oh comic world

Come home from holiday visiting and get told that it's official - Spiderman has been Un-Married and probably Un-Teachered and Un-Fired from the Bugle.

I hadn't known it was more than one thing wherein there'd be a rollback. It made my first thought something along the lines of: Why are the Execs at Marvel, insisting that lesiure suits with wide lapels and seafoam green are oh so cool? Why are they do determined that everything must be as it was when they were growing up? Can't they see they've become old men stuck in a time warp?

Apparently not.

It's sad. It was so cool that Peter Parker grew up with me.

First off I have to admit to loving the Spiderman Live Action TV Series. And after that, I followed his cartoon adventures - Spiderman & Friends with Iceman and Firestar, and the 90's series and the one where he was dealing with the High Evolutionary (that's one of my favs) and I squeed with joy at the New Animated Series, the cgi one.

Still, once I got past the wtf, with the clones and the dreams and the space opera / horror adventures, it WAS pretty damn cool that Spidey was growing up. Same snark, same quips, bigger support base, different problems. Spiderman as a teacher in the NYC school system? That seemed just perfect.

And now...

I guess that's why I couldn't get into Ultimate Spiderman no matter how many recs it got given. I've seen/heard/done the Spidey in school, Spidey with girl problems, Spidey trying to figure out up from down.

(Why wasn't Ultimate enough? He's brand new, looking at things differently etc...)

Hmm, maybe every year is a bad year to get back into comics.

And now I'm having what feels like blasephemous thoughts concerning the fact that comics don't seem to want to grow.

A hideous thing was tainted by the rest

Ever notice how when you start talking to a friend, all the ire you have inside of you comes bubbling out and you go - whoa, I didn't know I felt that much about it.

Well more coming to you about what happens to Dazzler (and the rest of Excalibur) in issues 16-24. BUT FIRST...

ShadowLine imprint of Image Comics has a contest. Who Wants To Create a Superheroine

I am about to get frank, ugly, accusatory, bitchy and a whole lot of other unpleasantness right now. So, grab popcorn.

Have you looked at Franchesco's art?  I saw in his gallery a picture of a proud, gritty, Moon Knight. But all his images of female characters are the kind of things that immediately turn me off investigating a comic; overly large breasts, odd body compositions and unnecessary crotch shots.

And Franchesco, because he will be defining the character's look (with input from the writer) will own 50% of the creation. There went any idea, any thought, any possible urge I had of entering the contest. 

Can they be serious about wanting a strong heroine when the artist they choose for the project is one with that kind of style? The blurb mentions them wanting a strong heroine as a counter balance to Bomb Queen, their most popular title.

Bomb Queen by the way is a villianess who wears pants that barely cover her mons, thus showing off her thong; who has a reckless disregard for human life and who controls a town wherein apparently schoolchildren can buy guns and television hostess appear nude on camera. In fact there's quite a lot of  live live girls, nude nude! going on in the city with several touches of female paedophiliacs.

Frankly if there's an underlying equality for the sexes message in the whole thing, it's lost on me. I'm too busy being skeezed by the associations of wild out of control woman + crazy sexuality mesh child abuse. And there was a scene discussing their crazy version of survivor showing an afro-ed black woman, petting the hair of a bondaged blonde girl-child that just scratched nails down my metaphorical spine. If you don't know why that image might upset me, I suggest you find a website somewhere on the internet and get schooled about racism, and stereotypes. It might explain why I wasn't enjoying the weak black man as mayor either.

Now all this to do more than say that Bomb Queen is not my cup of tea. It's obvious I shan't be buying it.

But Bomb Queen's mention does leave me thinking if this contest is nothing but a PR stunt because they do realize some of the inadvertent messages in their most popular comic.

They've also stressed that the less dark the better. So they want a bright, upbeat, non-gritty super-heroine. But when I combine what they seem to want with the artist they chose, my first thought is fluff piece.

Now granted a character doesn't have to be (or stay if so originally created) a bit of fluff heroine. And sparkles and kindness and joy and modesty do not a fluffy heroine make - necessarily. Heck if I thought Franchesco could draw a black woman without making her look like an ape, I'd probably sit down and think more about possibilities.

