Yet Another Piecemeal Heroine

"Y'know what sucks?" I started saying to a friend on chat. "Reading a book about a heroine, who knows bad guys are hunting a creature, who gets there first, and instead of taking the creature somewhere safe - not even to her home, just somewhere -safe-, she wastes time interrogating it, in public, with the bad guys hunting, and then gets upset they find her and kill the creature."

There, I have just spoiled the 00 issue of Lady Mechanika by Joe Benitez. I don't feel tis anything worth crying over either.

Sometimes, I feel like the world wants me to think I'm asking for the DAMN MOON, for wanting a protagonist female who THINKS THINGS THROUGH.

My friend's response? "So, she's holding the idiot ball?"

Which lead to me discovering the term and it's TV Tropes Definition. I hadn't heard the term before.

But let us continue with the ignorance rampage through these 13 pages (just when I decided I couldn't read anymore, turns out it was done.)

LM is hunting a creature that's said to be terrorizing the town. She's intrigued because it's possibly part mechanical, like herself. She's aware that there are men, hired by a particular company, also hunting, because they too are intrigued by the mechanical. On top of that there are DIFFERENT MEN, hunting it to kill it.

She darts the creature and then starts talking to it, right where they are. No picking it up to take it somewhere safe; not even a rooftop, not even a sewer, not even a shadowy corner.

It would be one thing if things went to crap while she was trying to convince the creature to trust her, but instead she's overwhelmed by an urgent need for information NOW NOW NOW.

She's even TOLD the beast that it's being hunted by others. And it's said it expects to be killed. It can't help not thinking straight, it's been tranqed. But what the hell is her excuse?

I understand setup, I really do. But why not have her take the creature someplace, have the bad guys track it, and have the creature freak out thinking it's a trap and distrusting her or something and thus trying to run away, end up running right into trouble; that is, if the writer really needed her angry and without information.

Instead BAM! Dead sapient creature. No information. And then, she stalks towards the shooter, all pissed off and punches him upside the face. Only to listen to his religious fervor about 'purity and abominations' etc...

So while I'm rolling my eyes at yet another persecuted minority without anyone having to deal with race(eta: sexuality or gender), I'm also rolling my eyes at a heroine being pissy. Not bad ass. PISSY.

And then it gets worse.

No, I'm not kidding.

Having strolled into the midst of the hunters. She reveals herself as being part mechanical. Thus, she's in the middle of hired mercenaries when their employer offers them triple their fee to bring her in.

And then, the cues of the story try to tell me I should think it bad ass that she wounds, grievously wounds, perhaps even kills these men. These men who were only doing their jobs. These men who wouldn't have had to try and attack her, if she hadn't presented the opportunity by striding in there, holding the ignorant ball.

AND THEN.

And then? Their employer, the man calling the shots, commands his attendant to shoot her. She responds and wounds this employer. She begins to stroll majestically out of scene, after kicking his face in or something close, judging by the blood spatter in the comic (did I mention this blood spatter comes on the end of heels? Yes, hunting in heels. Let us all laugh together).

So, this man, who's proven he wants to capture beings like her, ALIVE, who is in the midst of his big villain speech about vivisection and future technology, she wounds him, and LEAVES HIM ALIVE.

And I'm supposed to think she's bad ass? I'm supposed to think she's a character I could identify with?

I don't care that she's an anti-hero, who holds life like hers higher than other life. What I care about is her plot/writer induced ignorance. A powerful man, in charge of a powerful company, who can afford to hire mercenaries to hunt down what he wants and offer them triple their fee on the spot, who can KILL without fear of reprisal, who is INTERESTED in this woman, and who has already shown a disregard for regular human life.

AND SHE LEAVES HIM ALIVE???

Has he no heirs? No VP's, no wife, (or lover), or family to want revenge against her to keep the plot going? Would it not produce plot to have her wanted for murder? Is she not smart enough to permanently mangle his jaw and break his hands and knees and legs to at least slow him down while avoiding the label of murderer?

NOPE.

She leaves him alive.

Now let's move on to the art. There was apparently a need to show middirff, to have hip hugging low riding pants, to have peekahole breast window in a mechapunk scenario. There was apparently a need to show the female protagonist in poses of impossible body structure, impossible balance and impractical martial arts poses.

Because the heroine can't be smart and strong and ruthless, and possibly modest or modestly matching the times. She must be sexy. Oh yes.

