On Wordballoons, they have an interview with Gail Simone. The interviewer asks 50 questions submitted by various message board communities.

After the obligatory Women in Refrigerators inquiry is answered about twenty minutes in, he comments on how things have improved:

It does seem like a lot of great writers that are men do seem to have a handle on–

This statement gets an enthusiastic response from Gail Simone:
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Every Friday, we highlight the DVD releases for the following week that may be of interest to comic book and animation fans.

Fullmetal Alchemist is a deceptively simple series. On the surface, it’s an engaging and vaguely steampunk-ish adventure about two young brothers on a quest for legendary Philosopher’s Stone. And it’s entertaining when viewed as such.

But beneath the surface, it’s a complex and tragic epic about hubris, death, love and transformation (both physical and spiritual). As the anime progresses, those themes become more chilling as we learn the true costs of alchemy and the horrific depths of the Elric brothers’ loss.

Fullmetal Alchemist Vol. 10: Journey to Ishbal, released next week, contains episodes 37-40 of the 51-episode series: “The Flame Alchemist, The Bachelor Lieutenant, and the Mystery of Warehouse 13,” “With the River’s Flow,” “Secret of Ishbal” and “The Scar.” It retails for $29.98.

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I started out online as a message boarder, a particularly annoying teenaged girl on the analysis-based boards. Even after I discovered blogging, I carefully avoided fanfiction-based communities (despite being urged to try it) until I started WFA and found a lot of thoughtful posts on fanfiction journals. Intrigued, I set out to learn more about fandom, and discovered this among the livejournals I had friended. A ten chapter account following a single writer in the Harry Potter Fanfiction community over a five year period of time. It alleges that she used alternate identities to gain social status in the Harry Potter fanfiction community by attacking herself and playing on the sympathy of the community. The accusation is supported by screen shots, IP addresses, quotes, and links. Someone even came up with a guide to the involved personnel.

It’s mesmerizing. A writer known only as the Duchess of Richmond recounts a story of deceit, manipulation, and betrayal that shakes the entire Harry Potter fanfiction community out of its comfortable illusions. From an outsider’s perspective, it becomes a fascinating study of the intricacies and social connections of a fan community, on Fanthropology they are already debating the historical/sociological value.

I’m interested in the writer. This is incredible, with links and quotes and screenshots and IP address. The entire account is meticulously backed up by as much evidenced as the author could amass. In the afterword, she even explains how it was gathered among a group of different people who had slowly noticed the behavior. If this is a lie, it is one amazing piece of detective fiction. If this is a mistake, it is an incredible paranoid conspiracy theory. If this is true, it is a grim lesson that no one on the internet is truly overlooked.

Following eBay’s removal of the first of the Millarworld Charity Auctions yesterday evening, Millarworld is bringing the auctions inhouse:

“We have decided to run the auction here on the forums. The Monday aucton will be restarted here in a bit, just a few details to sort out. There will be a way for non-members of the forum to bid. Just to let you know we’re trying to get in touch with the previous bidders, so if you are one of them or know someone has give them a heads up.”

There’s a new thread at the forum, offering an FAQ of the new set-up.

Ah, fall!  The leaves start to change, the school year is young, the epic miniseries start winding down….  That’s right, Marvel Comics has released its solicitations for September, and Chris Hunter and I are looking at all the pretty colors.

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Ah, mildly amusing publicity stunts: The Warner Bros. Superman Returns website has been, ahem, “hacked,” apparently by arch-fiend Lex Luthor. The main page has been defaced with the slogan, “Lex Luthor was here.” There’s also a link to Luthor’s own MySpace profile.

Last week, the studio launched a Superman Returns MySpace page, which now has more than 49,000 “friends.” As of the time of this post, Luthor’s page has 5,946.

Curse that Superman. He always wins.

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Two weeks ago I was pleasantly surprised by the clever Wonder Woman relaunch. This week brings the new Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #1, and with it the mystery of just who will be DC’s Scarlet Speedster for the long term.

(I was tempted to say “until the next Crisis,” since DC’s 75th Anniversary in 2010 is only 3 1/2 years away, and goodness knows we shouldn’t expect a Flash to make it out of one of those.)

Anyway, SPOILERS FOLLOW, so beware.

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Inspired by the media coverage of Marvel’s Civil War, Tom Spurgeon comments on the limited ability of superhero comics to act as social or political commentary:

“Like professional wrestling, superhero comics have at their core conflicts and identity issues; you can do a rough overlay of just about any real-world issue where ideas are in conflict or identities are in question onto any number of superhero comics runs… Now, maybe Mark Millar will be the first writer to use the specific metaphor he has at his disposal to say something insightful and constructive about those issues, but I suspect that as in the past the real world comparisons exist primarily to flatter the entertainment value of the superhero comic, not so much to say anything that isn’t, well, kind of dumbassed. The same way that the X-Men or similar series can only go so far when speaking to identity and outsider issues before people begin to realize shooting raybeams from your eyes really is different enough from sexual or racial identity to kind of limit any insight to be gained, I can’t imagine a point of view emerging from Civil War that isn’t constrained or made foolish by these characters’ very specific fantasy identities.”