But strong heroine and breasts bulging all over the fucking place aren't connected associations in my head. I've seen his art-up of Diana / Wonder Woman.  Waists smaller than a woman's head does not speak 'Strong ass kicking savior of the female persuasion' to me. Check out his art-piece labelled 'Frankie' I think that's Glactucus in the corner, but I'm too busy going 'What the fuck Bukkake ?' It's all part of why I think the man would draw  African Descendeds as a type of 'black face' while also not knowing what to do with actual booty - besides sticking a thong up in it.

I sigh - I really do like the fact that Image made Invincible available to the general public (more thoughts on why was it the Asian girl who's a sex fiend a bit later)

Oh and yes, my title is from a Cranberries song.

Is Wanda Just A Running Gag?

Someone showed me an image tonight of Wiccan and Speed, and it jarred some thoughts out of me.

I'm not sure about Speed, but Wiccan at least has met SW, right? And I believe Wiccan and Speed currently know that they are somehow - - -

1) Holders of part of (or the whole and mingled) souls of her twins

2) Magically her sons brought to this time and place

3) Some variation of that.

Why then, if her babies are right fucking THERE, is Wanda going crazy attacking people and needing folk to think about putting her down like fucking Cujo?

Can someone please explain this to me? I am willing to follow some a to b logic on this. Lay down the lines, use baby words if you have to, but I'd like to fucking understand this.

Because without understanding this, I'm left to think that Wanda's mental health and her explainable survivor's guilt and mother's grief over the loss of her children is some of kind of Marvel punching bag joke. Or some kind of seeming fucking balance for some one deciding to give her the power to shift and shape reality.

I love Wanda. I guess maybe I'm a little like Wiccan in my admiration. She's overcome a shady troubled past. She's moved beyond being Magneto's daughter to being a hero in her own right. (At least in theory when writers aren't dicking her around at least). She married whom she wanted to and started a family and found her purpose all while staying close to her twin.

Why the fucking hell does she need to be an emotional wreck every fucking twenty-five issues because she lost her children?

Now I wouldn't be happy if part of her madness is because she looks like her mother and Magnus got incestuously close on the emotional level and that warped some things. It would also be taking away from her strength, but it'd be new. Original. Though seriously, after fucking saving the world, that bit of her past wouldn't have the same impact.

So no. I take it back.

Is Marvel purposely keeping the Rom down? Is this some combination of put the ethnic overly emotional think she can be a hero woman in her place? What? What the fuck is it?

Carol Danvers, blonde hair and blue eyes gets her life/memories/powers stolen from her, gets humongo power, loses it, has alcohol problems and RECOVERS but dark haired, dark eyed, dark skinned, likely descended from wandering ancient East Indians, among others, Wanda is still hung up over her children to the point of madness?

Wolverine has been effing mind raped, mind violated, memory jacked, mind fucked, has like far too many dead love interests but he gets to move forward. Why not Wanda?

What? Jean Grey is officially dead and they can't make her evil anymore so their new punching bag to shake things up is Wanda? (I'll rant about Jean another time)

Damn it there's just so much possibility with Wanda (far less combined with Wiccan and Speed). There's magic adventures to be had; rescue operations, urban tales. If Wanda has to have a profile of the perpetually grieving mother, why can't she have adventures steming from working with parents groups or other mothers. Where the hell was she during Civil War btw? I actually don't know.

I can see Wanda as a detective, hunting down rings that exploit children for dark purposes of magic or y'know, just regular atrocities like modern slavery - from camel jockeys to sex toys.

If Wanda can manipulate reality why isn't she working WITH Dr.Strange? Why isn't she an anchor-point against things that want to cross dimensions and twist reality to their own means? Wanda kicking the ass of Chaos Demons. How cool would that be? Very.

So WTF is it always "MY BABIES!" and now "Daddy, No More Mutants!"

I mean, geeze, look at the shit she's put her brother through. And hello, her children were mutants.

I sigh. I sigh a whole fucking lot.

(this is the second time blogger has messed up the time. this time marking it 4 hours later first it was 7:50AM when the real time was 2:50AM and now it's 12:50PM and who knows what it'll be when I finish editing here now.)

I'm with the Superheroine

Why does Dinah look like she's

a) Taking it up the butt

b) Not so secretly a motorcycle driving blow up doll made specifically so Ollie can shoot arrows?

In other news: Marvel Girl or DC Girl ? No. Superheroine Girl! That is me!

I really should discuss how much I enjoyed Manhunter up to Issue 19#, instead of just saying I'm going to discuss it. It was gritty and real. Though using those two words, makes me feel like I'm just spitting out buzz words.

