Dear DC, I know you’ve got a lot on your plate right now what with the relaunch next month and all but if you could spare a few of your staff to help make Katie Cook’s Batman a reality, you’d make a lot of people happy. Myself included.

Last night, Cook was having some fun on Twitter (as comic creators have a tendency to do when they aren’t arguing with each other) and came up with a delightful scenario for our favorite Dark Knight (out of continuity of course) including a few quick doodles. If you don’t know Katie Cook, you should. Her webcomic, Gronk, is outstanding and everything else she does is just as wonderful. (Check out her website for more.) Here is the mostly unedited stream of thoughts that started here.

I have an idea for a batman story in which batman actually thinks he’s a bat. Alfred follows him around saying “yes, master bat”.

@MarkBrooksArt the best part is that he thinks when people say he’s “batty” it’s a compliment.

In my batman, joker is a normal clown and, in bats delusional mind, he’s a villain. Joker is terrified of him.

In my batman, the scarecrow is an ACTUAL scarecrow…. Out in a field…. On a stick.

The penguin is a fat penguin at the Gotham zoo… Bats is just convinced it’s out to get him.

In my batman, the riddler is a tattered old “choose your own adventure” book that bats is afraid to finish.

Poison ivy is a potted plant in his kitchen…

The only REAL villain is Alfred… Who embezzles BILLIONS from his delusional ward.

YES RT @dreamingtree: @katiecandraw Catwoman is his cat?

It’s a hat rack covered in hats @Hat_Girl: @katiecandraw What about the Mad Hatter?

@RaphaelWent clayface is a playdoh Fun -set.

a luchador on tv RT @vilify_xx: @katiecandraw What about Bane?

Its the name of an ethnic restaurant that bats gets take out from all the time RT @thatjarrodwelsh: @katiecandraw And what of Ra’s al Ghul?

If you like my batman idea, you’ll love my deadpool story… But I’ll save that for another day.

Make. It. Happen.

I saw a fascinating article up on the Washington Post yesterday, discussing the gender gap regarding publishing — which I would imagine could be extrapolated to all its forms, including comics.

The title? Appropriately enough: “The key to literary success? Be a man — or write like one.” Now, there’s been maxims tossed around about romance-starved women buying Nora Roberts books and chewing up advertising space with soap opera consumption, but Julianna Baggott has a different theory:

In my grad school thesis, written at 23, you’ll find young men coming of age, old men haunted by war, Oedipus complexes galore. If I’d learned nothing else, it was this: If you want to be a great writer, be a man. If you can’t be a man, write like one…

When I invented the pen name N.E. Bode for “The Anybodies,” a trilogy for younger readers, I had to choose to be a man or a woman. The old indoctrination kicked in. I picked man. The trilogy did well, shortlisted in a People magazine summer pick, alongside Bill Clinton and David Sedaris. I was finally one of the boys.

The whole article is well worth a read. There’s another thought in here that really is good food for thought that can be extrapolated to comics nowadays — we have Geoff Johns, Brian Michael Bendis, Matt Fraction, J. Michael Straczynski, Ed Brubaker, Jason Aaron representing the Y chromosome. But on the other side, with Gail Simone, Amanda Conner, Marjorie Liu and Nicola Scott, as Baggott says, women being listed as concessions?

Something interesting based on the Girl Comics announcement from awhile back is that many of the women writing aren’t really being seen in a regular monthly comic nowadays — you have diehards like Louise Simonson and Ann Nocenti and the return of talent like Kathryn Immonen and Devin Grayson, but you aren’t regularly seeing them in the spotlight the same way you are a Bendis or a Johns.

And another tangent that springs to mind: could you spring the argument in the other direction, and argue that male writers with a penchant for strong female characters — let’s use Greg Rucka, as my arbitrary definition as the leader of the pack in this regard — is it them “writing like a woman”? How would this explain things like, say, Wonder Woman sales, or sales on the buzzworthy Detective Comics? I’m curious as to the discussion that could come from this — what say you, Rama readers?

[Hat tip to Johanna]

For all you cats in the Portland, OR and Flemington, NJ areas, this is a great event for you to be checking out — Wonder Woman Day!

The event — which takes place on Sunday — will go to benefiting domestic violence centers (as this month is indeed National Domestic Abuse Month). Over the past three years, the event has raised over $69,000.

