Seeing yourself reflected, on some level, in the pages of a book is an incredibly powerful thing. I realized after reading The Chocolate War that I wasn’t looking for answers, I wanted to know people had the same questions. This completely informed the way I chose to approach my work.

The WSJ article is so ugh. I could pick it apart until my fingernails were all torn off and bloody from all the picking and whatnot. I am just going through the article again right now to write this and ugh I can’t. I can’t you guys. Don’t even get me started on the book lists being separated by gender.

Anyways. So many people are tweeting and blogging about this issue and they are saying it all much better than I could. I feel so grateful for books that open my eyes and make me look at/examine things–no matter how big or how small, light or dark, and whether I agree with them or not–in ways I didn’t before. As a writer, I can’t bring myself to sacrifice the kind of honesty that is required to do that for anyone else’s peace of mind and as a reader, I would feel so cheated by any writer who did. I am so thankful for writers who confront the darkness rather than hide from it. I am equally thankful for writers who show us the brighter side of life as well. AND OH MY GOD do you think there are books out there that do BOTH? I bet there are. Wow.

Also Meghan Cox Gurden, it’s okay to give teenagers credit. Although I see how recognizing their intelligence and awesomeness and ability to self-censor and think for themselves might’ve put a damper on your article. Also Wall Street Journal, this is how I feel about you right now:

Everyone who has held a conversation with me for longer than five minutes knows I’m crazy excited about that far-off point in the future where I’ll get to see the face of my book. Add to the fact that I absolutely love the covers St. Martin’s Griffin has done for their YA titles and I basically have no idea how to cope. If someone says, “I can’t wait to see your cover, Courtney,” it elicits this Pavlov’s dogs-type response in me. I drool. I squeal. I clap my hands together. My big, asymmetrical eyelids go wide and I hop around on one foot, biting my fist whilst saying through a mouth full of fist, “I can’t wait to see my cover either!”

That’s how excited I am.

(It’s pretty sexy.)

I have been a cover geek long before I had a book that would have a cover. Something I have long enjoyed is hosting Book Cover Critiquing Parties in which I get in involved, deeply philosophical conversations with friends about the nature of book covers and how a particular cover fails or succeeds selling its product over wine and cheese nibblies. That last sentence was a lie. I was just trying to think up a more sophisticated way of saying, “Yes, my name is Courtney and I DO judge a book by it’s cover.” Although I do sometimes judge them while eating cheese nibblies.

Anyway. With this cover business so aggressively and prematurely on my mind, I thought it would be fun to do a blog entry that features my favourite YA covers. Maybe it will help get this cover excitement of my system, or at least keep it at bay, or maybe (and more likely) it will make it worse. Who knows! Let’s find out! Are you ready to have your eyes assaulted by my good taste in book covers? I am!

So without further ado, my favourite YA covers, in random order:

Skin Deep by E.M. Crane

I’ve loved this cover since first I set eyes on it. I’ve even discussed it philosophically with my friends, over wine and cheese nibblies at one of my Book Cover Critiquing Parties and the consensus was that it was gorgeous. It’s such a delicate but stunning collage of colours and brushes and I love the reds and oranges along the border. It’s rich without being overpowering. Beautiful.

Something to Blog About by Shana Norris

For some reason, I think pictures of stick people with their heads on fire are the funniest thing ever. Yes, that’s right. They make me LOL. I even went through this brief phase where I enjoyed drawing stick people with their heads on fire, except it wasn’t really brief in that it’s not over yet. The image just tickles me the right way. When my sister was getting married, I drew a stickperson representation of the ceremony and everyone in it had their heads aflame and she treasures it. I even have someone drawing a stick person with its head on fire in Cracked Up to Be just because that is how much I enjoy the visual and no, I don’t know what that says about me. Nothing good, probably. But still, picture a stick person with its head on fire RIGHT NOW AND ADMIT YOU LAUGHED. Know that it’s okay. When REAL people have their heads on fire, that’s not cool at all. That’s a TRAGEDY. And in those cases, I don’t laugh, I cry. But hand-drawn stick people with fire hair? Bwahahahah. Uhm. Where was I? Oh right. This cover–though it does not feature a stick people–is comedy gold. Every time I see it, I laugh. A cute and clever cover that makes you laugh because it is cute and clever is a great one, as far as I am concerned.

When this cover is up on amazon, I’ll stick it here. In the mean time, you can view it at CK’s site. Why I love this cover: you know how a picture is worth a thousand words? That is certainly the case here. I love how suggestive this cover is and I love the movement of it. Glimpses of action and emotion are so compelling and there’s so much of both in this one.