It was a realistic look at the DCverse; strife and grit, pain, blood, sweat, tears and piss. I love the fact that it's based in LA. I love the concept of their being parts of the world where, for some reason, metas and villians and supers just don't seem to go. I loved Manhunter as 'The Sheriff' of LA. And I loved the weaving arc to make sense of past history. Also I feel like I learned more about bloody OMAC than I have, trying to read issues, blogs and look the damn thing up in Wikipedia.

I haven't moved past the first issue where it's One Year Later yet, because I'm confused as eff over how things changed. Also, I think I've found a hefty dose of personal 'WTF is this shit!' over the concept of OYL.

Also also? I want to read about The Rainbow Wars of GLCorps. But I'm having a hard time shifting gears from general excitement to must follow.

Why are comic such a love/hate situation? Why is it you get in the groove and then the writer changes or the artist changes and...

Which reminds me - Must rant about No More Photorealistic Art. Oh yeah. Ranty coming up. All bright and shiny and spiky.

And then they had to go and ruin the ride....

Ok, who the hell did Issue ! 16? And why are there a complete ass? Like in white yeast ringed asshole! The art's too grooved, too dark, too sharp and edgy for the tone of the book. And on page three, I've got girl ass in the face!

For the past 15 issues, yeah, Alli's wearing a cropped t-shirt and TJ's showing belly button and blue cleavage and Sage is a dominatrix librarian. But aside from one panel where Sage's breasts were as big as her HEAD - I was focused on the story; story, characters, action. I was all over that. As can be attested to by my squee.

Now in Issue #16 (yeah, I don't watch tv and I'm staying up late) - Alison's ass is in my face.

So suddenly we go from Pete Pantazis and his AMAZING colour and Rick Ketcham's inking. And me going - Yay! Who ever you are artist, your art is COOL! And then I end up having to hunt down his name (Micahel Ryan) because in Issue 16 I've got ass in the face from some not!Michael.

What, they thought fans wouldn't notice?

Also suddenly Dazzler's chaps are shiny pvc fetish pleather... and why is Noctune's hair so long? Also why doesn't she seem to be wearing a bra? Why is her shirt peekaboo maybe she'll jump high enough and show breast?

And JUGGY?

JUGG ficking Y?

15 issues of Caine or Juggernaut and then Juggy?

[ Alison Blaire can't match her teammate's phenomenal fighting skill. She has other assets ] And then there's a shot of her glowing ASS! And it looks nude or nude stocking! WTF?

I waited and waited to see the sword. And it's with this horrible photo-realistic fuck art. And people's hairstyles changing ever panel? I'd almost think it was Greg fucking Land!

And ok, since when does Talia have braids? And is of African decent but with blue skin? Look I want black superheroes like whoa. But the Scarlett Witch? Not black. And Kurt Wagner? Not black. He's blue with European features (and fur). So Talia shouldn't be looking like Lauryn (the lovely) Hill! And why does Sage look like some odd cross between Jessica Alba and Angelia Jolie? And why in Issue 18 does she look like Torri Spelling?

Oh god this inker (and in the issue before) makes everyone look like they have a viral case of road rash. And Cain looks like Cro-magnon man!

And now Dazzler looks like Pink! And they're rehashing storyline info blurb from at least seven issues ago. And then claiming 'My god, I never thought of it'.

Man - this is fucked up. I got so excited and then I discovered - well, it's comic books, eventually they'll fuck it up. This bites.

Also, are all issue comics filled with so many damn ads? Marvel Purified Water - wtf?!

Oh Marvel. Oh Marvel. Marvel. Marvel - you misguided fool. Not only are you making mistakes of the regular sort, with not matching continuity in writers and artists and in not trusting to the intelligence of your audience - but you're selling people newsprint at 3-5$ a pop filled with ads and then complaining you don't understand how Manga attracts.

Guess I won't be buying New Excalibur after all. (Hmm, maybe there're trades up to Ep 15.)

PS: These last issues also contain scenes of Dazzler being totally brilliant (as in pretty) kickass and possibly FLYING and I really can't give too much of a fuck, because it's stopped being enjoyable. In fact if I wasn't staying up with a friend, I'd have stopped reading it - just like I stopped reading Manhunter when it skipped to one year later (and yeah, I should be posting about that soon)

New Excalibur!

Jono makes a walkthrough.

And then....

THERE IS MERLINNESS!

