Archives for comics

Let’s Draw Superheroes!

Thursdays, April 28th, 6:00 p.m. (virtual) Grades 3+, teens, families. Join the virtual program here. Note: a free, registered Zoom account is required to join our youth-focused virtual programs. Sign up for a Zoom account is free and easy at http://zoom.us/signup. April 28th is National Superhero Day! Celebrate by joining award-winning cartoonist Rick Stromoski virtually at 6:00 p.m. to learn how to draw some hilarious superheroes! Rick has offered some stellar cartooning workshops for the Library over the past year and all participants had a great time and produced some seriously amazing artwork! About Rick Stromoski Rick Stromoski's illustrations and
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Categories: Events, Featured, Homepage Kids, Homepage Teens, Kids, Library News, and Teens.

Let’s Draw Cartoons

Kids, teens, and families are invited to join nationally syndicated award-winning cartoonist Rick Stromoski virtually on Tuesday, December 28th at 2:00 p.m. for a fun workshop to learn how to draw cartoon characters! All participants will need is a stack of paper and something they like to draw with! Participants had a blast when Rick presented his Let’s Draw Monsters! program in October (see below for some examples of work created!) so don’t miss out on this fantastic program! Let’s Draw Cartoons! Tuesday, December 26, 2:00 p.m. Grades 3+, teens, families Access the program here. Note: a free, registered Zoom
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Categories: Authors & Books, Events, Featured, Homepage Kids, Homepage Teens, Kids, Library News, and Teens.

Dive into Diversity: Comics Edition

White Plains is a wonderfully diverse community! Parents, children and teens have expressed an interest in titles that reflect the diversity in the community, and Ashley, Kathlyn, and Raquel's “Dive Into Diversity” column will spotlight noteworthy children's and teen titles that are inclusive, diverse and multicultural to fulfill that interest. Ashley's portion is aimed at readers in grades 4-6. The graphic novel section in the Trove is one of our most loved collections. Read on for some recommendations of great diverse graphic novels and be on the lookout for a new kids comic book discussion club that we’ll be starting
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Categories: Authors & Books, Featured, Homepage Kids, Kids, and Library News.

She Writes: Graphic Novels

This week we launch the first collection of titles for our “She Writes” series. First up, we're featuring graphic novels for a variety of ages, all written and illustrated by women. Below you'll find available formats, but we also have a curated list with additional titles in OverDrive that you can checkout here. For Children (and up) Phoebe and her Unicorn series by Dana Simpson Grade 4+ Library Collection OverDrive and Libby “A pink, bubble-gum bonbon of a tale spun of a likable, albeit self-centered, fourth-grader and her magical, self-obsessed, although sometimes-kind, unicorn.”–Kirkus Click series by Kayla Miller Grade 3-7
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Categories: Authors & Books, Featured, Homepage, Kids, Library News, and Teens.

Free Comic Book Day

While Free Comic Book Day (usually celebrated on the first Saturday of May each year) has been postponed due to the virus, and the Library is unable to host our usual big celebration with fun activities and comics to give away thanks to Aw Yeah! Comics in Harrison, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t enjoy some comics at home! To get your comics fix, I do encourage you to check in with your local comic book shops (Find yours here!). Many are doing great virtual events, offering deals on comics to get physical books to you at home by pulling titles
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Categories: Authors & Books, eNewsletter, Featured, Kids, Library News, and Teens.

Hoopla Staff Picks: Grown Up Comics

Possibly our most dynamic digital resource, Hoopla includes a variety of different formats from books to movies and music. In order to highlight some of these, we've gathered staff recommendations of just a few formats you can stream and download with your library card. Below are some graphic novel recommendations from Manager of Youth Services, Josh Carlson. These titles are all phenomenal, but are definitely not for kids. Did you just binge watch The Boys, Locke and Key, The Witcher, or Watchmen? These comics are where those, and other great shows, came from: The Witcher Locke and Key The Umbrella
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Categories: Authors & Books, eNewsletter, Featured, Homepage, and Library News.

