Is that who I think it is?

On page two of Ion #6, we may have a cameo:

Bear with me.

In case you guys haven't noticed the lull in insightful posts here and at my other blogs, I've been a little overworked over the past couple months. My writing seems to be suffering for it. Once I get rested up, things should pick up again.

I just need a chance to get rested up.

Gruesome Challenge Time!

Let's put this one to the test.

Name three male characters who have been decapitated on-panel in DC Comics since January 2006.

I can't believe they sent that to her.

If anyone misses that old Monday Misogyny feature...

Here's at least a month's worth. The majority of them are quite proud of it, and probably consider themselves very clever for their old, tired jokes. Granted, there are some decent people commenting there, but the rest of the posters are making fun of them. And it is not a good sign that this inane thread had reached ten pages by the time I saw it.

One repeated answer amazes me. In a community where it is not only perfectly acceptable to dress in tight spandex with a felt mask, but encouraged by picture-taking, we have a bunch of men who are embarassed to go to the store and buy tampons.

Not only that, but its a thread full of men desperate to flaunt their virility and tampons are one of few purchases that prove without a doubt that you live with a real, live woman.

It boggles the mind.

Carnival Time!

The Fifth Edition of the Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans (Yes, I very much like the unwieldy name, and typing the unwieldy name) is posted at 100 Little Dolls. This issue covers Comics, Webcomics, Writing, Video Games, Television, Anime, Books, the Incident at the Hugos, and Adventures in Fandom!

The Sixth Edition of the Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans will be at The Hathor Legacy on October 16th. The Call for Submissions is out already, here's a quick rundown:

Deadline: October 13th
Submissions: robyn[dot]fleming[at]gmail[dot]com (or use the submission form)
Suggested Theme: Gender: Roles, Identities and Transgressions (This is only a suggestion, however, off-theme posts still eligible under the guidelines will be considered)

Posted everywhere I could. Please post everywhere you can.

White Tiger Preview

Dammit! Why didn't anyone tell me this was up? Popcultureshock's newsfeed is on the fritz, I almost completely missed the two preview pages for White Tiger #1.

They've even got the blurb which I hadn't seen (as I don't really bother too much with Marvel Comics Solicits).

A HERO’S COMPULSION
Roaring out of the pages of Daredevil, the new White Tiger makes a ferocious debut, courtesy of the dynamic scripting of NY Times best-selling fantasy author Tamora Pierce (Trickster’s Queen, The Will of the Empress) and masterful penciling of rising star Phil Briones (La Geste des Chevaliers-Dragons, Les Seigneurs d’Agartha). Angela del Toro knows pain: Her uncle Hector Ayala, the former White Tiger, killed. Her FBI partner, murdered. Her career, ruined. Her mentor, Matt Murdock, jailed. And the hurt is just beginning….The Yakuza’s bloodthirsty Sano Orii returns, a genocidal shadow organization appears, and a new-but-old super-powered madman is looking to put the squeeze on White Tiger. Armed with mystical amulets—and finally in costume—White Tiger demands answers! But will she survive long enough to ask the right questions?
40 PGS./Parental Advisory …$2.99

Looks like she's playing off the Bendis Daredevil run. And 40 pages is a lot longer than I expected, which could be very good if the book is very good.

I'm just surprised I had to find this when tracking down information for another blogger. It should have come up in my regular rounds days ago. I mean, is nobody watching to see if this can redeem Marvel for Quesada fumbling the questions about female writers, giving Greg Land work, the Storm wedding, and the Invisible Woman giving her hubby a tumble before leaving him?

Okay, admittedly that looks like a pretty tall order. How about we just hope its good and sells enough to get her more comics work?

Well, that sucks.

Came across the Thrilling Detective website after overall liking the sixth John Taylor book but still wanting to talk to people who hated Shotgun Suzie as much as I did.

They have a list of Horror/Fantasy Detective characters. Since that combination is why I like Taylor, I bookmark it for a reading list.

And I see that there's only two women on it.

Anita "Hardboiled Porn" Blake is one of them.

And I can't think of any other woman to add.

Fuck.

Somebody help me out here.

It's especially not funny when an outsider says it.

I hate to see mainstream Feminists discuss comic books. I mean, I used to wish they would, back when I first started blogging, but then the Batwoman thing happened. Then I was willing to pay to get them to shut up. Because the idiotic stereotyping would start. You'd realize just how much they ignored not only the feminist comic book readers hanging around reading them (who were commenting in comment threads), but the very good Feminist comic book bloggers hanging around. I don't mean the criticism for aiming comic books at adolescent boys, but the assumption by the bloggers and commenters that only adolescent boys read comics. The same assumption the companies and professionals are making that's causing the sexism that they are blogging against.

Those blanket insults towards readers really made discussion of the issue over in the larger community impossible (well, that and having to explain things about comic books to a bunch of people who've never read them or spoken to anyone who read them).

One joke, in particular, makes me rolls my eyes. It happens to be in every thread, on every feminist post about comics that leaves the comic book community. I saw it today:

Hrm. And, comic book nerds wonder why they can’t get laid…

Sigh.