*has complete muppet like freak out spaz of semi-orgasmic joy and screaming*

PS: I Love You

Some folk have mentioned that if they only knew I liked < insert character name here > they would have told me all about it sooner.

So for the record (or at least as much as I can remember right this second)

You know about BATMAN. (All shall love him and be saved from despair)

But there's also:

- DAZZLER

- CLOAK & DAGGER

- WONDER WOMAN

- SCARLET WITCH (who never seems to get good storylines - so even if you tell me, I pro'lly won't believe you)

For those of you who'd now like to point out that there isn't but one character of colour on that list - I'd like to remind you that for most of my innocent childhood, I thought Bruce Wayne spun around in a circle like Lynda Carter and became a Black Man. My infant mind could not conceive of a white man being that cool, and primed for justice and ass kicking. (Blame my daddy issues - Yay! Lawyers!)

Other characters for whom I have admiration and love, even if it's sublevel 2 love:

- LORNA DANE / POLARIS (who gets all SW's insanity obsessed writers)

- SPIDERMAN

- HANK MCCOY

- KURT WAGNER

- JASON TODD

- TERRY MCGINNIS

- DEADMAN

- WOLVERINE

- MONICA RANBEAU

- ORORO MONROE

My newest (or in some cases reclaimed) loves include ARTESIA (she who graces my banner) GAMBIT, MISTY KNIGHT, INVINCIBLE, LADY SHIVA, MYSTIQUE, CONSTANTINE, BARBARA GORDON / ORACLE.

In general, though, if SHE kicks ass while making things SPARKLE with pretty coloured lights and she's not an annoying version of Jubiliee, ala the 90's cartoon - I will love her, or at least check her out.

If HE is a snarky smart ass, with a wedge of STOIC self reliance, not a little personal ANGST and a burning determination to see JUSTICE done - sometimes only once he gets dragged into it - or the burning determination if s for old school justice (also known as vengeance and an eye for an eye) - then I will love him or at least check him out.

I have found the SQUEE!

I am reading Excalibur.

1. Dazzler kicks people in the face!

2. Dazzler's eyes glow when she's pissed.

3. Light explosions.

4. Dazzler kicks ass, takes names and then KICKS PEOPLE IN THE FACE!

5. Evil dudes call her Brightengale and Songbird and then SHE KICKS THEM IN THE FACE.

Are you seeing a theme? Are you? Are you?!

Also, there's two panels of Harry Potter reference that just cracks me up into a giggle pile of already happy squee.

I almost don't quite care that Sage looks like some sort of Librarian Dominatrix Fetish Dream.

Juggernaut's a good guy! Nocturne's part of the main physical reality. And Dazzler KICKS PEOPLE IN THE FACE!

C'mon Photons!

I need to own this in tradepaperback.

Issue #6

The 6th People of Colour in Science Fiction / Fantasy Carnival is up at deadbrowalking @ livejournal.

The theme - Sankofa in Space.

Truth be told I haven't even finished reading all the great links from the 5th Carnival. But I urge you to bookmark this one if you can't go read, skim and interact immediately.

Ping!

I had a random thought while in IM conversation with someone. Well, not quite random, it's a thought I've had on and off for a while but never articulated before.

Josef Loeb + Frank Miller, made to work on a comic book together.

Frank: Whores. Whores, sex, grit, crime, gritty danger, Whores!

Loeb: It's not slash! Honest! It's intense male bonding friendship!

Possibility? The Authority. The thought makes me smile.

Though, who would do the art? (Please universe not Make-them-turd-faces Quimby)

Thinking about it now, consciously, I ponder them doing something original. Something about some poor boywhore who's only doing it to get inside information on the mob? Because they killed his best friend? Who uhm...comes back as a ghost? And there's lots of angsty - if I could touch you. But it'd definitely, completely, wouldn't be homoerotic. On noes!

ETA: Restarting Ultimate Marvel Universe. Scott could be the boy-whore! The X-Men would totally be all gritty mutant minorty trying to survive. There'd be head bashing violence! Logan would be blood sprayed and cool! Logan/Scott = Enemy SLASH. Jean Grey the immaculate = Gritty Whore! No wait, it's Jean Grey the immaculate, she'd be a regular Miller Madonna figure. Damn.

PoC Carnival: Reminder

The 6th PoC Carnival has a Friday the 14th of December deadline for submissions. Take a moment to see if you can find articles or artwork to submit.

