It wasn't even one of my funnier statements.

To distract myself from having to wait on the latest issue of Captain America (if you spoil this before my comics package arrives in the mail, I'll make you pay) I chose to spend my sparse spare time this evening being a dick in Kalinara's comment section.

I know, I know, but I had to say something.  It started out as a good idea but I couldn't wrap it up properly. It was a weak insult, so was I surprised when I managed to get an entire country of Germany insulted as a response.

Have fun in Germany. Considering the foul and hateful-minded person you are, you ought to fit right in with the cournty that helped to spawn a certain other well-known loud-mouthed and hateful jerk.

Ahh, the sweet smell of Godwin in the morning. It smells like a fool who doesn't have a point left to argue.

ARRGHHH!!

I am on the plane in less than two hours, and I have neglected to buy one comic from my pull list before leaving the fucking continent.  And it's one I wanted to read.  :(

Now I'll have to wait.

Recommended Reading

Here.

I STILL aten't dead.

Even though it's been long enough to realize that absolutely nobody is still checking this blog (I double-checked the stats, flatlined at zero for at least a month), that's no excuse not to use it.  I have, of course, had many other excuses not to use it in the past few months but it's nearing four in the morning, I've nothing planned in the morning and I'm unable to sleep anyway.

It hasn't been the greatest week for sleep.  After several months of professionally and personally preparing for an extended stay overseas, packing up every bit of my life in Oklahoma and sending it to the boat, dragging that furry bastard on a plane ride to Pennsylvania so that my sister can feed him (I can't bring myself to trust anyone in Oklahoma City to care for a cat, there are too many stray cats wandering around.  Someone is letting them loose), I came home to discover that my mother has decided to drown me in the best aspects of American Culture before I cross the Atlantic and forget everything here.

Or perhaps she's trying to make me feel better about leaving the country.

You need to understand what I mean by American Culture to truly get what sort of week this has been.  When people ask where I'm from, I like to say "Scranton."  I say that so that it'll sound like I'm actually from somewhere.  I'm not.  I'm not even from a town.  I grew up in a township.  I could never name the mayor of this township, because I wasn't sure (and still aren't sure) that there was one.  The most well-known person in the township seemed to be my father.  I suspect this was because he was a policeman.  Near as I can figure, there were only five policemen in the entire county, and they worked part time for the different municipalities.  There are a lot of trees here.  And some hills.  And on certain nights growing up all of my father's relatives (who lived within two miles of the house) would gather together at dinner and it would end with my parents strumming old country hymns such as "Green Green Grass of Home" and "In the Garden" on ukuleles and forcing the kids to sing along.  I went to a school district where, if you were late for school one morning and went to sign in with your excuse it wasn't uncommon to see "Horses got loose" in a previous spot on the sheet.  My coworkers at my first job asked if I rode a donkey to school when they found out where I was being taught.

The woods all around where I lived where posted "No Trespassing" signs, and I used to sneak lightly around them worried about some old hillbilly with a shotgun aiming for anyone who crosses his land.  I thought I was lucky to not be under fire when I wandered those woods.  It was my mother's comparatively upscale upstate New York relatives who finally clued me in that the old hillbilly with the shotgun was my own father, and that the "No Trespassing" signs were to keep hunters from wandering in and mistaking the little brown-haired girl in the brown coat for a deer wandering those woods.

Now, I suppose you could attribute my reluctance to name my home"town" right off when someone asks where I'm from to shame, but really it's just weariness.  After so many times of explaining what a township is and just where in the larger-than-it-seems state of Pennsylvania mine might be I just settled on the nearest city as a workable location.  I couldn't honestly say I was from Philadelphia or New York, but if asked I could say that Scranton was somewhere in between and leave it at that without too many people trying to find out what a township is.

