Female Comic Book Superheroes

UK Guardian on Sexism in Comic Books

2011-12-28T16:44:00.000-08:00

Sorry for my long absence! Happy almost-New-Year to you all!
Here's an article some of you might find interesting, on women writing and buying comic books, and some people actually paying attention (to what we knew all along:)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/28/women-comic-book-sexism

2011 ComicCon - getting better for girls, or worse?

2011-07-27T10:44:00.001-07:00

Thanks to the excellent Wendy Babiak for turning my attention to this article from Ms. Magazine's blog:
http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2011/07/26/a-feminist-visits-comic-con/

In a discussion Wendy started on Facebook, I remarked:
"For one thing, I'm not sure I would ever use Twilight in any way as a positive representation of anything feminist. As if.
Seriously though, I presented the comic-heroines-poetry panel at WonderCon as part of the Comic Arts Conference in 2009, in San Francisco, but I did attend ComicCon in San Diego as well, and I was actually very cheered at the growing contingent of "geek girls" taking more power and control at the conference. It's not the age of "booth babes" - at least, not as much as it used to be. Groups like "Team Unicorn" are creating their own real presence, and female writers and artists are increasing in number, I think, as well. Jennifer K. Stuller would be a great person to ask about this stuff, as she goes more than I do!"

What do you guys think? I wasn't able to go to ComicCon this year as it conflicted with the Port Townsend Writer's Conference, but I would be interested in hear from girls that went, and hear your opinions: how girl-friendly is the con these days? Better or worse than a few years ago? Fewer or more female writers, artists, etc?

No Wonder Woman This Fall

2011-05-17T16:36:00.000-07:00

So, word on the street is that the Wonder Woman show headed by David E. Kelly has not been picked for this fall. Tough break! Next time, get a female to run the show! And maybe hire some more female writers!

Wonder Woman's new look

2011-03-20T13:35:00.000-07:00

Everyone's been asking about what I think about the new look of Wonder Woman. A link to the "new" Wonder Woman tv show character next to a classic image from the seventies icon:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1368132/Adrianne-Palickis-new-Wonder-Woman-costume-devoid-American-patriotism.html
It's definitely a skankier, less-powerful look, and the pants/latex leggings are just...ick. Plus I miss the red boots! It's hard to say what makes it skankier - the big fake boobs, perhaps? I guess it could be worse...Halle Berry as Catwoman worse.

Still reserving judgement about the show itself until I see it.

Wonder Woman Saved, Fairy Tale from Buffy Alums?

2011-01-28T15:22:00.000-08:00

So, the new news...
Wonder Woman's television show may have been saved, just moved to NBC - with "McG" perhaps at the helm...

And two former "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel" writers have also been given the green light at NBC for a show called "Grimm" based on the fairy tale collection by the Grimm brothers.

Good news? Or cringeworthy? I'm hoping for the best in both cases...

Wonder Woman No-Go, Buffy Movie

2011-01-08T12:07:00.000-08:00

Sorry to have been missing in action for so long. So, the new news:
--The Wonder Woman television show is a no-go, I heard today. Too bad.
--There is going to be a Buffy movie without Joss Whedon, a re-boot. Do we need a re-boot? Wasn't the original Buffy good enough? Plus, I'd love to see a "Buffy at 30" movie with Sarah Michelle Gellar and others from the original cast.
--Gail Simone has been asked to write for "Buffy season 9," aka the Buffy comic. Sounds like a good idea to me!

I'm feeling very "meh" about the new television series "The Cape." What do you think?

The Ink-Stained Amazon Presents in Seattle

2010-11-14T11:36:00.000-08:00

Today I got to see a friend - Jennifer K. Stuller - read and talk on her book, The Ink-Stained Amazon. She's a pop-culture feminist historian - kind of a non-fiction version of what I do with poetry - whom I got to know online and then got to meet at Wondercon this year in San Francisco. Particularly memorable was an awesome video on female heroes in pop culture over the last thirty years.

