by Rich Watson

Jimmy Gownley has become one of the top creators of children’s comics this decade with his critically-acclaimed series Amelia Rules. With his new venture, the organization Kids Love Comics (KLC), he has rallied other like-minded creators to the cause of producing and promoting quality children’s comics. In an industry that has increasingly favored adult subject matter in comics historically created for the youth audience, a group like Gownley’s comes at an opportune moment. On March 3, a week after the KLC banner flew at the New York Comic-Con (the first of many stops this year for KLC), Kids Love Comics Day was held in Gownley’s native Harrisburg, PA, to an enthusiastic crowd of families interested in what KLC had to offer.

In a 2004 interview with me at Comic World News, Gownley outlined, for the first time, the genesis of his plan for what would eventually become KLC. Through Amelia, he arranged a fund-raiser in which he offered original art, signed comics, and other material. Then, through a partnership with all-ages publisher Harold Buchholz, the groundwork was laid out. “[O]ne of the first ideas we came up with was we wanna partner with an existing online retailer, a big established online retailer, and essentially have a website that’s a part of their website that’s just kids comics, that you could order from,” said Gownley in 2004. “So if you could place an order of four different books that are published by four different publishers, you wouldn’t have to track four different orders. It would all come from this one place, it would be reputable, it would be able to be kept in stock, and that way, when we do interviews like this – and we’re gonna try to get a lot more media attention in terms of radio, television, newspapers – we’ll be able to say, go to this site, and all these comics are available. And also we’ll be able to give recommendations, free samples of the books to read, and also an age guideline.”

He had also discussed setting in motion the events that would inspire KLC Day and the KLC tour. “[W]hat I am planning on doing is, by the end of the summer, having a kind of creators summit here in Harrisburg where I live, where we could spend one day talking about the goals, brainstorming about what we need to do, maybe have some guest speakers come in from the media, from the bookselling outlets, so we can all pool our resources and talk about our different successes… [W]e’ve never been able to all pull together and learn from each other. So I wanna have a day of all of that, and then the second thing [would be to] develop an action plan, where we can put our plan together and get the website going and the publicity machine going. Also, alternately, I think we’d like to do a book tour sort of based on the Spirits of Independence model which Dave Sim did in the ‘90’s.”

KLC Day was held at the Whitaker Center, a science and arts cultural center on Market Street. The event took up parts of two floors, mostly inside the Kunkel Gallery on the second floor, a small but spacious area which contained a smaller room towards the rear for workshops. In attendance, besides Gownley and Buchholz, were Buzzboy’s John Gallagher, Jane Smith-Fisher of WJHC, and Nickelodeon Magazine cartoonist Todd Webb. There were two tables hear the front entrance, one for meeting and greeting the creators, and one for buying their respective comics and trade paperbacks. Lining two sides of the gallery, overlooking the lobby below, were easels with original art from Amelia and Buzzboy. The creators took part in various workshops during the day designed to teach kids and adults the nuts and bolts of creating comics, as well as the history.

I sat in on one of Gallagher’s lectures, which had a packed audience. His subject was how to make superhero comics. He provided a condensed history of the medium, which included the self-publisher movement in the 80’s and the current manga explosion. He also broke down, in stages, the process by which he and inker Rich Faber create Buzzboy. The overwhelming majority of the questions asked were by the kids, who looked attentive and already had a basic understanding of many of the principles Gallagher espoused.

In talking with him at the event, Gownley was clearly thrilled at the reception KLC Day received. “It’s been amazing. First off, it’s unbelievable that the Whitaker Center would open this opportunity up for us and to work so closely with us, and that’s been great. The media reception has been terrific – ABC, CBS, FOX, all locally, did pre-stories. Two articles in the Patriot News, the Harrisburg newspaper; articles in the Gettysburg newspaper, the Carlisle newspaper – a tremendous amount of interest from the get-go. And then to see the town, the community come out and support us has just been amazing. Really gratifying.”

He talked about how his wife Karen, who normally does the marketing for Amelia, worked with the Whitaker Center to send out mass e-mails, press kits, posters, and other such promotional material. Among his own promotional work included a half-hour appearance on Radio Disney Philadelphia.

Gownley stated that the KLC crew would appear collectively at other shows throughout the year in addition to the previous week’s New York Comic-Con, including Comic-Con International and Book Expo America. Also, similar KLC Days in other cities are a possibility. “We don’t have anything in stone yet, but we have interest in two groups – one in the Midwest, one in the far west – and the idea is to take it on the road pretty heavily through 2008. So if anybody else wants to get involved and work with us to put one in their town, they could just contact me through AmeliaRules.com, or contact us through KidsLoveComics.com. Even if it’s a creator in a specific town who sort of feels alone and is doing an all-ages comic and wants to do something like this, they can totally call or e-mail me and we can work to set something up.”

Overall, Gownley felt a sense of vindication at seeing youngsters take an interest in comics, despite what the conventional wisdom says. “The amazing thing about it is – and this proves my point that kids love comics; I don’t ever want to hear it again on a message board or a chat group or anything like that – kids love comics, and they succeed when you put them in a venue that they’re willing to enter. This is not about the Spider-Man movie. This is not about the X-Men, this is not about Penthouse models or anything else, this is just comics for kids in a non-comic-book-stereotypical environment, and people came out in droves.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 6th, 2007 at 6:37 pm and is filed under Conventions, Events, Independent, News & Views, Organizations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.