I would totally read every Wonder Woman comic published if they were written and drawn by Kate Beaton, of Hark a Vagrent.

Best Wonder Woman Ever.

Case in Point: Shadowjack Recaps Sailor Moon, Ep. 1-13
(From the snarky and fun "In which Shadowjack Watches Sailor Moon" thread on rpg.net

( Part 1: Our Heroine, Usagi )

( Recap Part 2: The Animal Companion, Luna )

( Recap Part 3: Ami, the smart girl )

( Recap Part 4: Rei, the hot priestess )

( Recap Part 5: Mamorou and Tuxedo Mask, hot guys who are nothing alike, really )

( Recap Part 6: Queen Beryl and Jaedite: Big Bad and Minion, respectively )

In an online discussion recently about the Transfomers and G.I. Joe movies, it was brought up that there was at one point in the comics a crossover between Transformers and G.I. Joe. It was also pointed out that the Transformers existed in the standard Marvel Universe, even doing a crossover with Spider-Man. therefore, by the associative property of Crossovers, G.I. Joe also exists in the Marvel Universe.

At this point, I had to chime in with Godzilla. As a kid, I owned a copy of the Godzilla comic book, that had Nick Fury of Shield casing the big lizard around America. So that's right, Godzilla is part of the Marvel Universe too, I kid you not.

So true believers, what does this mean? It means we could potentially have a movie that is a Transformers/G.I.Joe/Nick Fury of SHIELD/X-Men/Spider-man/Avengers/Godzilla crossover. The geekiness level would be so high that it would literally cause true fan's heads to explode. Theater owners would have to hire people to be on geek brain detail.

Well, maybe in some other universe. I would just be happy if someone just drew the movie poster for it.

Recently on his livejournal, James Nicoll posited an interesting idea:



So, what I'm wondering is, what if we looked at superpowers in terms of "woman's work"? Consider how "women's" jobs such as weaving or knitting or childcare or housekeeping have been largely regarded by male dominated society ( consider how recently it was that archaeologists actually started looking for evidence of things such as weaving). Now, how would a power, say flight, or FTL travel, or whatever be defined, if it was possessed only by women? James Nicoll's argument is that rather than changing the way women are regarded, the way the power would be regarded would conform to patriarchal society; it would be considered "unimportant woman's work", and the usage of it would be limited and confined. You could have women using the power, but the control over it would not be given to them.

So imagine that women started developing super powers oh, a couple hundred years ago, say back in the 18th century. We'll assume that they aren't totally overpowering Justice League level powers, but effective nonetheless.  My thought is that women could use those powers, sure, possibly even be paid to use them, but only in the societal context of male dominance. Use of those would be denigrated, dismissed, and controlled  through use of social opprobrium, the same way traditional work and "unfeminine" activities were.  Possibly the mere possession of those powers would be regarded as garish, unfeminine, and even immoral. Necessary of course, like the need for prostitutes for sailors, and a source for similarly titillating stories.  A stereotype of the perfect wife and mother who either has no powers or gives them up for domesticity would be promoted, and a woman who freely used her powers would be regarded as freakish as a female weightlifter or sharpshooter (yes, you'll notice that this does leave a degree of flexibility for women to use powers, either privately or publicly; historically there's been a gap between what women are told they should do, and what they actually do)

And then we move along, and say, somewhere in the 1930s or 40s, men start developing those powers. How would that change things? Well, men's powers would likely be seen as quantitatively different; stronger, and purer, and a distillate of men's nature. Men would be encouraged to use their powers and push their strength. Unlike women's powers, men's powers would be seen as IMPORTANT.

Now move the timeline up to the 1970s, with NOW, Gloria Steinham, and "I'm Cheryl: fly me".

Have fun.

The question arose recently on one of the lists I read, as what people think of the depiction of women in comics.  These two images say it all, I think:

Here's our boy, NAMOR!




And here's Marvel's brand new all girl  Superteam!  The...umm...err...vixens.  *sigh*




I think, all things being equal, that art depictions of men and women aren't equal in comics. The artwork tends to depict men as power objects, and women as sex objects. I also think things have actually gotten worse on the artwork front over the last couple of decades; when I showed my wife George Perez's Teen Titans, she was blown away by the effort of an artist that could actually hand draw women, albeit ones that had a strong element of cheesecake. Contrast that to the artists these days who are essentially tracing over porn images, or at the least are being heavily helped by image manipulation programs.  this is not merely a matter of simply bad and lazy artwork; it's artwork created specifically to portray women as sex objects, using quite frankly, rediculous poses.

