This illustrates my point better than I could.

In a recent comment section I said that comparisons between the recent Wizard cover blurb and segregation based on the "Continuum of oppression" fell under the "Slippery Slope" logical fallacy.

For those of you who are curious as to exactly what is meant by "Slippery Slope Fallacy", see the second half of this post.

Also on that website is a great example of a parallel made between the Civil Rights movement and feminists who want better comics of the sort I was complaining about earlier.

Obsidian got a speaking part?

Why wasn't I informed? Why did I have to wait to read JSA #10 a week late to find this one out? I mean, he was talking for at least three pages there. That's HUGE for this character. That's more panel-time than he's had the entire series.

Maybe they'll actually use him in a fight in a few issues.

Okay, maybe that's too much to expect. But wow. Obsidian actually got a speaking part.

Tangibly close now.

Wonder Woman #14 preview's up!

(I can't believe it, since I whined so much when they got picked up for the book, but I really missed the Dodson art.)

Finally caught up on my comics.

Countdown Week 26 has what is now my favorite "Donna Troy Dodges Death" sequence.

Jason deserves to be hit on a regular basis for being a jerk all the time.

I think I'm starting to love Donna Troy.

She's just so casual about this sort of thing by now. She punches Jason (Actually, his still having internal organs on the inside of the chest after she hits him twice is evidence that she has excellent control over her strength) and then scolds him for being rude, and rather than reassure Kyle (who is, wonderfully, the only one who didn't realize she wasn't a goner and is pretty thrown by the whole revelation) she seems to just roll her eyes at him and rattle off some exposition.

"Yeah yeah, Jason's a really big asshole but not that big an asshole. Bob helped. Let's get on with the multiverse-wide scavenger hunt."

She's coming off (over all the specials and the weeklies) as this bland sweet-natured person who has just enough flexibility in her character to be temperamental when the writers need her to be, and is resilient enough to always be good for either a fake death or a real death. I can honestly see the appeal now.

In fact, I think its safe to say I'm reading Countdown for Donna right now almost as much as Kyle.

I want to see her die and/or hit Jason again.

Oh, for the love of little green leaves!

Stop making segregation comparisons when talking about sexism!!!

Please.

It makes you look like an asshole, which makes any further conversation awkward and/or hostile.

Oh, and while I'm here...

Everyone who read this post and thought that "lowest common (male) denominator" means "men are the lowest common denominator" needs to retake English next semester.

You fail reading comprehension.

Seriously, that's really fucking bad because I specifically added the "(male)" because presumably the lowest common female denominator would involve pushing a completely different set of stereotypes. (I don't know, bodice rippers or boy bands or whatever stupid insulting stereotype of fangirls you figure is the worst.)

To be honest, I made a mistake by not specifying "straight male" because a "lowest common (gay male) denominator" would be quite different as well. I apologize for that oversight.

But the prevalent idea came out of fucking nowhere.

I mean (and I know I'm repeating myself but dammit some people seem to need that), the very reason I added the (male) is because if I had put "lowest common denominator" in reference to a magazine that caters directly to men, that is calling men the lowest common denominator. By adding the (male) I was leaving room for an equal low involving an all-female audience or an audience of mixed gender. (Note to those seeking a lowest common mixed gender denominator: Explosions appeal to everyone.)


Still, some unbelievably idiotic readers read that and thought I meant the opposite.

Now, I admit, I've put out my poorly worded phrases and my mixed messages. There have been miscommunications that are entirely on my shoulders in the past.

This is all on the distant end, though. I don't know how anyone fucked up reading that one.

Onslaught (Slightly Altered)

I can't believe I have to make this post.

(And one last Wizard post. This one is entirely tangential anyway.)

I've seen several places that people have been saying "Well, the Feminists have SAID that if DC and Marvel want to be male-only they should put it on the cover, and now that Wizard does it they're all pissed."

Yeesh. Here's the thing about DC and Marvel and I'm going to say it before some dumbass at one of those companies (probably Marvel) thinks this might be a good idea. I was a teenaged reader in the 90s, lured by my sister with the X-Men Saturday morning cartoon. I never got the "boy's club" impression off of comics even in the midst of the Image craze. Growing up with the animated series I grew up thinking superheroes were for everyone and you know what? The Archives, Essentials, and Showcases support me here. They're loaded with sexism but the same sexism you find in gender-neutral and female-aimed entertainment from the same eras, just look at old 60s sitcom plots involving women and compare them to plots involving girls in the comics.

These things were for everybody, and they still should be.

