This one amuses me.

In the comments of my latest linking rant, Dan had this to say:

The internet is a public place. It certainly is. Most of us are aware of that. It is a fantastically open marketplace where ideas can battle against other ideas.

And you know what? Posting for the sole purpose of mocking another person probably is low and messed up. It might be funny. You might enjoy it. But that doesn't make it anything other than low. You are deriving humor by mocking someone else.

At this point I have to point out the rank hypocrisy of your post, however. Your point that the internet is a public place and people can say WHATEVER they want is well taken. Then, promptly, however you tell other people what they cannot say (in your words, "don't make generalizations about "Bloggers.")

Doubtless, then, you are a hypocrite.

Oh and points for reading comprehension. Go back and reread that thread you graciously aren't linking to. It is the professed "blogger" who made that generalization, not the professed "livejournaler." But perhaps you were too busy making a generalization to realize that.

You are "downright sick" of it? Downright sick? Well then I guess we should all stop right? Because you are sick. But if anyone else says they don't like being linked too (and that is what they said--fundamentally different that saying that bloggers should quit doing it), they should suck it up because you do like it? Please.

I don't expect this post to last long, because I know the internet isn't that open a space. And I know that people like to bitch at others without being bitched at themselves. But, when you delete this entry, please do me a favor and go back and reread that thread.

Sir, I'll not only not delete your comment, I'll repost it here to be fully appreciated by the audience.

I propose a "Guess what sort of foreign object is stuck up Dan's butt" contest.

Friday Night Fights Returns!

(Like I'd miss this)

(More JLA#10 Spoilers. You are not safe from them anywhere.)

Daniel has one more reason that I hate Brad Meltzer's writing and want him off the Justice League of America now.

That writer spent most of the first issue on a game of Capture the Fucking Flag, and he couldn't make time to acknowledged those three characters in the last issue.

A single fucking panel where the one character who knows (for sure) who they all are introduces them to others. "Hi, this is..." That's all. Or if he's too wobbly-brained, have a panel where the other characters ask about them. "Holy cow, is that who I think it is? Look how they've grown!" Something like that.

You can't tell me that with all the padding in this book there wasn't something that could be cut in order to do that.

Mark Waid would've had them introduced the panel after the hug.

Geoff Johns would've had them introduced the panel after the hug.

This guy doesn't bother. They are there in the art only so that when Waid starts writing he'll have them to play with.

Public Service Announcement

The Internet is largely public. If you post in a public place, and are linked and mocked in another place, then it perfectly within the rights of the linker to mock you.

Its not their right to harass you, threaten you, or send a slew of trolls to your own website, but if the matter consists solely of linking and mocking, its hardly "really low" or "messed up."

If you get linked to on When Fangirls Attack, and then linked on another blog and mocked, the linking and mocking is not "the lowest of the low." Yes, sending trolls is low. Yes, some insults are stupid. However, a lot of different opinions are linked on WFA and it is read by people from various sides of the political spectrum. Linking and mocking will occur.

Bear in mind that the vast majority of the blogosphere is people linking other people, often for mockery. And if you were linked and mocked for linking and mocking someone's interview or point of view, they're pretty much doing the same to you as you did to them and it makes you particularly annoying and silly to the neutral onlooker. That's the Blogosphere. Its the wild.

Defend yourself, by all means. Ignore them, by all means. Express your personal opinions about their parentage, by all means. If you get trolled, lock down you blog if you must. If you get threatened, Complain if their mocking specifically called for people to troll you. Argue back, retreat, whatever you must. But don't make generalizations about "Bloggers" (Especially if you are one, and if you have a livejournal, you are one too. Deal with it) and don't make bitter statements about them linking public posts.

I say this without naming names or linking what brought this about because I've seen more than enough complaints over people being linked and I'm downright sick of people posting in a public place and then complaining they were linked in an unfavorable manner. (Or, in the case of one fucking idiot, a completely neutral manner.) You think I haven't been called crazy, or creepy, or stupid, or had a post fisked?

Guess what, that's their right to do (even if they are wrong) and I do the same damned thing on this blog all the time. If I'm not being threatened or trolled, who the fuck cares if they make fun of me in their own private part of the internet? I have mine to mock them from.

Lock it up if you don't want anyone who disagrees reading.

Finished Flash and JLA

I am purposefully spoiling both for my sister here.