Don't think the poses are ridiculous?  Heres an experiment: go stand before the mirror (or even better, your friends) and try on one of the poses of say, Photon, or Black Cat, orFirestar up there.  How do you feel?  Do you feel powerful, and confident?  Or does your back hurt too much from thrusting out your ass and hips?

There are exceptions of course- if a comic is stylized to a sufficient degree, the exaggerated forms can give a deliberately cartoonish impression (say, Powers or the Timmverse) . But most "realistic" artwork is being done by artists who not only never seem to have never seen a living woman naked, but have a vested interest in focusing attention on them as sex objects.


On the other hand, if the writing is unrealistic for women in mainstream comics, that's probably because the writing on all characters is generally, bad, compounded by the fact that writers can get shuffled around on a whim.  The violence melodrama and wish-fulfillment soap opera aspect of mainstream comics makes it hard to write realistic personalities, though at least the writers can look in the mirror and try to extrapolate from themselves when writing men.  Women and GLBT characters tend to be written as either pseudo-macho men (pointing out the absurdity of dialogue that somehow gets a pass when men say it), or really horrible pastiches of what the writer THINKS non-men are like.

There are some exceptions of course; I liked Runaways (at least the five volumes I've read of it), and Freakangels has interesting, well rounded depictins in both art and personality.  Finally, the web has some interesting examples of what can be done with female characters, such as:

Sidekick Girl: a comedy about a very competent and tough sidekick, assigned to babysit a popular and highly incompetent heroine, who pretty much has the stereotypical superheroine figure, and that's it.

Magellen: in a world with an abundance of supers, training facilities have been set up to make sure superbeings use their powers for good. The main character is an unpowered woman who is determined to pass the training, but there is a wide diversity of women- and an equally wide variety of body types. The dialogue is stiff, but it is an interesting comic.

Special School: an ensemble comedy about a school for supers, with a diversity of character types and sexual orientations.

Thunderstruck: while not called a supers comic, one sister can absorb and cast electricity, and the other is a super-athlete with a katana. If Elementals could be considered a supers comic, so can this one.

And well, those are just the superhero oriented webcomics.  If I wanted to draw on the wider range of webcomics for good portrayals of women, I'd have tons to choose from: Questionable Content, Gunnerkrigg Court, Alpha Shade, Angel Moxie, Dead Winter, Nahast: Land of Strife, Juathurr, Digger, The Zombie Hunters, A Girl and Her Fed, Under Lock and Key, Girls with Slingshots, Templar Arizona, Girl Genius, Undertow,  Fey Winds, Venus Envy, and the list goes on and on and on.

Honestly, if one wants to see good portrayals of female characters, the place to look isn't in mainstream comics, it's in webcomics.

It is to rejoice.  The comics.com library has put the entire run of Peanuts online, for free.  All the way back to the first strip, it's there in all it's sardonic, surreal beauty. 

Ever since the classic "Do2" troll inspired months of humor and a D02 rpg, people on rpg.net have had fun doing over-the-top silly slams on games.  But they needn't bother anymore, because after this, it's all downhill.

Everyone's favorite vigilante reviews D&D 4E.

Geeky satire just doesn't get better than this.

My, that was a LONG movie. I was dehydrated going into the film, which turned out to be a good thing; in spite of the headache and weak legs, I was able to sit through the whole thing without having to make a bathroom break.

As for the film....there was a long sex scene with Malin Akerman. And oh yeah, there were some explosions and stuff. And umm...Malin Akerman....
( Spoilers for the film )

Overall, the film seemed stately, took it's material very, almost too seriously, and in many cases, repeated dialogue from the comic word-for word. The pacing was slow because a lot of information had to be imparted, and it had to cover a period of decades. I think really, this was about as faithful an adaptation as possible. Also, the design work was quite beautiful. So overall, I would give this film a definite "worth seeing in the theaters" grade.

Over on myspace, is a free first issue of Hexed.  hexed is a urban fantasy comic, about a thief who specializes in stealing supernatural items.  In the preview, she breaks into a dance club to steal some special accessories, and then is trapped by a former boss into pulling off another job.