A fun thing about this reading was its location, a secret Seattle Geek hangout called The Wayward Coffeehouse in Greenwood owned and operated by the terrific Bronwen with decor that I would call "Whedon-chic" and a tall stack of sci-fi books on the shelves. Now I want to do a reading there! (Plus they had gluten-free cookies.) See? I had lived in Seattle ten years but never been to this awesome little coffee house (did I mention they screen movies - currently "Joe Versus the Volcano," one of my all-time favorite movies - there too?) Seattle is a town full of neighborhood surprises that you might never find unless someone you know happens to tell you about them.

Right now I am warming up in front of a fire, I have my new Buffy comic, a couple of books of poetry, and I am feeling terrifically geeky in a town friendly to geeks.

Strong Female Character Flow Chart

2010-10-18T12:42:00.000-07:00

Many good thing should be said about the following flow chart - funny and all-too-true:

http://www.overthinkingit.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Overthinking-It-Female-Character-Flowchart.png

Lost Team on a Fairy Tale themed series with a Female Lead

2010-10-13T13:13:00.000-07:00

Are any of you feeling like me, a little disillusioned and "meh" about most of the television on right now? Well, here's the best television news I've had in a while: the Lost team is getting together to start a Fairy Tale themed series with a female lead. Are you guys looking for writers? Because I know fairy tales and I would be a fantastic female writer for your show! Call me! Seriously!
Anyway, this will perhaps fill the gap of inspiring female-centric shows...

We Who Are About to Die, Nikita Reboot, Asteroids

2010-09-12T23:20:00.001-07:00

This guy at We Who Are About to Die talks about female comic book superheroes and poetry. It doesn't happen all that often, so I thought I'd link to it!

The Nikita reboot on the CW a few days ago seemed okay, the kind of thing we've seen before, but worth watching for maybe another episode or two.

Did you know this last week two asteroids came close to hitting the earth? No? Well, it's all over now - the earth is safe!

In case I haven't mentioned it here...

2010-08-07T20:28:00.000-07:00

I loved the movie Kick-Ass. I thought it was much better than the last Terminator, the last Batman, and every other action movie I've seen in the last year put together. I laughed, I cried, it was better than Cats, etc.
One thing critics complained about was the violence and cursing from the young actress that played HitGirl. I wondered if they would have complained if it had been a ten or eleven-year-old boy instead of a girl. Frankly, as an eleven-year-old girl, it would have been nice to see an empowered girl kicking ass instead of being the constant victim (as in many other movies where it's just fine that eleven-year-old girls are terrorized, but not okay when they're the heroines.)And as a thirty-seven-year old, I'd much rather see a little girl kicking ass than various "action heroes" like Bale or Stallone or whatever.
And I'm not just saying this because they gave me a HitGirl t-shirt at WonderCon. Or because the fight scenes were like an awesome combination of moves from Buffy and the Matrix. Another thing critics complained about the huge violence, but I found it less gruesome than, say, The Watchmen, or even the latest episode of House, as the violence shown was very 'cartoony.'

Gossip From Comic-Con

2010-07-23T21:29:00.000-07:00

I'm not there, but the gossip is seeping in from Comic-Con, so I thought I'd make a quick report of salient points:

--Joss Whedon is officially directing The Avengers movie. He says this will delay or possibly exclude the possibility of a Dr. Horrible sequel.

--Some of my favorite actors, including Angelina Jolie and Tiny Fey, made appearances.

--J.J. Abrams said he was happy with The Lost ending. Something about his new spy series, The Undercovers (which looks mildly good. As good as Alias? One can hope.)

What else? If you've been, leave a comment and fill me in! What was the awesomest thing there?

New Futurama, Covert Affairs, New Book

2010-07-14T12:43:00.000-07:00

Lots of news since last I posted!

--Happy news! Kitsune Books, a speculative literary publisher out of Florida, has agreed to publish my next book, "She Returns to the Floating World," a book about girls who turn into foxes, women who disappear, and heroines in anime.

--Sad news: the new Futurama episodes have been...not so great. Although I saw they had a female writer on one of the episodes. Way to let a girl in the room, Futurama! On the other hand, way too much "fan service" involving Leela and Amy. Maybe those censors were realllly important to the quality of Futurama jokes.

--In between: New spy-girl series "Covert Affairs" is a complete ripoff of Alias, right down to Piper's Sydney Bristow-esque voice inflections and facial expressions. Yet, fun to watch - thanks, USA, for providing an empowered heroine that none of the major networks can manage.