Here and now I freely admit that if Marvel and DC were to brand their stuff officially as a "boy's product" I would be seriously pissed off for two big reasons:

1) They would be taking something away that I enjoyed as a child, taking it away from me as an adult and any young female relatives I would have wanted to introduce to the hobby I loved. Oh, I would be free to buy it if I chose to do so, but my honest reactions as a paying customer would not be welcome because of my gender.
(Arguably, this is the unofficial state of the industry right now.)

2) Because they would be telling me directly that despite having been a loyal paying customer they don't care for my money anymore and don't give a shit if they offend me and I stop reading. I would not be welcome because my money is not as good as a man's.

This is why I can emphathize with the Stephanie Brown-fans. I'm not a Spoiler fan, I'm not a Robin fan, I could give two shits about what's in the damned Batcave. I'm a casual Batfan, no more.

However, these women had a hero, a favorite comic book universe, and a number of elements in the Batverse told them girls were welcome there.

And they were taken away. Not just Stephanie, but Leslie and Onyx. Montoya, Dinah, and Barbara went to other parts of the DCU. Selina stayed, but Selina is a slinky antihero/villainess who fulfills a lot of fanboy fetishes.

Effectively, Gotham went from being for everyone to being for boys.

If you really think anyone'll be happy seeing that spelled out on the cover, you're in for a surprise.

If not, and you are bringing up an argument that basically states "They weren't for boys when I started reading! Why am I being pushed away?" as a "See, you got what you wanted!" gloat, you are a jerk.

And if you are saying "Its always been this way," you're being an ass. If that's true, then how did all of these people who are so "easily offended" by the "natural state of comics" ever get to the point of being regular fans?

Something got worse.

Why This Is Notable.

Not that I'm above beating a dead horse but I really wasn't going to bother with this Wizard thing again.

Except for the large amount of people who don't seem to understand why Wizard magazine feeling comfortable enough to brand itself on the cover specifically as a "Men's Pop Culture Magazine" should piss anyone off.

For those of you shrugging your shoulders, I'd like to bring two comments to your attention.

First, Papervolcano at Blog@Newsarama:

What I am concerned about is Wizard-the-organiser-of-Cons. I’m not sure how separate the two are, but is this attitude going to be translated to the various Wizard-Worlds? Are women going to be explicitly unwelcome there too? God knows Cons can be iffy places for women at the best of times, but if the Wizard Worlds are emblazoned with the “Number 1 Men’s pop-culture convention!” banner, that’s going to exacerbate a lot of problems.

Floundering though they are, they still set a lot of the tone of the industry.

Personally, I haven't spent money on Wizard in over three years, but the easiest major convention for me to attend is one of theirs.

As a person who no longer reads the magazine it doesn't really bug me, but as a regular convention-goer I'm a bit out of sorts here.

Second, Rachel in her livejournal:

It's relevant because it's visible, and because it markets itself as the comics magazine. Also, it owns a huge number of other comics periodicals and many major conventions.

So the fact that it's now advertising itself as a men's magazine says a good deal about its attitude toward women in comics and sets the tone for a LOT of affiliated industry coverage and events.

As Rachel says, they are visible and for years they have been the superhero fandom magazine. Its a little irksome that they don't feel they have to even pay lip service to potential female readers.

Dumb as the magazine is, insignificant that this blurb may be, you can't blame people for being pretty pissed. Its more of the "girls don't like superheroes" shit and I know I'm not the only one sick of hearing and reading that idiocy.

Mystery Solved!

Okay, its not much of a mystery why Wizard is declaring themselves a men's mag now, but there was enough room to wonder just what they were thinking.

Now we know.

Cheryl Lynn has the missing piece of the puzzle:

And why the hell did Wizard reps approach female fans and ask them to fill out surveys at conventions this summer? Why ask us to participate and then slam the door in our faces?

Its not hard to arrive at a working hypothesis here: Sales were falling. They needed a way to bring them up. They could expand beyond comics or try to capture more of the comics-buying community. They explored the option of opening to a wider comics-reading audience and surveyed female convention-goers.

They looked at the results of the surveys and realized they would need to change things they didn't wish to. Maybe they were just too chickenshit to risk a change, or had no faith that the male audience would be willing to read news and views without round shiny breasts next to every paragraph, or maybe they just didn't care enough to make the effort.

So they went and decided to go beyond the comics-reading community to pander to the lowest common (male) denominator everywhere so they wouldn't have to be a magazine for everyone who reads comics. Just men who have interest in comics-related things.