In Portland, Excalibur Comics will be hosting an event from noon to 6pm, with a silent art auction — with art from Adam Hughes, Alex Ross, Gary Frank, Nicola Scott, and Jamal Igle — as well as creators including Gail Simone, the Hernandez Brothers, Paul Gulacy, and Aaron Lopresti signing books. Proceeds for this event will benefit Raphael House of Portland, Bradley Angle and Portland Women’s Crisis Line.

“For over sixty years, Wonder Woman has been an iconic female symbol of peace, strength, equality, and honesty,” said Andy Mangels, curator of the online Wonder Woman Museum. “Her story has been told in the pages of comic books and books, and on television shows, and her visuals and ideals are known worldwide. For the Wonder Woman Day events, fans and the general public have an opportunity to celebrate the character and the people who create her adventures, and they have the opportunity to be heroic themselves!”

Meanwhile, in Flemington, Comic Fusion will be hosting an event from noon to 5pm. They too will have a silent auction, with sketches from Adam Hughes, Khoi Pham, Billy Tan, and Whilce Portacio, and guests in attendence include Joe Sinnott, Chris Muller, Ken Haeser, Rob Kramer, and Buz Husson. This event will go towards Safe in Hunterdon.

This post on girl power in comics, from Retconning My Brain, is a seriously awesome piece that made me want to read a lot of these books (Power Girl, Batgirl, etc.) more than I already did.

The original “Girl power,” a sugared-up, popified version of what Riot Grrl was, hit when I was in my last years of high school. The late 90s, which brought us post-communications deregulation prefab pop, but also at least sort of acknowledged that women wanted pop culture that was their own, and that there was more to it than fighting over a man on a soap opera. It brought us Xena and Buffy, too.

I’ve never been the type of feminist who is terribly bothered by the word “girl”–if prodded, I can even conjure up a defense of using it as a word that doesn’t contain the word “man,” although that’s really not any less useless to me than spelling woman with a y. At the ripe old age of almost-thirty, I still refer to myself as a girl and usually anyone else who is my age or younger. I’ve even been scolded for it by friends male and female. But I can’t really help it, and I wonder if the twin specters of Riot Grrl and Girl Power are to blame.

I was thinking about Girl Power, while I was writing my generally-happy reactions to the stories, and I remember learning about third wave feminism and discussing Girl Power in my class, and the positives and negatives. You had shows with strong (Xena) or complex (Ally McBeal) female leads, but they were wearing short short skirts (and some of them could have used a sandwich, ahem). You had the Spice Girls saying friends come first (in a way more empowering way than bros before hos, yo) but most of their popular songs were still about finding love or something. I think. I can’t actually admit in public to listening to the Spice Girls. You know.

So. Is the rash of “Girl” comics a revival of this kind of feminism-lite? There certainly has been a trend lately, especially with DC books, toward female leads. Batwoman, Batgirl, Gotham City Sirens (and yes, Marvel Divas) and many more that I’m probably missing because this just isn’t really my area of expertise. The pop universe doesn’t seem to be swinging that way in the dramatic fashion it did in the Spice Girls era, but we do have Twilight and other pop-culture phenomena that are aimed at girls bringing a new demographic to geek culture–check out Vaneta Rogers’ awesome piece on The Fangirl Invasion.

Either way, I have to agree with this statement, again from Retconning My Brain:

What it came down to for me this week was that it was nice to buy a bunch of comics that are led my female superheroes, who are super with or without their male counterparts, but don’t exist in a vacuum of femaleness or solely for the gaze of the male reader. They’re there to kick some ass and be super.

Amen to that.

Yeah, that’s not true at all, actually, but it neatly sums up the type of attitude I regularly hear and see in the comics world and the literature about comics–if by literature you mean articles and blog posts written 9 to 1 by men.

Anyway, Jennifer de Guzman wrote a post several months back that I just stumbled upon via this post on Amazon Princess (which I found via When Fangirls Attack), and it articulates something that I’ve never really thought about before, but makes perfect sense.

As I wrote in my reply, I am kind of astounded that some men don’t see why physical empowerment would clearly be attractive for women. I think it’s intriguing to note that women often like the hot women who kick ass as much, if not more, than men do. Here’s what I think is behind that: As women, we are nearly constantly aware of physical threats. And those threats often are of being violated sexually. When I used to go to campus for night classes and people warned me to “be careful,” what they are saying was, essentially, “avoid getting raped.”

