Learn about Books with Picture Eugene, a woman owned comic bookstore “focuses on a curated stock of new comics and graphic novels, with a particular attention to books that cater to the interests of folks who often feel left out of traditional geek spaces: women, kids, BIPOC and the LGBTQ folks.” We talk about Spider-man’s origin story, the ways this amazing superhero has continued to evolve, the importance of representation in comics, and how people today can relate to the multiverse.
About Guests:
Andréa Gilroy earned her PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Oregon in 2015, with a dissertation focused on the history of comics and their representation of identity. Since then, she has worked as a comics educator, teaching courses at the University of Oregon—where she served as the Interim Director of the Comics & Cartoon Studies Program from 2016 to 2017—and at Portland State University. In addition to her teaching roles, Andréa has co-curated notable exhibits, spoken at numerous conferences and conventions, and served as an Eisner Award judge in 2023. In 2020, she founded Books With Pictures Eugene. She is excited to continue fostering a space that leverages the power of comics and the passion of fans to build community.
Cara: Hello Listeners. My name is Cara Bryton and I’m the Education and Community Engagement coordinator at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts. Welcome to our second season of the Hult Center’s Community Conversation podcast, where we go a little deeper by interviewing community members on subjects related to select performances. All past conversations could be found on the Hult Center’s blog page.
Today I will be talking with Dr. Andréa Gilroy, owner of Books with Pictures Eugene, to discuss representation in comics as it relates to Spider-Man. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, live in concert, will be at the Hult Center on Friday, October 18th at 8pm To begin, I do have to share that my four-year-old is a huge fan of Spider-Man.
And I myself, I’ve never really been a superhero or comic person. However, I did recently come to check out Books with Pictures, new spot in the Fifth Street Market. And I felt so welcomed. It was just, yeah, it really, from the first moment walking in, just felt really good in that space. It was so bright and colorful and welcoming. And I did also have a chance to talk with Andrea and Ray, one of the employees there. And I left with a deeper appreciation for the art form and the importance of Spider-Man. I even purchased a new Spider-Man graphic novel for my kid and we’ve been enjoying reading it together. In addition, I got Spider-Man: Across the Spider -Verse from the Lucky Day shelf at the library. And we watched it as a family and it was just such a beautiful film. And all that to say, I feel like I’m a budding fan of Spider-Man and excited for this conversation. So welcome, Andrea. Thank you for taking the time to speak to me today. So I’m just going to jump in with some questions.
Andréa: Thank you. Thank you so much. I’m thrilled to be here.
Cara: Can you begin by sharing a bit about yourself and how you got into the comic and industry?
Andréa: Yeah, I, Excuse me. I have loved comics since I was a kid. I don’t remember, you know, the first time I read one. I think that it was probably more like Garfield and Calvin and Hobbes collections than say comic books. But I was a little kid who loved to read and loved to draw. And so when I sort of discovered that there was this thing that was both of those things, it was kind of a magical experience. I was about eight to 10 when like the big early 90s kind of boom in comics happened where comics suddenly got like really collectible and hot again for a minute. Superman died and that was a big deal and you know Peter Parker had this whole clone saga thing and this particular storyline is now generally hated by fans probably rightly but as an eight-year-old it was like the most intense and dramatic thing I had ever read in my life. What do you mean there’s two of them and one of them’s real and one of them’s not and yeah. But I kind of fell out of reading comics regularly in high school, but I moved to manga. Manga was a really big deal by the time I was in high school. It was in that sort of first curve of the big manga explosion in the US. And so I was still reading comics, but you I thought I would have corrected somebody if they said you were reading comics. Now I wouldn’t, but then I did.
Cara: Yeah.
Andréa: As sort of time passed again, you know, I had a local comic shop that was really great and in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a shout out to the Vault of Midnight. And by the time I was sort done with college and moving into what I wanted to do and I wanted to go to grad school, I started reading more and different comics, graphic novels that had been created in that time since I wasn’t really paying attention to stuff being made in the US.
