11th Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans

The 11th Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans is up at But Can She Spin? An excellent selection of February's Feminist fan writing for an afternoon's reading.

Unfortunately, we now find ourselves without a twelfth host. Guidelines here. Please email if interested.

Yay!

Dorian links news from Marc Andreyko about Manhunter:

anyway, more good news: we get OBSIDIAN back!!!!!!!!!

Sweet! Andreyko's writing is the first time I've liked the character.

Hopefully, though, he does remain in Justice Society as well as be a regular in Manhunter, because he should be a member of the team his father co-founded.

Where She-Hulk Lost Me.

I already linked an essay and added some thoughts on the direction of She-Hulk but I forgot to add something. When the Eros storyline started I got really irritated by the idea that Slott was retconning a rape into Jennifer's past.

Then, as the storyline went on, it did turn out to be a misunderstanding. That should have eased all that irritation.

It didn't, because the whole context of the storyline was that Eros was on trial for rape when the idea that she might be a victim occurred to She-Hulk. When the resolution came and it was revealed She-Hulk was a misunderstanding, so was the woman who originally filed charge.

Which means we have another fake rape accusation in the pop culture consciousness. In a culture where it already so damned hard to bring a rape to trial because so many people that women are just waiting to make an accusation at the slightest offense. Where I can get into a 45 minute argument at work with men who think that there is actually some sort of gain in going to the police to report a rape, which goes the exact opposite of every statistic and anecdote I've ever heard about it.

This doesn't make anything better. It doesn't make anything better at all.

He should've just left Starfox the fuck alone.

New Frontier Voice-Casting Rumors.

David Boreanez in Justice League: The New Frontier

David Boreanaz is providing the voice of Hal Jordan/Green Lantern in Justice League: The New Frontier, the direct-to-DVD animated movie from Warner Bros, The Continuum has learned.

Boreanaz, 37, is currently playing Agent Seeley Booth on the Fox series Bones. He is probably best known as Angel, a role that began in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and extended into its own series on The WB.

Boreanaz was also featured in 2005's The Crow: Wicked Prayer. He next stars opposite Anne Heche in the independent black comedy, Suffering Man's Charity.

The Continuum has also learned that Brooke Shields will be providing the voice of Carol Ferris in the film, based on the comics series created by Darwyn Cooke.

Shields just last weekend was featured as the voice of the Riddler's girlfriend in Kids' WB!'s The Batman. Shields has dozens of TV and movie credits, including starring in Suddenly Susan and most recently on FX's Nip/Tuck.

According to a representative, Warner Bros. Animation is not currently confirming voice talent for any of the DC direct-to-DVD projects. A panel is scheduled for next week's WonderCon in San Francisco.

(Thanks, Racy!)

She-Hulk

I've been thinking about posting on this, but someone beat me to the punch. Rhy posted a theory about She-Hulk on the Comic Fangirls community:

The writer then got the Thing solo series. Which I also started to read. Ever read a comic by a person who loved the character so much that they sucked at writing them? Er, yeah. After a few issues of Slott fanboying Ben Grimm the series was cancelled. At which point, the tone of She-Hulk started to change.

At first, I attributed it to a sort of corny Eros plot- Jen the attorney, drawing hearts and flowers all over her legal pad during a court proceding and needing her male counterpart to basically cover for her... it made me go mrrr? Yet it worked with that plot and I was like okay. That was dumb, but I get it. Few more issues go by and it gets progressively worse.

Now we are to the point where in the last two issues: (Ones which by the way carry the Banner Planet without a Hulk)

•She-Hulk had to call Doc Samson in the middle of a fight because she couldn't figure out how to get into the guys head on her own. Um... She's an attorney and she needs help arguing?

•This month not only did she need Wolverine to tell her how they are going to win the fight against the Wendigo, she was so distracted by his "nice tight little buttcheeks" that it appears she is more interested in laying Logan than actually doing her job. Then she makes a pass at him and when he turns her down because he "doesn't want Juggernaut's sloppy seconds" rather than being insulted at being described in such a way... she whines, "Why does everyone think I slept with him...." Um wait a damn minute.

First of all since when does She-Hulk, who in Avengers Disassembled, damn near kicked Cap's ass need help from a guy to hold her own in a fight- any fight? Second, what a blatant example of the "if a guy sleeps around he is a stud... but a woman with more than partner in her past is an utter slut." Hell, this makes it look like Jen is so sexually degraded she can't even be honest about her behavior. She has to lie about it.