Wanda. Pietro. Ultimate Incest

Mutant Royalty. Weird effed up childhood. Having no one but each other. And Magneto's their dad.

Then again I have a soft spot for Greek Mythology as well as the concept of 'Us Against The World'. What I'm more concerned about is was bringing it out of the subtext closet done to make Pietro's anguish seem deeper? Can we trust the writer(s) to show emotional depth with it? Is it going to be more than;

- No she can't be, I would know!

- She was the only one who wanted/trusted/understood me! Arrgh!

- Is there the possibility that SW will somehow return to the scene kicking ass because someone dared tried to separate them?

In other thoughts: Ultimate Wiccan and Speed could be so interesting now.

How Digital Blew My Mind aka The First Taste is Free

Marvel Comics. Digital Distribution.

I can't remember right now how I stumbled across the information during the last week, but I did.

While the whole $5 dollars a month if you pay 54 for the whole damn year at once - kind of makes me cringe as I'm a woman currently of limited means ; Though actually even if I wasn't, I grew up in a pinching penny environment. Think of me as a black Saiunkoku Monogatari. Noble family, broke as anything. So my frugal ways will likely stay with me for life.

STILL if they can work it (things to be fixed mentioned here) it'd be wonderful for those of us, like me, who want to legally read and then buy the tradepaperbacks of the stuff we want to hold in our hands for all time.

[[ Why are there two prices listed? One obvious and the other when you press 'offer details'. That combined with the prices subject to change at any time makes me brr a little ]]

So there I am peeking at Young Avengers + Runaways, cause I keep hearing how much I'd like or at least would have liked Young Avengers. Yes, gay teens for the whooting. Gay teens who're related to Scarlet Witch? Gay teen grandchildren of Magneto? My Woot, let me show you it.

Anyway, I'm peeking and so far it's crisp. And I don't feel skeezy or confused the way I've been confused by bittorrent. But I am having just a little trouble reading. There's this odd weird cut off thing in two page. The right? (page in this direction -->) is cut off in two page view. Two page view lets it feel like a comic. So it's a shame it just isn't working.

[[ Also, why can't we save these things online? If you're paying a monthly or yearly subscription fee and they don't have to pay for distribution - Oh Diamond the stories I hear about you - then shouldn't the general costs drop?

And so I'm left thinking that if I paid 60$ a year, I'd damn well want to be able to burn my own discs with the option of a little extra to get them to make fancy disks for me! I mean some of us don't like flimsy paper issues.

We want books. We want lasting. We want it not to take up too much space! Space and the demands to treat it gentle just don't quite work for me. Also if I could get the whole of Cloak and Dagger on CD, I would pay now and eat tuna for weeks. ]]

I can't say more just yet, because it wants me to register in order to finish the reading experience and see more. I am not big on registering for something that's supposed to be enticing me to spend money. Why should you get my personal information when I don't even know if I like you yet?

On the other hand; Heroes for Hire looks as cool as it sounded, despite Misty's hair.

[[ Seriously, wtf was up with that? I can see what they were trying to accomplish. But black hair doesn't work that way, and I know they can draw squiggly lines for corn row. But it's been said before so...]]

And I'm scrolling through Generation M, (still not registered) and it looks interesting despite the massive hairball I think CIVL WAR was/is. So this could get me seeing some squee on this side of the big two's take on superheroes. I do remember hearing that the tie-ins didn't suck. And the best way to get me interested in buying a potentially good story is to make it easy and simple for me. Scrolling through the site, I realize I could finally look at She-Hulk without feeling I'd be wasting money if I didn't like it. And I saw other stuff people have tried to pimp me. General count? At least 10 series that I wouldn't look at twice before due to money and storage space/upkeep.

With the production of readers for E-Ink and e-book readers like NUUT (and possibly Bookeen) where Manga's available for download already in Japan, it's not too far down the road to where having digital copies won't restrict you to reading at a desktop or laptop - your comics could be digital and portable. So why no downloads? Why so slow to roll with the times?

Then I looked up DC's online possibilities and there my mind was blown. I consider myself a DC girl, even if my love of Batman was closely followed by a love of Marvel's Cloak & Dagger and by Dazzler with a follow up of the daily Spiderman comic strip.

I may have to rethink that self perception given that scrolling through DC's website I didn't see much that interested me in general. And then I was disappointed because DC doesn't seem to be taking parallel steps to Marvel in terms of digital distribution. For a whole hour I was faced with the prospect that ease of access to both past archival issues and current storylines might make me a Marvel girl.