Always. And so when I wanted to go to grad school, I did my undergraduate degree in English and a minor in Japanese. And I wanted to study popular culture and particularly kind of the overlaps of American and Japanese popular culture. I applied to a bunch of different schools and I ended up getting accepted and getting a fellowship at the University of Oregon. And when I came here, it turns out that
Dr. Ben Saunders had like adjust within that year or within the year that I arrived started a comics and cartoon studies minor program that he was sort of building. Which I didn’t know. There were other reasons why I had been attracted to the, I was in the comparative literature department, not in the English department. And was really excited to find this out and was thrilled and so lucky to get to work with Dr. Saunders both as a student and a mentor and then to help teach classes in that department as time went on. I graduated with my PhD in 2015, which is…Yeah, it just feels like it must be so much longer ago and also not so long ago. Almost 10 years ago. And was an adjunct for a while. I specialized in comics. What I ended up writing about for my dissertation was about comics and representation and particularly of aspects of identity and how the comics form is particularly apt or skilled for like those kinds of explorations.
I taught some courses here at U of O, I taught some courses at PSU, but after a couple of years of the adjunct grind, I was feeling really frustrated and I loved this teaching, but a lot of the other stuff was just really, really, you know, was kind of wearing on me and it was affecting the way that I felt like I was dealing with my students. And that was like, I gotta, I gotta figure something out. Cause that’s not what I want to do. At the same time, my friend, Katie Pride in Portland had founded her comic shop, Books with Pictures in 2016. And I got to know her pretty well, like the following year.
And so here we are in about 2018, 2019 talking and she mentions sort of importantly, we were at a Janelle Monáe concert because that just feels correct to everything in the scheme of things. Waiting for the show to start. And she says, you know, if I ever opened a second comic shop, I think you should run it. And I think you should run it in Eugene. And I was like, you know, excuse me.
I’ve kind of been thinking about shifting, and I still love comics, and I’ve made all these connections in the comics industry through these years. And so we continue to talk about it. by summer and fall of 2019, we got to putting all the official paperwork together and then opened the shop in March of 2020.
Cara: Dun -dun.
Andréa: Dun, dun, dun, yeah. But we’re still here and we’re still growing and still we just moved as you mentioned into 5th Street Market. We were downtown for about four years before that and You know, it’s not an easy job. It’s not an easy industry Retail in general is always very tricky. But I really do love it and I’ve been having a lot of fun and You know one of the only reasons that we survived opening literally ten days before the COVID shutdowns is because people in the community responded and support us. And that means the world to me. And I take that sort of very seriously. I take that as a real honor. And yeah, so we keep going.
Cara: Wonderful. I love hearing where you’ve been, where you’re going next, and all of this. And congratulations on the new space. It’s lovely. So a follow-up question is, what is your favorite part of this work?
Andréa: My favorite part is definitely interacting with the people who come into the store. Obviously, in any kind of retail, it’s always a fraught experience because you want to be authentic and cool and create a connection, but you’re also selling somebody something. And so there’s this kind of weird thing to it. But the way that like…One, comics come out pretty regularly, so if somebody is collecting a monthly comic, you see them at least once a month, if not more regularly, if they’re in a couple of different series. And you can really build these relationships with folks and figure out what they like and what they don’t like and talk about it and kind of share this sort of mutual fandom. Or somebody comes in and has never read a comic before and you can get them excited about something and make a connection based on other things that they like and then, you know, when that person comes back and is like, that was really great. Like, I loved it. Thanks. Like, what else should I read? Or also like somebody who comes in and likes some weird, obscure thing that you just happen to know about and you get to have this like really beautiful moment of connection I think.
One of the reasons that I love media and that I was an English major and a comparative literature person and all of these things is that like it creates such a space for people to connect that doesn’t necessarily have to be like an intimate and personal thing. You know, it doesn’t have to be like, well, we’re sharing these deep details of our lives, but still creates like a real connection and you can like learn about somebody and and and feel connected to them and understand at least a part of them because of this shared language of some sort of media that you both love. And yeah, it just never gets old, really.
Cara: Yes, I love that. That’s so yeah, I love that for you. I love that for everyone. It’s like find the thing that doesn’t get old, you know, at the end of the day. So I’d love to know a little bit more about your store Books with Pictures. And in that like what are guiding philosophies?
