So New York Comic Con happened you guys! Yay! Saika and I had a good time, but there were some things that definitely could have been improved upon. Some deal with the actual con and others deal with the people present. Here we go!
Category Archives: Comics
Web Crush Wednesdays: Hark! A Vagrant
This week’s Web Crush is an oldie but goodie. Now, when I say “old”, that’s in internet years, of course. And, though we’ve certainly celebrated the work of this brilliant, witty artist before on this blog, it’s never been dubbed a Web Crush. I intend to change that. Active since 2007, and under its current title since 2008, I want to give a big geeky send-up to Hark! A Vagrant. Continue reading
“We Need to Get Wonder Woman on the Big Screen”
I’ve been a Marvel kid since I could pronounce the word Spider-Man. I’ve long found many of DC’s titles boring, or found that their work was too busy putzing around trying to relate to their Golden Age and Silver Age comics to be compelling. So, with the obvious exception of Batman and one or two other titles, I’m not DC’s biggest fan. One of those “other titles” is Wonder Woman. She’s an archetypal ancient Greek hero, a quintessential badass, a household name, and a feminist icon.
I’ve always been rather disappointed that after god knows how many Batman and Superman movies, even an ill-fated Green Lantern movie, there has been no substantive big screen or television effort for Wonder-Woman since comics’ Modern Age (although there was a direct-to-tv animated film, which was actually quite good). Some people would like to see that change, and now “some people” includes not just yours truly, but also Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara.
Having been instrumental in making a new Warner Bros. deal with JK Rowling, Tsujihara is on the lookout for new content to produce through the WB studio. He’s been rather direct in the discussion of new properties he wants to work with, saying that “we need to get Wonder Woman on the big screen or TV.”
Someone with money, power, and real pull has recognized the massive potential for Wonder Woman titles. That makes me happy enough to pop out of my star-spangled metal bra, especially when it comes without the caveat that she’s too difficult to write or whatever. Unlike, say, DC President Diane Nelson’s rather shifty claim that “She has been, since I started, one of the top three priorities for DC and for Warner Bros. We are still trying right now, but she’s tricky.”
I understand that there’s a lot of backstory to Wonder Woman, and I understand that yes, it would be truly catastrophic if a film were produced and happened to be awful. But to me, it would seem like the solution to that is to get it together, and do it right (something DC is having trouble with lately), not to just pussyfoot around it. There’s just not a good reason why a Wonder Woman movie couldn’t be made, and made well. Here, have a video to that effect, by which I mean a cogent and perfect argument as to why we should have this movie now:
Once you’re done nodding your head in agreement, go ahead and check this out:
I’d argue that this gives us a pretty good sense of how a Wonder-Woman film might be realized, albeit with superior production values and dear-sweet-god-I’m-begging-you-please-better-fight-choreography (it’s a long standing pet peeve of mine that many superhero movies have awful fight choreography). How might Wonder-Woman battle moral corruption and religious intolerance, while also battling the monsters of Greek mythology and the opponents of the Justice League? There’s a question a Wonder Woman film could seek to answer. Furthermore, Wonder Woman is essentially an alien, the child of gods, much like Thor or Superman, so what do we learn from her? How does she relate to a strange world in which there are new kinds of deceit and enemies are less straightforward than Titans, a world with wars whose level of pettiness had previously been reserved for fights between Zeus and Hera?
There’s not a lack of producible content; there’s not even a dearth of artists who want to work on a Wonder Woman property. What gives? As Susana Polo has pointed out, they just seem to have real trouble figuring out how to make a compelling and exciting film that isn’t about a white man. That’s disappointing. Listen up, DC/Warner Bros./Whoever:
Sexualized Saturdays: Non-Human Characters Outside the Gender Binary
Lal: “I am gender neuter. Inadequate.”
Data: “That is why you must choose a gender, Lal, to complete your appearance.”
Oh, Star Trek, you are one of those shows that consistently disappoints me. This conversation from Star Trek: The Next Generation perfectly illustrates how our society tends to view gender in a strict gender binary. In the episode “The Offspring”, the robot Data creates his own android progeny named Lal. He decides to create Lal gender neutral, so that Lal can choose what gender to be. It seemed like a great idea, but it quickly turned problematic when Lal declared gender neutrality “inadequate” before promptly choosing a female gender. For people who don’t fit the gender binary, this statement is wildly offensive. The message seems to be if you aren’t male or female then you are… inadequate. How fucked up is that?!