These aren't the only examples of Slott being blatantly obnoxious toward women- Agent Cheesecake still has me gagging.... I suppose what bothers me the most about this book isn't just the fact that it is so blatant it's that I feel like the tone has changed so dramatically. What started out as a pretty cute, tongue in cheek book that I really like now has the tone of something sort of ugly and it's very disappointing.

I'm not whether to add or respond to this because to tell the truth, this series has simply lost my attention since the Eros storyline. I've been reading (the store owner orders the books based on our lists), but I've lost so much interest I crossed it off my pull-list last visit. I'm not sure if that has to do with the cited examples or if he just lost me with the Eros plot.

Either way, I still want to see a movie (I love the character) and I love my Essentials collection, but I don't really want to read Slott's book anymore. Whatever happened to Slott, I miss what I started reading.

Final Call for Submissions: 11th FSF Carnival

The deadline for the 11th Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans has been extended to February 27th for a March 1st Carnival at But Can She Spin?

Sometimes things can work out nicely.

A few days ago after a decidedly bad day (which I downplayed into the post for comedic effect), I found a post online that surprised me in its stupidity. Rather than rant about my job (the company would not appreciate me complaining about the details of that on a public internet site), I focused my irritation into a rant about the post, and added some exaggeration for entertainment purposes. Even if you agree, there's no point in reading a stream of relentless sarcastic bile unless there's some entertainment value.

There was one joke in the rant that made me pause before I clicked on "Publish."

Her picture is on her site. If anyone sees her at NYCC, please please tape a sign to her back that says something embarrassing, and take a picture for me. I have nothing to reward you with except my laughter. But you get bragging rights.

I read and re-read it, it seemed like something no one reading my blog would actually do. People with the same social agenda as I have a tendancy to stew online and maybe write a letter to an editor. Very few actually speak up during a panel, and if given that chance would rather indulge fannish wishes than ask the please question. Really, if people listened to my rantings, then Judd Winick wouldn't be able to walk into a con without meeting a line of protesters. The DC Panels would be filled with nothing but Green Lantern questions. Quesada's car would have "Turn Wanda Back!" spraypainted in red (Note: Do not actually do this). None of this has happened, so I have a reasonable basis for believing that asking for someone put a sign on the back of an idiot would most likely result in people rolling their eyes when they see her, but no one approaching.

A friend, however, has pointed out that I do ask for letter campaigns, so while its still delusional in the extreme to imagine a massive army at my command, there is the possibility that someone might take me up on this challenge.

This bothered me, and made me think that maybe I shouldn't have posted it at all. I'm thinking about going back and editing in a (Note: Do not actually do this) after the joke. And I was really beginning to think that there was nothing entertaining that could possibly result from it.

Until I saw this:

On the other hand, psychotic hate-laden tirades about such, especially that culminate in solicitations to bodily assault, are indeed something that nearly any of us could justifiably be alarmed about.

I'm not quite at the point where I'm going to start referring to Ragnell as the Ann Coulter/Michelle Malkin of female comics fandom, but she's getting me there.

Now, this is it. I'm tired of repeating myself, so I'm giving notice -- the next member of the Ragnell Revenge Squad who shows up here and talks about how there is no difference between Ragnell's post and mine, or who in any way defends Ragnell's post while continuing to ignore the deeply disturbing and irrefutable fact that she just specifically requested the public humiliation, degradation, and embarrassment of someone she does not know, who has not committed anything remotely like an offensive action against Ragnell or anyone else... well, I will read what you have to say when Blogger forwards it to me, but I've cluttered this comment thread up with enough of that bullshit. I will not continue to do so after this point.

I'm thinking of putting that quote on my sidebar.

Aww...

From an earlier writeup that I missed:

JSA Hippolyta with the JSA? Didio and crew answered, “No…she’s still dead.”

DC, you bums.

Minx at NYCC

From the Minx Panel:

With Carillo were Minx’s founding editor Shelly Bond, as well as writer Cecil Castellucci and artist Jim Rugg of the debut book The Plain Janes.