The writing was dreadful, and I can see where a lot of people will be pissed but I'm not. From my POV, they just fixed something that was wrong. I'm extremely satisfied with the ending and will enjoy seeing what Waid and McDuffie do with the results.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to do my "I Told You So" dance.

My sister will know what I mean.

Big surprise there.

You Should Be a Science Fiction Writer

Your ideas are very strange, and people often wonder what planet you're from. And while you may have some problems being "normal," you'll have no problems writing sci-fi. Whether it's epic films, important novels, or vivid comics... Your own little universe could leave an important mark on the world!

What Type of Writer Should You Be?

Thoughts?

Okay, I was going to take a break from Comic Book Issues Blogging and just fanblog Green Lantern until the Sinestro Corps special comes out next week but I wanted to see what other people thought of this guy's comment policy:

Allow me to show you something, Angryrantgirl.

You have just claimed that I am not allowed to hold an opinion on something. For, and let's not blow smoke up my bum here, the simple reason that it doesn't match yours.

I have deleted your comment, and I have locked this post to keep you from commenting again.

This is actual oppression. I'm not allowing you to voice an opinion. This is a real reason to get angry, not the thong of an imaginary person.

Now, go get some sort of perspective in your life.

My, my...

Looks like Pedro was on the right track. Check out what Kalinara saw when she checked the official website solicit for Tales of the Sinestro Corps Presents Parallax:

Written by Ron Marz; Art by Adriana Melo and Marlo Alquiza; Cover by Mike McKone and Andy Lanning

Get ready for a new series of specials focusing on members of the Sinestro Corps and tying into the "Sinestro Corps War" crossover!

DC Universe | 32pg. | Color | $2.99 US

On Sale September 19, 2007

That's it. The solicit they gave everyone else is not up there. The plot thickens and I only have one more week to guess what in the Sinestro Corps special is supposed to piss Kyle fans off so badly. I really should know better than to believe press releases for Green Lantern storylines. (And interviews, for that matter).

Still, half the fun of serialized fiction for me is playing detective and seeing how much of the story I can figure out in advance. (Yes, I am the type of fan they are thinking of when they make sure to drop these lies.) If I enjoy the comics more than what I've come up with myself, I consider it a success.

And now, to daydream.

Remember this guy?

“Now Hal Jordan is the ultimate Green Lantern,” Reynolds admits, “but my favorite is John Stewart. I believe that it really is about time for a black, traditional, All-American hero and Stewart represents that.

“He’s gone through everything from being paralyzed to being healed, to being placed in charge of it all, to patrolling 2814. He’s gone through everything. But when you look at his back story as far as where he comes from., how he grew up, that he’s an architect by trade, I think it’s very interesting to think that someone like him was given the ability to just about anything they want with their mind. I also think it’s interesting that he has such a creative mind to begin with. I love the whole idea that the combination of will and determination being the link to his abilities. So I think he would be a really interesting character to bring to the screen, and I’m working hard to make it happen.”

You read that right. Reynolds is currently hard at work on obtaining the rights to DC’s Green Lantern franchise. Ambitious, even for an actor who’s only truly starting to get his first true taste of national exposure. Then again, we’re also talking about one huge comic book fan here; one who is actually working for a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Stranger things have happened in Hollywood, and some have even worked out.

Kevin Melrose found a followup on that one.

It’s funny you mention that. I just finished the script; it is done. I wrote it myself. A motion picture – full-length, full action – and now we are beginning the pitch process. I’m very optimistic. I’ll leave it at that. I think that the people that I have in my camp at Warner Bros. are interested in cultivating some of my creativity.

This is my first time writing a script by myself, from start to finish, and I got the thumbs up from them. As a matter of fact, after they read it they told me that it was, in fact, “ready.” It’s something that I really want to do. I hate to put numbers on things…but I’d like to see a 2010 [release]. It’s three films, and the first one is titled “Green Lantern: Birth of a Hero.”…This would be no small task. This will be a huge undertaking. It’ll be a huge undertaking just to keep myself attached to [be the] star, if the script gets green-lit. But my whole life has been obstacles that a lot of people told me were insurmountable.

Oh, and if anyone here makes the same continuity error as this Blog@ Commenter, they are getting laughed off the blog.