And again, if her revealing clothing was meant to make people uncomfortable by showing her inhuman, inorganic parts - that would be one thing. That would be psy-ops in action. This is just a high heels wearing woman, who talks a good game, but doesn't actually do anything worthwhile; who is presented as an overly emotional (not overwhelmed by emotions related to particular issues, mind), sexy, steampunk sexamatrix (in the sense of male gaze fantasies about overpowering women).

And here I was hoping for something perhaps dealing with disability, assistive devices, mechapunk backgrounds & culture, and you know, an actual self-empowered, brightly thinking female protagonist.

Yup, this ticked me off so much, despite a current painscale at about 7.5 (specifically in my fingers), I typed this all up anyway.

A Short Open Letter

Dear M. Night Shyamalan,

Zuko, Prince of the Fire Nation, is. not. Sith.

You seem to have missed a memo.

-
Willow, {A Fan Of The True Avatar: The Last Airbender)
Animatedverse Rules!

Hollywood: "We Don't Know What Asian Looks Like"

Meet the live action Avatar: The Air Bender's ALL WHITE MAIN CAST

This post is purely informative. No one fucking talk to me about this shit.

ETA: A Letter Writing Campaign Against Avatar:TLB's White Casting.

Atten: B'Sphere

Dear People Who Keep Commenting Me On My Marvel + Gay People = Oh Hells No Post,

Please stop commenting. The majority of you keep wanting to discuss or point out that Guggenheim was being pro equal marriage.

I. Don't. Care

I realize I was not at my most coherent because I was just so effing angry that equal marriage and the bad storyline of A DEAL WITH A SHIV GIVING LORD OF HELL, A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL were being equated at all.

It was a shitty comparison and a shitty analogue. And yes, I still think it showed a level of callousness to have an official spokesperson make such a statement. The level of callousness equates to me that MARVEL DOESN'T CARE ABOUT GAY PEOPLE.

Homosexuality is good enough to mention in a backhanded attempt to pander to homophobic comic reading buzzballidiots and it's good enough to attempt to appeal to some mystery demographic and show your 'liberal cred'. But it's not good enough for any particular attention to be paid to having or promoting a stable character.

And if someone dares to comment/post an essay reply mentioning The Rawhide Kid, consider yourself already internet stabbed.

Guggenheim had a poor, extremely poor choice of words. Why all the surprise that someone would state outright that MARVEL DOES NOT CARE ABOUT GAY PEOPLE?

I've already been saying MARVEL DOES NOT CARE ABOUT BLACK OR BROWN PEOPLE.

Marvel's captained and steered by middle class white guys who're living out their power fantasies even if said fantasies crush the dreams of consumers and other fans - that is people who aren't them. If you're not a middle class hetero white guy and you're still enjoying them - bully for you. But don't expect me to put up with consuming the same amount of bullshit. Garbage in equals garbage out. I stopped swallowing. I won't swallow. Read into that what you will.

The next person who comments or emails me about this, please know that while I delete your remarks without reading them - I'm imagining your private pinkish parts being caught in a cusinart.

In other news, the Special Edition PoC in SF Carnival - IBARW ISSUE. Go read it and learn something. It's good for you.

Officially Anti Wowio

I have deleted the link to Wowio from my sidebar.

If you can stand the blinking, distracting ads, or if you have Ad Block Plus - there's nothing to be lost, I suppose, from reading what they have available for online viewing.

I do suggest, however that for purchasing/downloading that you head to the creator's site and perhaps buy there or at PullBoxOnline.Com or at Drive Thru Comics. Or you can try hunting around at EnWorld.rpgnow.com - I'm totally lost over there. But no doubt there are other places - feel free to link in comments.

Comics at Wowio are only free so long as there is a sponsor (likely to be found by the comic author themselves). And the sponsor only allows for -one- download. That's it. And the Sponsor gets to choose which area of Wowio they wish to sponsor; articles and essays, comics and graphic novels, fiction, etc... Currently Breastcancer.org isn't willing to sponsor my comic habit. I feel snubbed.

At this rate I'd rather hit a donate button for some artists and download stuff from their site or their upload account.

*Goes to find a good source for Lai Wan: The Dreamwalker*

More non Wowio related entries later - I've got a draft or two in the wings.

Yet More Ow On Wowio

Seems like it was a good thing I had the time yesterday to open the read-online-only files of Neotopia and find out how the story ends; they're no longer on my queue in my library. A whole bunch of things aren't. I've gone from nearly 400 items to just under two hundred (195 to be exact).

