Chicks Dig Comics: A Celebration of Comic Books by the Women Who Love Them

Edited by Lynne M. Thomas and Sigrid Ellis

Printed by Mad Norwegian Press

I got my review copy of Chicks Dig Comics yesterday afternoon, and have spent the last few hours consuming this book. Brought to you by the same folks who brought you Chicks Dig Time Lords, this is another impressive look at women, comic books, and the struggles they had in the comic book industry. The book is narrative, without a single page of comic book art, yet it is so worth the read that you will end up consuming the book, rather than simply reading the first few chapters and calling it a day. Mad Norwegian Press usually comes up with interesting stuff, and this one fits completely in their world view. The number of stories in this book is impressive, and from the Mad Norwegian web site, the number of short easy to read and dig essays is:

Introduction by Mark Waid
Editors’ Foreword, by Lynne M. Thomas and Sigrid Ellis
Mary Batson and the Chimera Society, by Gail Simone
Summers and Winters, Frost and Fire, by Seanan McGuire
Cosplay, Creation, and Community, by Erica McGillivray
An Interview with Amanda Conner
A Matter of When, by Carla Speed McNeil
The Other Side of the Desk, by Rachel Edidin
An Interview with Terry Moore
Nineteen Panels about Me and Comics, by Sara Ryan
I’m Batman, by Tammy Garrison
An Interview with Alisa Bendis
My Secret Identity, by Caroline Pruett
The Green Lantern Mythos: A Metaphor for My (Comic Book) Life, by Jill Pantozzi
Vampirella, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Page Turn, by Jen Van Meter
Confessions of a (Former) Unicorn, by Tara O’Shea
The Evolution of a Tart, by Sheena McNeil
Kitty Queer, by Sigrid Ellis
The Captain in the Capitol: Invoking the Superhero in Daily Life by, Jennifer Margret Smith
Burn, Baby Burn, by Lloyd Rose
Tune in Tomorrow, by Sue D
An Interview with Greg Rucka
Comic Book Junkie, by Jill Thompson
From Pogo to Girl Genius, by Delia Sherman
I am Sisyphus, and I am Happy, by Kelly Thompson
Captain America’s Next Top Model, by Anika Dane Milik
An Interview with Louise Simonson
Me Vs. Me, by Sarah Kuhn
A Road That has No Ending: Revenge in Sandman, by Sarah Monette
Mutants, by Marjorie Liu
You’re on the Global Frequency, by Elizabeth Bear
Crush on a Superhero, by Colleen Doran

This collection of short essays on the strengths, weaknesses, hopes, dreams, aspirations, highs and lows, as well as some awesome fashion advice covers the entire gambit of what it is like to be a girl/woman and love comic books. We move past the “comic book guy” sweating in an ill lit comic book shop that feels more like a man cave, and into what it was like to work for, consume, read, empathize, and love comic books from a woman’s viewpoint. That alone makes this narrative work well worth the time to read and get into the stories. There are a lot of very good stories that sometimes clash with each other as we change the narrative tone, but hearing from people in their own words is priceless. This one is worth taking the time out to read, enjoy, share with your daughter, and share with your family.

I am going to rate this one five of five stars, I learned so many new things with this book that I will have to go back and read it a couple more times to see if I can tease out anything that I might have missed on the first read. We all have the things we love, and this deeply personal, somewhat intimate book reflects on the female voices in comic books in ways that nothing else I have read in my life has managed to do. This is definitely one of the most impressive narrative works that I have read on the triumphs tribulations, and issues with chicks who dig comic books. This is a must read, must purchase, go paper on this one, because it will be something you want to own, not just lease on your favorite digital reader.