Andréa: Yeah, we sort of sum up everything by saying comics are for everyone. That’s kind of our core guiding philosophy, which can go a couple of different ways, including that there really are comics for everyone, right? There are comics for people who are just getting started reading to people who are you know, long -term, very learned, want things that are really high level and everything in between. That’s not, there’s a notion sometimes I think that comics are for a specific set of people, whether that’s kids or people who like superhero books or something and they’re not, they really are for everyone. But also in the sense that everyone should feel welcome and, and…But also in the sense that everyone should feel welcome in coming into a comic bookstore. There are, as with everything, course, you know, big culture war fights about comics and how they’re changing and all this kind of stuff. And our belief is that no, comics are for everyone. Everyone should be able to feel safe and welcome in a space that specializes in comics and graphic novels. It doesn’t have to be a kind of Big Bang Theory or Simpsons Comic Shop space where if you don’t know enough or if you don’t know the right things or the right names, then, you know, get out of here. We don’t want you. I’m thrilled to be able to show you around or tell you about new things. That’s great. At the same time, like, are you a super detailed hyper nerd? Like, good, let’s nerd out. It’s a good time for everyone. So that’s sort of what guides us. And then like underneath that is a sort of set of how we implement that, which one is that community is very important that we work better together, that it’s when we’re part of the community and the community is part of us, that’s something that’s going to keep us sustained in the long term. That representation matters, that it matters to people to see themselves in stories. And it matters to people to see other kinds of people in stories as well. And we’re also very dedicated in part because of my own background to education. So like, can we help you learn more about comics? Can I help you teach comics? Can I help kids know about comics and comics characters and comics history and all of this cool stuff? And those are sort of how we kind of guide that idea that comics are for everyone.
Cara: Wonderful. Yeah, saw, I’ve been following you on Instagram and I saw that you had like a story time. And I was like, that is great. wish this could come, but I hope you’re still doing that.
Andréa: Yeah. Yeah, we have two. We do one that is hosted by queer Eugene called Rainbow Reads. And then we do one with the shop dog, George. Ray’s puppy is a very good shop dog. And the kids love him. So after much request, we decided to start doing a story time with George as well.
Cara: Awesome, keep them coming. That’s great. Well, we don’t have a ton of time left, so I’d love to shift gears into Spider -Man discussions. So one thing that really spoke to me after talking with Rhae is the idea that Spider -Man is the hero of the people. And specifically talk about Miles Morales as another Superman versus the Peter Parker many of us grew up with. Can you go into more about that in the history of how this character came to be?
Andréa: Yeah, I mean, it’s a fascinating story. And it starts, of course, in 1961 with the original Spider -Man, Peter Parker, as you mentioned, created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. And I think it’s really funny if you go back and read the really early stuff, because that idea of like the nerdy Peter Parker comes through a little stronger. He’s not as funny and clever. He’s kind of a mean nerd in the very early issues. But that kind of changes over time. And relatively shortly, he becomes this kind of wisecracking every man, you know, from a lower income area, has lost his biological parents, has lost one of his adoptive parents, you know, can’t afford going to a good school, even though he’s really smart and all this kind of stuff. So we have that sort of Peter Parker character that becomes very established. And one of the things that I think really endears people to him, because there’s plenty of clever superheroes around and superheroes with tragic backstories, is that he’s sort of always dealing with this question of, is he doing the right thing? Not because he doesn’t think like, it the right thing or not to help people? But because, as he sort of discovers, we see a lot of his personal life, and there’s a lot of fallout in his personal life from the kind of choices that he makes as a superhero, right? Maybe putting his girlfriend in danger, or his aunt in danger, or how is he supposed to like teach and also be a superhero? This is gonna be really hard for him in grad school kind of thing. And so he’s constantly kind of giving up his superhero-ness and then taking it back because he can’t not do it. And so there’s this kind of like anxious compulsion that I think a lot of us probably, if it’s not being a superhero, it’s something that we kind of, we appreciate that. He’s not doubting himself because he’s like some dark guy who, you know, also is some kind of terrible anti-hero who also does bad things. He’s doubting himself because it’s really hard and he doesn’t know what to do or if the right thing is actually the right thing in the long run.