Now, what if, what if, as a woman, you could walk around, be sexually attractive and not have to feel threatened? What if all the rage you feel about women being victimized and brutalized could be channeled into pure, righteous ass-kicking? And, because you’re a woman, you could possibly do that ass-kicking without being seen as a testosterone Steven-Seagal-esque meathead. Ass-kicking fantasies for men are more about proving and retaining power, I think. For women, they’re about finding and asserting power when they’re not expected to have any.

This resonated with me on so many levels. I’ve taken kickboxing, krav maga and muay thai at different times in my life, and they always did make me feel more confident and yes, sexier, but I’ve always attributed that to feeling healthier and stronger. Maybe I thought a bit about the idea that I might be able to kick someone’s ass if they harassed me as a component, but only in a very general sense.

Yet Guzman’s point is that a superheroine can be sexy and because she can kick someone’s ass, she doesn’t have to apologize or fear for herself. There’s no need for the tradeoff–sexy woman needs powerful man–because she is both. Her sexuality is no longer something to be feared, but something she is free to display if she wants to without worry of repercussions.

In media for so many years, female characters were simple projections of what men wanted to see. Still, women gravitated toward certain characters, and as more women create comics (and movies and TV series and and and) we argued that yes, we do want superheroines. And maybe we do want them to be pretty.

Also, perhaps this explains why I was never one of those who was really bothered by superheroine costumes. Sure they’re unrealistic. But could they also be a gleeful middle finger to everyone who wants to tell a little girl that what she’s wearing is “inappropriate” or that bad things will happen to her if she dresses in a way that attracts male attention?

(Of course, we could debate about the rather narrow view of what is “sexy” that is still put forth by superheroines, but that’s another post.)

No, my linkblogging posts don’t come on any particular day, they just tend to appear when I’ve gathered enough links that I like but don’t really have enough to say about to warrant their own posts. In case you were wondering. Now, onward!

At The Nation (full disclosure: I’m currently a Nation intern), Melissa Harris-Lacewell talks about the conservative campaign to paint President Obama as the Joker, and does an excellent job teasing out some interesting political parallels with The Dark Knight film.

Via When Fangirls Attack, a post on close female friendships in comics. How many female “buddy” or “bromance” pairings can you think of?

A comparison of Marvel Divas and Gotham City Sirens, also via When Fangirls Attack.

Johanna Draper Carlson looks at Huntress: Year One.

From Splash Page, Charlyne Yi of Paper Heart and Knocked Up is doing a comic with Oni Press. Insert random blather about how Yi is actually a geek here, right? Well, because she’s not Megan Fox (read, sexy girl everyone slobbers over) this hasn’t gotten that much attention, but it makes me happy: Charlyne Yi is funny, and from what I’ve seen of Paper Heart, is actually creative as well.

Jezebel looks at my favorite superheroine from childhood: She-Ra.

Finally, Defamer wants to know how gay Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes is going to be. Apparently word leaked out that there was going to be some sexual tension between the leads (Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr.), which was enough to send Michael Medved into a panic. Apparently there’s nothing to offend Medved in the screenplay, at least, and so he can go back to doing what he does best–which certainly isn’t knowing what women would like to see in a film. Or at least, this woman.

We’ve been over the booth babe controversy enough, and so I’m not going to rehash that here. However, I was struck by one paragraph in this LA Times piece, by Tod Goldberg, on Comic-Con:

It was the zombie issue that brought forth the sociologist in me. Countless women covered in knife wounds and in advanced stages of decomposition happily posed with men (and boys … lots and lots of boys). The booth for “The Blood Factory” — Danny DeVito’s home of short splatter films … which is to say, films with lots of sex and lots of knife wounds, often concurrently — featured two smiling and bloodied hotties wielding chainsaws who posed and vamped for children of all ages. The sexualization of violence was not something I was prepared for even knowing well how undead vampires have become romance heroes in print and film. Sex was certainly in play without violence too — apparently selling any kind of video game is easier if there’s a vacant-eyed woman wearing a Wonder Woman costume in the booth — and in a way it’s nothing new for these kinds of gatherings since even Renaissance fairs use women as objects, but usually those women aren’t covered in open wounds. I’m no prude per se, but it was nonetheless odd to see young boys getting their cheeks pecked by buxom undead women. Maybe not as odd as the gentleman dressed like Bob’s Big Boy, burger and all, but odd no less.

I would say that what he’s critiquing here is not the sexualization of violence–anyone who’s seen Kill Bill or, well, any action movie, could tell you that sex and violence go hand in hand–but the way women are almost always cast as the victims of that violence. In other words, it’s not that there’s violence and sexy women mixing; it’s that those women are dressed as victims of violence and yet are cheerily posing for pictures with men and young boys. It’s the normalization of women-as-victim of violence that is kinda creepy.

