Welcome back to the second installment of Fangirl Ramblings. This week we are going to delve into the origins of the fangirl and why she feels the need to ramble.
I don’t remember the first time I ever heard the word fangirl. I’m pretty sure it hasn’t been part of my vocabulary for the first 25 years of my life. I must have picked it up along the way, down the long windy road of geekdom. Whatever the case, I’m pretty sure the first time I heard the word, I finally understood my place in this little subculture world.
Comics are a scary place to enter when you are first treading into the depths of fandom. It’s not as if there is a travel brochure for the traveler on the sequential art highway. There are so many roads that twist and turn, it’s hard to know what exit you want to get off. First you are traveling the mainstream interstate and then you take the independent exit and you are lost in a world of black and white. This can be more confusing then the New York Subway Map. You’re lost in a world of big bill board signs screaming for your attention, waxing poetically in watercolors or bolding proclaiming the next major crossover event to break the internet in half. It’s so overwhelming that you might just drive on through, never to look back again. It can be compared to traveling through a well lit highway, or a scary backwoods, waiting for the evil stalker to kill you. But in this world, they don’t kill you, they just overcharge you for last months “hot issue”.
My travels down the road to geekdom started one Saturday morning watching cartoons. It was the first day that the X-Men cartoon debuted on TV. I was hooked. My good friend at the time called me up to see if I was watching this cartoon, and then said the magic words to me: “it’s based on a comic.”
I began the hunt for this elusive X-Men comic and boy was I in over my head. This was back in the day when you could buy comics off the store racks and I found my first issue, X-Men 21, at Walden Books at the mall. I bought it because it had my favorite character from the cartoon in it, Jubilee. There I started buying all the issues I could find with Jubilee in it. That started my collection of Wolverine and X-Men comics.
From here I decided I needed more, and that is when I stepped into the comic book store. There is nothing to prepare a newbie for a comic book store. All the comics, the covers, the back issues. There is so much for the eye to take in. But when you are 13 years old, there is nothing like the feeling of walking in and seeing that there are so many more of these comics. Yes folks, I’ll say it again. I was hooked.
It was this new and weird experience for my younger self. I was going into my teenager years and following suit with my tom boy nature. Most girls my age had posters on their walls of bands and hot boys. I had Wolverine and Batman adorning my wall.
Somehow I made it through this period and became the well knowledge fan that I am, but it was tough. I didn’t have any friends who were into this hobby. No mentor to help lead me through the hallowed halls of geekdom. It was just me, and my X-Men comics, trying to make sense of this crazy new world. And, wow, I’m going to feel old now, but the world wide web was just starting to realize it’s destiny. So I didn’t have any websites to pursue to help me better understand what I was getting into.
This is what I hope to achieve with this column. I want to help mentor the new breed of comic book fans coming up the ranks. I want to help readers become aware of new and interesting books. I want to help you guys and girls out there get your significant other into comics. I’ve learned over the years as a comic book retailer that people have a habit of picking up the wrong comics. The horror stories of guys giving their girlfriends Watchmen as their first comic to read, are more frequent then you could imagine.
Comics are a simple art form, but for some it’s a new experience. You can’t just expect to hand someone a book and expect them to understand it. Believe it or not boys and girls, not everyone grasps the concept of our silly little art form. For some people it’s hard to translate the words and pictures to form a cohesive whole. Some actually have to learn to read comics first before they can really enjoy them. Watchmen is amazing and wonderful, but it can be overwhelming. Do you remember the first time you tried to read the pirate story? How long did it take for you to get through that? Now imagine giving that book to someone who is completely new to the art form.
For the uneducated, you have to ween them onto comics. You can’t throw them into the water without a lifejacket. But don’t worry, I’m here to be your comic book lifejacket. I’m leading the comic book coast guard ship, picking up the stray lifeboats and bringing them to shore.
And unlike the pirate story, I’m easy to read. I may not have the eloquence of Alan Moore, or the knowledge of a uber-geek, but I’d like to think my opinion transcends a few perspectives. Retailer, female, and most of all, fan.
Stay tuned next week where I ramble about good choices for the first time reader. And if you have and questions or just want to say hi, send over an email. I’ll love you for it.
See ya next week.
