cat manga courtesy of Dark Horse’s What’s Michael? by Makoto Kobayashi.

Last night at the Ogle Gallery, Baker’s Mark Literary Agency and Bowler Hat Comics threw a benefit for Friends of the Library and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF), called Librarians “Get” Graphic. The event’s objective (other than raising money for two great organizations) was to bring together comics industry folk and Multnomah County librarians: As the popularity of comics grows, so does the demand for them in libraries, presenting a new set of challenges (and opportunities) for librarians. Reading Comic author Douglas Wolk and CBLDF Executive Director Charles Brownstein spoke at the event; read my notes on their speeches after the jump!

Charles Brownstein from the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund spoke first, talking about how in the past few years, comics and graphic novels have "turned the corner from being an obscure and maligned art form" to one with an increasingly broad mainstream appeal. This poses a challenge for librarians, who are called upon to both provide more material and to address concerns that adults might have about the appropriateness of that material; he then went on to talk about a recent Rome, Georgia legal case, wherein a comic book retailer was prosecuted for allegedly distributing pornographic material to minors (in the form of a comic about cubism which featured an image of a naked Pablo Picasso). After over three years and $100,000 in legal costs, all charges were recently dismissed: "A simple mistake took three and a half years of this man's life. It took an art comic about the birth of Cubism as a work of pornography," said Brownstein. He went on to note that "as the hunger for the medium grows stronger, these challenges are going to become more frequent." The services that the CBLDF are here to provide, he said, include support for librarians when these challenges arise. "Nobody should go to jail for comic books," and it's up to the people who loves comics to "put our heads together to figure out the best way to present them to the community at large."

Big round of applause. Next up, Douglas Wolk, who first noted that he noticed that the crowd wasn't doing much mingling. Librarians and creators need to "talk to each other's cliques," he said. "What I'm going to talk about is why you need to associate with each other."

Libraries are a potentially huge market for comic publishers, he explained, mentioning that when Jeff Lemire's Top Shelf-published Essex Tales won the American Library Association's "Alex Award," which recognizes adult books with a specific teen appeal, the book promptly sold 10,000 copies to libraries—that's a pretty significant boost in the indie publishing world.

There's a "ravenous demand" for good comics (graphic novel sales have quadrupled since 2001) and "this is where libraries come in." He quoted the publisher of DC comics at recent panel, who observed that the best case scenario for comics right now is that they become as ubiquitous as they are in Japan; worst case scenario, "they just keep getting bigger. Shelves are only going to get higher, the only question is 'how high.'"

Certain markets are starving for good comics, particularly "what some people call the 'less literate audience': kids." The kids really want books about robots. And ninjas. And princesses." He encouraged creators to get to work on a robot/ninja/princess comic.

Some great prizes were raffled off, including loads of autographed comics; not sure how much they ultimately raised; I'll update when I hear back.