Supergirl

I wish Cir-El were found alive.

I wish she could hear the fate of Kandor (well, the Kandor left to be ruled by Ultraman)

I wish she could find a way to get there.

And I wish Supergirl would go back too and clean up the mess.

*looks at thoughts*

*looks at blank word document*

*looks at the head honchos at DC*

Yeah, this might be like flying cars. If you want one you probably have to build it yourself.

PoC SF & F Carnival: Issue 4

It's short but sweet. The 4th People of Colour Scifi & Fantasy Carnival is UP!

October seems like it was one thing after another and some have commented that the rock has been pushed over and now we see what was wriggling underneath.

But I'd like to think that it says something important and powerful that there are so many raising loud voices to point out ignorance and idiocy.

Please go have a look. There are copious link lists.

5th Carnival to be hosted by Shewhohashope @ Livejournal

6th Carnival to be hosted by Delux Vivens @ Livejournal

---

If you're interested in hosting in 2008, please contact Willow.

I just got an offline msg from Ragnell the Foul

The answer: Barda

The question: Who died?

*screams*

Tigra

I saw DigitalFemme's post about Tigra and how she has to come back from this. And I said, based on what I saw in her pics (they were small) - geezu I hope so.

But...

Fuck it I have no words. I really want to write that Seeking Avalon will be discussing anime and webcomics from now on and DC and Marvel can go lick each other's arses and die.

I feel sick. Dirty and sick.

I love superhero comics. Or no, maybe I love what superhero comics COULD BE. I certainly am not loving them right now.

Huh. And I was organizing my budget to buy Supergirl. I was organizing my budget to do something other than buy trade paper backs. But right now? Not so much.

I've been upset and angry and incredulous at individuals who tell women who like superhero comics to find something else. I don't want to find something else. Or I didn't want to find something else. And I'm aware of the problems Anime has. And it's not like webcomics don't have their problems either. I fell in love with Goblins and then realized on my second reading to the present that the first time I noticed a black human he was evil and then killed almost instantly after introduction.

But right now I can't help wondering at other things. Somehow, somewhere, something else.

I'm tired of the hunt and peck for characters of colour being empowered, for female characters not being used, abused, killed off etc.

-Please, Bendis could have picked a male hero to brush that stupid gang the wrong way and picked a male hero to have his family threatened and you know what? There's be extra impact for it, likely because he'd show the male hero fighting back but due to circumstances of drugs, thugs, what have you, not being able to fight back enough.-

Good Heaven. Mother of All Champions. Tigra beaten and brutalized (and yes, I'm admitting to personal trigger here cause duh! I'm female and it's happened within a foot of me in real life /snark)

I...

Shit man.

Shit.

"Do you like making me mad? I think you do. I think you like making me angry."

I'm in the midst of replying via my personal journal to a post I found discussing DC's: The Great Ten.

I'm mind blown at the racial stereotyping. I mean fu-dogs and there's a woman whose special power is giving birth to a LITTER (they call it a fricking LITTER) of 25 Supersoldiers ever 3 days.

That's spitting in the eyes of Asians and punching women in the chest. At once.

I'd c/p my comments, but I'm too irate and SAD. I'm so fucking sad.

Also I don't want to sic any of the peanut butter jar solo f*ck heads who've been trolling here onto a friend. Even though I know she could dice them, slice them and then serve them to rats as gourmet entree.

When I'm less 'OMG WTF', maybe I'll post more. Right now I'm going to comfort myself with webcomics and try to reconcile my want of comics with how much beatings I feel I've been taken.

The Comics Industry as pseudo abusive-as-all-get-out domestic partner.

---

PS:Tom Foss discusses the possibility that treated well, and written in depth none of the above characters might remain stereotypes. And he's right. A Stereotype can be just a short hand introduction and then the meat of things is gotten to. And I would enjoy seeing how individual characters react against the expectations of a government into who they are and how they perform and what they do.

However, Tom Foss isn't writing them. And no one writer likely will continue to write them for their entire existence. And there's quite a lot of writers out there who simply aren't trust worthy with tasks like this. They can barely handle White Women in their work, far less a minority character who's initial foundation is rooted in a stereotype.

And let us not forget the artists for both interior and covers. Blank stares, lego-bricks make up of women, appealing to stereotypes and the lowest common denominator because it's been shown to work.

And what about the executives and what they want and their suggestions and input and how all that factors a story? Some of them haven't been proven trust worthy either.