And I bet they don't even wonder why Feminist comics bloggers don't comment on their posts.

Prove it!

Dan Didio during the 52 interview:

Zatara - old name, new hero with a family connection, and, in my opinion, looks better without the fishnets, which were in his original designs…. true story.

What? Please don't be joking. Please say we almost had a male character with fishnets.

They were probably his sleeves, though.

Oh well, there's always fanart. Anyone up to designing a Zatara with fishnets for me?

Finally got my comics...

His name is Damien?

Audience Participation

This week's art feature is a bit unusual, and pretty short, but I want to hear what you have to say about it.

For Future Reference

Okay, I'm not a believer in the fabled Batman/Robin subtext. I've never seen the subtext, it just seems to me like Wertham was overreacting to seeing the strongest relationship in Batman's life with a male character and people have picked up on this since.

I'm actually pretty difficult to argue this point with.

I can see where you're coming from if you're going to argue specific interactions between Dick and Bruce that seemed slashy, you can argue if they are fatherly affection vs romantic affection. That's cool. I'll usually fall on the side of fatherly affection, unless the scene is written by Devin Grayson. But she's only one writer in sixty years worth of writers on page and screen, and she's the exception when it comes to this. Other writers tend to be very careful about how they portray the Batman-Robin relationship.

I can see where you're coming from when arguing how either character interacts with women vs how he interacts with men to argue that they are homosexual, but honestly I'd need a long road paved specifically with Dick Grayson interaction to convince me of that particular pairing. (I also find that arguments about Bruce's interaction with women indicating anything other than a repressed heterosexuality, sexuality which has been pushed aside for his War on Crime, are barking up the wrong tree -- but if you think you have a good one, you're welcome to try.)

Those, and others, are still reasonable points.

However, there is a sexist argument that I've seen drummed up in these discussions, and if I see someone use it, I'm calling them on it.

It's the "What kind of a 35 year old single millionaire would adopt a teenaged boy?" argument.

This assumes that men of a certain age are natural sexual predators, unable to interact with any children other than their own without being watched. It's a prevalent idea in our society, one that keeps men out of professions like teaching and childcare. It comes to a basic devaluation of fatherhood in early years, one that discourages men to be actively involved in parenting. It plays on the idea that dealing with children is for women, and any man who would dedicate any time with a child that he doesn't have to has something wrong with him.

Basically, it leads back to confining gender roles. It tries to shame men away from nuturing duties (because they are "woman's work" and no "real man" would do "woman's work"), and it contributes to a lot of the bad stereotypes associated with homosexual men in our society.

It is cultural, yes, but it is also wrong. It's wrong in real life, and it's simply incorrect in Batman continuity (because we know why Bruce tries to help angry young men, he sees himself in them).

It's a really sexist attitude. Now, yes, it's probably what's been printed in the Gotham gossip columns, and whispered around WayneTech Water Coolers. But come on, we've all read and watched Batman. We know Bruce Wayne far better than the extras who gossip about Bruce Wayne.

So, find something more specific, Batslashfans, because that stupid generalization just won't wash.

Oh, and if someone tells you that one of your arguments is based on a sexist stereotype, and you go "Oh, no! I don't think that about Shazam or Green Arrow" but keep coming back to the generalized argument to support your point, you're still using a sexist argument because you haven't called to mind anything specific about Batman over, say, Green Arrow or a professional wrestler, just a generalization about 35 year old men.

Satire.. in.. SPAAAACE!!!

For my pile of overwhelming evidence that women are definitely a viable target audience for comic books:

I almost roffled. "I assure you, sir, NASA is an equal opportunity employer, and we have strict rules against sexual discrimination..."

He cut me off. Typical. "Oh, really? Then why are all the astronauts women?"

"Uh, last I looked, there were quite a few astronauts who are men."

"What, like, five precent?"

"I believe the correct total is closer to fifteen percent..."

Go read the whole thing, it's brilliant.

(Via Feminist Sci-Fi: The Blog)

More Linkblogging

As my boss is evil (he made someone cry today), I'm not up to posting much new content today. Instead, here's some more links.

Sandicomm, Karen-El and SallyP worked up some Arisia Makeovers.

Chris of 2GBC gives us a page-by-page rundown of Civil War #4.

Courtesy of Chris Sims -- Bob Haney vs Bob Kanigher.

Jenn talks about the racist implications of Drow Cosplay.

Kevin delivers the Doc Savage post he promised.

In an older post I've been meaning to link, Claire on describing eyes as "Almond shaped".

And if you haven't been following the dual-blog discussion on Class and Superman, you've been missing out.

I'll be back to substantial content as soon as someone finds a soul for my boss. It doesn't look good. We looked everywhere today.

Links

1) Submissions for the Fifth Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans at One Hundred Little Dolls are due Today. May I direct you to the submission form or 100littledolls[at]sbcglobal.net -- the hostess' email address. You have until the end of the day. Carnival will be up on October 2nd. And I'm always looking for more hosts, email me if you're interested.