Wonder Woman's New Look

2010-07-05T14:24:00.001-07:00

Since I've long been a Wonder Woman champion, I've gotten a lot of e-mails about Wonder Woman's new look, illustrated here:

So, I miss the boots, but otherwise, I think that pants are much more practical for criminal-chasing and such than a high-waisted swimsuit.

Feminism and Superheroes

2010-06-20T12:08:00.000-07:00

An interesting article up at BlogHer about teaching daughters about the feminism hidden behind the bustiers of female comic book superheroes:

http://www.blogher.com/girls-who-love-comics-need-feminist-mentors?wrap=topic/mommy-family&crumb=22

Does Daria Count as a Superhero?

2010-06-09T11:44:00.000-07:00

Well, Daria: the animated series, is finally out on DVD. This was one of my favorite shows for years, and, although the kickass soundtrack has been removed - due to problems with licensing - the good writing and high school parody is as on pitch today as it was when I used to watch it on MTV.

Daria was about a the title character, a snarky misfit who wanted to be a writer, and her best friend Jane - a more punk-esque, slightly more outgoing girl who wanted to be an artist. For a writer, some of the best episodes are "The Story of D," "Write Where it Hurts," and "Cafe Disaffecto." There are some great bits mocking art schools in one of the two movies on the "Extras" list on the DVD.

Does she count as a superhero? When I watched this show, it eased many of my anxieties - about social problems, school problems, and family problems. Its parody had spunk and heart. One of the best female teenager-based shows ever on television, along with My So-Called Life and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Is anyone excited about the return of Futurama? I hope the writing returns to the original levels, not the somewhat mediocre writing of the one-off movies.

Creatives whose subject matter is not in their control

2010-05-17T21:46:00.000-07:00

From Bookslut:

"When my friend was writing a blog entry for the Wall Street Journal about Joss Whedon, our conversations got on the subject of Dollhouse, which is pretty easy for us to do. His final version:

"Firefly" also introduced the odd thematic obsession around prostitution and rescue that took over and imploded in the near-future science fiction show "Dollhouse," about a brainwashing technology that gives rise to high-tech brothels, and (much more entertainingly) Armageddon. There was something confused and unprocessed there - I felt I was watching an artist working with material he wasn't yet in control of.

I think I eventually just said, "I don't think men should get to write from the perspective of female prostitutes. Unless they take a class or something." Turns out Joss Whedon maybe did take a class! According to the "Internet." It just didn't help. "

Joss Whedon's Dollhouse always felt disturbingly too titillated by its own sexual gross-out factor. I agree with the blogger and Bookslut - Joss didn't have control of that stuff, and it came out icky.

The much more empowering Furi Curi (or Fooly Cooly) was from some of the most ostensibly anti-feminist, exploitative kind of anime artists, the guys from Gainax. Somehow, when they just let themselves have fun - and spent a ton of money following their inner muses - they came up with a female alien who rides a Vespa who keeps slamming a young man with a guitar in order to connect with a large male alien power that the young man can channel - but it turns out at the end, the male power can only manifest when the young man sacrifices himself for love of the female, head-hitting alien. I don't know - is there such a thing as accidental feminism? Can a man who studied feminism in college and created one of the best-ever female superheroes also have some secret desire to see women powerless?

When two worlds collide...

2010-05-13T15:49:00.000-07:00

When my geeky interests and my writing life collide, I feel obligated to post about it here.

I have a couple of poems in a new anthology called The Beastly Bride, which includes work by Peter S. Beagle and Jane Yolen, among many talented writers, and I was interviewed about my work in the book here. Click here for more discussion of the book, including some cool imagery of the Fairy Melusine and The Fox-Wife.

In TV News...
Anyone else excited about the return of Futurama, despite lackluster movies? How about the pickup of Season 4 of Chuck, or the killing of Heroes?