On the contrary, rather than shame I've encountered more often a strain of that irritating hillbilly pride--irritating because the hillbilly/redneck/hic/yokel/etc pride turns out to be just as judgmental and snobbish as the upper class city stereotype it rails against for being snobbish and judgmental and hypocrisy is just fucking annoying no matter where you find it--in me.  This is due to the exact position of where I'm from.  With Philadelphia to the south and New York to the north, I never labored under the impression that Scranton was the proverbial "Big City."  I knew exactly what a big city looked like and San Antonio, Oklahoma City, New Orleans, Chicago, St Louis--none of them impressed me like people figured they would a sheltered hillbilly girl who just joined the military.  Indeed, my friend Liz from Wyoming insisted that I was from a city and just didn't know what real country looked like when I wasn't impressed by San Antonio.

But on the other hand, San Antonio is no slouch.  Neither are any of the other cities I've seen New Yorker and Los Angelino Airmen turn their noses up at.  The idea that San Antonio is a small town or has a small town feel is fucking ridiculous and the expression of that idea only proved to me that a certain Airman's Chicago apartment was just as sheltered as any Wyoming ranch.  After the fourth of fifth idiotic Airman from either side, I realized that growing up in the wilderness meat of a megalopolis sandwich had given me a sense of perspective that many people lacked.  And to this day I use that sense of perspective to feel superior to country folk and city folk alike.

But I'm rambling again, the point was to illustrate what my mother meant by "American Culture."  In the past week and a half I have been to the Pocono Speedway (I got to watch the cars go round and round and round), Gettysburg (which was actually pretty fucking cool and I would advise anyone who sets foot in the United States to visit that town), New York (People where I grew up tend to consider this city something of a large shopping center with a good theater attached, so we made a conscious effort to sightsee this time), Hershey (where we forgot to buy chocolate for my father), and a Toby Keith/Montgomery Gentry concert and I haven't gotten my comics for a few weeks.  I've had some fun in all that but I'm pretty fucking tired and I've been pretty fucking busy, and I still have a transatlantic flight to look forward to.  And a foreign country.  Which I strongly suspect will throw that finely tuned sense of perspective out of whack.

I'm going to Germany, and while I've been both excited and freaked out I find myself with just two main thoughts:

1) I'm so glad my high school didn't offer German lessons.  Four years of sleeping through Spanish left me with the embarrassing tendency to nod off whenever I heard the language, which was just plain awkward in San Antonio.

2) The scene in Frankenstein with all the villagers carrying torches and pitchforks.  But I'm not sure if that's a sign of prejudice or anxiety.

So, if anyone was wondering why this and my other online projects are so dead this summer, it's because I had bigger and more annoying things going on and it might continue for a bit.

Robert Downey Jr to play Sherlock Holmes for Guy Ritchie

July 1, 2008

I was chatting with Kalinara today when she asked for advice on her blogpost.  She wanted to know if she should keep or jetison a paragraph.

It reminded me of when I lived in San Antonio when I was 19, and I had a 24-year old friend named Liz.  Liz and I would go shopping and see movies and generally hang out, and I almost always turned to her when I couldn't decide between two options.  She always had a clear and confident choice when I asked her.  I think it had something to do with the fact that Liz had an opinion on everything; she informed me of the difference between Tex-Mex and Mexican food, that skinny cowboys with freckles are hot, and that only sluts wear red.

She also informed me that I was both deceptive and straightforward, which still makes my brain hurt a little to process.

One day, Liz asked me why I always asked her to make my decisions for me.  I hadn't even realized that was what had been happening.  She informed me that I did it all that time, that she knew I'd decide on whatever she said, and that she sometimes just chose the option that was the most amusing option.  Usually, she didn't give a shit and just randomly picked one and inwardly rolled her eyes at my sheepyness.

I suspect that was what prompted me to go into my red clothing phase (Kalinara would like to add "For the record, I'm not letting you pick out my clothes" to this part of the post) , but I'm not sure.  I do know that this wasn't the only time Liz's casual dickishness taught me a valuable lesson, and for that I'm grateful.  Even if she did have really shitty taste in food.

