three
In camp on Tuesday, they spent most of the time reading and talking about a huge stack of comics and graphic novels Brian and Buzz-Bee had brought in from all over the world. Brian explained that although the terms are used by different people in different ways, “comic books” are generally installments in an ongoing story that may continue for years or even decades. “Graphic novels” are longer and more complex, telling a single story from beginning to end, the way regular novels do, except in comics format.
When her mother asked her, on the way home, what they had done at camp, Vera chose her words carefully.
“We looked at multicultural comics and graphic novels.” Her mother loved things that were multicultural.
But Vera could tell from the way her mother raised her eyebrows that she liked multicultural books, music, and films better than multicultural comics.
On Wednesday, Buzz-Bee said the special thing about comics was that they were made up of pictures in a sequence: that is, the pictures were placed one after the other, in a particular order. Comics tended to be organized in panels or frames on each page with tiny bits of white space between them. Characters talked in speech bubbles. Sound effects were things like WHAMMO! written in big bold letters so you could practically hear and feel the impact the action made in the story just by seeing how the word looked on the page.
Brian passed out a bunch of blank pages with four panels on them. The campers were supposed to decide what dialogue to put inside speech bubbles for each panel and then draw pictures and sound effects to go along with them to tell a story. It was hard but fun, like a puzzle that needs to be solved.
Nolan was the best at making everything fit neatly into each panel. Boogie kept knocking his colored pencils onto the floor and then having to hunt for them under his chair while James snickered. Nixie’s speech bubbles with BOW-WOW and ARF! ARF! in huge letters took up so much space in her panels she had no room left for pictures. Harper acted bored, as if she had already done stuff like this a thousand times before.
Vera was thrilled when she finished her page, with quick sketches of dogs (Nixie had begged her to draw dogs) fitting perfectly into each panel to make a story about a new puppy arriving at Bow-Wow Academy. She did love comics so much!
On Thursday, a guest comic-book artist came to camp. He was young and funny, with a crewcut and a polka-dot bowtie. His drawings were completely different from Brian’s and Buzz-Bee’s: superheroes engaged in mortal combat. Watching him draw was like being in the middle of a battle. Vera didn’t mention that part to her mother. Her mother thought violent comics were the worst comics of all.
On Friday, Brian started off with two announcements.
Next week the campers would begin on their big project for the camp: creating their own original comic book.
Nixie gave Vera a big smile. She leaned over and whispered, “We’ve started ours already!”
It was clear Nixie was still assuming the two of them would be partners. Vera didn’t have an idea of her own yet that she liked better than Nixie’s dog school, but what if she found one between now and then?
Brian’s second announcement was that the grand camp finale would be a field trip to the opening day of a comic-book convention. He called it a comic-con.
“Hundreds of comic-book artists. Thousands of comic-book fans, many in unbelievable costumes. All together in one enormous place for a three-day spectacle,” Brian said. “There’s nothing else in the world like it.”
The library erupted into chaos. Buzz-Bee put her hand in the air to signal everyone to quiet down so Brian could finish talking.
“And,” Brian said, “there’s going to be a chance for kids your age from schools all over the country to display their work, so we’ll be sending in one finished page from each of your comic books. A team of professional comic-book creators will award ribbons to ones they think are especially promising.”
Nixie nudged Vera. “And they’ll think Mistress Barker’s Bow-Wow Academy on Wag-a-Tail Lane is the best comic they’ve ever seen, and they’ll help us get it published, and we’ll make a million dollars, and split it fifty-fifty, and then my parents won’t be able to say we can’t afford a dog!”
Vera had no choice but to return Nixie’s happy grin this time. But what if she made a comic on her own, not with Nixie, and her comic somehow won a prize at the comic-con? Maybe that would make her mother glad she had let Vera do the comics camp. But it already seemed too late to tell Nixie she wanted to work alone.
Buzz-Bee had to raise her hand again to get everyone to settle down. Vera was glad when the library was quiet. She wanted to hear every detail about comic-con.
“Can we miss school to go? So we can be there the whole day?” someone at another table asked.
“No,” Buzz-Bee said. “This is an after-school program, so the trip will have to be after school. We’ll take a bus there as soon as school is dismissed at three and be back in the school parking lot by eight. Parents are welcome to join us, either coming along on the bus or meeting up with us later at the convention center. We’re sending home permission slips for the trip today.”
The mention of permission slips and parents made Vera’s stomach clench in a hard knot. A comic-con definitely didn’t sound like something her mother would consider an enriching activity. But if it was part of the camp, surely her mother would sign the form to let her go. Her mother always supported her participation in school activities.
But this was an after-school activity.
And it wasn’t gymnastics, or piano, or some special math or science thing for gifted students.
It was a comics activity.
The knot in her stomach tightened even more.
“Guess what?” Vera asked at dinner.
She had decided to wait until her mother changed from her financial-planner suit into comfy sweatpants and T-shirt, and the leftover spinach lasagna had been heated up in the microwave. She had set the table without having to be reminded. She had even folded the cloth napkins into pretty triangles and moved the vase of asters from the counter to be a centerpiece.
“What am I supposed to guess?” her mother replied.
Vera took a deep breath. Then she plunged in. “There’s going to be a field trip at the end of comics camp! The coolest trip ever! To a comic-book convention! The teachers gave us the permission slip for it today!” She took it from her lap and laid it next to her mother’s plate. “Here it is!”
And you’re going to sign it, right? But she didn’t ask that. If she didn’t pose it as a question, maybe her mother couldn’t give her the answer she was afraid of hearing.
Her mother swallowed another slow bite of lasagna. It was never a good sign when her mother gave a long pause before saying something.
“Honey,” she said, “I don’t think a comic-con”—Vera was surprised her mother knew what they were called—“is an appropriate trip for someone your age. I saw a story about them once on a news program, and there will be huge crowds of very weird people.”
Vera tried to think of something she could say to convince her mother. “There’s going to be prizes for the best comics by kids.” Her mother had been so proud when Vera placed first for kids eight and under in a piano competition last summer. But maybe her mother wouldn’t think a comics prize was the same thing as a piano prize, or a gymnastics trophy, or a school award for math or science. Besides, if anyone from their camp was going to get a ribbon, it would probably be Harper, who already seemed to know everything there was to know about comics.
“I hate to disappoint you, honey, you know I do,” her mother said. “But I have to do what I think is best.”
Vera knew better than to whine or beg. If there was anything her mother hated, it was whining and begging.
So unless Vera found some other way to change her mother’s mind, which had never happened before in Vera’s entire life, the answer was no.