Update from WonderWon

2010-04-02T20:46:00.000-07:00

A short note to give you my first day rundown on WonderCon: got to see Jennifer K. Stuller's talk on "Superwomen in Modern Mythology" which was great and had a huge turnout, met her friend Trina Robbins who is giving a talk tomorrow on women in manga; talked to personal writing hero Peter S. Beagle, got a copy of the newly-inked The Last Unicorn comic book, really beautiful illustrations in that, and I told him I was excited to be sharing space with him in the new anthology, The Beastly Bride! By the way, I can be pretty blase around rock stars, politicians, etc...but around writers I admire, I am so tongue-tied!
Also, may catch a screening of Kick Ass (and thanks guys for the free t-shirts! Yay swag!) this weekend and The Last Unicorn, which they'll be playing on one of the big local theaters - I think I watched the original in the theater when I was about seven, so seeing it again would be cool.
Tomorrow is a "fun day" and Sunday is my work day, because that's when I give my presentation:
12:30-1:30 Comics Arts Conference Session #7: From Buffy to the X-Men: Female Comic Book Superheroes in Women's Poetry— Jeannine Hall Gailey (Becoming the Villainess) investigates how superheroes, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Lara Croft, have appeared in poetry by women, and how women poets use those icons to talk about cultural influence, body image, and the role of women as victims, villainesses, and heroines in comic books. Room 204/206, Moscone Center.

Female Comic Book Superhero Poetry

2010-03-16T23:04:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been having a lot of fun (and a little stress) putting together my paper and presentation for WonderCon's Comic Arts Conference coming up on April 2-4 in San Francisco. I went back to some of my favorite poets from college (Denise Duhamel and Lucille Clifton) and put out a call for newer poets to send me work (Wonder Woman and Buffy figure predominantly in these poems, it seems.) I hope to find even more poems before I go up. I'll also be using some poems from my own book, Becoming the Villainess, including poems about Buffy, Lara Croft, and others. I'm presenting first thing on Sunday at noon-ish - hope to see you there!
I'm of course excited to meet The Ink-Stained Amazon's Jennifer K Stuller whose new book I just finished (really fun reading!) and the other great folks - Peter S. Beagle, author of one of my favorite childhood books, The Last Unicorn, Gail Simone, comic author heroine, and the folks at one of my fave current shows, Chuck. And of course, I'm thinking of participating in the Buffy Musical Episode singalong at the end. I mean, what could be more fun than a weekend of full-on geekiness? I'm so thankful that I've been included in such a great conference.
Wish me luck and leave me comments about your favorite superhero poems!

Futurama Back This Summer

2010-03-06T12:51:00.000-08:00

Well, in a Family Guy-style resurrection, Futurama will be returning to television this June on Comedy Central. I hope the writers do a better job with these episodes than they did with the (mostly terrible) movies. Or that they hire more writers. Dan Vebber?

Are you excited? I think I am. I'm hoping for the best. I love the original Futurama series, and hope this new life goes well.

Dollhouse got better in the second season, and WonderCon

2010-01-29T21:16:00.000-08:00

Guess who is presenting at WonderCon this year? Me! It's going to be all about superheroes and poetry. Excited yet? I am!

I think I've figured out why Dollhouse got so much better in the second season. Yes, I continued watching even though I had problems with the first season. The second season was more coherent, more oriented towards female-empowerment, and more intelligently written. Anyway, the girls who ran Reaper became Dollhouse showrunners. I loved Reaper, and I really admire Craft and Fain for their unique quirks, their uses of humor and pop culture and the mystical as metaphor. Anyway, I wasn't crazy about Boyd's reveal as the big bad, because there would be a lot of neccessary retconning to make that work, but I thought they did a nice job wrapping up the show with Epitaph 2, and they even got Eliza to emote!

I'm pretty excited about Lost starting up again. With Leno at 10 PM cancelled, a lot of good shows will have more episodes now, too. TV is looking up once again!

New seasons, new shows?

2010-01-05T11:31:00.000-08:00

So, faithful readers, any new girl-empowered sci-fi-type shows worth watching coming out? I haven't heard much buzz at all about any of the new shows, but figured it was worth asking...

I am looking forward to the return of Chuck even though I know their budgets have been cut and so we're probably going to suffer because of that - hopefully they didn't cut back on writer's salaries!

