Shojo Manga!

"Shojo Manga! Girl Power! East and West" is a landmark exhibition that illuminates and celebrates the evolution of Japanese comics for girls from the postwar era to the present....

The Shojo Manga show at the school is fantastic and has been really inspiring for me. It's a touring show so look for it.

I've been trying to immerse myself in this genre of manga lately, especially for the duration of a book I'm drawing at the moment. I'm fascinated in manga, particularly shojo, like nothing else right now. It's all I want and I don't care for anything else. Which is nice because I rarely read superhero comics and I don't think I've read a capes and tights comic, in a serious way, for a decade, except for maybe New Frontier (which still hinges a little on the requirement that you love the Flash and Green Lantern and stuff). I basically ignored Manga for the entirety of the 90's, foolishly dismissing it as a generational thing and a fad. That was dumb.

Once more, I'm teaching a Summer Comic class for kids of the age 11-14. It's an education for me more than anything because every semester I get a clue as to what these kids are reading. There's an equal portion of girls and boys in the class. I find out that they're reading books called Fruits Basket, Naruto, Godchild, Deathnotee and One Piece but even really mature stuff, sometimes. Traditionally, the non-mangaa they like is always Johnny The Homicidal Maniac, HellBoy and maybe Bone and Neil Gaimen..

Apparantly, kids just want to have fun and not get caught up in gigantic epic events and cross-overs featuring characters who can't crack a smile for only a minute!

I have about 20 students in this class. I ask them, "How many of you buy your books from the comic book store?", and 6 raised their hands. I ask, "And how many buy their books from the book store chains like Barnes and Noble?", roughly 14 students raise their hand.

Ok, I ask, "How many sit there in Barnes and Noble and read the book in its entirety instead of buying it?" Pretty much all participating Barnes and Noble patrons raise their hands.

Hmm. And those are the answers I've been getting for some time!

What do you read? Can anyone recommend anything to me. i typically don't care for the Fighting comics unless it's well written and creative.