Discussing the origins of the Minx line, Bond told the audience that three to fours years ago, she “was very inspired” by the numbers of young girls she saw reading manga in the local bookstores, and she wondered what material those girls would have to read when they became young adults. After many discussions inside DC, Minx was created to capture the teenage girls who are looking for “edgy, evocative, fearless plotlines about modern teenagers dealing with modern issues.”

Bond noted that in order to brand Minx, all of the books will be a uniform size, the art will be black and white with graytones, and all titles will be 176 pages. As a bonus, each book will preview upcoming books, and to keep the titles appealing to the budget-strapped young audience, everything will be priced under $10.

Goes into details about The Plain Janes, and mentions in the beginning the main character saved someone's life during a terrorist attack, so we get some heroics I hope.

Also, she answered the complaints about having so few female writers:

Bond confirmed that there will be one book per month until November, and all the titles stand alone, and will be the same price.

When asked why there are not more females creators working on books aimed at female readers, Bond explained that she wanted to get more female contributors, specifically young adult fiction writers like Castellucci. However, at the end of the day, she “bought the material that best represented the intent of the line.” She added that all of the men involved with Minx are known for writing strong female characters, concluding “great writing comes from many different points of view.” Later in the panel, she added that “four female novelists will be working on new Minx books soon.”

Bond also took a moment to give public thanks to Robbin Brosterman, DC’s Senior Art Director, for the beautiful design of the Minx books. All of the books are designed and formatted to be standard mass market paperbacks that will appeal in form and price to what young female readers are already reading.

I'd really like to see this take off (I'm flirting with the idea of pitching story ideas to them). I wonder if we'll see ads for mainstream DC books in the backs of these. It seems like the way to get the Minx target audience interested in the superhero staples at DC.

Still catching up from the last couple days.

Just read about the DC NYCC panel. Petinent facts to people who share my interests:

# After a fan expressed support of the idea of Superman crying, Didio asked the fan to come up and turn the second overturned picture over, revealing a picture of Mary Marvel (the image was split in half) with the caption: "Seduction of the Innocent"

# Dini said that in Countdown, Mary Marvel will go on her heroes journey and some of the connections she makes will be surprising.

# Again talking about scheduling, Didio stressed that they are doing everything they can to pull them back on schedule, especially due to Countdown.

# Didio stopped the questions to note that they've had a change of heart on something - and turned it over to Wayne, who announced that DC will continue to publish Manhunter.

# Asked if some titles in the DCU are not happening in the same universe or timeline, Didio joked, "I wish that was the case" referring to an assortment of continuity glitches and gaffes.

# Didio said that before he left for the convention today, he signed off on issues #5 and #6 of Wonder Woman, and issue #7 is on track, in answer to a question about Wonder Woman's scheduling. Continuing, he said that replacing issue #5 with a story by Will Pfeifer was a hard direction, but one they felt was for the best to get the book back on track.

# Speaking about World War III, editor Pete Tomasi, who was in the audience, said that many of the issues surrounding Supergirl will be handled in the World War III specials.

# Question from a fan - Will there be something like 18 ties in issues with Countdown each month? : Didio: "Nah, you're confusing us with the other guys."

# Didio asked a Flash fan to flip the final picture, revealing "Unto Man Shall Come a Great Disaster" showing Darkseid's head.

Didio asked Dini what Darkseid is doing on the image? "He's looking evil!" Dini replied.

# Will we see Animal Man in his own project coming back from space? Didio: His story in 52 isn't over.

# Who's writing Wonder Woman after Jodi Picoult? Didio: Not allowed to say it yet.

# Plans for Steel? Giffen: "We're going to kill him."

# Is Kyle Rayner dying in Countdown? Dini: No.

# Will Monitors be involved in Countdown? Dini: Yeah.

# Didio confirmed what Allan Heinberg said about his final issue of Wonder Woman - it will be a special issue coming out in the future.

# Asked what DC's commitment to adding characters of diverse races in the DCU is, Giffen deadpanned off-the-cuff but in obvious jest to all attending, "White folk hate it”.

# Will we see Linda Danvers again? Didio: No.

From a different website:

* DiDio said there won't be Teen Titans versions of Green Lantern and Hawkman because those characters are basically members of police forces.

* DiDio on Flash: "It's not as directionless as it seems."

* DiDio went to editors in the crowd when asked about Supergirl. Janine Schafer said that writer Joe Kelly is trying to break down the character before building her up and Peter Tomasi said Supergirl will be in the third issue of World War III.