Face it. If Neil Gaiman or Octavia Butler (bless her soul) had put out on a website that their next series would cover these particular modeled characters - I know I for one would be intrigued and curious as to where they would take them and how they would form them. And the seeming stereotype would seem like the precursor to a twist.

Comics aren't single novels, written by a single artist. They're not even novels written by ghostwriters or various other writers where things are based on a bible so that even if character quality and depth varied from writer to writer at there was the chance that something new could be added to the bible and/or despite what the covers looked like, such and such a writer would be known to do 3 books a year in that universe.

Comics are collaborative in an invasive way and are currently controlled by people withim I and many others have no consistent vote of confidence. That to me is what helps make this all so much more outrageous and makes me so incredibly sad.

SPECIAL EDITION #1: PoC SciFi & Fantasy Carnival

Special Edition: The IBARW Edition hosted @ lj on The IBARW Community.

Links, links, links and more links. If you missed some of the wonderful discussion of IBAR2 the first time around, find it now. Read. Browse. Self-educate.

There's been a lot going on recently; discussions, trolls, flames. The links here might lead to better conversations seeing as how 2007 seems to be the year we discuss how to discuss racism so that we're all on the same page when it comes to addressing it.

Coming near the end of the month, a regular edition, hosted at Willow_dot_com @ Lj IF I don't hear back from assigned hostess Starkeymonster / Julia's Livejournal.

Submission deadline 10/20. Post goes live 10/24.

Apparently A Part 2 Is Needed

Dear AOL Proxy Anonymous 205.188.117.134,

If you find this fat, round, freckled, black lesbian so boring/annoying, why are you still reading?

And why are you behaving in a manner that makes me reconsider allowing anonymous postings (for the sake of OpenID)?

I don't know why you're concerned about whether or not I get laid. The last time I checked the value of a woman was not in her ability to lay down and spread them - contrary to what certain fundamentalists and neo-conservatives would have us believe.

I am not a walking vagina and uterus here to incubate under law.

This is not A Handmaid's Tale.

Am I meant to cringe that some stranger who's never met me doesn't think I'm pretty? Am I meant to be upset that I'm not a paragon of starvation beauty? Hell boy, I'm black - I wouldn't be a paragon of beauty in general American perception without blonde weave and contact lenses. Now in parts of Africa and the Caribbean it might be another story.

Am I meant to be upset that you think some form of sexual frigidity and unhappiness is why I don't like to see the beauty of things female and feminine reduced to arse and tits for male enjoyment / due to male lack of creativity / due to male lack of breaking long grooved thought patterns of women as the done to and men as the doers?

Have you been comprehending my blog? I know you've been reading, but has it sunk in?

Ahem, attention anyone else reading this blog; I am a fat, black, freckled, dreadlock sporting, bosom having, brown eyed gal. I believe that woman's equality should be factored in things big and small. The comic industry's portrayal of what a woman's role should be in a heroic, potential for prosperity society is as important to me as women being stoned for not covering head to toe in certain countries is as important to me as women being mutilated so their husbands can be assured they'll never enjoy sex and thus never cheat.

It all factors into global consciousness. (aka the bigger picture, what life will be like 7 generations down the line)

Attention Buttwipes, Turds, and the Terminally Ego Damaged

Someone replied to my post on the WonderHero costume with "You complain too much to be taken very seriously Willow". Note the lack of comma. The comment was of course, anonymous.

For a moment, reading that line within the comment, I felt hurt. And then a reality check slapped me upside my head. This is the net. This space is being used for a blog (vs a journal which is far more personal). This space is only about what I like and don't like. And I've been upfront as f*ck about not feeling the squee recently.

There's a fabulous post written here about Privilege as a Bodyguard. I was thinking about posting about it here and now I am, because WTF? Comic fan boys complain. They complain that someone's been given some love interest to distract them from fighting. They complain that someone's not being shown as strong enough in their current storyline. They complain about writers, artists, inkers, editors and the executives. It's what they do.

So why is it when a fangirl complains, she's not a fan with gripes she's writing out in a journal. She's suddenly someone not to be taken seriously?

Then again, maybe the anonymous poster meant to tell me that they ordinarily find my reflections on comicdom interesting but I complain too often and am unhappy too often and so my brilliant thoughts will never be taken seriously; because the world is full of arsewipes who want women, blacks, asians, first peoples, gays and the disabled to just play nice and smile and bow their heads when something bothers them, because no one pays any attention to suggestions unless they come wrapped in a bow addressed to Master.

To which I say a hearty FU.