That said, I like female monsters, even the undead variety, in my monster movies. Zombies and vampires, after all, keep coming despite the horrible things done to them. That’s what makes them scary, and in vampires’ case, sexy. The monsters are powerful because they are dead and yet they live.

Goldberg juxtaposes women wielding chainsaws (presumably, the blood they are covered in would be someone else’s) with women covered in (fake) wounds here without question, where in fact they’re two very different things, and I would go even further and say that it does matter whether the women covered in wounds are zombies or simply victims.

This goes to the heart of my disgust with “torture porn” films like Saw and Hostel but love for vampires, zombies, and other freaky monsters. Monsters are subversive, uncanny: they violate boundaries. Torture porn movies do nothing but show us splashy violence, the worst of humanity, and quite often reinforce gender roles: male attacker, female victim. A wounded woman who fights back is entirely different than one who is simply a victim, and a wounded woman who comes back as a monster might be the stuff of worst nightmares.

I found this excellent New York Times Magazine piece on little girls and superheroes the other day, and then had a couple of people email it to me as well. Unsurprising, perhaps, as women and comics is well-known as my beat here and elsewhere, and my fascination certainly extends to little girls and the way they’re socialized.

The author writes from her own perspective: her little girl has graduated from Disney Princesses to Wonder Woman, and she’s thrilled. Like me, she finds Wonder Woman’s costume far less problematic than the gender-specific roles Disney princesses forced her daughter into, and she examines the unique lessons that the superheroine can provide for girls growing up in the current culture: where there are plenty of powerful female role models and yet their media portrayals always seem vexed in ways that their male counterparts’ are not.

In the end, that is the true drama of the superhero: the ordinary Joe who discovers that he has a marvelous gift, something that sets him apart from everyone else, simultaneously elevating and at least potentially isolating him, forcing a series of moral choices about the nature of might and goodness. It’s a story writ large about coming to grips with power: accepting it, demanding it, wielding it wisely. Those themes are rarely explored in the fantasy culture of little girls, yet given how problematic power remains for adult women — in both fact and fiction — perhaps they should be. Consider the connotation of Superwoman, who is more harried than hectic, not something I’d want for myself or for my girl. What’s more, Superwoman is subject to a unique form of kryptonite: the threat of being called a bad mother. Besides, who would want to be referred to as the Woman of Steel?

Little girls do like to feel powerful; in my days working in a nonprofit with elementary-school kids, I remember trying to spot the line where the confident, happy, energetic little girls began to be sullen, nervous adolescents, while their male classmates didn’t seem to cross any such line. I certainly can’t give all the credit for that to superheroes and other fantasy-fictional role models, yet I would love to see a world where these little girls are raised with more visions of female power that isn’t pathologized, in both the real world and in the media by which they are surrounded.

Because I still think it’s disgusting.

From Kotaku:

Let’s play this down the middle, as much we can. “Costumed representatives,” are there to make a physical appearance, both sides would agree. But Iola is right: Neither Comic-Con, nor E3, nor any other convention, is a strip club. It’s no more appropriate to assume she’s there for casual opposite-sex companionship than it would be to think a well dressed public relations professional – who’s also there to promote a product and likewise is expected to look good on the job – is after the same thing.

The problem is that EA’s promotion projected just that image – not only on their own reps, but reps of other companies as well, whether or not it was consistent with the spirit or tradition of Comic-Con, E3, or any other show. That’s the reason for the furor, and that’s why you got an apology.

The whole post is worth reading, as it includes comments from a self-proclaimed costumed rep who’s suffered through much obnoxious behavior at cons.

The comparison to a strip club, however, struck me as particularly apt. Because it’s NOT what Comic-Con is supposed to be. Yet by projecting the idea that cons are for boys, the corresponding assumption that any girl who is there is there for the sexual gratification of the male attendees (and thus the attendant reaction to the Twilight-fangirls who are there for their own damn visual sexual gratification, thank you very much) is not only prevalent among attendees, but played to by just this sort of promotion.

I find it interesting that the most egregious examples of this stuff came from video game companies. Am I strange in noting this?

Wow, this is pretty low even for the kinds of things we’ve already seen floating around Comic-Con.