Inside the Mind of Gideon Rayburn by Sarah Miller

For a while, everyone was getting their knickers in a twist about all of the headless bodies gracing novels. Everyone except me, that is. Maybe that’s because most of my own pictures are headless. So I have to admit that when The Face slowly made its comeback on YA covers, I was less than thrilled. But then publishers started using it in a way that made me happy, in a way that made me like them even! And by that, I mean they introduced The HALF-FACE or the WRAP-AROUND FACE (the face continues around the spine and the back of the book) and I started realizing the possibilities of faces on covers. And I decided I liked them after all. Gideon Rayburn won me over and this is one of my favourite covers that features a face. I also love the big font. These two elements and the soft lighting and colouring make it altogether very sophisticated and pretty. I love it.

Breathe My Name by R.A. Nelson

And here we have it–not a half-face or a wrap-around face but… THE OBSCURED FACE! There is something evocative about this cover; the way the frost doesn’t overwhelm, as well as the eye peeking out through the word ‘my’. The soft colours. It’s a lovely sort of eerie, vaguely ghost-like.

Looking for Alaska by John Green

I believe that’s the Australian version of the cover and I love it. Though the American version is very fitting, this one just struck a chord with me and has obviously opened up a lot of discussion about the way different countries interpret books and whether or not this is a good thing at my Book Cover Critiquing Parties that I don’t actually have. The soft focus, the pale, de-saturated colours and the vignetting make this cover look like how it FELT to read the book. Make sense? Of course it doesn’t, but when has that ever stopped me saying anything?

Inexcusable by Chris Lynch

Oh, the paperback cover makes me a little sad because I think the hardcover is absolutely explosive and provocative and I adore it.

Tips on Having a Gay (ex) Boyfriend by Carrie Jones

Every time I see this cover, I have to pause and admire. It’s one of my favourites because it looks like a playful, vibrant and fun promise to the reader.

In the Garage by Alma Fullerton

Beautiful, yes? The cut and paste feel of the cover and the way the red pops just gets me every time. I love that each image within seems vital, no less or more important than the one before it–everything seems to fit and balance perfectly. Like I said: beautiful.

Evolution, Me & Other Freaks of Nature by Robin Brande

You know the t-shirt site threadless? And how everyone bought t-shirts from threadless for a while? Because they were painfully cool and hip and stuff? Well, this is the cover equivalent of threadless. It is painfully cool and hip. But even more so. This cover rocks.

Boy Heaven by Laura Kasischke

I don’t know what edition of the book this is. I found it on goodreads and it grabbed me immediately and I don’t know why. It’s dark and edgy and scary and I love the juxtaposition of the title, the scratches and the photograph. It’s disturbing! Brilliantly disturbing, like a zombie mo–AH. And now I know why this cover grabbed me immediately. So I should probably deduct a point then, for unfair advantage. Except I can’t because I love it too much and I think I would love it if I had never seen and enjoyed a zombie movie in my life. Also, it’s not the book’s fault that my brain brings everything back to zombies.

And there you have it: a sampling of some of my YA favourite covers! I would do more but collecting the images, resizing, uploading and coding them made my head want to explode (oh, html, you are a harsh mistress). Maybe one day you will see part two of this entry or maybe you won’t, as I’m not foolish enough to make blog promises I can’t keep. And for the record, this did not help my cover excitement AT ALL, but I didn’t really think it would. So anyone got any favourite YA covers? Send the links my way. I want to fan the flames of my excitement further because I never learn.

In other news, I wanted to make a sideways joke about the religion this guy belongs to in my latest book but then I watched a bunch of expose videos about said religion on youtube and now I’m too terrified to even speak its name in my blog. Or out loud. It makes me sad too, because it was probably a brilliant joke, just like all the jokes I make are. SIGH.

:(

If you’re a citizen of Ontario and you don’t already know about the upcoming referendum on electoral reform, EDUCATE YOURSELF NOW. In the October election, there will be two ballots. The usual vote for your candidate and a vote for an electoral system. This is what the ballot will say:

Which electoral system should Ontario use to elect members to the provincial legislature?

o The existing electoral system (First-Past-the-Post)

o The alternative electoral system proposed by the Citizens’ Assembly (Mixed Member Proportional)

For those not inspired enough to click the links, here’s a quick summary on our current electoral system (FPTP) and the proposed (MMP).