Just because you have the effing bodyguard doesn't mean I'm going to fear you and thus arrive humbly and submissively in high heels in an impractical outfit, wherein my boobs don't work the right way and my skin is several shades too light and my existence as a lesbian serves only to titillate.

F*CK YOU.

No wait. Fornication can be plenty fun when it doesn't involve arseforbrains. And no one should be threatened with rape.

GET SMART.

Yeah, I said it. GO READ A BOOK.

GO SEARCH YOUR SOUL.

GO DO SOME WORK ON BECOMING A BETTER HUMAN BEING.

GO BUY A CLUE.

GO FEED YOUR BRAIN.

GO MINIMIZE YOUR EGO.

GO RESPECT YOUR MOTHER / SISTER / DAUGHTER / COUSIN / AUNT.

GO FIGURE OUT HOW TO BE AN ALLY TO THE REST OF THE HUMAN RACE.

Go Find A Way To Become Interesting

The rest of the world might actually wait for you.

I on the other hand, won't.

And as for this part:

"girl's can dress as female characters if they're in healthy shape...but guys?
you have to be a bodybuilder to wear a superman,batman,green lantern etc. costume.that sucks.

Yeah Right.

[ This now concludes my response to the self-crotch sniffing, tape measure ruling, chest oogling, masculinity threatened idiots of the world. ]

-Insert Flashy Pretty Stamp Here-

Dear Kalinara,

Why does The New Captain America look so much like Kurt Busiek's Silver Agent ? And not in that whole, Cap was first, Silver Agent was nth way.

Also since you know these things, is Patriot too young to have stepped into Cap's shoes should there be a need for a Captain America? Or is he solidly in his own persona?

-Willow

Take One

Halloween's a coming.

It's a time for little boys and girls and not so little boys and girls to dress up as their favourite heroes. A time for them to stride around pretending to zoom through the air, or hack helpless citizens to pieces all in performance for candy (or someone's house gets egged and tp-ed). A time for little girls to ...

[SCREETCH]

Ok so she's not a little girl. But a young woman, a teenager could presumably, maybe want to dress up like Wonder Woman - oh excuse me, Wonder hero. Random chick with white stars on blue bottom, gold thingies 'round her breasts and a red star.

I don't know if I'm glad they're not calling it Wonder Woman, curious if they thought they might get sued, or pissed at the flimsy skirt and wondering where the hell that cape came from. I'm pretty sure those boots aren't included.

damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn - Hating The Dubya B

Dear Warner Brothers,

I hate you.

Your decision, your new official policy that states girls are icky and don't sell at the box office therefore there will be no more movies with female leads, and the head of the studio doesn't even want to hear about movies with female leads, has me hating you.

I love Batman. You own Batman - you absolute wanking fuckers!

I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. Because of course now I have to fucking well boycott your stupid ass studio and not happily throw my money and inner fangirl at Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne and not buy The Dark Knight the second it's available - likely through pre-order and not pimp it hard to my friends as the second coming.

Of course it could suck and have me doing all that anyway, but you had a fan in me you shit sucking, lice picking, arse scratching, brain damaged, Neanderthals in business suits!

Gah. As if it weren't bad enough that you're associated with woman choking, bitchslapping, evil raping, breast scraping, black people killing Supernatural.

Arrrgh!

Sometimes I wake up and hear shit and my brain explodes

Dear Dan Dido,

You are an ass.

But don't fret, this is just the opinion of a lone female who's too budget restricted to do more than buy trade paperbacks anyway. So it's not as if my opinion will mess up your revenue.

Still.

I love Batman.

No seriously. I love Batman the way fat mice love cheese, the way Paris Hilton loves getting high, the way basement dwelling fanboys love your product.

So to your idea of having Jason Todd take on the persona of Red Robin, Dick Grayson's elseworld persona from Kingdom Come - I call you an ass. An unmitigated ASS.

Robins are NOT interchangeable, fucker.

No no no no no. And NO.

Dick's aliases are Dick's aliases.

Come up with something else you unimaginative little shit.

Why couldn't / can't Jason reform the name Red Hood? It's not like DCverse is unfamiliar with the concepts of both Red Riding Hood or Robin Hood.

But never mind that. I'm just pissed because you're squeezing on some trite shit on my favourite Robin. That's right, my favourite. Jason Todd needed to be Robin. He needed to belong. He needed to feel wanted, loved and appreciated. And if you don't think a little pre-teen reading back issues could relate to that just cause she was a girl - well go suck your left egg.

Wanker.