I know all about the “booth babes” and my own feeling on the subject is pretty much meh. Maybe I’ve just been inured to the use of women’s bodies to sell things, and I’m used to the idea that comic conventions are “for the boys” even though I’ve been fighting that notion in this here blog. It’s kind of funny to me, too, that “booth babes” are still used to lure fanboys, who then turn around and complain about Twilight fangirls squealing over Robert Pattinson. Still, way to take the whole idea to a new low, EA Games. Rewarding guys for committing “acts of lust”? With no definiton on what that entails?

So now the girls standing around awkwardly at various booths are not only going to be stared at and groped a few times, they’re going to have boys trying to do so and document it on photo to try to win a chance to–hang out with more girls?

Sounds like EA Games needs a quick lesson. Hey guys? Women aren’t like your video games or comic books. We’re people, too. We get to choose with whom we commit “acts of lust,” and sometimes we don’t like it on camera. We certainly don’t like being bought and sold for the price of a video game.

Someone keep these guys away from the Twilight fans, please.

Also, if I never hear another joke about a “chest full of booty” it’ll be too damn soon.

(thanks to Blog@’s own David Pepose for setting me off on a rant at 9:30 on a Saturday)

Um, hello.

A debate about “female power icons in pop culture”?

With Signourney Weaver on a panel with Eliza Dushku, Zoe Saldana, and Elizabeth Mitchell of Lost? All it would need would be Sarah Michelle Gellar and I’d be in heaven.

From the Guardian, some highlights from the panel.

Weaver:

“Science fiction is an investigation into what it is to be human,” she said at one point. “A lot of the roles I have played, they’re not trying to create a female action figure – they’re trying to create a fully-functioning human being; a character comes first.”

Saldana:

“It’s about how long I have to stand fighting a room full of men about why I should do a fight scene in trousers, where I’m required to run across a floor and leap on to a moving elevator,” she argued, “They’re confused because they’re convinced I should be just as good at doing that in a leather miniskirt and Gucci boots.”

Dushku:

“I asked Joss for the most kick-ass multi-dimensional character he could think of, and he delivered … this character, it’s just a lot like me.”

Mitchell:

“My roles have been far more adventurous, far more interesting, once I moved beyond 30; my roles are juicer, and sexier, and more powerful – we’re allowed to do all those things, be all those things, once we pass 30.”

Anyone at SDCC and catch this panel?

Robot 6 has an excellent roundtable up about girls and fandom and the drama over Twilight “invading” comic-con. I’m posting a few excerpts here, with my thoughts, but you really should read the whole thing.

Robin Brenner: I find it especially distressing that the SDCC crowd, made up of fans who have been typically dismissed and marginalized by the larger culture including comics fans, fantasy fans, and sci-fi fans, seem to think it’s perfectly warranted to dump on fans who you would think they have a lot more in common with than traits to divide them.

I’ve seen this over and over again, though, in groups gathered around everything from punk rock to politics. When you’re marginalized from the larger culture, in part by choice but in a much larger part than we’d like to admit, not by choice, it’s easy to try to police your boundaries. Maybe it even gives you a better sense that you ARE different because you choose to be and not because your peers don’t understand your passion for the Misfits/Dennis Kucinich/Superman/Twilight. In other words, maybe enforcing the “no girls allowed” clubhousey nature of certain parts of comic fandom makes comic fans feel more special. Groups often define themselves by what they aren’t, after all.

Kate Dacey: The other thing that bothers me about these statements is that many of the folks dissing Twilight have never read it or watched the movie, yet they feel perfectly qualified to assess its merits solely on the basis of who likes it. Teen girls love it, ergo it must be junk.

I’ve taken this on myself, and I still believe it’s true. Listen, ain’t no one arguing you have to like Twilight. But if you haven’t read the damn thing, how do you know it’s crap? It sounds entirely too much like the people who go “You read COMIC BOOKS?” at my day job(s).

Eva Volin: The librarian half of my brain wants to sit the fanboys down and explain to them about the birds and the bees, about brain development, and the statistics on reading patterns and buying habits of girls vs. boys. To remind them that teenage girls have expendable incomes, too, and ask if they’d really rather the girls spend that money somewhere else, like at a chain bookstore, or Hot Topic, or on eBay. Or at the booths in the dealers rooms where they sell cell phone charms of Naruto characters or the twins from Ouran High School Host Club. The librarian half of my brain wants to reason with people who would rather stomp their feet than get with the program and embrace this new generation of fan—a generation who, if encouraged, could save the comics industry.

Um, what she said.