PandemiComic

Calling all writers and artists! White Plains Public Library is collecting comic strips that illustrate a day in the life of social distancing. We're accepting submissions from adults, kids, and teens. Check out the prompts below for your age group. KIDS/TEENS: Here are some things to think about… How are you learning from home? Is it interactive/fun? Have you picked up any new hobbies like cooking, reading, playing a new game? How are your caretakers/siblings/relatives dealing with the pandemic? What are some pros and cons of spending so much time with family? Aside from the big stuff, what unexpected changes
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Categories: eNewsletter, Featured, Homepage, Homepage Kids, Homepage Teens, Kids, Library News, and Teens.

Non-Fiction Comics

When it comes to non-fiction books created in a comics style, the term “graphic novel” becomes a misnomer, although it is certainly still used. I prefer to say “graphic non-fiction.” Are you surprised that non-fiction material has been covered by comics? The one “graphic novel” to win the Pulitzer Prize was in fact non-fiction – Maus by Art Spiegelman. (In 1992 alone this book won Pulitzer, Eisner, and Harvey awards and Los Angeles Times' book prize for fiction. (!) This book tells the story of the artist's father's experience in the Holocaust as a Polish Jew and the artists' coming
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Categories: Authors & Books, Homepage, and Library News.

From Comic Book to Movie

Have I convinced you to try comics yet? What you may not realize is that many popular movies are based on comics and graphic novels. (Wikipedia has a list that spans the globe. For English-language comics-into-movies only, go here.) If you loved “V for Vendetta,” “Ghost World,” “Road to Perdition” or “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” you may want to check out the comics that started it all: V for Vendetta by Alan Moore (DC Comics, 2005) Ghost World (Special Edition) by Daniel Clowes (Fantagraphics, 2008) Road to Perdition by Max Allan Collins (Pocket Books, 2002) The League of Extraordinary
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Categories: Authors & Books, Homepage, and Library News.

Comics with a French Flair

Did you enjoy TinTin or the Smurfs as a kid? Then you've already had  taste of Franco-Belgian comics, another distinct style of comics and graphic novels. As I've already covered, the Japanese have their own style, manga, which has influenced Korea's manwha and China and Hong Kong's manuha. In the United States, descendants of Jewish immigrants have heavily influenced American comics. Lest you think Europe is a comics wasteland, the French and Belgians have a history of “bandes dessinées” (translated as “drawn strips”), their own style of comics. Within the world of bandes dessinées there are distinct sub-styles – not
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Categories: Authors & Books and Library News.

The Jewish Experience in Comics

In the United States, a great many comics artists and writers have been Jewish. You might have heard of some of these men and not known their heritage because they changed their names to less ethnically identifiable names. Stan Lee, co-creator of Spider-Man, the Hulk, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Thor, etc.? He was born Stanley Leiber. Jack Kirby, co-creator of Captain America (among other characters), was originally Jacob Kurtzberg, son of Austrian Jewish immigrants. He was determined to leave his poor, Lower East Side childhood behind. The other co-creator of Captain America, Joe Simon, was born Hymie
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Categories: Authors & Books.

Newsflash! Grown Ups Read Comics Too

At least in Japan they do! In the United States comics are mostly thought of as something for children or teenagers. In Japan, manga is popular with people of all ages. (Manga is the Japanese name for Japanese-style comics.) In fact, some types of manga are pretty adult in theme. Adult women in Japan are sometimes fans of “yaoi” or “boys love” – a genre of manga that is created for a female audience featuring men in romantic relationships with other men. Artists elsewhere, including other Asian countries, the United States and Europe, have created manga-style comics. The manga industry
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Categories: Authors & Books.

What are Graphic Novels?

Comics have had a tumultuous time here in the United States. What we now know as a comic (comic strips, comic books, and eventually graphic novels) began to appear in the late nineteenth century. They grew in popularity as they evolved from newspaper items to comic books; but in the 1940s many people became shocked at the increasingly gory covers and artwork of horror and crime comics. A psychologist, Frederic Wertham, wrote “Seduction of the Innocent” in 1954 and claimed that comic books were a major cause of juvenile delinquency. A panic followed. Today we know that comics don't cause
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Categories: Authors & Books.