Of course while googling to find out why this was so, I stumbled across a few sites that are doing digital archiving and are being dually harrassed by both Marvel and DC.

Why is it that these two can't seem to get that the future is here? I'm not sure of the legalities of it, but I'd think if other people are doing the hard work of scanning your titles and putting them up and promoting them and you want to get into the digital business, then it might make sense to create a Marvel or DC corporate sponsorship of bit-torrents. Say that they'll provide the original seeds, and sites promoting the material have to charge a minimal fee, of which they (the product licensors) get a certain percentage. The most other money they'd have to put into it is buying out or creating their own personal readers - they could make a little money that way too.

I grew up with comics, but at the moment I'd say I'm a casual comics reader. I like good stories. I love superheroes. But even if I could afford to spend the money to follow all the cross-referencing needed to get a single plot from beginning to end, I'm fairly certain I wouldn't spend it; not at those prices. That money could go to so many other things; gaming, ice-cream, netflix subscriptions, buying trades I already know I like, saving up for conventions, going to see the movies in theaters, etc.


I agree strongly with this write up here about keeping it simple and inexpensive and how causal users, or those coming back don't really want to hunt down a comic book store. I'm there right now. I'm thrilled to be into comics again (when I'm not saddened by the state of things). I'm aware of comic stores now. But I'm already going 4$ for 20something pages?!!! I don't want to have to go out of my way to find a book store on top of that. I go to local bookstores that are not the big chains once a year; in December. And I don't feel I'm missing out on the comic book buying/having experience or sense of community, because the internet has blogs and forums.

What about creating a new sub-set of the comic book lifestyle? A digital lifestyle.

[[ I now imagine myself going to a local, licensed comic book downloader, who'll put the volumes I want on cd or dvd, with various extras and interviews from the artists, inkers, colourists and writers that only they have access to via subscription to Diamond or whomever.

Maybe there's a hardcover I actually want to own, so I pick that up too. And while I'm there, I can pick up some stamps for snailmail, cause licensed comic book downloaders can use certain images to place an order with Photostamp or whomever. If I already called ahead, it's waiting. If not, the order'll ship to me. Maybe I order a couple postcards too.

There are other customers there waiting for their digital orders, so there's browsing and some talking (some of us know each other via blogs, forums and newsletters) and I avoid the corner with the overly sexy statues so I don't bus someone's chops for oggling Mary Jane's porcelain skimpy undies. Someone pimps a website I'm not subscribed to, that's all about a new Batman writer's exclusive podcasts. Someone else talks about an exclusive mini-series cartoon (think CloneWars) that can only be gotten through the official licensed downloads, as an extra. And I pout about missing it, since it won't be available again for another 3 months, unless I plonk down for an extras cd. I don't have the money in my budget for it but I make a note, collect my stuff, pay for it and I'm gone. Not to return for another couple of months.

My purchases tally up to something like $40, but I'm following some 30 series, DC, Marvel, Darkhorse and some indies and I got those stamps. But that's ok for my quarterly comic budget and I'm already paying $12 a month to read the issues (from 3 major publishers) as they go live online. Happy little customer me, goes home to read/view my extras, hug my hardcopy and not have to deal with boxes taking up storage space I don't have, or hours of bagging, cataloguing whatever, since y'know, I'm casual and not a "collector".]]

*sighs*

It's a nice dream but totally unrealistic, right?

Marvel.Com's Privacy Policy

Having just read that bit of information, it is now highly doubtful that I will register to see the free comics, far less buy a subscription.

- Web beacons, trackers, etc

- My personal information is an asset

- And by registering I'm agreeing that this is so.

- There are opt outs for the sharing of personal information and they give a url for it. But then they go on to say that anything freely given is implicit information and all theirs. So the information they require in order to sign up which includes age, sex, first name, last name, country  (if not the us), and zipcode is all theirs.

- And this information will be used for 'promotions' some of which you can opt out of.

Even if I lied about everything but my email address, I still don't want to deal with web beacons and tracking cookies. And I certainly don't want my email address as an asset that may be sold or taken over and also used to push things on me I don't want or need.

We Moved! Welcome :)

So there I was waiting to get all the tags in place before letting people know I'd moved. And then I realized, aftermonths of not being able to transfer, and then finally managing it - what the hell was I waiting for.

So Seeking Avalon on Blogger. Now.

The tagging of the back entries will happen.