Volin, cont’d: That because I have two X chromosomes I need to have sequential art explained to me in small words and if I’m in a comic book shop it must be because I’m there to buy books for my son or nephew. And to all of that I say, “Bite. Me.”

I’m going to SDCC. I’m going to line up to see the panels I’m interested in. I’m going to cheer for the artists whose work I enjoy. I’m going to ask questions and get autographs and maybe even do a little cosplaying. And I’m going to spend money at booths that have the merchandise I’m interested in. Lots of money. And if you don’t want my business, don’t worry. Call it women’s intuition, but I’ll be able to tell. And I’ll remember. And I’ll take my business, as well as my nieces’ and their friends’ business, to someone else’s booth.

Exactly this. Over the years, I’ve grown exceptionally good at navigating comic shops and the varied reactions of the employees/owners. And I remember each clerk who was condescending, who was rude, and I took my money elsewhere. I’m still here, reading and writing about comics, because I love them and I believe in the medium AND the industry. I am quite certain there’s a place for me in this world. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say that some of the most overt sexism I’ve ever dealt with in my life has come my way through comics. And I don’t mean Wonder Woman’s costume.

So, con-goers and fans, think about all of this when you’re at SDCC and you roll your eyes at the squealing teenage girls (and trust me, I don’t like listening to squealing either). Those girls have money and just as much right to be there as you do. And it couldn’t hurt to be nice to them.

Valerie D’Orazio makes some excellent points over at her blog.

Truly, my heart weeps for those fanboys inconvenienced by 1,000s of Robert Pattinson fans. It is so unfair. And they’re “not even really supposed to be there,” right?

[snip]
Where was this whining when people were going freakin nuts over “Watchmen?” Or when I couldn’t even get through the fanboy phalanx to meet up with friends because of the Hellboy roadblock?

Fandom and conventions are big enough for EVERYBODY. And instead of complaining about “Twilight” fans, maybe somebody should figure out how to get these legions of fangirls to buy more comics.

Seriously. The headline she links–”Female Fans Prepare to Trample Men“–is hilariously ironic because it reflects perfectly the fear in so many articles. The implication that ZOMG WOMEN ATTACK is just so darn Freudian it’s hard for me to unpack it without giggling.

I’m a female fangirl. I have been for years. And I’ve absolutely been trampled at cons–and punk rock shows, and even sporting events, all areas with typical male fan bases that certainly didn’t seem to think anything shocking about being in a room with hundreds of boys and a few girls.

I came to comics through a subculture that, if it had existed back in the day, would certainly have embraced Twilight. As a somewhat overeducated adult, I read the books and saw the movie and thoroughly enjoyed both, if occasionally with the very adult pleasure of laughing at all the wrong moments. I both defend the right to have something like Twilight that is so unabashedly girly that it inspires tons of squealing girls to unload at Comic-Con just for its panel, and despise the tendency to split fandom into two worlds: the comics are for boys, the sparkly vampires are for girls.

Leaving out for a moment the teenage boy sitting next to me at a subway stop reading New Moon on his iPhone (yes, I can recognize the story from a glimpse over his shoulder. What?), why the heck can’t we admit that comic cons were packed full of people fighting for seats before Twilight was thought of, that Hollywood has been trying to find ways to tap into the zealous–and zealously consumerist, willing to buy tons of movie-related merch–comic con audience for a good while now, and that the only thing different when it’s Twilight is that the fans are teenage girls (and their moms, the fear of whom brings up a whole other level of Freudian analysis that I’m REALLY not qualified to do).

So really. Do these guys need to keep Comic-Con a He-Man Woman Hater’s Club that badly, or can they learn to embrace the girls and cross that invisible line between Twilight fans and comic fans? Because who knows, maybe if they dropped the defensive act and realized that more girls in their fandom does not mean less stuff for them, that pop culture is not a finite commodity, maybe more girls WOULD buy comics. And far from that being a problem, it would create more money for comics creators, and thus…MORE COMICS FOR ALL. Win-win.

Dear Internet,

I bought not one, but TWO superhero books this week. That’s right, two. One from DC and one from Marvel, all balanced-like. Streets of Gotham (which I really bought for the Manhunter backup) and the Gambit Origins book. I read ‘em, and I’m going to write about ‘em, but not right now. I’m too tired. Instead, I will give you linkage to pretty and interesting things. I promise to write about them soon, though.

In the meantime!

At Comics Worth Reading, the welcome news that Thom Zahler is giving away free comics to the first 75 women who visit his booth at Heroes Con this weekend.