And men.

And comics.  She only bought Meridian, Tarot and Witchblade, for heaven's sake!

Nevertheless, I miss Liz.  She was my Wednesday comic-book buddy for over a year.  I think she went back to Wyoming after she left the service.  I hope she got the job and family she wanted.

I ended up giving Kalinara a completely random choice, because Kali picks whatever the fuck she wants anyway.  I'm not sure whether that's indicative of the influence Liz had on me or the influence Kalinara has on me.

Checking in.

I have a feeling this one will attract a fight.

In other news, I saw an idiot when I poked my head out of my subterranean cave this morning, so 6 more days without Ragnell.

Still a bit wrapped up in my real life.

The unread post count in my feed aggregator is sitting at 3808, which is pretty damned scary at the moment.  So rather than even try to attack that I thought I'd just drop a note to assure everyone that I am not dead, not in a coma, not time-traveling, and not captured by supervillains.  Whether or not I've been presiding over the prisons, brainwashing facilities and/or death traps containing superheroes I'm not at liberty to say.  I can say I haven't seen Hulk yet (and I won't be deterred from that mission so don't bother with spoilers or bad reviews).

I'm more than a little behind.  See, over the past 3 weeks I haven't managed to read any comic that isn't in Ed Brubaker's Captain America run.  I've made it to the store, but reading time's been scarce and so all I've read are the trades I carry in my purse for spare moments.  (The beauty of comics, quick reads for quick breaks!).

I will admit that my thoughts turn more charitably towards Quesada, as he was willing to put Brubaker on Captain America, and I'm still savoring the results I praised earlier this month.  That Omnibus hardcover is very very nice, and Brubaker's Captain America ranks with Robinson's Starman as one of the few comics that make me willing to shell out for an expensive hardcover collection.  It's led me to one of the joys of reading comics again, finding a new little universe.  I never was a Cap reader beyond isues of the Avengers before, so I'm discovering the franchise details for the first time.  And I almost forgot how much I love to plunge into a story and trace the plot threads and characters back through the years, piecing together a picture of a universe cobbled together by so many hands.   65 years of hands.  That's why nothing can replace superhero comics for me, it's the history of it.  There's this labyrinth of actual continuity, complicated by retcons and revision as well as your normal twists, turns, dead ends and false paths.  And I'm following plot threads backwards through this monster-sized maze, not so much to find a way out but to collect all of the treasure in the maze.  I can't miss any of it, even if I've read a synosis or know how the whole story turns out.  Hell, part of the fun of back issues is you can sort of read the story backwards that way, starting with a fully developed character and making your way to the seeds of his or her personality.  Internet writeups serve as a guidebook for these tours, telling you where the most worthwhile sites to see are, letting you know not to expect too much from certain places, and giving you behind the scenes information that helps you understand how a character could possibly go from point A to point K, or even from Point D to Point X-which-is-actually-more-similar-to-Point-A-than-Point-D-was.  And of course they tell you how Point A got remodeled somehow during the journey so Point Q makes more sense than it would have at Point H and at the original version of Point A, and that this is all explained at Point N--Honestly, how can anyone not just adore mainstream superhero comics? It's like spending an afternoon lost in your hometown!

I'm rambling again.  I've been busy, but I had a wonderful way to relax and when I get some free time I'll have to do some serious back issue hunting.

Until then I have the odd moment on the internet, Kalinara's font of knowledge, and the trades and hardcovers I've managed to snag on my lunch break (Only work evenings if your office is within 20 minutes of a comic book store, it's just less stressful that way)  to occupy my time.  And Captain America has entertained me so much when I needed entertainment that even though I'm sure he doesn't know or care about it, I'd still like to publically take back some of the mean things I've said about Marvel's Editor-in-Chief.

Not all of them.

Certainly not the true stuff.

But definitely anything that's an absolute.

And if people are still paying attention to this blog after this long break...  Wow.  Thanks?

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The thread that keeps on giving.