Right now, Ontario has a one vote system, which means when I vote for my party’s representative in my riding, that vote also goes to the provincial party leader. If the provincial party leader wins the most seats, they generally go on to form a government. But they don’t have to have the majority of votes to win. Also, what if I love the provincial party leader but I loathe the party’s representative in my riding? Or what if I loathe the provincial party leader but I love party’s representative in my riding? I don’t like voting for a candidate I’m not thrilled about simply to keep the opposition out. And because the FPTP system often narrows the field to the two predicted leading parties, I feel like a vote outside of the red and blue spectrum will essentially be wasted, which is also not cool.

Man, smell those choices! Yum!

But with the proposed new electoral system, Mixed Member Proportional (which combines First-Past-the-Post and Proportional Representation), I will have two votes. Two! One for my local representative and one for a political party. Do you know what that means? It means that, in future elections, you and I can affect change on two separate levels: locally and provincially, which is more than we’re able to do now. It means more Canadians have a better chance of actually being represented by a government that’s supposed to be representing them anyway. It also gives us a better foundation than the one we’ve got for the coming generations to have and build upon.

How awesome is that?

Pretty damn awesome.

Your Big Decision.ca is the impartial website with all the information you need about the referendum if you don’t already have it. There you can learn about the old system and the new system and watch videos that can explain this whole thing a whole lot better than I did. Please spread the word and when the time comes: VOTE.

Vote vote vote vote vote.

It’s the most important thing you can do.

Links:
yourbigdecision.ca
citizen’s assembly

edit
Vote for MMP is a really helpful and informative site on the pro-side. It’s incredibly easy to navigate, is direct and straightforward and I was able to use their info to help further explain the positives of Mixed Member Proportional to people who were interested. I suggest everyone check it out!
(Thanks, Mark, for the heads-up!)

$4.39 Canadian?!

WTF, Archie comics. W.T.F.

That’s like, five dollars for 25 pages of The Saga of Betty & Veronica’s New Look since the rest of the issue consisted of a bunch of stories I’d read as recently as last night in digests that came out about 20 years ago.

Do you know what five dollars bought me when I was young, walkin’ to school uphill both ways, Archie comics? Several new digests with a balanced amount of new and recycled stories to keep me entertained plus some penny candies.

Maybe Betty and Veronica don’t need a new look to entice new and old readers into the fold so much as they need a content overhaul with a fair price smacked on the cover.

$4.39.

I’m just sayin’.

And when did the covers get so flimsy?! When I was young, I could use Archie comics as a shield against the rain, a coaster for my beverages and a baseball in the neighbourhood ball games if we happened not to have an actual baseball on hand and they came out of it looking and feeling better than they did when I bought them.

Anyway.

So. The new Betty and Veronica.

After reading Jughead utter the words, “YO, WASSUP DAWG,” in a relatively new digest, I suggested in a previous entry the quality of Archie comics had been so compromised, this makeover business wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen to Riverdale.

As is often the case in my life, I was right.

But I have to say if the new look does stick, I’d really love if some minor adjustments were made to Betty and Veronica’s over-exaggerated assets. Like, let all the air out of their chests and maybe put it in their waists, for starters. When I’m settling down to read an Archie story, I don’t need to be reminded of those booklets the Body Shop released back in the day informing me if Barbie was an actual person, she wouldn’t have her periods because she was so damn malnourished and ill-proportioned and yet this was the first thing I thought of when I saw Betty on page 3.

Or perhaps Archie comics have gone this route to remind me to campaign against unrealistic beauty standards in some kind of reverse psychological activism approach or something?

Betty and Veronica certainly look the five dollars they cost, if you get what I’m saying.

And I think you do.

That said, the art is certainly as dynamic and interesting as advertised, but, unfortunately it isn’t supported by dynamic and interesting writing. But it’s still a step-up from “YO WASSUP DOG.” So I’m conflicted about how to give my opinion on it.

It’s better but it’s also been better.

The story opens with Betty info-dumping about her friendship with Veronica and how they both love Archie Andrews crymoancomplain, just before the pair plus Midge head off for the movies. It’s there they meet Nick St. Clair, a silver-tongued bad boy with a goatee who catches Veronica’s eye immediately, despite Betty’s repeated warnings (“I think he’s trouble. He looks like a hood.”).

Besides being the cleanest-cut hood I’ve ever seen, it’s revealed that not only did Nick sneak into the movies–Betty’s reaction to this is so vehemently disapproving even for her that I feel like I missed the part where he said he snuck into the movies while simultaneously doing drugs and robbing a kindly old lady–he got shipped to Riverdale to live with his Aunt and Uncle because he was running with a bad crowd back home. Also, he owns a bad-ass motorcycle. Betty suspects he is a murderer.