Also there, Ed Sizemore reviews things he picked up at MoCCA, and they’re mostly books I didn’t already talk about. (I do think he’s crazy to not have liked The Unwritten, but I realize not everyone gets as geeked for metafiction as I do.)

Via The Hathor Legacy, a rant about “Strong Female Characters” that I can totally get behind. I also find this wording problematic because it implies that female characters are normally not strong, so strong must be pointed out when it does occur. But read her post. It’s better than what I said.

Shakesville has a good rundown of the sexism in the geek world lately. Seriously, people? It’s really not that hard to figure out that girls like all the same kinds of things that guys do.

This is just kind of a short, sublime post by, well, Neil Gaiman, who does short and sublime rather well.

So reading DC’s solicitations from yesterday, I noticed some really interesting news.

Announced as the new ongoing writer for Teen Titans was Felicia D. Henderson, co-executive producer of the new J.J. Abrams series Fringe, as well as a former co-exec producer for Gossip Girl. (She also teaches advanced screenwriting over at UCLA, one of the top programs in the country.)

And in addition, Angela Robinson, the writer/director of the spy thriller D.E.B.S. and several episodes of the L Word, was announced to write the Red Circle comic known as the Web.

“Right now I am writing a comic for DC Comics, and I did a Web series, and I just wrote a graphic novel,” Robinson told Variety on Thursday. “I feel like I am working everywhere, in television, in comics, in books and on Web series. I don’t feel like you can, as an artist, only make studio movies. What I’m trying to do is so diverse, and I think we all need to work across all the platforms out there now.”

So what’s so interesting about this? Well, since it’s been a truism in the industry that African Americans and women have been underrepresented in the comics industry, the fact that two African American women — one headlining one of DC’s big franchises as an ongoing writer — are joining the Big Two simultaneously is pretty unprecedented. What do you think, Rama readers?

Via Comics Worth Reading, apparently IGN is running a contest to win a trip to San Diego Comic Con to participate in an “Assignment.” Cool, right?

Unless you, like me, are a female over the age of 24. Though we too might like to meet District 9 director (and, um, Lord of the Rings director) Peter Jackson, we are apparently excluded. As Johanna notes, the rules of the contest state:

This sweepstakes is open only to males who are both legal residents of the fifty (50) United States and Washington D.C. and who are at least between 18-24 years of age as of July 23, 2009

I can almost understand trying to restrict the contest to younger people–almost. But why on earth would this contest be restricted only to “males”?

Like there aren’t enough men in the comics/film/sci-fi fields already, we need to make sure that only boys get to participate in these type of contests? Like comic conventions don’t have enough guys at them, you need to import extras?

This afternoon, I was chatting with a friend about her tattoo appointment. She’s planning on getting the Nautilus as drawn by Kevin O’Neill across her ribs (yay for comic book tattoos). I realized that I have yet to write my own review of the latest League of Extraordinary Gentlemen graphic novel, Century 1910. You already have Troy‘s, but I have some other comments.

This League is a tease more than a complete story–it introduces new characters, heroes (Orlando, Raffles, and Carnacki, as well as “Jenny Diver,” the daughter of Captain Nemo) and villains, and builds to a surprising climax, but it leaves you panting for the next volume, rather the way the first one did.

The character of Janni/Jenny is really the backbone of the story, though she has little to say. Her story relies instead on O’Neill’s storytelling skills, and they’re certainly up to the challenge. Janni flees her father but cannot escape his legacy. The story is familiar, except normally it’s a son trying to avoid having to live up to his father, rather than a daughter fed up at her father’s wishes for a male successor. Janni’s final turn comes not really as a surprise, but still a thrill. For her, embracing her father’s legacy is less a surrender than a realization that she can do that on her own terms.

Orlando, Raffles and Carnacki may not be as flashy as Hyde and the Invisible Man, but they provide different opportunites for Alan Moore. This is less a book about monsters, as the first two were, and more a book about literature. As Troy notes, it reaches out into music and magic as well. But it was always telling that the main character, the one responsible for pulling together the original League, was a human woman who survived the attack of a monster rather than the monster himself.

Mina Murray remains stiff and proper on the outside, but apparently a bit more liberated in the bedroom. She is, as always, the brains and the wrangler of the operation, the one everyone gripes about and the one they can’t function without. And at the end of this book, while all the other characters are fighting, Mina’s best weapon is still her self-possession, her calm confidence while everything else is falling apart.

The book may be titled “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,” and my friend may have referred to the first League as the manliest book on her shelf, but for me, the best parts of this new League are the extraordinary women. I can’t wait for more.