I can't quite complain, as the creators have every right not to sign contracts or continue with Wowio. But the less there is on there, the less I'm going to use it as my digital publishing one-stop (or top shop out of a tight few).

One thing that's really struck me is other people's reactions. Friends of mine who I introduced to Wowio who went to the site for the re-opening and discovered, as one friend put it "a bunch of children's lit fluff". And the prices on things that she did want to read were at paperback prices of 7$ and 8$.

It looks like July 31st wasn't the real opening day, however. Since looking at the site now on Aug 1st, there seems to be gift items that might allow me to download some things. I haven't checked yet. I wanted to write out my thoughts on my second impression / second day first impression.

Especially since the reminder of how many friends I'd turned onto WOWIO, reminded me I'd turned family members on to it too. And I am not having siblings or older family members contributing to shafting the artists.

Annnnd the gift downloads?

Your next download from Comics & Graphic Novels is free (for a limited time) — a gift from EA Sports.

So is that one download only for the day vs the previous three a day? Without any information I'd better make some very careful choices - yes?

One incredibly good thing about my recent disappointment in Wowio is the discovery that some of the comics on my queue were web-comics I'd never heard of before. I'm adding them to my feeds now and investigating if they have other avenues for digital offerings. Half the reason I liked Wowio originally was that I felt like I wasn't going to be torrenting but I would get digital comics AND pay the creators.

NB: I'm aware I've been grumpy, cranky and somewhat bitchy what with the stupidity in the femiblogsphere and Marvel and DC being - well, full of juvenile self glorying idiots. So Wowio had a big void to fill when it came back anyway. But I know there are other places selling digital comics like Drive Thru Comics. Looks like it's time to investigate them.

More Wowio Blues

So far I've had the end of one comic and the whole of another be completely unreadable - nothing but mangled blurs and lines in black and white.

There's also a quality drop that I don't remember experiencing before. I'm looking at HELIOS #1 right now and page 6 has some serious quality issues. The page is blurry and the limited size adjusters (zoom regular, medium or large) do nothing at all to help.

I've also discovered that every time you close the Wowio Reader, it loses your preferences. So while it can apparently remember which page you closed out on, it can't remember to keep a two-page spread at medium.

On top of those discoveries, Ad Block Plus bars the ads on the reader. I've always had Ad Block Plus disabled on Wowio.com in support of their text ads, which I clicked. But those ads were not the intrusive, flashing, blinking, too colourful and distracting not to mention sometimes apparently page distorting ads now on the Wowio Reader.

How exactly do the artists get the best possible deal out of ads people can find ways around? It felt like one thing to have ads in the beginning and end and maybe even in the middle of the comics. That's relatively close to the experience with an actual copy (non trade) in one's hands. But this constantly rotating, blinking, mess?

On the one hand I can look at more comics, peruse first issues and figure out if I'd really enjoy them. But that could have been done with using the Wowio Reader as a previewer. Considering I had to trust Wowio with my credit card info in order to gain membership (1cent charge then refunded at the time), I don't appreciate being treated as some kind of pre-criminal with COPYRIGHTED material all over the Wowio Reader.

I was so excited about Wowio's return. I counted down the days and minutes. I was there within minutes of the site going live again. I didn't bother to wait for notification (which never came via the mail, by the way). And now after a month and more of waiting....

Ugh.

Damn it to pus spewing blood curdling hell

WOWIO.COM is back, but my first reaction isn't very happy. It looks like Platinum Publishing did buy it and are changing it.

What exactly does WOWIO membership get me right now?

How is my WOWIO experienced changed since the new status quo?

What are the creators even paid by WOWIO right now?

Those questions I can't answer completely and neither can Wowio it seems as those questions aren't answered in their FAQ or ABOUT.

What I can say is that I can no longer download Neotopia, which I was in the process of collecting. It's a read online only title now. Worse for me is that Neotopia isn't licensed, apparently, for purchase. So I can't buy it at all to have a digital copy.

I was really enjoying having digital comics at my finger-tips. I'd begun to look at the Asus EEE PC (among other Mobile Devices) and putting aside money to save up to buy the Surf model come Christmas (when it'd more than likely be cheaper) so I could have easy, portable PDF, digital comics I enjoy reading.

I'm admitting to selfishness. I really don't care if now anyone in the world can read these books / download books if I can't have what I want. And what I want I was more than willing to pay for too. But nada.

