With so many bloggers shaking their cyber-fists at the latest suggestive cover or PVC statue to emerge from the DC/Marvelverse, I was pleased to discover, via John Jakala’s blog, a more positive, action-oriented group of bloggers calling themselves P.O.W.E.R. in Comics. The acronym stands for Promoting: Ownership, Writing and Drawing, Editing and Reading. As the group’s mission statement explicitly states, the goal of P.O.W.E.R. in Comics is not simply to catalog every offense against female or minority characters, but to organize like-minded readers into meaningful action:

This community is a positive one, where people can share ideas on how to increase the activity of women and minorities in the comic book industry rather than just complain about how it hasn’t happened yet.

This community is one of sharing, where creators can help those looking to become creators attain their goals and where artists and writers can find each other and team up; also where creators can come to promote their works. Here blogers can post links to their blogs dealing with issues important to POWER members. Here artists and writers can post samples and get opinions. Here podcasters and video makers can post segments to get reviews, opinions, and support.

This is a community of networking, where creators can find publishers, where publishers can find retailers, where readers can find stores and items they might enjoy.

This is a grass-roots community, where people can share their ideas and experiences about getting comics into new communities and share letters, press releases, and blogs about not just what’s wrong with the comic book community, but how to fix it.

Yes, the manifesto is earnest, but I think that P.O.W.E.R. has its head in the right place. Too much energy has been wasted on dissecting the Heroes for Hentai and MJ Watson controversies already. So if you’d like to see comics that move beyond the cliches and visual tropes that anger so many of us, stop grumbling and join P.O.W.E.R. Help organize a letter writing campaign or a comic book drive. Promote great books like Aya, The Dreaming, and Fun Home. Build a database of independent comic book stores. Pester your local newspaper editor to run reviews of graphic novels. Mail a sports bra to an artist who doesn’t quite grasp the effect of gravity on an ample bosom.

One simple and easy thing you can do right now: post the following list of graphic novels/comics/manga created by female and minority artists. (If Erin or I have reviewed the book in a recent Manga Recon column, a link to the review has been included.) Buy these books. Talk up your favorites in your blog, and encourage others to do so as well. As my fellow PCS blogger Guy LeCharles Gonzalez likes to say, “Free time is a precious thing. Don’t waste it reading bad comics out of habit!”

RECOMMENDED READING:

• 10, 20, and 30, Morim Kang
• 12 Days, June Kim
• 12 Reasons Why I Love Her, Joelle Jones and Jamie S. Rich
• A Distant Soil, Colleen Doran
• American Born Chinese, Gene Luen Yang
• Antique Bakery, Fumi Yoshinaga
• Aoi House, Shiei and Adam Arnold
• Aya, Margureite Abouet and Clement Oubrerie
• Banana Sunday, Colleen Coover
• Bizenghast, Alice LeGrow
• Blade for Barter, Hai
• Castle Waiting, Linda Medley
• Chicken with Plums, Marjane Satrapi
• Cloud Boy, Rhode Montijo
• Courageous Princess, Rod Espinosa
• Dokebi Bride, Marley
• Dramacon, Svetlana Chmakova
• The Dreaming, Queenie Chan
• East Coast Rising, Becky Cloonan
• Embroideries, Marjane Satrapi
• Emma, Kaoru Mori
• Fairies of Bladderwhack Pond, Debbie Bishop
• Finder, Carla Speed McNeil
• Flower of Life, Fumi Yoshinaga
• Fun Home, Alison Bechdel
• Girl Genius, Kaja and Phil Foglio
• Gloom Cookie, Serena Valentine
• Gray Horses, Hope Larson
• Hopeless Savages, Jan Van Meter and Chynna Clugston-Major
• The House of Sugar, Rebecca Kraatz
• InuYasha, Rumiko Takahashi
• Inverloch, Sarah Ellerton
• Kampung Boy, Lat
• Kat & Mouse, Alex de Campi
• Kekkaishi, Yellow Tanabe
• La Perdida, Jessica Abel
• Maison Ikkoku, Rumiko Takahashi
• Mark of the Succubus, Irene Flores and Ashly Raiti
• Mermaid Saga, Rumiko Takahashi
• Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip, Tove Jansson
• Neotopia, Rod Espinosa
• Off*Beat, Jen Lee Quick
• Our Cancer Year, Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner
• Palomar, Gilbert Hernandez
• Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi
• Ranma ½, Rumiko Takahashi
• Red String, Gina Biggs
• Same Difference and Other Stories, Derek Kirk Kim
• Scary Godmother, Jill Thompson
• Snow Goddess Tales, CLAMP
• Sorcerers & Secretaries, Amy Kim Ganter
• To Terra, Keiko Takemiya
• Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms, Fumiyo Kuono
• Vogelein: Clockwork Faerie, Jane Irwin
• We Are On Our Own, Miriam Katin
• When I’m Old and Other Stories, Gabrielle Bell
• Zapt!, Shannon Denton, Keith Giffen, and Armand Villavert