From the Department of Twisted Fan Ideas

Okay, since Kalinara brought it up and bugged me to post it, here's the scenario I laid out for her when I heard the setup for Countdown Presents The Search For Ray Palmer. When I heard the three characters chosen were Jason Todd, Kyle Rayner, and Donna Troy, this is the scene that popped into my head:

Donna: (Slips into room. Both she and Kyle are dressed in WWII-style German military uniforms to fit in on this strange world.) Jason just tried to kill Hitler

Kyle: Wait, wait.. When we found out this was Naziworld, didn't we BOTH turn to Jason and specifically tell him not to do that? Not to do that exact thing he just did?

Donna: Well, we did tell him to act naturally and we both knew going into this that Jason was... fairly... psychotic.

Kyle: We also told him to keep a low profile. It was YOUR idea to bring him and now he's gone and done something that will get everybody on this entire planet trying to kill us!

Donna: Aren't you a Green Lantern? Shouldn't you should be able to handle a few Nazis?

Kyle: Hey, you're an Amazon, why don't you just beat EVERYONE on Naziworld up! INCLUDING THEIR SUPERMAN! And their Green Lantern. Let's just get the attention of everything in this universe and beat them up because there can't POSSIBLY be anything here that can stop us from finding Palmer even though there's a whole bunch of things in every other universe that can and want to destroy us before we catch up to him!

Donna: Kyle, stop yelling at me. You always do this. You always turn into a complete ass whenever the slightest thing goes wrong.

Kyle: I'm the complete ass? I'M NOT THE ONE WHO TRIED TO KILL HITLER!

(Kali found it funny. I'm sure I'll get interesting search results for this one.)

The point is that Kalinara and I are enjoying this idea way too much, and will probably be reading come September. Ron Marz is writing so the odds are pretty good these three will drive each other crazy in a mindlessly entertaining way.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled obsessing over Green Lantern.

Flash Fact: Series Titles

Hey, everyone complaining about the title of September's All-Flash #1, there's a reason they did that.

Its historical. In the 40s, Jay Garrick shared the spotlight with several other characters in Flash Comics. He'd get a story, and then a few other characters would each issue. When he got popular enough, they gave him his own quarterly special called All-Flash Quarterly because it was all Flash stories.

Still a dumb name, yes, but its historically dumb and that's what DC Comics specializes in.

Too Little, Too Late

Nice try, Marvel, but one lurid Namor cover does not "equal objectification" make.

Previews and Rumors

(Via) Newsarama has a whopping nine early solicits up before the full ones go live, and this one in particular is quite interesting to me:

TALES OF THE SINESTRO CORPS PRESENTS PARALLAX #1
Written by Ron Marz
Art by Adriana Melo & Marlo Alquiza
Cover by Mike McKone & Andy Lanning
Get ready for a new series of specials focusing on members of the Sinestro Corps and tying into the “Sinestro Corps War” crossover! In this initial installment, the writer who introduced Kyle, Ron Marz, dissects what led Kyle to his downfall and explains the Parallax entity.
On sale September 19 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US"

Let's not panic. Downfall is vague, and the name "Kyle" may be a typo (or even a purposeful typo, I wouldn't put it past them) and they meant to say "Hal." That would explain the silhouette on the cover looking like Hal's old armor.

Still, the idea I've heard floating around is that Kyle will get possessed. I find it extremely unlikely, Parallax is Kyle's major villain so its very possible he can trip Kyle up without possessing him. Honestly, though, if that happens I don't think it'll bother me so long as its not too dragged out and not just a rehash of what went on with Hal.

At least with Kyle they'd have established its a possession at the start, and I'm sure it wouldn't be a long-term issue because they have him invested in the metaplot already. Though, that would be kind of interesting. Fighting Parallax influence, dealing with Donna and Jason, running from the Monitors and trying to fix the universe.

It could really suck, but even in that case I'd buy it for trainwreck value and to follow one of my favorite characters and maybe get to see Kyle decked out in the Parallax armor. I think he would look awesome with in that costume.

On the other solicits, I am looking forward to Kyle's role in the metaplot. Marz is writing it, and I generally find him to be an amiable writer (you'll hear about it here if he irritates me too much). There is always the chance he will fuck up the female characters, but its not a certainty. I'm not a Ray Palmer fan, but I'll be getting The Search for Ray Palmer.

Infinity Inc and Suicide Squad are not grabbing me like I thought they might.

And I view the Wonder Woman Annual with bitterness, because instead of giving us a real annual they are giving us the issue that should have been issue #5.

Edit: This guy has an interesting point:

Did you notice on the cover for the Search for Ray Palmer, he has a power ring and his freaking crab mask? I think they're putting him back in his old costume. I can't stand that old costume!