Which is their prerogative. From a business sense, it'll probably work. The less insular they are to the comics community, the better they'll do overall.

I'm not mad, though. I haven't read them since High School. Fuck 'em. We have Comic Foundry as a print magazine for everyone. We have online sources for news. We have blogs for commentary.

With any luck, this means in a few years we'll be rid of them. They'll have to do more movies and television to appeal to a wider base. The comics content won't be so central to the magazine anymore. The companies will have to put more into the other sources, just for lack of room.

Its just so depressing that right now DC and Marvel are taking their big news to an officially gendered source -- and they are still, we all know they are and will for a long time to come. Wizard'll still be considered the major industry mag for too damned long yet.

Would be nice if we could get a print version of Sequential Tart or something similar out there, but it takes a long time and a lot of resources for a feminist magazine to get off the ground, and a long time and a lot of resources for a comics magazine to get off the ground. A magazine that's both has its work cut out for it. (The postal service is not making things any easier right now.) It'll take a while to get anything like that organized and even after its all together it'll take a while to get out to most of the public. I mean, how often do you see an issue of UVC? [Link has sound.] You need to dig it out and request it to get hold of it most places.

Happy Halloween

Sadly, I have work tonight and couldn't get the night off.

For a seasonal post, see Chris Sims. (I wouldn't read that at work, though.)

I can't fake surprise at this blurb...

(Via)

I just can't tell if this is an attempt to "diversify" the magazine by going beyond comics to general "men's interest" or if they figure this will make the female fans not bother to criticize them anymore.

Probably a combination of both, judging by Haenhle's exploration of the interior.

Draw Your Own Conclusions

Despite Warner Bros scrambling to get their superducks and directors in a row to make two films as fast as they can because the upcoming JLA movie, one movie has been put on hold because of the upcoming JLA movie.

Guess which one.

Way to show everyone how dedicated you are to "telling good stories regardless of gender", Warner Bros.

Okay...

So I just saw a commercial for Beowulf.

Now, I had to double-check the website to make sure Angelina Jolie was playing who I thought she was playing.

And yes.

Yes.

She was playing who I thought she was playing.

They went and made Grendel's Mom sexy.

I don't know what to say.

Okay, happy moment's over

Aww hell, its the guy who wrote The Flash: Fastest Man Alive.

Eh. There's still time for doing the creative team shuffle. Its just an early announcement.

*Blinks*

I would have a nice, long wordy reaction to this were I not too busy jumping up and down and clapping.

Now, I know some of you want to comment with your pessimism. I'm sure, when the casting rumors start, I'll be in a grumpy mood on and off, too. I am purposefully not looking at the directing and writing credits listed to avoid being letdown for a few more minutes.

For now, though, just let us enjoy this perfect moment, where we can appreciate that someone in a position to actually make the movie believes the movie is worth making. I am not allowing comments on this posts specifically to keep readers from killing my happy moment.

Friday Night Fights

For Bahlactus, Kyle Rayner and Barda Free in an art museum.

Countdown #27

I suppose this one counts as spoilers so here's a spamming image.



Anyway, to answer anyone who is about to ask (or has assumed by putting my name in the title of their post that I actually give a shit about this particular character) what I think of this after my recent ranting -- Sweet!!! I had Weeks 26-29 in the Donna Troy pool!

In all seriousness (and in all seriousness I really don't care much for that character) this all happened right after a fight (though she didn't do shit in it), there was no tantalizing flash of cleavage as she went down, and its been proven time and time again that no fridge can hold that woman. (Really, Kyle's reaction shouldn't be "No!" but "I know she'll be back next week, but I'm still very pissed off by the intention!") I can understand some of her fans being pissed (really, she didn't do shit in that fight, and you can tell this was to get Kyle good and pissed), but this doesn't strike me as really bad. A storyline where Donna dies and then comes back to life may as well be a storyline about Superman getting a cat out of a tree. You can do it well and interesting, and get some empathy going with the characters, but you really can't inject a lot of shock and suspense into it.

I'd say it has the positive of classifying that love triangle talk as the creators trying to mislead us, at least. Except for the sarcastic dialogue when Kyle first joined the group (Jason said "he's dreamy" about Kyle when talking to Donna, like he was teasing her over Kyle or possibly a bit jealous) that had me thinking maybe Jason carried a torch, I wasn't seeing the romantic tension. Donna and Jason tolerated each other, Kyle and Donna were friendly (but not friendly in that way), and Kyle and Jason were at each other's throats. That proves nothing, because Kyle and Jason are the sort of people who would be at each other's throats over the aisle seat in a movie theater. Really, with Kyle showing off like an ass (I swear, it seemed like they were writing Hal -- post-Parallax euphoria, perhaps?) and Jason was being his usual bright and cheerful self at the beginning its no wonder they started off badly and went to worse from there.