Also, some publishers that used to be on Wowio are now missing - like Ronin who did Razor Kid, which I talked about in a Faces of Colour column. The Imaginaries, however are on there, read online or download each issue for 99cents. I'd suggest not paying to have the main protagonists ethnicity changed from Asian (Japanese) to white and just buying the first three. But that's me.

It seems I was also lucky to get Artesia when I did because it's not for download either.

And it looks like the web-comics that were offering downloadable books of their archives via WOWIO are either missing, or are for online reading only. If I wanted to read their archives online, I'd read their archives not use Wowio. Eff damn it all!

The occasional sponsored lottery to make some things downloadable isn't a good offset / counter at all!

I am really disappointed that I no longer have the option of having these comics portable for me, for free or via purchase. I am really disappointed that going global means I lose out on certain publishers and titles. I'm really pissed that I didn't get a chance to grab the comics I wanted the most / there wasn't any warning that this was coming.

This is all within my first half hour on the re-opened site. But I'm not sure I'll be pushing Wowio so hard on everyone the way I was before. Especially with some comics being priced at 3$. I don't want to collect a bunch of flimsy issues nor do I want certain things in trades. But for people who do collect, I don't see any impetus for them to spend any money in WOWIO when they'd get a hard-copy for the same price.

I'm sure there are people who'll ask me if this isn't what I'd wanted from Marvel and DC - easy access online to back issue comics. But here's the thing, Wowio and the publishers it was using weren't and aren't Marvel or DC. What it had been offering me was access to comics I couldn't find or get anywhere else. Not everyone can get to, or even lives near a LCS. Now what I have access to is an online library (which is what they changed the name of the queue to by the way) but I have no way to be a consumer of the things I want, which is what I'd been hoping for.

More-over, not all the world has high speed internet. Downloading a comic can be much easier than trying to get it to load page by page on the internet.

And the ads on the WOWIO reader/view online pages are fairly distracting. As is the lack of custom zooming that was offered by one's PDF reader.

Fuck damn, Wowio. What an effing disappointment.

ETA: Links discussing Wowio's new business plan:

1. D.J. Coffman & The New Wowio Contract aka, why I'm not likely to be asking comic creators I love to sign up to Wowio, despite Gerry's (in comments) polite request.



2. Comics Worth Reading's - Goodbye Wowio. I have not and do not always agreed with Johanna and in fact I've disagreed strenuously, loudly and occasionally pompously. But what my growing time online and involved with comic blogging has brought me is a growing respect of what she has to say and of her perspective. Including the bitter realization that Marvel and DC would eventually drive me crazy if I let them. Though I'm still a superhero comic girl through and through, even walking away from 'the big Two'.

Well F*CK: Anita Blake Invades Marvel

Oh god Marvel. Oh god Marvel!

If anyone knows the name 'Anita Blake' it means they might have heard of the author, Laurell K Hamilton. LKH is in the unique position of having a large fan base, some of which loathes her most recent works; from book 11 or 12 onwards. The rest of her fan base is rabid and loyal and say things like how her works have become their marital aides; Anita Blake on the nightstand to make the hubby rev up.

There was supposed to have been a comic deal with independent Dabel. Issues 1 & 2 of the arc 'Guilty Pleasures' - the same as the first book - were supposed to be out. But then they couldn't be found by anyone. It turns out that Marvel bought out Dabel and Dabel's going to be their version of the Vertigo Imprint; sophisticated adult (mature) fare.

I loved the first ten or so Anita Blake novels. I am one of that apparent minority of fans who think the quality of writing has plummeted since then and there's been a serious lack of plot and mindless and quite awful sex (porn). I feel like this is yet another reason why I'm following DC characters.

There was an blog-article I wanted to link to that described a potential difference between Marvel and DC as 'What does it mean to live in a world of super humans' vs 'What is it like to be a superhero'. Anita stopped being a superhero for me a good couple of years ago. And I haven't even found it all that interesting to look at her world of super humans; because the protagonist seemed to always be looking at them on her back. Just like 'Civil War' I can't understand the impetus of this, other than to try to latch onto to another group of people with wallets. I'm possibly quite bitter to see this as yet another sign that Marvel's less discreet about showing 'it's all about the money'.

However, I'd much rather Marvel's character have potential crossovers with Anita that DC. There's no way I want that Mary Sue Ho anywhere near my Batman.

*goes in search of a 'Hell No' image to icon*

ETA: Hell No Icon