We came up with an interesting question about the Black Widow in this comment thread which was derailed by the beginning of a beautiful fight that led into another comment thread (which was unfortunately ended by a sudden attack of honesty and understanding--what the fuck Kalinara have you been hiding mutant powers or do you just know me that well?). Because a question which is vital to the peace of mind for all involved has surfaced, and because researching this question would required digging through a crossover that was written by Mark Millar, I'm going to throw it out to the internet:

Do any of the Civil War tie-ins and fallout issues explain why Natasha decided to go pro-reg?

LurkerWithout thinks her personal loyalties should have put her with Nick and Cap, John feels that she was going for her own interests, Dan thinks she cut a deal (or that she's a Skrull), and I think she's watching things at SHIELD for Nick Fury while he's been forced into hiding.

In all likelihood this question has already been answered in one of the five billion Civil War tie-ins, or some issue of something since then but as I said before that's too much to sift through and some of them were written by Mark Millar. Did any Marvelfans out there spot a sequence that explains Natasha's reasoning, and would they care to explain it?

Quick Note

Just received this comment on my own personal blog:

Quick question. Is When fangirls attack a manga site now? Thanks.

You guys do realize we have fucking jobs and real lives here, right? I've had a miserable busy week and haven't checked a single feed since last Monday, Kalinara's had a miserable busy week, and Anna runs in her own circles. Sometimes, Anna will be busy and someone else will be doing all the posts in a row and you won't see any fucking manga for a little while. No one's being paid for this, we all have our own responsibilities.

When I see complaints like this it makes me want to close up shop. No, actually it makes me want to post every fucking link as "Link" and put them all in a paragraph so that you can't tell the superhero from the manga or the trolls from the activists and the fans. It makes me want to change the titles and the names of the authors with the links. It makes me want to arrange it so that every single substantial post is buried in the middle of troll links, featuring the best of the most hated people in the community.

And if I space it out right, I can do it without violating the stated linking policy.

There are only two things stopping me from doing this. There's the thought that this is just one or two fucking morons in a sea of reasonable people who understand that we have jobs, and lives, and families, and shit to do when we're not on the Internet. And the knowledge that if I went and burned down the fucking house not a one of you would step up to rebuild it.

Okay, there's also the miraculous font of sanity and diplomacy that is Kalinara. You guys have no idea how crazy mean I actually am.

Movie thoughts

(Don't ask what I've been up to.)

A few months ago Kalinara had a post pointing out the similarities between Wonder Woman and Captain America, and with the Captain America movie rumors (McConaughey, now this guy) I may have found another one.  We all know the Wonder Woman part is the favorite rumor of any pretty brunette starlet who needs to attract attention, Captain America may get to be the part that any handsome blond looking for leading man status wants to be linked to.

Come to think of it, it may be just as hard to cast as Wonder Woman.  You need someone very traditionally masculine who can pull off cheerful, old-fashioned, gentle, quiet and inspiring all without looking like a parody.  With Wonder Woman you need traditionally feminine but able to pull off utterly self-confident, powerful, friendly, pure hearted and inspiring all without looking like a parody.

I'm much more confident the Captain America movie will be made than the Wonder Woman movie, mind you, but it's interesting the similarities.  When they finally do cast it I bet the guy will be very much a modern male version of Lynda Carter.

And while I'm on the subject of comparing the two franchises, Bucky's a much better grown-up sidekick who came back from the dead in a convoluted story with an identity crisis than Donna's ever been.  Does anyone else think Brubaker might be able to do something worthwhile with Donna and Cassie if he got ahold of them?

Blogged with the Flock Browser

I've caught up on Brubaker's Captain America run.

(Seriously, that's what I've been up to all week. I've read everything Brubaker wrote about Cap or Bucky that I could get my hands on.)

And I have new favorite Marvel couple.

Bucky and Natasha, who the hell would have expected them to fit so well together?