And yeah, he just becomes one of the most beloved characters, I think, in all of superheroes, because he feels very real and very grounded. In the early 2000s, a writer by the name of Brian Bendis, who is Portland-based, actually, is part of a movement in the Marvel comics. So this is now almost 40 years after the original appearance of Peter Parker and many, stories have happened and all sorts of things have changed and how do you keep track of everything that’s happened? Marvel launches this thing called the Ultimate Comics line that sort of retells the stories of their most classic heroes through a more contemporary lens. So it’s a little condensed, it’s a little up to date, you know, you’re looking at newer artists and newer writers. And Bendis takes on Ultimate Spider-Man, which originally is a Peter Parker story.
And it’s very popular. It’s great if you’re a Spider-Man fan. It’s a fantastic sort of retelling of all of those classic stories at a more modern pace and with a more modern voice. And this was quite popular. But in about 2011, they wanted to switch up that line because the condensed modern line was now 11 years old and had its whole own kind of thing.
So there’s an event in which Peter Parker is going to die and somebody else is going to take over his shoes in this ultimate universe. As we sort of get in the Spider-verse, the ultimate universe is a multiverse. It’s a different universe than the main universe. So Peter Parker dying in the ultimate Spider-Man doesn’t mean that Peter Parker is dying in Amazing Spider-Man. Although if you read the news articles at the time, this was not well explained to some people.
But there was an editorial decision based on a couple of factors that whoever replaced Peter Parker should be something a little bit different. And if you talk, if you read interviews with either Brian Bendis or Axel Alonso, who was the editor in chief of Marvel at the time, a couple of the factors were one, in 2008, Barack Obama was elected president, so we had a black president, but there was this much smaller representation of people of color in the superhero roster. Another comic artist called named Mark Bernadin also writes that like in an op-ed piece that like the shifting demographics and reality of New York City is such that like a poor kid born in that part of New York today would not be a white kid, right? He would probably be a black kid or a Latino kid. And that would make more sense for this kind of story.
Someone responds to that saying Donald Glover should be the next Spider -Man, which Donald Glover kind of picks up and plays with, but then it kind of becomes a serious gambit because they’re recasting the Spider-Man movies with Andrew Garfield at the same time, which Brian Bendis, the writer, sees all of this conversation happening and is like, I would actually like to read that story of Donald Glover as Spider-Man.
So all of this kind of coalesces into deciding to create Miles Morales, who is a, his father is black, his mother is Puerto Rican, young kid from New York City. One of the important things I think is that Spider-Man kind of gets aged up and it’s easy to forget that in the very early Spider-Man, he’s a, he’s in like a sophomore in high school. So this brings the Spider-Man back to being very young. Miles is about 13 in the first comic appearance in 2011. And his concerns are different.
You know, both the way that his family is structured, his place in the world, including taking over the mantle from somebody who was very famous and well loved. As we see in the first movie, this is a struggle, but he’s still like a nerdy kid with anxiety who just wants to do what’s right. And as I think that the first movie kind of puts a real note on Into the Spider-Verse, the thing about Spider-Man’s mask is that who he is in real life is always a big question because you don’t know who it is under the mask. It could be anybody. And so why can’t it be anybody? It becomes kind of that response to that. Why can’t we make it somebody who doesn’t look like Peter Parker, who has a different experience? Because once the Spider -Man suit is on, we don’t know. It could be anybody.
And that started the new Miles Morales line of Spider -Man. It has been confusing, and I won’t get into the details of what’s happened since then. He’s currently a vampire. In the comics anyway. But, and now also exists in the same universe as Peter Parker. He’s come back into the main universe through a whole again convoluted series of comic books things. But remains a really popular character.
New characters get created all the time. A lot of them are one -offs or created and forgotten. And I think like really two, two now three characters that have been created since the 2000s that have really actually kept going. One is Miss Marvel and Kamala Khan, Miss Marvel. And then the other was Miles Morales. And I think recently we can say that when Spider-Gwen or Ghost Spider has also kind of taken on that mantle.
