recommended local comic book shops made available.

We will aim to avoid comics with sexist, racist, homophobic or ableist overtones or intent.  If there is some background to the comic, the writer or the art team that could contradict this policy, the issue will be mentioned and discussed within the review.

The contributors are Saranga, James Ashelford and LissBirds, with occasional guest reviewers.  For more information on either of them please visit their fun and lively blogs for the latest thoughts of the day.

For further information on what this site is trying to achieve please read this intro post and look at the Aims, objectives and information box located at the top right of the site.

The first book to be reviewed will be about Wonder Woman and we will be also be covering books that would make great Christmas presents, so be sure to Follow us or stop by at a later date to see what else has been posted.

I hope you enjoy, please leave comments on the posts and let us know your opinions!

What's this site about?

Hi, maybe you’re here because a friend has recommended the site to you, maybe you’ve stumbled across this from a search engine or maybe you got here from another blog.

This is a site about comics.  It’s intended as a review site for those people who have never read a comic before, or maybe not read one for a long time, and are interested in finding out more but don’t know where to start.