2) Been procrastinating about sending people over there, but Heidi's trying to get a letter campaign going over Wonder Woman's chronic lateness. The object is to annoy DC enough that they'll put timeliness higher on their priority list, and light a fire under their creators. Maybe, if enough people suggest it and they think there's a fanbase to support it, we can get another book to fill in the every second month (A Sensation Comics revival?).

At the very least, we can annoy them enough that they'll think twice before hiring another writer who can't keep the commitments he already has.

She's got the contact info:

DC Comics
ATTN: Matt Idelson
Wonder Woman Editor
1700 Broadway
New York, New York 10019

3) We're starting an Arisia Makeover Meme at Zamaron if anyone's interested. Anyone with actual talent, or even just delusions of talent is welcome to show off their fashion sense.

Leave a comment on the Zam post with a link, or email me if you want em to host it on Zamaron. If you're shy about giving your email, but have a drawing and some webspace to host it, leave a comment (with a name so I can give credit) with the link below and I'll link it on Zamaron.

Not my usual sort of post

I don't normally repost chat conversations, but this one had a good point to it.

Willow: Why is Wanda looking like she's about to have a heart attack?

Ragnell: Where?

Willow: http://ratcreature.livejournal.com/175099.html

Kalinara: Because it's sexy.

Ragnell: I worry about what they consider sexy

Willow: Y'know the sexiest image of a comic heroine I've seen in the past year?

Ragnell: What?

Willow: Wonder Woman at the White House, sword in hand, in her formal dress, in a semi-crouch with one leg extended forward for balance - preparing to kick Gorgon butt.

Ragnell: Drew Johnson drew the best women

Willow: A beautiful extended leg, a ovely martial arts position and the way the clothes draped?

Willow: Oh yeah.

Preview!

Newsarama has a few preview pages for Manhunter #26 up. Special (Hattip Elayne)



Not an official Wonder Woman comic, sadly (though at the rate we're going we'll see it before we see Wonder Woman #3!)

Amateur Art Appreciation Addendum

(Oh, my art feature is up. Take a look, then come back for some quick thoughts.)

How many artists are using teenager logic to show that their characters are mature thinking women?

Most of us will know the obvious answer to that question. Most artists seem to design costumes by the "less is more" style of fashion, where being able to show off skin indicates an autonomous thinking being (the logic being that with no one watching your clothing choices, you obviously don't live with your parents) to them. But I realized it was worse than that when answering this comment:

It was almost like the more she grew up, the more she [b]matured[/b], Arisia wanted to show more of herself rather than hide behind restrictions.

So, I answered him as I would a teenaged girl who thought that:

Except that's not a sign of Maturity, Zeb. That's something teenaged girls do to make themselves seem older. They wear less to make themselves look older. The artists have been doing this, drawing her with less to make her look older, using a young girl's logic, without adding any mature woman logic to balance out the costume.

Look, I'm not saying that a mature woman wouldn't dress revealingly. But a mature woman would dress appropriately for the work she does. That's a miniskirt she's wearing to fight evil.

And a mature woman would dress to emphasize certain personal characteristics, but not to the detriment of the rest of her body. That costume emphasizes the breasts, and makes the rest of her body into an afterthought. The combination of light-colored, front-loaded top and dark, short, tight miniskirt imply that she is not comfortable with her shape, particularly her hips and breast size. Again, teenaged girl characteristics. These are tricks to compensate for a small bust and large hips. I know these tricks because we tried them in High School (though, within the dress code standards). There was another set for girls who felt they were top-heavy, broad-shouldered with skinny hips. A whole list of ways to make your waist smaller. Teenaged girl tricks.

This is not a grown-up costume. This is something a teenager thinks is a grown-up costume. Honestly, if they were going by your train of thought, a bikini would have been a more suitable choice (though still eye-rollingly exploitive). Freedom of movement and complete comfort with body image.

Then it occured to me that comic book artists may be more like teenaged girls than teenaged boys sometimes, because Arisia's not the only superhero dressing up to YM Fashion tricks (only she's using three tricks where one would suffice).

And seriously, while I would've rolled my eyes at the excessive skin for a bikini, I wouldn't have put her costume on the complaint pile -- probably for the same reasons Starfire's costume never bothered me and the Amanda Connor Boob Window is my favorite Power Girl costume. Weird how less material can make more sense, when it's put in the proper places.

So Polly did take a Time-Trip

On the Newsarama thread for EAglesham's interview, Geoff Johns showed up to clarify some things (this thread pointed it out):

Actually, the only one who remembers events like that is Power Girl.

Everyone on the JSA, from Earth 2, have vague recollections that there was a multiverse but that's it. DCU history is nearly identical to what it was.

Why is Power Girl the only one with real Earth 2 memories will be explained in Justice Society of America. I think some confusion has come from interpretation of interviews more than the comics themselves.

Hippolyta was a member of JSA, Matrix Supergirl did exist, Etc.