First impressions.  Gosh the artist likes pink.  Pink and red.  I also like the first cover, which has our protagonist busily working at something while lots of pink...stuff...swirls around her.  the second cover seems too posed

More detailed. I like that Lucifer, our heroine pulls off the example job quietly , perfectly and nonviolently.  It's common in comics to introduce a thief this way...but it's also common to have something go wrong, just so they can have a violent chase scene.   This introduces the competenceof the character without excess theatrics.  Later events serve both to show that Lucifer is both respected, works for something approaching good guys, and has a complicated past.  Fortunately, most of the internal dialogue is restricted to Lucifer talking about the job.

Lucifer is quite introspective, and somethng of a gloomy gus.  And despite what she says, she's still attractive- though admittedly not in a comic-bookish way.  The artwork itself is of a kind  I like; sketchy, but representational in a way that most comic books tend to miss.   the color is very strongly integrated in with the artwork, and feels more like watercolors than computer coloring; I suspect that the raw ink drawings would be nowhere as nice looking as the colored product (not something I can say about a lot of my favorite artists).  I do like that all the characters are very distinct, not only in face and attitude, but in body shape as well.

The story is a nice introduction, giving us the set-up for the rest of the story, and also introducing hints of background that whet the desire to know more about the character. Likewise the dialogue is fairly natural, and works to give the feeling of people discussing things of interest, without being info dumps.

Conclusion.
It's really a pretty comic, and the characters and story are interesting enough.  I think I'll check it out in the store.  The artist needs to do something about all the pink though.

Many thanks to the International Society of Supervillains, who waded through a number of popular comics, in order to bring you this:

Single-Sentence Synopses of Popular Comics

Now gentle readers you can talk knowledgeably about many major "required reading" comics, without actually having to go through the pain of actually reading them! Isn't this helpful?

Oddly enough, for all that the Lovecraft mythos have infiltrated geek culture, there aren't that many comics or webcomics that reference the Mythos directly. There certainly aren't very many comics that feature Lovecraft and other Mythos writers in a Mythos-based adventure.

First to get you started: A Cthulhu Chick Tract!

And another Cthulhu Chick Tract!


And finally, Lovecraft is Missing, the Webcomic.

And so to get things started, we have a story that starts off slowly, but with a charming absence of normality. A woman with a gun is let off in a very horrible slum neighborhood, and searches out a bookstore and its odd inhabitants, in order to purchase a  complete edition of...something. She also appears at the home of a vanished artist, the notorious Pickman, to buy a map, and later we see her working a special collections room, dealing with the fact that a book is missing an important section...and was last borrowed by one HP Lovecraft. Interspersed with her bibliophilic adventures, we also meet a two-fisted pulp author who is travelling to the east to meet his pen pal, Lovecraft, as well as some pulp magazine editors and writers.  We watch some creepy people who seem to know too much about what's going on. We even meet Lovecraft who well, disappears.

And that's about it for action, as this webcomic is new.   It's hard to tell where it's going at this point, other than we've already had glimpses of the mythos and hints of multiple conspiracies. But at this point I don't mind, because this comic does a good job of giving the feeling of menace lurking both in the shadows and behind the facade of ordinary life.  Beyond that the art is of a quality that's far higher than most webcomics, resembling a hardcopy comic done in a European style. Some of the backgrounds are wonderfully detailed, and no wonder- the artist took plenty of reference pictures in Boston.  Characterization so far is slim, the story jumps around a lot, and I'm hoping that soon we'll actually find out who our mysterious flapper book buyer is.  But since this seems to be more of a graphic novel than a standard webcomic, I'm willing to give the story a while to make its revelations known.  And frankly, at least for now the artwork makes the ride to whatever horrifying conclusion there will be a worthwhile

At this point,

Those strange and strangely enthusiastic  Japanese fans have done it again. In this case, it's the cast of Watchman, turned into Bishoujo-style girls. It's evidently a page describing the background of characters in anticipation of the upcoming movie, and is all part of the grand japanese fan tradition of taking serious concepts, and making them cute by turning them into girls.

At least we're not talking about making tanks or aircraft cute by turning them into girls.  This time.




Hmmm...I wonder if I could turn this into an icon....

What if Thor in Marvel Comics didn't talk like a bad medieval recreationist, but sounded like an actual norse god? Well, thanks to this translator, we can find out, using actual Thor quotes!

