Who's Who In The CBU Update 2008

Who are... Park and Barb?

Barbara Lien-Cooper writes the comic GUN STREET GIRL at Panel 2 Panel, was an original founder of Sequential Tart, is the managing editrix of the 2004 Eisner award-winning print magazine COMIC BOOK ARTIST, and was named by Mark Millar (The Authority, Ultimates, Wanted) as one of the three most promising new talents in the next wave of comics writing.

Park Cooper started writing about comics at the now-defunct DC FANZINE website.

Working On Stuff

By Park Cooper and Barb Lien, Staff Writers

Well, Barbara and I have been working on stuff.

After the last San Diego Con, we got a little frustrated with waiting for art to be made, and started writing prose novels, too.

Barb, the woman: A scary horror novel.
Me, the man: A young adult urban fantasy novel.

See how we complement each other?

We’ve also been noticing how some book publishers have been getting into graphic novels, like:

Tor: As I recall from my investigations, you can’t just submit, or even query-- you need an agent.

Scholastic’s Graphix imprint: You need an agent.

Roaring Brook: You need an agent.

Hyperion’s teen imprint: You need an agent.

That’s the system, baby. In comics, companies sometimes say they don’t take submissions, yet there really aren’t any agents for comic book writers.

“Sure there are, Park and Barb!” Well, no, there aren’t. There are literary agents who are starting to be interested in comic book writers. But there aren’t any agents who specialize in comic book writers, although there are one or two for comic book artists.

Note: remember: an “agent” is someone who takes a cut of your earnings that they helped you make, meaning they get paid when you get paid. People who charge you your money up front to (you hope) get your stuff out there aren’t agents, they’re something else.

As I was saying, though, we don’t have that agent system in comics. So when comic book companies say that they don’t take submissions, they mean it, but when they imply that they don’t take queries… well… they mean they don’t take queries from you, the person they meant that message for. After all, new comics have to come from somewhere, and it’s not like there’s such a thing as agents for comic book writers (I’m not asking that we start having them – how could they make a living? If you’re a big name, you can just get a literary agent, or, almost as good, a real lawyer).

So, yeah, Park and Barb are working on getting literary agents. We did that graphic novel HALF DEAD that came out a few months ago from Marvel and the Dabel Brothers, and we’ve got projects in development with multiple companies, and we’ve got completed novels ready to show you, so drop us a line.

Having said that, life continues on…

The other day we went to the library and there was a woman there. She had her grandchildren with her for the summer, who are somewhere in the middle-school-to-junior-high range. They weren’t at the library with her, though. She was frustrated because they are both reading at about a second-grade reading level. She wanted stuff to get them excited about reading, and the main librarian there—who those in the know will recognize as Agent Of The Vast Geek Conspiracy #L2084 (The “L” is for “Library”, in case you’re not in the know), was doing his duty and directing her to the young adult graphic novels and manga. And who should he find there when he arrived, but Agents #3 and #4 (Us! Agent #L1 runs the library branch of the conspiracy from Cleveland, I don’t know about #2—I think the last #2 was eaten by squirrels [they’re omnivorous! Look it up!]). The librarian, recognizing us and our mad skills in this field, grasping that we were experts without 100% understanding why that is, enlisted us—well, more pointed out that we were qualified to help.

Well, we got right to work, recommending this and that… with increasing desperation. We all have this attitude, don’t we, that sequential storytelling-- and Harry Potter, in a pinch-- are these perfect tools for getting kids excited about reading again. Yay!

Except the truth is that they’re the perfect tools for getting kids who can already read okay excited about reading again. There’s all kinds of geeks in the world, but one thing most of them have in common is that they have a rather good vocabulary for their age. We could just imagine this woman taking some of the manga or graphic novels on the shelf home and the kids would stumble over words they didn’t know, get frustrated, and give up. But their grandmother warned us that they didn’t want “baby books” for little kids, like Pokemon. That’s not cool, is it?!?

So we were stuck. Stuff that big kids like, but not written too hard reading-level-wise. Oh, and not only are they NOT high school kids, but we’re giving them to their grandmother, so anything too crazy is out.

Also… this was a branch library, not the world’s biggest library. You don’t want to throw a kid into the deep end of the continuity pool with Fruits Basket #8 or Naruto #11 or anything, you want to start out at the beginning… don’t you? Or does it matter? Barb agrees that it does. And it’s always hard in this town to get a hold of a library copy of Fruits Basket #1. Then aside from the vocabulary, there’s the Japanese in manga… all I could picture from XXXholic was the girl stumbling over “hitzusen” or whatever that is… but, then, I might be confusing that with the anime. You see what I mean, though… I’m an educator, but my field isn’t really what’s best for a second-grade reading level.

So we started suggesting stuff that we ourselves didn’t really like, too… just stuff we thought could be good enough. Mostly we concentrated on the challenge of the girl—there were JLA Adventures and Star Wars books that the grandmother agreed might be good enough for the boy, but the girl was more challenging. Finally, the grandmother seemed to be okay with some choices.

Later, I thought, why didn’t we suggest Archie? But Archie, in my humble opinion… okay, listen. You know what happens in Archie? Betty and Veronica’s quest to land Archie continues. Archie does something dumb, and Jughead says things that are vaguely smart but apathetic because he’s motivated by his stomach. When I was a kid, in, what, 1979…?

Barb says the key I’m missing is ARCHIE, ARCHIE ANDREWS, WHERE ARE YOU, that that was the one that was written as more adventurous, that that’s the one I’m missing. I say she’s right. There was one where the guys from the rival high school kidnapped that African American guy (because he’s the star quarterback… sigh) while he’s running on the beach, and throw him in a pit in a cave. With, you know, food and water... they’ll drop in a ladder after the big game. Reggie and Arch have to save him. Another time, Reggie and Arch, remembering their Boy Scout days, decide to have this contest where Reggie bets he can go through the woods and leave a clear trail, and Archie and Jug won’t be able to track him. So they go through… and, of course, Reg starts cheating, so they have to REALLY track him, which is important, because (since cheaters never prosper) he’s wandered into quicksand. Oh, Reg! You fool! But they didn’t play it like “ho ho, you’re lucky we’re so good and are here to pull you out,” it was like “WILL ARCH AND JUGHEAD FIND REGGIE IN TIME?!? WILL REGGIE DIE?!?!?” Seriously.

ARCHIE, ARCHIE ANDREWS, WHERE ARE YOU? These days, we all know where the hell Archie is.

Barb says she misses Li’l Archie, frankly. One time, Li’l Archie met an abominable snowman at Mr. Lodge’s ski… well, lodge… and then in another story, grown-up Archie went BACK there, and ran into the thing AGAIN. Is that a mind-blower, or what?




















Half Dead update: I often hear about Half Dead being sold out at comic book stores these days -- just ask the store to order a copy for you. Since the distribution is through Marvel, they should be able to get it for you quite quickly (especially if we're talking about North America).

http://www.panel2panel.com/gsg-archives.html
http://www.wickermanstudios.com
http://www.halfdeadcomic.com
http://www.comicspace.com/wickermanstudios