Announcement: A blog is born

Recently, I became aware of a hole in the blogosphere: Nobody seemed to be blogging regularly about children’s comics. I mentioned this to a couple of like-minded folks, and the next thing I knew, Word Balloons was born. Unlike MangaBlog, this is not a solo effort; our opening group of contributors includes super-librarian and former Eisner judge [UPDATE: and current Eisner nominee!] Robin Brenner, PopCultureShock’s Manga Recon blogger Kate Dacey, Manga Xanadu blogger Lori Henderson, school media specialist Esther Keller, Diamond Comics Distributor’s Janna Morishima, webcomicker and blogger Jason Sigler, librarian and MangaCast reviewer (and current Eisner judge) Eva Volin, and teen librarian and Manga Jouhou reviewer Snow Wildsmith. Dan Hess, the talented creator of Angel Moxie and Realms of Ishikaze, was kind enough to draw the header image, and J. Dee Dupuy handled design (and was very patient about it, too). Word Balloons will go beyond manga to cover kids’ comics in all their glory, including classy graphic novels, cheap and garish floppies, and even webcomics. We have started out with a review of a Tiger Moth comic and an interview with Jerzy Drozd of Sugary Serials, and there’s lots more on the way, so come on down and check it out!