Neil Gaiman has lots of news–appearances in Maryland and New York, and:

THE GRAVEYARD BOOK won the 2009 Indies Choice Award as Best YA book. This is the Award that used to be called the BookSense Award, and it’s given by the members of the American Booksellers Association.

I’m not quite sure what’s up with this, but I’m sharing it with you: Executive Assistant Iris! (h/t When Fangirls Attack)

Jezebel on Pride and Prejudice: The Comic.

Nikki Cook talked to some weird writer at BUST magazine about DMZ. (OK, it was me. Don’t hate me for self-promotion.)

More snark at the expense of Marvel Divas. Sorry, guys. (h/t Tammy)

It seems it’s not enough that the first question we ask when a female superhero is announced for a comic movie is “Who’s she gonna hook up with?” Now we have to obsess over her weight as well.

Scarlett Johansson is far from fat. She’s a beautiful woman who has a body most women would kill for. Yet immediately the top question asked when a woman takes on an action role and starts working out is “How much weight is she going to lose?” It can’t be about being in shape to do her own stunts or just look buff enough to stand up next to Robert Downey Jr. and whomever else she’s squaring off with?

In a Huffington Post column, Johansson wrote:

Since dedicating myself to getting into “superhero shape,” several articles regarding my weight have been brought to my attention. Claims have been made that I’ve been on a strict workout routine regulated by co-stars, whipped into shape by trainers I’ve never met, eating sprouted grains I can’t pronounce and ultimately losing 14 pounds off my 5’3″ frame. Losing 14 pounds out of necessity in order to live a healthier life is a huge victory. I’m a petite person to begin with, so the idea of my losing this amount of weight is utter lunacy. If I were to lose 14 pounds, I’d have to part with both arms. And a foot. I’m frustrated with the irresponsibility of tabloid media who sell the public ideas about what we should look like and how we should get there.

Elizabeth Rappe at Splash Page noted:

No one suggested that Christian Bale wasn’t buff enough to play Batman or argued that Samuel L. Jackson needed a few crunches for Nick Fury, or called out the 300 ex-Spartans for not keeping up the regime. So, why does the Black Widow immediately come under the fitness microscope? Why should a superheroine be held as a standard for all women to emulate?

Our own Matt Brady asked not long ago why when a superheroine hits her husband, it’s funny, but a superhero hitting his wife is abuse. I gave a short answer in comics, but I think it’s all part of the same problem as the things I’ve listed here, honestly. Women are still too often assumed to be there just for decoration, not to be badasses on their own. I’m not as up on my Marvel comics as I’m sure some of you are, so correct me if I’m wrong, but the Black Widow is a pretty tough character on her own, with a shady background and questionable loyalties, a complex woman and one capable of taking care of herself–as is the Black Canary (why all the blackness? Anyway…).

But the female character is assumed to be there as a love interest, not just to be a character in herself. The men don’t have to prove they’re tough, but Johansson has to buff up–and when she does, she has to defend herself against charges that she’s trying to crash-diet and lose 15 pounds, because a woman exercising must be doing it to lose weight, not to get stronger. And when a woman hits a man, the idea that she might actually be able to do as much damage as a man or even more is still just laughable–even though anyone who’s seen Gina Carano fight should know that women can knock you out too.

Just for the record, I’m stoked for Iron Man 2 and I’m not automatically opposed to an eye-candy matchup between Johansson and Downey. I just think we’ve got a long way to go still on the way we think of women as action heroes.

Mmmm, gotta love slut-shaming comic-book characters. Except I don’t. At all. And neither does the author of this post. (via When Fangirls Attack)

OK, but these are awesome.

If you didn’t read the latest arc of Northlanders, you missed out. On art like this.

Warren Ellis swears he will die if you don’t read Ignition City. I did. Did you? What did you think?

The latest dirt on the possible-cancellation of Dollhouse? I’ll be sad it if does truly get cancelled–it’s just gotten better and better each week. But Friday night is a damned inconvenient time to watch TV if you’ve got any sort of a social life.

Speaking of Dollhouse, Racialicious looks at the cast and finds non-white characters the most interesting in the lot.

Finally, if we’re going to talk about “Strong female characters” can we talk about finding some “strong women” to write some of them? I don’t have a problem with men writing female characters in general, but I know there have to be some women out there who’d love to write superheroines, right? Gail Simone can’t be the only woman in all of creation who wants to do so…