Cara: Wow, so much there, thank you. I think for our comic fans out there, especially Spider -Man, there’s just, yeah, so much you just shared, so thank you for going into all of that. it’s all right. It’s like we don’t have enough time. And I know you have a podcast as well, so yeah, maybe that’s something to go on a podcast.
Andréa: I don’t know, people are probably yelling at me for what I left out, but that’s okay. Shout out.
Cara: Yeah, shout out for sure. So on another note, and you did mention Gwen Stacy. So when I prepare for these conversations, I love going down rabbit holes and discovering things I never knew before. And so when I was researching, I was there was conversation basically going around about Gwen Stacy or Ghost Spider, who really plays almost an equal role in Across the Spider -Verse being a trans girl. And although it’s never said outright in the film, there are different clues, including protect trans kids sign in her room, trans flag colors, blue, pink and white in scenes involving her this her spider verse. And yeah, I’m just curious to hear if you’ve heard about this, your thoughts on it. And following up like, what does this say about superheroes and how they’re evolving to be more reflective of our times?
Andréa: Yeah, I have heard this and I remember seeing the conversations around it and I think it’s a really interesting interpretation.
As far as we know in the comics, that’s not the case. For those who don’t know, Gwen Stacy, as a character in the comics, was Peter Parker’s girlfriend before Mary Jane. And she died. She was killed by the Green Goblin. Or technically, it’s actually when Spider-Man tries to save her. He throws out a web to try and save her and her neck snaps.
So he wouldn’t have had to do that if Green Goblin hadn’t thrown her off the bridge. But nonetheless, this is one of the many things that adds to his guilt. So we don’t see much of that because we don’t get much of Peter’s backstory and into the Spider-Verse. But this is who this character is. And so she already exists as this kind of multiversal interesting character in that in her multiverse, she’s the one who gets bit by the Spider, her Peter Parker dies, and she starts sort of dealing with the fallout from that.
So we already have, like we’re playing into this notion of the multiverse and what happens if something just goes slightly differently. And I think that’s, the multiverse is really a fascinating concept. People I think have been asking for a couple of years why we’re suddenly so obsessed with this idea of multiple universes. It’s not just across the Spider-Verse, it’s also in other Marvel stuff and in like everything Everywhere All At Once, for example. And I think like, we are bombarded with a world of so many opportunities and so many possibilities. It is a very fascinating experiment to think, well, what if what I did changed everything? And the multiverse allows us to explore that kind of idea in that on the one hand, might change nothing. Like you are just a cog in a machine. And I think this is one of the things that goes on in the conversations, for example, between Miguel O’Hara and Across the Spider-Verse and in Miles, is that there are things that are going to happen and you can’t change them and there’s nothing you can do about it. But we are at the same point presented with this possibility that everything that you do matters enough that it creates an entirely different universe. And so that really, I think, opens up. I think it’s one of the reasons that people have identified so deeply with the Spider-Verse movies in this particular story.
Because it’s not just the idea that was sort of inherent that we get into the Spider-Verse, that anybody could put on the mask and be Spider -Man. We don’t know. We don’t know anything about who is doing these actions. Anybody can, and anybody can take that choice, make that choice. But then, all right, so what happens when I make my choice? But it allows this sort of infinite possibility of who gets to be that person and what the worlds look like when those people make those choices. How does it change? How is it the same? We don’t know. And some people look at that and get really scared, like Miguel O ‘Hara or lots of people, because they want to protect what they have. And other people look at it and see it as a really freeing possibility of, well, okay, like, let’s see what we can do. Maybe we can. Maybe there’s a universe in which these things that we dream can happen.
So yeah, I think that it makes absolute sense that queer folks and trans folks would identify with these kinds of questions, these kinds of self doubts and questions, you know, particularly I think with questions of identity, like what would happen in the world where I didn’t choose to express myself or become who I see my, who I am. That would be an entirely different world. And it’s just a really valuable metaphor, I think, in our day and age. I love that reading. I think it’s really fun. I think it’s neat. And it’s you know, with all of my proper literary scholar credentials, I think that there’s enough in the text to support that reading.