Unsurprisingly, Marvel’s Aubrey Sitterson disagrees:

“I think your post this morning about Civil War takes things a too far in terms of judging the potential effectiveness of social or political commentary wrapped up in fantastical story elements. Veiling allegory with science-fiction or fantasy elements is a tactic frequently used both of those genres to imbue them with something beyond plot or character concerns… To fault the work because of the genre in which it is contained and that genre’s conventions, however, is to make a crucial mistake, albeit one that has been far too common in the history of critical theory as it relates to genre material, akin to the dismissal of literary giants such as Chandler, Howard and Lovecraft as nothing more than pulp hacks.”

I know I linked it only yesterday, but Tom Brevoort insists on posting interesting things on his Marvel-sponsored blog. This time, it’s about continuity:

“Continuity is a tool. It is not an end in and of itself. The purpose of continuity is to enhance stories, the purpose of stories is not to enhance continuity… It used to be that the fans were the ones who worked at making the continuity function, coming up with rationales for how mistakes weren’t mistakes. Heck, we used to give out No-Prizes for just that. But in the last decade, that seems to have changed, and rather than being challenged by continuity, most vocal fans today seem irritated by it, demanding explanations for every seeming inconsistency, and not bringing any thought to the matter themselves.”

More in the link, including an honest explanation for the “continuity mistake” of Nick Fury’s inclusion in the current Iron Man arc. Meanwhile, Joe Quesada answers fans’ questions and explains why John Romita Jr. is a wonderful artist:

” JR does everything right! Sure, someone may draw the world’s best quiet, character moments, sure perhaps another artist can draw the world’s best action scenes, and yeah, perhaps yet another can draw the world’s best over the top, fight scenes, but what Johnny brings to the table is that he can do all of that, and he does it great. He’s what in baseball they call a five-tool-player, in entertainment he’s the triple threat. The artist that can draw the great fight scene may not be the best to draw a couple having a tender moment in a romantic restaurant and vise versa, JR can.”

Manga – Source of all the world’s ills, or tool to use to encourage literacy? The Los Angeles Public Library knows which side of the divide it’s on:

“The Los Angeles Public Library and Tokyopop have announced a first-of-its-kind collaboration designed to encourage teens to read. Kids from 11 to 18 who join the Manga Madness Summer Reading Club at their local branch library, will receive a free folder, a book bag, reading log, and bookmarks… Because of high demand from teen readers, the L.A. Public Library, which has 71 branches, has doubled and in some cases tripled the number of manga series ordered for their young adult collections. Because kids want to read manga, many educators have realized that manga (as well as other kinds of comics and graphic novels) are a great way to encourage reading — and the more kids read, the better they get at it.”

This optimism, of course, will last until the upcoming Yaoi backlash hits the Californian shores.

A lot of the hype around the X-Men:The Last Stand video game has centered on how it bridges the gap between the second and third films. But on behalf of everyone who has no interest in buying the (badly reviewed) game, I ask: what the heck happened to Nightcrawler?

Fans probably already know that Alan Cummings, who played the German mutant in the second X-film, didn’t think the role of Nightcrawler in the third film was big enough to go through the hours and hours it took to put him in make-up. He did agree to voice the character in the video game, however.

In terms of the storyline though … what happens to Nightcrawler in the game? Does our favorite blue X-Man bite the bullet? Spoilers after the jump …

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Sure, Superman is faster than a speeding bullet, and more powerful than a locomotive. But at MSNBC.com, science editor Alan Boyle wants to know how.

That’s right, it’s time to apply real-world physics to comic-book fiction. Hey, if L.A.’s City Beat can do it with politics, MSNBC can do it with science.

Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute, contends the traditional Krypton-has-a-much-stronger-gravity explanation doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

“He still walks upright, and that suggests that the high-gravity environment wasn’t too high,” Shostak tells Boyle. “If the gravity’s really high, you’re probably down on all fours, or all sixes.”

Plus, there’s a problem with Krypton itself: If it were significantly more massive than Earth, it likely would be a gas giant with an atmosphereof methane or ammonia.

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The film adaptation of the popular manga Death Note has knocked The Da Vinci Code from the No. 1 spot in the Japanese box office, drawing more than 306,000 fans in two days.

The movie, which opened Saturday, grossed $4.13 million in its first weekend, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

A second movie installment based on the 11-volume manga series is set for a November release.

Meanwhile, Nippon Television Network plans an animated adaptation of the comic for TV.

Death Note, about a boy who can kill anyone by writing their name in a notebook dropped by a death god, is published in North America by Viz.

For a 68-year-old, Superman looks pretty good — particularly when you consider he died once, and even sported an unfortunate mullet for a while. It’s hard to bounce back from a mullet.

But how has the Man of Steel lasted so long? BBC News tries to find the answer.

