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Comic books climbing high

The daily reads of Patrick McAuliffe have flourished into a multi-billion dollar entertainment phenomenon.

“I got into comics young, but the super hero movies started when I was young, too,” said McAuliffe, 27, of Orlando.

He has been watching and reading since the trend of comic book movies started lightly in the early 2000s with the 2000 release of X-Men.

“I definitely think some of my interest in comics came from outside media like the Batman cartoon and the original Spider-Man movie,” McAuliffe said.

McAuliffe is one of millions of people who read comics on a semi-regular basis, only to see them suddenly become much more than a light read in 2008 with the release of Iron Man. The movie industry made a total of $2 billion in the United States alone, according to Box Office Mojo, and is on track to keep those numbers up for a long time to come, according to Comicchron.

A 2011 Marvel panel explored the film reboots of popular comic books. Photo courtesy: The Conmunity–Pop Culture Geek.

As a result of this trend, comic books have again become viable after dropping in popularity in the early 2000s. The comic book industry grew 5 percent in 2016 with sales totaling $1.085 billion, no doubt as a result of this ever-expanding movie trend.

This has not only given rise to a popularity spike in mainstream heroes but heroes such as the Guardians of the Galaxy as well who were never household names until their big screen adaptation in 2014, according to the Atlantic.

Which is just one of 107 live action adaptations of comic book properties released since the original Iron Man.

McAuliffe also noted that many of the stories have already been translated to the screen.

“If I think I’ll enjoy a comic arc I’ll read it,” McAuliffe said. “As a result, most of the stories popular enough to make into a movie I’ve already read.”

While the trend may seem like a typically male-centered interest it was discovered that roughly 47 percent of comic book readers are female, according to Comic Beats.

One such reader is Kathryn Golden who “was a fan before the trend started” she explains that “my dad was big into comics so I read his old collection growing up.”

While many of these movies still please crowds there are worries of fatigue with about five new movies of the genre coming out each year.

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Campus arboretum staff brings bees back

flower on campus
A bee lands on a flower outside McKinley Building. By Nick Nimkoff.

WASHINGTON, DC–American University officials are focused on the preservation of bees because of their integral role in the pollination of various plants on campus, which is an arboretum.

The bee population worldwide is dying quickly and the number of dead is only growing with each passing year, according to Bee Informed Partnership, a research consortium. This is due to the use of pesticides on plants which end up killing the bees.

“We are very much aware of the threat to pollinators and as an arboretum always consider this when selecting our plantings,” said Stephanie Destefano, grounds operations coordinator at American University’s arboretum.

For the first time in history humans are faced with a dire challenge concerning insect population, keeping the ever- shrinking bee population alive. The use of pesticide within the farming community has grown more and more concerning over the years for what its side effects entail. The most major side effect of course being the killing of bees.

According to the Bee Informed Partnership, the total loss of bees in 2015-2016 is 44 percent of their population. Which is up from its loss the previous year which they estimated at 3 percent lower, which makes the situation all the more dire for us.

Residents of campus as well as in the Tenleytown area of Washington, D.C. were mixed about their knowledge of bees and colony loss.

“No one realizes how important the bee population is for the future of our planet and our ecosystems,” said Rachel Ussery, 21, a leader of the community garden at American University, about the importance of bees. 

Destefano said the campus is careful in its use of pesticides.

So while the bee population is dying out quickly, some people said they are more and more aware of the risks to bees.

Kylie Cameron, an advocate for the bee population, said, “I will scream if someone tries to kill a bee.”