Green-Skinned Characters Do Not Count as Characters of Color
When the first Star Trek reboot film came out, I remember hearing a lot of Star Trek fans complaining about the lack of diversity in it. Not necessarily in the main cast—that can boast being at least a little racially diverse—but about the side characters. I remember watching the movie, looking at the cadets and numerous Starfleet officers, and thinking, “That’s a lot of white people”. Especially for a society that has supposedly achieved peace and equality. That’s what I was thinking, and that’s what I thought my fellow Trekkies were saying. However, eventually I discovered when they were saying racial diversity, they meant alien races. “Why are there so many humans and so few aliens in Starfleet,” seemed to be the question on everyone’s mind.
While for a Star Trek movie that may be a valid question, I was a little shocked that anyone would equate that with racial diversity in a movie. Sadly, however, that wouldn’t be the last I would hear of people of color being placed in the same category as fictional races.
Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: “Pilot”
Wow, that acronym is a pain in the ass to type.
Anyway.
How y’all doing, True Believers? I probably won’t make a habit of reviewing this show weekly, but given the hype it seemed just plain wrong to not a) acknowledge that the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. show has started airing and b) tell you what I thought about it.
Our episode opens on a blue-collar, down-on-his-financial-luck black dude and his kid out and about in the city. An explosion rocks a nearby building, and the guy sneaks off and, demonstrating superhuman strength, climbs the side of the building to rescue a woman trapped inside.
Elsewhere, Agent Coulson emerges from the shadows to assemble a not-so-crack squad of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, whose mission is going to entail keeping tabs on the ever-increasing members of the superpowered population.
Spoilers after the jump.
More Adventures at My Local Comic Book Store
If any of you remember, I joined the blog back in May, and my second post was about “geek gatekeeping.” It got started because a friend of mine was harassed at my local comic book shop for not being geeky enough (or some nonsense like that) and it was gross and I went off. Pushing people away from your interests, geeky or non, either because they frighten you or because you’re frightened about the sanctity of that particular interest, is complete nonsense.
If you’d like an object lesson in how ridiculous it is, the kind folks over at The Mary Sue are glad to help you out:
But, I digress. Something that I didn’t mention back when I wrote that post was that the people doing the harassing weren’t the people who worked at my comic store. They were regular fixtures in the store, but not employees. My friend, a hopeful (and now actual!) comic enthusiast, related to me that although she had been only an aisle away from a store employee, nothing was said or done when the jerks (as I will hereafter refer to them) had mockingly questioned whether she even belonged in a comic book store. I don’t want to engage with the layers of self-delusion necessary to even ask if someone can “belong” in a store that sells books.
My friend and I were both rather miffed. Thinking about it, I was actually more miffed with the store employees than with the jerks, because the store should have every reason to object to that sort of behavior. Letting someone get harassed in your store because you’re too busy arranging trade hardcovers or something fails a basic test of common decency, and it’s also just bad for business. It’s likely to scare off potential customers who want to give you money in exchange for pictures of Spider-Man and dice with strange numbers of sides. I racked my brain for a minute as to why you wouldn’t get involved in a situation like that in your own establishment and I came up with a couple of reasons:
Oh, My Pop Culture Jesus: Positive Portrayals of Catholics
So not too long ago, I was watching The Colbert Report and was treated to something awesome: an interview with Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who is the current head of the United States Catholic Council of Bishops (USCCB). Colbert and Dolan seem to actually be pretty good friends and did a talk at Fordham University called The Cardinal and Colbert: Humor, Joy, and the Spiritual Life. This has nothing to do with anything geeky, so why am I bringing it up? Stephen Colbert hasn’t hidden the fact that he’s a devout and proud Catholic. And, in my opinion, he is one of the most positive examples of a Catholic on TV today.
So watching Colbert got me thinking: are there any Catholic characters, particularly in geek culture, that show a positive portrayal of Catholics?
Sexualized Saturdays: Sexy Costumes, Slut-Shaming, and Female Superheroes
When it comes to female superheroes and villains, I constantly hear debate over the sexy costumes. On the one hand, it is ridiculous that female characters must be constantly half-exposed in order to be in comics. On the other hand, one could argue that criticism of what these characters wear can devolve into to slut-shaming and placing standards on female characters that would never be placed on men. In real life, cosplayers wearing revealing costumes experience both harassment and slut-shaming from both men and women. But for this post, I just want to discuss the characters. Why am I so offended when female heroes and villains are constantly depicted wearing sexy revealing costumes?
Let’s use Harley Quinn and Starfire as two modern examples.
DC Comic’s Misogynistic Contest Alienates More Readers
DC Comics hasn’t been doing so well lately, but denying Batwoman her happy marriage pales in comparison to the recent news. What news is that? Maybe you heard about a contest recently for new DC artists. That’s right, you too can be an artist for DC Comics! What’s the catch?
You have to draw Harley Quinn committing suicide. Naked. Yep, you heard that right.
THIS WILL NOT STAND!!!!!
Lady Geek Girl and Friends 