Which makes him all the more attractive to Veronica.

True to the Veronica we know and love, she ditches her friends and goes for a spin on the bad-ass bike. Betty and Midge do The Right Thing by going home to Mr. Lodge and tattling. Mr. Lodge develops a newfound appreciation for Archie and forbids Veronica to ever see Nick the Clean-Cut Hood again.

… Which makes him all the more attractive to Veronica.

Alone with Betty and Midge, Veronica gushes about how hot Nick is and if she had to choose between him and New Archie, she’d totally choose Nick. Judging by the look of New Archie, who doesn’t make an appearance in this issue, I can’t say I blame her. Midge helpfully points out the perks of Veronica giving up on Archie to Betty, as if Betty hadn’t figured them out five seconds earlier.

Betty is then left in a prickly TO BE CONTINUED position.

In the face of “YO WASSUP DAWG” there is something admittedly fresh about the writing. And yet, it can be altogether lame. At times it seems like Melanie Morgan felt like she was upholding the integrity of the comics and characters by having New Betty spew things like, “In Riverdale, we don’t ditch our friends just to take a joy ride with a smooth-talking stranger,” but even Old Betty never said anything so stale.

No, seriously.

And that’s where the new format fails. There is a clear understanding of the functions the girls serve in the Archie Universe, but it’s almost been pared down to the point that they’re parodies of themselves and have no choice but to act autonomously of each other. Betty and Veronica (and Archie, Jughead, et al) are way more entertaining when they’re acting, reacting and interacting. I didn’t see that here. When Betty spends 99% of the story telling Veronica how freaked out she is about Nick the Hood and later Veronica’s all, “Why didn’t you tell me you were worried?” There’s a problem. Sure, Veronica’s self-absorbed… but I didn’t get the impression she was self-absorbed so much as I did that she was deaf and needed a hearing aid. Talk to each other, dangnabit! It’s more interesting that way!

So basically, it was kinda flat.

Of course, how much can I reasonably expect in the first of a four-part story? There’s a lot of establishing going on here and that’s fair, and as I said, it’s better than the usual but it’s not better than it’s been. People might get swept away with the new format at present as it distracts from weak writing–not only here but in all of the recent comics–but as soon as the sparkle is gone, there’s nothing to fall back on.

So I hope the next three issues get better. If they do, there’s the seed of something good here and I can totally see myself enjoying New Betty and Veronica and even wanting them to pop up regularly.

Just so long as it’s not at the expense of Old Betty and Veronica. If that’s the case, forget it, bitches. I’m out.

What I really miss are the stories from the 40′s to the 60′s. The 70′s were okay, the 80′s to the mid-90′s had some incredible high points and I enjoyed those too, but the older comics were Total Wow. The writing back then was on–witty, biting, wholesome (but not always!), sarcastic and the group dynamic was F’n A. We’re talkin’ three dimensional characters who played off of one another, spit out fantastic one-liners and had interesting plots. The stories often featured a wicked sense of humour and fun that would make you LOL.

Dorky Archie fans like myself know what I’m talking about but for those who are not, let me put it this way: you could take the script of a story from the time Veronica had the bob and Betty had the poof of curls trailing behind her head, not change a damn word of it, give it to New Betty and Veronica and you’d probably think they were REALLY onto something and this makeover business marked the beginning of a Golden Age because that is how strong the comic was back then.

Seriously. If you read an Archie story from that period, I guarantee you’ll be surprised at how timeless and sharp the writing is.

And then you will be sad about how dated and dull it is now.

And then you will look at how much those awesome old Archie books cost and you will probably CRY.

Condensed review:
Has promise. Too expensive. Cry.

Even still, I’d like to drive a couple points home:

It’s illegal to hunt the whitecoat harp seal pups (as well as hooded seal pups). Manipulative, extremist organisations like PETA–they kill animals, by the way–who use the whitecoat as their mascot in their fight against the hunt don’t want you to know this since their platform relies heavily on what we call, in technical terms, The Cuteness Factor. The Cuteness Factor is essential in getting people in a wedgieful uproar. You will note that trees and the ozone layer are not nearly as cute as the whitecoat harp seal pup and that is why we keep destroying both.

