Once upon a time, I collected comic books. I preferred fantasy comics over superheroes, although one could question my purity — on several levels — thanks to my girl-hood crush on Thor, God of Thunder. Much of the collection didn’t survive the breakup with my college boyfriend, but I do have a stack of E.C. comics that I joke might pay for a year’s college(well, in 1985 dollars), some original art, select Marvel Comics from the 1970s, and the hardcover E.C. library.

Today, I don’t follow comics all that much. When you have teenagers, you do enough chauffeuring that you’re more aware of their pop cultural tastes than you are you own. My kids prefer manga to American comics, they like comedy over drama, and, having come of (kid) age at the advent of Pokemon, they’re far more open to Japanese storytelling than my generation was. Japanese manga caters to teenage girls much better than American comic book publishers anyway, which means my daughter and her posses currently indulge in Hana-Kimi and its forays into crossdressing, and Fruits Basket, which I struggle not to choke on every time I say its grammatically corrupted name.

Once in a while, a bit of generational cross-over occurs when I take her shopping for graphic novels. Sometimes I find some just queer enough to catch my eye. Like Erica Sakurazawa’s Between the Sheets, which focuses on girl-girl attraction, or the possibly outrageous Eerie Queerie where girl invade a young man’s body and mind, which sets up all kinds of same-sex sex romp dominoes. Hell, this cover’s enough to give Jerry Falwell a case of homo heebie jeebies. Volume 4 looks even better — our protagonist Mitsuo only job possibility: French maid.

Shonen-ai? Yeah, of course — but I’m not interested in this stuff for its weightiness. Besides, any culture that gives its teens crows age-appropriate, gender-bending sex romps is OK in my book.

I’m not above more adult fare and when Roger told me about Y: The Last Man — Safeword some months ago, I kept an eye out for the graphic novel compilation. Its post-apocalyptic tale of a last man on earth went a surprising direction with this most recent volume when it incorporated an S/M as therapy theme. DC Comics sure have come a long way since I eschewed the Justice League. Hell, it’s almost enough to make me forsake ol’ Thor.

I’m not about to claim I keep up with graphic novels. I don’t. But I do let things catch my eye — which means I now have three piles of reading — fiction, nonfiction, and graphic novels. Yeesh.