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It's no big secret that comic books are not exactly my favorite genre of literature. Sure, the Spider-Man movies didn't suck, I rather enjoyed The Sandman graphic novels, and I do think The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay was one of the best novels of the last ten years, but by and large, I don't get excited about sequential art, its universes, its characters, or anything that comes out of the comic book universe. Certainly not the way a good number of my friends do.
But when I found out that one of the mainstays of my childhood was getting the graphic-novelization treatment, I had to check it out. From fourth grade through seventh grade, I lived, breathed, ate, and slept Baby-Sitters' Club. I'm sure if you were born between roughly 1978 and 1985, you did too.
All told, I probably read at least the first 50, and all of the Super Specials. New books used to come out at a rate of one per month, and while I was waiting patiently for the next one to be released, I would re-read my favorites. I used to write out my own BSC-style middle-school-minidrama fiction in five-subject spiral notebooks, using four-color pens. I've never loved an author quite as obsessively as I loved Ann M. Martin (and it broke my heart, years later, to realize that all but one or two of these books were ghost-written...well, I was either heart-broken or painfully jealous of these mystery people who got paid to write Baby-Sitters' Club books, one of the two - I'd still write pre-fabbed YA fiction novels for a living if someone offered me the job - AND I'd be awesome at it - hear that, book packagers? Call me!).
So when I learned that Scholastic was re-releasing the novels as graphic novels, I was intrigued enough to track down a copy of the first installment, Kristy's Great Idea. It is, bar none, the cutest thing I've read in ages. Raina Telgemeier's artwork is whimsical and adorable, but she also does a fantastic job of conveying emotions and packing pages full of information into one scene.
A good fifteen years after I last read it, I remembered a frightening number of random, tiny little details that appeared in Kristy's Great Idea (now you know what resides in my head instead of a full list of the British monarchs - perhaps this is the precise bit of information that cost me $13,000 on Jeopardy!), and I have to say, the graphic novel is a painstakingly accurate adaptation of the original. It makes me wish I had cousins or nieces the right age, so I could pass this on to them.
As it stands right now, I was poised to pass it on to Sharon this evening, who is my age and not strictly in the Baby-Sitters' Club demographic either. But I was worried it would get rained on, and being that I don't yet love comics enough to have any of those special plastic baggies, I figured it was better off staying in my apartment.
But when I found out that one of the mainstays of my childhood was getting the graphic-novelization treatment, I had to check it out. From fourth grade through seventh grade, I lived, breathed, ate, and slept Baby-Sitters' Club. I'm sure if you were born between roughly 1978 and 1985, you did too.
All told, I probably read at least the first 50, and all of the Super Specials. New books used to come out at a rate of one per month, and while I was waiting patiently for the next one to be released, I would re-read my favorites. I used to write out my own BSC-style middle-school-minidrama fiction in five-subject spiral notebooks, using four-color pens. I've never loved an author quite as obsessively as I loved Ann M. Martin (and it broke my heart, years later, to realize that all but one or two of these books were ghost-written...well, I was either heart-broken or painfully jealous of these mystery people who got paid to write Baby-Sitters' Club books, one of the two - I'd still write pre-fabbed YA fiction novels for a living if someone offered me the job - AND I'd be awesome at it - hear that, book packagers? Call me!).
So when I learned that Scholastic was re-releasing the novels as graphic novels, I was intrigued enough to track down a copy of the first installment, Kristy's Great Idea. It is, bar none, the cutest thing I've read in ages. Raina Telgemeier's artwork is whimsical and adorable, but she also does a fantastic job of conveying emotions and packing pages full of information into one scene. A good fifteen years after I last read it, I remembered a frightening number of random, tiny little details that appeared in Kristy's Great Idea (now you know what resides in my head instead of a full list of the British monarchs - perhaps this is the precise bit of information that cost me $13,000 on Jeopardy!), and I have to say, the graphic novel is a painstakingly accurate adaptation of the original. It makes me wish I had cousins or nieces the right age, so I could pass this on to them.
As it stands right now, I was poised to pass it on to Sharon this evening, who is my age and not strictly in the Baby-Sitters' Club demographic either. But I was worried it would get rained on, and being that I don't yet love comics enough to have any of those special plastic baggies, I figured it was better off staying in my apartment.
4 Comments:
That's fine. As I told you, I'm perfectly willing to come to your apartment to read it (I'll even wear a mask and special gloves, if necessary).
I read at least 60 of the regular-series books, all of the Super-Specials, and about the first 5 of the "BSC Mysteries" - remember those? What's more, my sister read the Little Sister series, so we were deeply steeped in the BSC-Verse. Deeply. I had a planner. I had the calendars. I may have been a fan club member. I also had (don't know if I still have) episodes of the HBO series on video.
I also read several of Ann M. Martin's non-BSC books, my favorite being Ten Kids, No Pets, which was pretty much a precursor to the Pike family, and got to meet Ann herself at a book signing at my local mall (I think I was only more excited by my first U2 concert).
I'm going to stop now, because this trip down BSC memory lane is starting to frighten me.
I read about the first 50 or 60. My favourite trick was to buy one for a friend's birthday and read it before I gave it to her. I'm sure many of my friends didn't even like BSC.
I had the videos. I had the calendar. I had the boardgame.
... I still have the boardgame.
My favourite was the Super Special, New York, New York, wherein the BSC visits Stacey's Dad for an adventure in New York, and Claudia and Mallory go to art school where none other than the late, great Andy Warhol teaches them to draw. A situation so outlandish it almost counts as Dadaism.
If you like any classic literature, there was an imprint called "Classics Illustrated" that existed for a long time which adapted famous works into comic books. Just FYI.
Bob - Yeah, I had a couple dozen of those when I was a kid. My favorite was the creepy Poe collection.
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