The maritimes are what we in Canada classically refer to as ‘Have Not’ provinces, and anyone who doesn’t know the economic realities in Eastern Canada before they decry the seal hunt should really check them out. The Myths and Realities page says it better than I can: “Seals are a significant source of income for individual sealers and thousands of families.”

And how annoying was it when Paul McCartney and Heather Mills stopped by for that photo-op with the protected whitecoat seal pup? Here we have two people who could easily supplement the source of income they’re so eager to take away from Canadians who genuinely need it without suggesting alternative sources while at the same time spreading misinformation and propaganda to boot.

Not cool.

So before you let your underwear wedgify itself over this, thereby pissing you off, please work hard to inform yourself of the facts about the Seal Hunt from an unbiased source. Every time an uninformed mouth spouts off about the travesties of the hunt while holding up a picture of a whitecoat harp seal pup, an informed person gets their knickers in a twist, so what we have here are two groups of people rendered horribly uncomfortable by their wedgies and that is how wars get started.

So do your part for a Wedgie Free World today.

That is all.

Further reading: CBC’s Seal Hunt In Depth.

Needless to say, I am a fan.

And, like most fans, I was appalled at the news of Betty and Veronica’s makeover. Appalled! What would happen to Jughead? That nose wouldn’t translate well for the new realistic art direction! Where were Archie’s crazy thick black eyebrows and checked red hair? And Reggie–okay, I bet Reggie got pretty hot, but still. My overall frame of mind was makeover, bad! Bad! No!! I felt certain that this move would kill the integrity of the series.

And then I got my hands on a new(ish) digest and discovered that you can’t kill what’s ALREADY DEAD.

Yeah, that’s right.

With so many Archie books at my disposal, I haven’t bought a new digest in oh, about a 100 years (I suppose you could argue how much of a fan I am with that knowledge, but oh well). It’s not because I don’t want to, but because, as the digests got skinnier and more expensive, I couldn’t justify spending the money I needed for uh, Jason Vorhees boxsets, just to find out what the gang was up to in the noughties.

But now, thanks to the recent digest I got my hands on, I know.

What has happened to Archie?! The trademark look remains but the quality of the new stories SUCK. As much as it pains me to say it–and it really does–the drawings seem rushed and uninspired and the writing even more so. When Jughead said, basically, “WASSUP DAWG, YO”–no, seriously–in the first new story of that newish digest, I wanted to gouge my eyeballs out with a pen. Wry, witty Jughead? What happened to you? Wassup dawg, yo? Nothing against it or anything, but… coming out of Jughead’s mouth?

It got more alarming. There were no vestiges of the sometimes surprisingly clever teens I enjoyed reading about in my youth. None! Even Cheryl Blossom, evil, manipulative, Satan incarnate, wish they’d skipped the whole Love Showdown CHERYL BLOSSOM has downgraded! She wore a strangely not indecent outfit and now owns a dog she can fit inside of her handbag! And she and her handbag dog challenged Jughead and Hot Dog in a dogsled competition! And when she bested Jughead and Hot Dog in said competition, she did it without half the haughtiness and overconfidence she had when besting Townies for stuff in the past. Sadly, it didn’t get any better from there. I got to a point where I started asking myself, who are these people?!

Man, remember the good old days? Remember when Jughead found that pin that made him incredibly desireable to the opposite sex, gave him a chin-cleft and… he liked it? Remember when Betty and Reggie used to team up using underhanded sneaky tactics to win Archie and Veronica’s love respectively? Remember when Archie put his old noggin’ to good use in times of peril and saved Riverdale about… 6,000 times? Or when Jason Blossom nearly killed Veronica in a high-speed chase from the Riverdale Police (“Just look for a snob on a skateboard?”)? Remember when Archie and Ethel went on a fantastic date together and… he liked it? Remember when Jughead told Betty if “the time should come” that he ever “willingly kiss a girl” it would be her?

Or remember when Chuck and Archie happened upon a Mysterious Stranger who reversed Riverdale, which then became the town of ELADREVIR and Veronica and Reggie became do-gooders, Archie, Chuck and Betty were evil and Jughead became a food-hating sex fiend (I would say “womanizer” but to me that implies a certain amount of charisma and in one panel he’s grabbing some girl by the waist going “GROWF!”) and the spell is broken when Chuck and Archie figure out that Eladrevir spelled backwards is–gasp–Riverdale?!

Me too! And guess what.

Those days are gone.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is that this makeover business isn’t the worst thing that could happen to Archie’s world because… I think the worst has already happened.

And it’s WASSUP. DAWG. YO.

Dear Archie comics,
I only say these things because I heart you.