“The thing that’s most appealing about superheroes is the idea of someone who has great power and knows how to use it wisely,” comics writer and critic Danny Fingeroth tells the website. “If you think of the time Superman emerged from, with the rise of Fascism in Europe and a world still in the throes of the Great Depression, you can see it would be an appealing fantasy.”

For those of us itching for our daily dose of Superman as religious allegory, the article offers a bit of that, too.

Related: Readers say Superman is still relevant

Los Angeles City Beat considers the socio-political themes of Marvel’s Civil War:

Tales as diverse as Alan Moore’s iconic 1986 miniseries Watchmen, Pixar’s animated film The Incredibles, and the current X-Men movie have in greatly different ways dealt with superhero registration, the underlying fear of the Other that motivates such mandates, and the perils of playing politics with heroics (which could mean, as Cap seethes, “… Washington starts telling us [heroes] who the super-villains are”). The latter feels like the heart of Civil War, as various players on both sides can no longer agree to disagree while focusing on common ground – now they must point fingers, place blame, and punish the other side accordingly.

How perfectly this reflects our own increasingly calcified divide of red/blue, elephant/donkey, conservative/liberal -– shorthand that itself oversimplifies the range of positions on both sides, not to mention handily (at least for the powerful who benefit from one nation, quite divisible) obscures how much people do agree. Just who in this story has more dangerous unchecked power, the heroes or the government?

The saga also reflects our culture’s need to impose simplistic solutions on complex problems. That Gordian Knot jazz only works in fables – in the real world, incessant repetition of talking points does not create truth, speed the wished-for outcome, or reinforce the moral authority of the talker (or the decider).

Somewhere, Mark Millar is beaming.

Related: “Marvel heroes choose sides in war on terror”

The new issue of The Escapist (entitled Girl Power 2) features this article by John Walker. He professes that the games aren’t sexist, society is, and it’s telling women that gaming is not for them.

There are even studies indicating girls will delve into serious gaming under the right conditions. In 2003, Gareth Schott and Siobhan Thomas of the University of London decided to investigate how young people react to videogaming. They went into high school classrooms with GameBoy Advance SPs in hand and set them in front of 14- and 15-year-old kids. The boys immediately identified them, rushed over and dominated. The girls sat back and let them.

They tried the same experiment in classes with only girls. Without the boys to push them out the way, and once the Schott and Thomas explained the devices weren’t some sort of makeup case (no, really), the girls mostly recognized Mario onscreen, but would predominantly declare, “Oh, I can’t do these things.”

Prompted to continue, Schott and Thomas found that after a few minutes, they couldn’t get the girls to stop playing. This transition led the researchers to conclude that there was some sort of “permission” barrier between girls and gaming.

Could the same “permission barrier” lie between interested women and superhero comics?

(Via 100LittleDolls)

Laura “Tegan” Gjovaag is starting a campaign to get the HBO web store to carry Entourage/Aquaman merchandise:

Hey everyone! If you are an Aquaman or Entourage fan, here’s what I want you to do… Go to this page and submit a request for an Aquaman T-shirt from the Entourage show! For the subject line, put “Entourage Aquaman T-Shirt?” and for the content, just request a t-shirt based on the Aquaman movie in the show, and maybe thank them for the show while you are at it.

If Laura and Johnny Drama are on board, count me in …

In 1978, at the age of nine, my older brother came up with what was probably the single greatest idea in the history of all nine-year-olds: “I’m going to start an Avengers club.”

Being his younger brother, I instantly let him know how brilliant and groundbreaking I thought this idea was: “Okay.”

And thus, the Avengers of Wildgrove Drive, Garland, Texas, were born.

Y’see, since birth, my brother and I were comic book fans. We each had our favorite titles (he had Avengers and Fantastic Four, I had the X-Men and Amazing Spider-Man). We bought whatever merchandise we could find featuring those heroes. Lacking any comic book action figures in a post-Mego, pre-Secret Wars society, we pretended our Star Wars figures were super heroes … quickly discovering that comics were a lot less sexist than the Star Wars movies, as our one Princess Leia figure only went so far.

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It had to happen; Larry Young’s done it, Brett Warnock’s done it, even the folks at Fantagraphics have done it, and finally Joe Quesada has got the fever… and the only prescription is having a blog (Apparently that weekly Joe Fridays – Sorry, I mean New Joe Fridays – column wasn’t enough). There’s not a lot there right now, but a contest “not to be missed, especially if you’re an artist” is promised for tomorrow… Meanwhile, Tom Brevoort’s blog continues to be the Marvel blog to visit. Where else can you learn what Ralph Macchio has for lunch and read things like the following?:

“Joe Q. came by to say that he’d read Warren Ellis’ script, and that he thought it might be the best thing Warren’s done for Marvel since being back. Would be more convincing if he wasn’t always gushing about Warren’s work.”

Is it wrong of me to be a fan of Mike Netzer? And if it is, do I want to be right?

Answers on a postcard, please. And join me after the jump.

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