Cara: Awesome. Wow. You took that in such a different direction. I really appreciate it. you know, the times we live in, I think, I mean, you said it so well. Yeah, how the things we do, like, how do they impact the future and the world?
Andréa: I mean, because part of the superhero fantasy in general, I think for all of humans and why this figure is so impactful for us is that we all feel kind of weak and at the mercy of the world around us. And what if we had the power? It is, you a power fantasy in that way. What if I could do the things that I can’t do? How could I change the world? What would make it right? What would I do? What kind of sacrifices would I make or not be willing to make?
And I think in our world, especially, we are with that all the time because we’re bombarded with all of this information and told how all of our actions are having all of these huge effects that are way beyond anything we could imagine. It doesn’t feel like that, though, right? When we think about microplastics or something, it’s like, I’m just trying to wash my hair. I don’t make the great plastic island in the ocean bigger. And yet somehow, there connected and so we want to imagine a world in which we might have some control over those choices or we might be able to more clearly see the connection between our actions and the world around us and the Spider-Verse movies do it really good they do it really, really good.
Cara: Yeah, So just last question is, so what is the future you would like to see as it relates to the world of comics and superhero culture? If you could, make a change for the future. Yeah, what’s in your multiverse? Yeah.
Andréa: What’s in my multiverse?
I think that we’re on the way. I think that what I would like is to see more people feeling comfortable, more people feeling represented, and more people making comics. It is better than it has ever been in terms of representation and diversity, both in the kinds of comics that get made, who they get made for, who’s making them, who’s represented on the page. But…there’s a backlash. It’s a pattern that I’m sure many people are familiar with from many different media and it’s in comics too. Anytime a new movie or show or a new series comes out that has characters who are queer or women or people of color, there’s this, well, you’re just going woke and et cetera, et cetera. it’s not and I don’t think that it’s actually moving the needle, but it’s very loud. And I think that that can make people feel unwelcome and unsafe. And that’s a real problem. Because characters like Miles Morales are still around. It might be hard to imagine it now because he is so entrenched in our culture. And particularly, I think the Spider-Verse movies made him even more so. But there was a lot of those kinds of arguments happening early in the days of the creation of Miles Morales that, you yo, you’re killing Spider, you’re killing Peter Parker to bring us some new diverse Spider-Man that we don’t want or need. it’s like, well, no, like, first of all, no. And second of all, like you’ve had 56 years of Spider-Man as Peter Parker. Can we have a couple of something different? It’s okay. We’re not taking away the old years. didn’t delete all those comics. They’re still there. So I think just a continued growth in that direction is really, really important because the more people there are to drown out those kinds of, you know, regressive backlashes, the less and less they matter.
Cara: Thank you for that. I hope this comes to be, continues to be. Wonderful.
Andréa: I know if that’s too explicitly political or not, but…
Cara: No, no, it’s okay here. This is a safe space for that. And yeah, just to close out, are there any upcoming events you’d like to share or anything else while we, have you?
Andréa: Yeah, we, we’re kind of always doing stuff at the shop. Our next big, big event is a signing going to be in the end of October, October 30th. The first night of the Haunted Market. We have Casey Gilley and Robin Robinson coming down. They did a book called Goth Parenting, which is really adorable and amazing. They’re going to be signing the book in the store. So that’ll be a lot of fun. But in the meantime, we do regular book clubs. We’ve got one coming up this week that I’m really excited about. And we post all of it on our social media. So you can check out our Instagram or our Facebook page. And we’re trying to always do something. We’ve always got a little something in the coals. So at the very least, just come by and see the shop and take a look and talk with us about what you might be into.
Cara: Absolutely. Even someone like me. Who’s not that into comics…but I was like, this is great. I’m into this. Yeah.
Andréa: Sweet. We gotcha!
Cara: Awesome. Well, thank you again for speaking with me, Andrea. If you are listening, we do hope you come to check out Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse live in concert on October 18th. Tickets are available for purchase on our website, hultcenter.org, or in person at the box office. Thanks again.
