LADIES NIGHT AT STRANGE ADVENTURES: Part 2!

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 We're having our second Ladies Night at Strange Adventures Comic Shop, this Friday, from 6 to 9pm!

You can read about the last Ladies Night, RSVP on Facebook, and check out our special guests Raina Telgemeier and Faith Erin Hicks. Other special guests include me, Rachelle, and Rachelle's baby—who will sketch anything you want, even Wolverine with Venom power.

Who's Who: Mitchell Lee Reid, aka Commander Mercykill

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Name: Mitchell Lee Reid

Height: Some inches (no one actually told me)

Weight: 6lbs, 11oz

First appearance: March 25, 2010 at 4:05am, Halifax, Nova Scotia

Known relatives: Rachelle Goguen (mother), Matt Reid (father)

Base of operations: Bedford, Nova Scotia

Group Affiliation: the family Goguen-Reid

Origin Story:

Mitchell arrived on the scene two weeks before his due date, ready for action. Not content to wait around for a normal birth, which would take, like, a thousand hours, Mitchell decided to straight up punch his way out of the womb. He attempted to come out hand first, which resulted in a c-section operation for mom. This made mom more vulnerable to an attack by Magneto, as she had 16 staples across her abdomen, but they have since been removed.

Despite the impatient nature of Mitchell's birth, he is a pretty mellow and quiet baby. His favourite activities include sleeping and trying to rid himself of his sworn enemy, jaundice.

Kyle Baker in Halifax! Tomorrow!

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The incomparable KYLE BAKER will be speaking at the Halifax North Branch Library tomorrow afternoon! Baker, as you probably know, is an incredibly prolific writer and illustrator, who has won every comics-related award there is and worked for every publisher and company in the business. I just read (or in some cases re-read) a bunch of his stuff including Nat Turner, Why I Hate Saturn and The Bakers books—all amazing, and each totally different from the last. Baker's work is as diverse as it is brilliant.

Baker's talk is part of a day-long Graphic Novel Camp—an event providing education about comics and celebrating the medium. LBW's BFFs Mike Holmes and Faith Erin Hicks will also be there, as well as Kate Beaton (of Hark! A Vagrant fame), and the wonderful Rebecca Kraatz (if you haven't read her book, House of Sugar, do it! And check out the beautiful wood-burned images on her website. Looking at them is like a present you give yourself).

For more information about the Graphic Novel Camp event go here.

This is event is free! So come by! 

Ladies' Night at the Comic Shop

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Last week, at Strange Adventures (the comic shop that keeps this blog knee-deep in Superman), we held our first ever Ladies' Night. Thursday evening, after regular store hours ended, Ladies' Night began. No dudes were allowed, and anyone who considers themselves a woman was welcomed in. It was only lady staff members working, and even the owner, Cal, was sent to near by bar to read comics and hang out with any dads, boyfriends or brothers who were dropping ladies off at the store.

The idea behind this event was that, I've found, when talking to women about comics, a lot of them tend to be super interested and excited about comics, but unsure where to start, and nervous about going into a shop and asking for recommendations. I love comics, and I work in comic shop, but I've still felt weird, uncomfortable and frustrated going into other shops. Why would I want some douche talking down to me about comics—something I love, and something that's supposed to fun? While I think Strange Adventures works pretty hard to be a welcoming place for anyone, all the time, comic shops on the whole tend to be unpleasant places for women. So we wanted a night where women could come in and browse, and ask myself and the other lady staff members for recommendations. 

Besides introducing the uninitiated to comics, we also wanted a night where women who are big comic fans could hang out, eat some snacks, get some freebies and buy some stuff on sale. Strange Adventures has quite a few women customers, and we thought it would be fun for them to get to meet each other.

So we bought snacks (chocolate—'cause ladies love that stuff, right?), made up a bunch of gift bags, did up a display of comics by female creators and comics that might appeal to women, sent the dudes away, opened the doors at 7pm and....

IT! WAS! OFF! THE! HOOK!

The first hour, the store was wall to wall, full of people. Our shop isn't huge, but you literally couldn't turn around without bumping into someone. We had over an hundred women in the store during this two hour event, and, if you're interested in bottom line, we made about as much money as we do on a busy Saturday, in a quarter of the time. It was insanely awesome.

People were seriously so stoked, to the point where one lady was shaking my hand, thanking me excitedly, saying, "I'm forty-five years old and I've never been a comic shop before! I love this stuff, but I've always felt too scared! You ladies are amazing!" I felt like someone paid her to come tell me exactly what I wanted to hear.

 After the first hour, the crowd settled into a busy-but-less-insane level, and I was actually able to make recommendations and have some good talks with people. We sold tons of stuff by women creators—lots of Alison Bechdel, and Faith Erin Hicks, who was at the event, hanging out and talking to ladies. Lots of Brian K. Vaughn, Neil Gaiman and Joss Whedon went too, and then all sorts of other stuff—almost as much variety as on a normal day.

It was nice to see solid proof of what I already know: women like comics! They like all different kinds of comics! They want to buy comics, so stop actively discouraging them! The masses of women that came to this event really showed how much it was needed. Everyone kept asking when the next Ladies' Night would be.

I know the comics industry is still a total sausage fest. It's changing, for sure, but it needs a big push. And as someone on the retail end of things, I'm trying my best to help.

You can check out more pictures on the Strange Adventures site, and read some press here and here.