It may help that Buck doesn't seem to smile at all in the entire run until that point she implies there might be a future for them.

And that even though Natasha is the ever-present ex-lover of half the Marvel Universe, this is the first time the romance backstory has actually seemed romantic. Normally it's more like she's been fooling around with a good friend she finds hot. (Not that I have anything against Natasha's healthy attitude towards sex, she just never seemed to be in love with a lover before Brubaker wrote her, so I've never been able to see her as part of a couple before.)

This must be explored.  And made into a normal thing.  With teamups.  And pillow banter.  And riding together on a motorcycle.  And staying in and whispering sweet nothings over takeout food.  And (once he gets back) the awkwardness of Steve accidentally walking in on them messing around.

Comic Art Indigene

May 11th-January 4th at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, Nex Mexico.

Comic Art Indigéne which opens at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture on May 11, 2008 looks at how storytelling has been used through comics and comic inspired art to express the contemporary Native American experience. Under the larger definition of narrative art, comic art is more related to Native American art traditions than one might expect. The earliest surviving examples of such narrative art is rock art. The historic examples used in the exhibition, such as photographs of rock art, ledger art, and ceramics are meant to link Native American art traditions with contemporary voices.

PoA has a map embedded for anyone in the Southwestern US who can make it.

Oh, and for the record...

I did not miss Mother's Day. I just called her this time instead of posting on the internet.

And now for something awesome.

Remember that Marvel/DC Olympics poll I linked to?

Here's the results:

As for the swimsuit competition, well, I got about 100 different nominations, which would have broke your LJ to have a vote, so I'm gonna declare all you fanboys and fangirls and your dirty minds winners!

Although if we went by nominations, our overall swimsuit champion would be Nightwing, Mr. Dick Grayson himself, who snagged 20 nominations all by himself. Must have been his early green Speedo years.
As far as the girls went, Power Girl got 4, the most nominations for a girl nominee.

I love the Internet some days.

Blogdrama

He actually lasted longer than I expected.

(Found out through some livejournals I follow before I reached his blog in my feeds, actually.)

I don't want to comment on his little blog but because I'm adverse to one-sided stories and this'll be on WFA I just wanted to let everyone know that that postscript was meant for me, and that this was not an offer.  It was a suggested course of action.  Also, that my anger had shit-all to do with feminism and everything to do with military and family history, but if he's whiny enough to assume every disagreement with me is about women he may as well do so.  I was mainly thinking of my grandfather but there were also female veterans of WWII.

Admittedly, I dismissed him as a troll due to his asinine beliefs on rape. There is no excuse for this idiocy.

Anyway, contest: Read through Brett's "Goodbye Cruel Blogosphere" post and see how many logical fallacies you can find.

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I had to be out of my mind thinking I’d soon be over you.

I know this feeling.

Today in the comic book store, on a high from the lovely lovely movie this weekend and curious as to how well this translates to paper I picked up the Invincible Iron Man relaunch. I'd been meaning to investigate the praise this writer's been getting anyway. While I was there I grabbed American Dream and ran my hands over the Marvel trades from all the years I've missed.

This has happened before. I started out as Marvellite, a happy middle-schooler stealing her sister's Generation X comics to read between the pages of her textbooks in study hall. As my sister turned to DC and its imprints. so did I I flirted with the House of Ideas again when Quesada took over and he teased us with Wolverine's origin. In tech school I stayed up late studying Fantastic Four trades in tech school when I should have been studying FAA regulations and hunted through back issue bins in Mississippi looking for ever available appearance of Magneto's children. (I am the only person I know of who read that 90s Quicksilver series with the Knights of Wundagore, and I'd snap up issues to fill the holes in this run in a heartbeat.) I had a fling with Bendis' Daredevil (I was really more interested in Maleev's Daredevil, though) and poked around Avengers Mansion until Wanda moved out.

