Published: October 09, 2008 09:15 am            

The Comic Book Lady

Huntington man’s film gets great reception at film festivals internationally

Huntington — Kathleen Miller recalls sitting with her friend, Shayne Barker, in a theater, watching a movie during a film festival and pretending that film was one they created.

In time, the two did create a movie that is making the festival circuits and winning some awards.

Barker, 38, describes the film “The Comic Book Lady” as a black comedy about a woman trying to run a business in Appalachian and contenting with dysfunctional customers and living with a dysfunctional husband.

Ironically, Miller is a woman who has run Comic World on Fourth Avenue in Huntington for 28 years and is known by many friends and customers as The Comic Book Lady.

However, the film is completely fictional, both Miller and Barker hasten to add.

“I was a little concerned about people getting me mixed up with the comic book lady in the movie,” she said. “Yes, I run the comic shop and I am called the Comic Book Lady, but the film is fiction. That isn’t me.”

Miller’s involvement with the film grew out of her friendship with Barker.

“I used to work at a record store next door to the comic shop,” he said, adding he visited her store often and they became friends.

“He was always talking about making a film and wanting to be a filmmaker,” she said. “One day, something crazy happened in the store and I jokingly said, ‘I’m putting that in my book, Another Day in the LIfe of the Comic Book Lady.’ He asked if I was really writing a book and I said no.

“One day he said I should make a movie of this and I told him to go right ahead. I never dreamed he would.”

Not only did she encourage him to make the movie, she helped him do it.

“I never would have imagined in a million years that I would not only help make a movie but be in a movie,” Miller, 47, said. Although she has no lines until the end, the Comic Book Lady portrays the Comic Book Lady in the movie, “The Comic Book Lady.”

“The character doesn’t say that much, just reacts to what’s happening around her,” Barker said, explaining she conveys the effects of her environment. “The film is a commentary about what happens to people in a conservative, repressed society. It’s hard to life here and not tow the line in a lot of ways. She’s the product of the people around her. People see her for what she can do for them.”

The task of making a movie might see insurmountable, but Miller said she and Barker took it one step at a time.

Barker, who wrote, produced, directed and edited the movie, also did cinematography and lighting and wrote some of the music. “I had advice and help, but I had to do all the work, even the post-audio cleanup. I didn’t know anything about that. I had to learn it all,” he said, adding Miller was a huge help to him.

“She did all the storyboards and shot lists and setups,” he said. “I could not have lived without it because she was in it and she helped so much.”

While it might have been Barker’s driving ambition to make a movie, for Miller, being involved was a lark.

“It was a lot of hard work, but it was a lot of fun,” Miller said. “I did it just for the fun of it and to prove to him we could do it.”

Much of the movie was shot at Comic World after hours and many of Miller’s regular customers were recruited for roles.

However, there is a famous face in the flick.

American underground comic book writer Harvey Pekar, known for the autobiographical series and the award-winning 2003 film “American Splendor” appeared in the film. Barker met him while visiting a friend in Cleveland.

“I worked up the courage to ask him to be in the film,” he said. “I knew he was visiting the book festival in Huntington. ... he did three scenes and I kept two for the film.”

Barker said while the movie was inspired by his experiences in retail, he was inspired to make a movie by Todd Solondz, director of the 1998 film “Happiness.” Although it’s a dark film about a complex, dysfunctional family, “Happiness” received multiple film festival awards, including the FIPRESCI prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1998 and a Golden Globe nomination.

“It inspired me to believe I could but a film out there that didn’t have a lot of mainstream marketability,” Barker said, stressing many people might find the content of his film offensive or disturbing.

This is the fourth screenplay Barker has written and the first feature film he made, although he previously made some short films.

“The Comic Book Lady” was seen at the International Film Festival in Tamworth, England, where is was nominated for Best American feature. It was seen at the San Antonio Film Festival this year and it won Best Independent Film at a festival in Cleveland. It also was shown at a festival in Augusta, Ga., and it will be shown at a festival in Los Angeles.

It will be shown Oct. 19 at the Huntington Museum of Art, its first showing in West Virginia.

Barker and Miller both said they look forward to attending the screening at the museum.

“Shayne did a really good job,” Miller said. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you you can’t do something. They told him he couldn’t and he did it.”



The film “The Comic Book Lady” will be shown in Grace Rardin Doherty Auditorium at the Huntington Museum of Art at 2 p.m. Oct. 19.

LEE WARD can be reached at lward@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2661.

        

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