Not the costume griping, mind you, because Kyle's first costume is actually looking nice next to the last two (Though the haircut on this cover sketch is dreadful. Does Kyle seem like a crewcut type to anyone who's ever read him? Honestly. I'm going to pretend he and Jason swapped clothing for some inexplicable reason there, because Jason is drawn like Kyle should be), but on the old costume in the other preview. Kyle's downfall = the foolish loss of his powers? Parallax might trick him into giving them up or wasting them.

Oh, I hope they do that. I hope they depower Kyle and make him a regular Lantern again. What he's got is unwieldy.

Happy Father's Day!

By the Numbers

Okay, this one is interesting.

Chris Butcher made a post about a Marvel cover.

Since he made that post, there have been:

- 7 posts of outright agreement that the cover is offensive.

- 2 posts noting that the cover was part of an odd trend from Marvel lately.

- 9 posts linking Butcher's complaint as an interesting happening in the blogosphere, but either not giving a discernible opinion either way or commenting only on the fan interaction.

- 6 posts politely stating that they find the cover inoffensive and can't see the offense. Several of these are from bloggers who regularly discuss women in comics.

- 8 posts proclaiming that the idea that the cover may be offensive is absurd. Several of these decry Butcher's post as just another example of fans being hysterical and overreacting to every little thing as an example of sexism.

- 1 post linking Butcher's posts with a phrase in Finnish that translated to "hysterical symptoms." I was unable to tell the rest of the context from the translator I used.

There are 82 comments on Blog@Newsarama and 86 comments on Mr. Butcher's blog. The denouncement starts early on Blog@Newsarama but takes a few comments to get into on Butcher's blog. People comment multiple times, but words like "groupthink," "collective" and "overreacting" are applied liberally in the first thread. Some rather insulting comments are in the second thread.

Of the 8 posts proclaiming Butcher to be overreacting, 2 suggested that female fans were unfairly targeting Marvel Comics. Over the last two days I have collected 15 links pertaining directly to how Marvel Comics deals with female characters and fans, and 21 links pertaining directly to how DC Comics deals with female characters and fans. 12 of the Marvel links were on that particular cover, and only 2 of those links agreed with Mr. Butcher. This is part of increased attention for Marvel for the last two months, because up until the statue matter the ratio was at least 5:1 favoring complaints about DC. There were 4 additional links involving movie adaptations.

All of this is verifiable from the last four posts on When Fangirls Attack, except for the approximate DC:Marvel ratio. That is based on my own personal impressions over the past year and a half and not an actual count.

Definition

I feel like a tourist when I search for WFA links. I mean there's a section of the blogosphere that feels likes its become my home territory (to the point that the message board I used to frequent feel like a foreign country), and I am totally in my element at the shop and most conventions, but there's places where even when I read the exact same comics and have been to the place often enough to know the lingo, I'm still just taking snapshots home to show my little community. Fandom on the whole is naturally splintered and clannish, so I can easily get this total outsider feeling from some corners.

During one of my excursions in the writing community, I ran across this post about gender and the type of fanfiction people write. I don't really care to engage his points generalizing gender and its not "topical" for WFA, but I was really struck by just one section of a sentence:

"fandom"--that is, the term that a predominantly female subculture of fanfic writers have appropriated to describe themselves

I'm coming from the non-writing side, the convention-going, message-board fighting, theory and review blogging analytical side and I'd call that a huge part of Fandom. In fact, I usually refer to it was Greater Comics Fandom because the superhero fans there are so big there in comparison to the superhero fans int he writing community.

What's weird and disappointing about that post is he's a fanfic writer and seems to also figure all of fandom is the fiction writing section (he's just into a different type of fanfiction writing) when we are stuffed to the brim with story theorists, newshounds, gossips convention-goers, podcasters, satirists, webcomickers, autograph hounds, commission hunters, toy collectors, creator worshippers, aspiring creators, music video-makers, and fan artists who have never sat down to write out their own story and using "Fandom" to just describe the fanfiction writers is really dismissive of the rest of us. Like we're not "real fans."

Not that none of the rest of fandom isn't ever dismissive and stupid when it comes to fanfiction writers, but its a little (but disturbingly consistent) piece of snobbery that really grates on my nerves when I surf around the writing portions.

Anyway, back to compiling links. I just had to take a break and vent a bit.