Between the destruction of my favorite aspects of the 616 universe and the rise of their nightmarish Ultimate counterparts (which I'd found entertaining at first, but which horrified me as time went on) I slowly made my way to a Marvel-free Wednesday. I didn't fuss. I didn't yell. I didn't to my recollection write a long essay on why I was leaving Marvel forever or complain endlessly about the loss of my childhood favorites. I did acquire an anti-Quesada affectation. I dd go off a time or two when the subject of Scarlet Witch came up. But on the whole I just quietly crossed the Marvel books one by one off my checklist over various transgressions until I was down to Spider-Girl, and I wasn't too inclined to talk about her.

Then someone in my feeds blogged about a teenage female Captain America in Spider-Girl's world, getting a miniseries this month. And someone posted this shadowy image online with "The Return" on it, and I found my excitement wasn't dulled by the inevitability. But the kicker was this shiny new movie, which I thought wouldn't get me because I never much cared for Iron Man (he seemed like a stiff), but here I am walking out of the store today with an armful of Marvel trades. 1 Image book, 1 DC trade, 4 Marvel trades, 3 Marvel books (would have been 4 had the one with Quicksilver not sold out). I've no interest in the skrullification beyond it's opportunities to retcon out all of the stuff I disliked. I mainly want to read about the guy in the movie who seems to have ADHD and a 340 IQ, and who shares my love of taking things apart. Also I want to read about Captain America--the one who isn't an asshole.

I roll my eyes when I see the "WHY DO YOU HURT ME DC!!!!" melodramas on the internet, but I find this is just like going back to an old boyfriend. Memories of a summer breeze turning the page on your hardcover, interrogating your friends to find out all the juicy stuff you missed, the familiar musty smell of back issue bins in used bookstores on the outskirts of town... And a heavy dread anchoring your heart because you know why you dropped it all before and you know it'll end in a night of tears and country music but you have this warm sensation in your cheeks when you open the cover and you just can't stop smiling as you turn the pages. It's unsettlingly similar to the time Sean stopped to visit me in San Antonio.

A week or two ago a friend asked me repeatedly why I was so damned reasonable about a particular situation. I supposed I can hold this up to reassure her I'm still a crazy fan at heart. Or at least short of memory and susceptible to hype.

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On the other hand, this is awesome.

Everyone see this idiot commenting on Kalinara's Variations post?

I thought it was the first ever comic that bordered on racism.

Yeah, he's not talking about The Spirit, he's talking about the latest Blue Beetle issue.

And not because they screwed it up, but because they were "forcing" the readers to read Spanish. (GOTI covered this one yesterday.)

At the end of all that xenophobic inanity comes this comment:

Hi, John Rogers, previous writer of BLUE BEETLE here.

Just to point out — this commenter’s problem is even more insane than first appears, because the issue in question ACTUALLY OCCURS IN MEXICO, where our born-in-the-USA teen superhero who is the son of two legal immigrants — one of whom is written to have served his country in the 101st Airborne — has gone to visit his grandmother.

This guy and people like him are one of the reasons comics are dying.

The Internet is a wonderful and miraculous place. We must never forget this.

I am so very angry I can't come up with a rant for this one.

Our newest community troll, discussing Captain America in Kalinara's comments:

Realism for portraying a WWII-era soldier (super or otherwise) is unfortunately being a xenophobic flag hugging bible thumping asshole. They might actually give him some depth that Ultimate Cap lacked, but I think he'll be pretty much right there as far as characterization.

Now I've been on the internet for a few years now, so it's not normal for me to see something that has me literally shaking with rage. You've accomplished quite a feat, Brett.

Congratulations, and FUCK YOU!

Apparent Marvel/DC Olympics Misunderstanding

Marvel/DC Olympics poll on livejournal.

Now, we can clearly see from the first eight matchups that we're only watching the men's events but it seems some misguided fans have nominated women for the final event. And twice as many women as men.

If you have a livejournal account, please go and nominate some men (particularly Marvel men since right now we just have Roy and Kyle on the list) for the swimsuit competition that makes up the final event.