GO THOR!



"I sey zeee-a ney!"

"Thuoo ert meeghty, beest...meeghty inuoogh tu sley a gud! Boot I em zee Oodeensun...deffender ooff Esgerd...und mester ooff Mjulnur! I em Thur...gud ooff thoonder...und ooff leeghtning!"

"Trecheruoos Dug! Dut teke-a mure-a thun a seengle-a, pezeeteec, cooerdly bloo tu hoomble-a nuble-a Thur!"

"Zeey etteck boot strengzeens my veell...feeds my resulfe-a...stukes zee fure-a"

"I em THOR! Sun ooff Oodeen, gud ooff thoonder, vhu cummunds zee leeghtning und zee sturm! I em THOR! Und I...veesh...tu leefe-a. Tu leefe-a...und breezee...und feeght...egeeen."

In zee neme-a ooff joosteece-a, I shell Treeoomph!

"Ultrun. Ve-a vuoold hefe-a vurds veet zeee-a. Bork Bork Bork!"

Is Warren Ellis capable of writing any character that's NOT an asshole?

I mean seriously, as far as I can tell, the standard Warrren Ellis character is a massive jerk (add breasts for female, penis for male), who's attitude is supposedly tolerable solely because they are always right. I mean, constantly, totally, utterly right. Even when they admit that they have no idea what they are doing, they are completely right.

Tell me people- has he ever done a character that doesn't sound like a gamer pundit on usenet, circa 1995? Inquiring minds want to know.

Well, I for one would totally watch it.

So on a recent thread somewhere, a bunch of comic geeks got up in arms over Beyonce stating she was in talks to play Wonder Woman, in the movie that will becoming out Real Soon Now. This quickly degenerated into an argument as to who would actually be good to play the part of Wonder Woman, with suggestions ranging from Jessica Biel, to Lucy Lawless, to Rachel Weisz, to Salma Hayek. All naturally, had major limitations that made them unacceptable to the crowd at large.

I actually don't find it that much of a problem. When you consider the traits Wonder Woman's performer needs: tall, athletic, strikingly attractive, poised, charismatic with major strength of character...only one person fits all the qualities:





Well, now that that's settled, we can get on with filming the movie!

...when you get NAZI DINOSAURS!

I've got to repeat that again, because that's so out there.


NAZI FREEEEAKING DINOSAURS!


 


T-Reich showing up is also how you know you have a really odd comic on your hands. And that's the case for Major Bummer, the comic about superheroes that could give the Mysterymen a run for incompetence.  All this courtesy of scans_daily, which has the rest of this little story...including the GIANT CAT.

Gotta love a story with a giant cat.

So, take this picture I snagged from scans_daily. Is it just me, or does Cap look a little too excited to be standing behind Wolverine?

And, and AND, Wolverine is dressed all in leather.  You know, we could have an alternate explanation for why Wolverine shows up in so many crossovers.

So over on Comics Should be Good, the question has arisen over the decline of the internationally-themed group.  Using the Blackhawks as an example, the author notes it's a pretty simple concept; you have each character from a separate country.  In the case of the Blackhawls, it was all of the countries occupied by the Axis.  The author suggests that the stereotyping involved in those groups lead to their disappearence, except for a few international groups like The Authority.

As for me?

The inner cynic in my quietly points out that back in the day, it was probably easier to do an international team that was acceptable to american fan tastes: several white guys (and possibly one girl) from America or Europe, and one grotesque ethnic stereotype from a non-European country. Today one has to deal with the ever-increasing knowledge that a truly international team should really be mostly non-white; Even for hardcore comic fans it’s harder and harder to disguise the fact that America and Europe doesn’t comprise 90% of the world’s population. Of course the simple alternative would be to actually make a superteam that was largely non-white. Yeah, like THAT’S going to happen.

I mean, look at how far we’ve come: Original Blackhawk had several guys from America and Europe, and one Chinese guy. Contrast this to the international superteam Authority that was referenced above, which has…several white guys and gals from America and Europe…and one Chinese woman.

You’ve come a long way, baby.

I'll be pretty much gone from the keyboard for the rest of this week.  So as a placeholder, courtesy of scans_daily is yet another Shortpacked Batman comic:

Points to anyone who recognizes the song!