It is nice to see Jason being a proper asshole again. He was getting too comfortably cranky with the others.

It still doesn't make sense to me.

I know I've mentioned this before, but I finally caught up with GLC and Blue Beetle and one question just kept running through my head.

Why does Brik have breasts?

At first glance I love her design. She's big and blocky and strong. Not normal for a female character. But... She has boobs. Big honkin' boobs.

Okay, I know, they wanted something to mark her as "female" and a basically humanoid female-shaped rock can work, but even with that in mind it makes no fucking sense that they should be round.

She's not a mammal or even made of flesh. She's not carved by an artificer. They don't suit her original story purpose. She was made to be the "ugly girl" who had a crush on Hal while he went crazy for Carol! Why did they feel a need to give her boobs?

Its just so fucking ridiculous. I can't read a scene with Brik without wondering why she has them. I especially can't read a scene where the artist draws her shirt torn without wondering why they're drawn like Arisia's breasts. I mean, okay, a Generation 1 Arcee-style "shelf" placed strategically in the spot where it mimics a human woman's chest (a "rack"?) would be one thing, but these are round bouncy boobs. They are almost always drawn as round bouncy boobs, even though the rest of her character design suggests there should be a blocky shelf instead. (The blocky shelf would imply female just as well, by the way.)

It just doesn't work. Why does a silicone-based rock entity have boobs?! There's no in-story reason for it. What sort of fucked up evolutionary path led to giant rockwomen with breasts? (It must be an evolutionary path, because if there was a deity actively involved in her creation there's no way that sort of feature would be there. Agony in childbirth? At least there's a physiological reason. Giant rockwomen with breasts? No reason. No reason whatsoever. Only humans think of that shit.) What kind of universe do they live in that such a design came about? What was the artist thinking when they designed her? Did they realize it totally takes you out of the story that you have to stop and think "oh yeah, some artist wanted to draw boobs" and then try and immerse yourself back into the universe of Green Lantern which only works until you see Brik's boobs again. They boggle the mind. Why do they exist?

It distracts from an otherwise lovely story.

Come to think of it, this is the first I've seen Brik since Recharge. Did they realize her design is tough to explain and just shove her in the background until the Blue Beetle guy wanted to use her, or do they just not know what to do with a full-figured rock-woman whose primary story purpose is to crush on Hal?

And I think I'd be okay with them if just one single character were to wonder aloud why a rock entity has boobs. Just a throwaway line in the dialogue. You can't tell me Guy's too polite to mention it. Or that the Doctor isn't curious.

I mean, is there no sanity in Green Lantern whatsoever?

Using someone else's words as a jumping-off point for my own angst.

Kevin on the current Marvel Universe setting:

Think about how frightening it would be to live in the Marvel Universe now. Think about being a political commentator not knowing if your thoughts were being monitored because of a blog post you made. Think about being someone in power, not knowing if you were actually standing beside who you thought you were at a government banquet. Think about being a person with extraordinary abilities who's forced to sign up with The Initiative or stay in the closet for fear of prosecution. Finally, think about being an ordinary citizen having to tolerate a de facto police state because of an accident in a small town in Connecticut.

This is probably me being some sad Captain Yesterday sort, but when I pick up a superhero comic, I want something that doesn't provide a version of our current state of affairs with even more paranoia lumped on top. Weird, I know.

As I said to someone about the prospect of Millar writing a Superman movie (that rumor is dead now, by the way) -- What, you don't want heavy-handed political allegory that reminds you how much the situation in the real world sucks in your escapist entertainment?

Its not that political and social issues can't be done in superhero comics, its just that you get to a point where all of the wonder and fantasy of superheroes get sucked out of the story in order to serve "the point," and the world you're reading about becomes a place you don't want to spend your spare time in anymore.

I don't read any Bendis anymore for kind of the same reasons. I don't want a story where my heroes knuckle down under the sort of stuff that I have to worry about every day, only with a supernatural/superpowered flavor. Give me something with space aliens trying to take over the universe, please. Or a plot to kill God. Or a side-trip to Hell to rescue someone. I don't need to see drug-dealers, rapists and jackass street toughs beating the shit out of my heroes.