I was trying to think if I was really looking forward to any other shows returning. Maybe the flawed-but-fun Vampire Diaries and similarly, too-gory-for-me-but-fun True Blood? Lost?

Poetry about Superheroes

2009-12-15T13:44:00.000-08:00

A great essay by one of my favorite literary critics, Stephen Burt, about poetry and superheroes, is up here. It makes for pretty interesting reading. (Plus, two of my poems are quoted!)

http://poems.com/special_features/prose/essay_burt3.php

Poetry and Superheroes

2009-11-02T20:42:00.000-08:00

I really like it when my two geek worlds collide. Tonight on Heroes, two characers recited poems about the moon - coincidentally, on the night of a beautiful clear full "frost" moon.

Hiro recited the first poem by Japanese haiku poet Ryokan:

The thief left it behind
the moon
at my window

HRG recited the poem from Oberon to Titania from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

On an unrelated note, this whole season of Heroes has so far been so much better than the two previous seasons it is like another show. Poetic imagery with a hearing-impaired woman seeing colors, the tatto woman...I like the carnival-running Magneto-ripoff bad guy, too.

More Chuck - and possible WonderCon...

2009-10-09T17:03:00.000-07:00

Well, if you are a fan of shows about geeks (and I am!) then you will be happy to hear that there's a rumout that one of my fave shows, Chuck, will possibly be making its return in a few weeks instead of next year, because some other NBC shows have been sucking. So, yay, more Chuck!

Also, today I submitted a brief proposal to WonderCon in San Francisco. Wish me luck! It's about poetry and superheroes. Crossing my fingers!

Sorry for the long absence...

2009-09-24T11:44:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the long absence, readers! I've been sick, injured, and just completed a move! Still, that's no excuse.
Well, as far as new science fiction/fantasy/female comic book superhero news...it's been a little quiet. The new fall shows haven't really grabbed me yet. Any you'd recommend?
I've been keeping up with the Buffy comics, which have continued apace in an almost True-Blood-ian universe in which slayers are the enemy and vampires have reality shows. Speaking of True Blood, I liked the second season a little less than the first, except for the episode in which Godric is introduced and goes to "meet the sun" which I thought was just really well-executed in terms of writing and pacing. Vampire Diaries seems like a Twilight ripoff, but is perhaps better in terms of writing and tension than the Twilight movie. Still, none of them have the wit, charm, and fight of Buffy. Sigh.

I missed ComicCon, but I did see Miyazaki in person!

2009-07-26T08:09:00.000-07:00

Well, I got to see Ponyo by the Sea/Ponyo on a Cliff (whatever they're calling it in English) a month early, and it's a beautiful but strange film. It seems a more eccentric, more upbeat version of Hans Christian Anderson's "A Little Mermaid" with an environmental twist. It had a lot more humor in it than most Miyazaki films; Tina Fey in the English dub plays the hilarious, feisty young mother who doesn't really resemble any character Miyazaki's done before. The drawing is purposefully childlike, different that the ethereal, elegant drawings in Howl's Moving Castle. The two main characters are five years old, so a lot of the movie is geared towards a very young person's aesthetic; the themes are similar to those in Princess Mononoke. I enjoyed watching it with children in the audience; their delighted laughter behind me reminded me that they were the real audience for this film.

Hayao Miyazaki, with a translator and in a conversation led by Roland Kelts (who wrote Japanamerica) gave a wonderful hour-and-a-half talk in which he discussed advice for young animators ("Draw what you see in life; then give a more experienced artist your drawing and ask for a tough critique") and his frequent roles for strong women ("There are so many strong women now, I might have to start making films about little boys!) as well as his views about apocalypse (generally, he's pro?)and how natural disasters can bring people together. He laughed a lot, expertly evaded questions like "which character in your films do you most resemble," and was generally really fun to watch.

Berkeley itself is a beautiful campus and the weather was lovely and cool.

New Happy Potter Movie, Comic Con, Miyazaki in Berkeley

2009-07-19T23:05:00.000-07:00

It's a banner week for geekiness!

Saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and besides leaving out (spoiler alert) Dumbledore's funeral - which would have been really easy to film - and the final fight between the kids and the death eaters - and some really important Voldemort flashbacks about his really sad family that would have revealed where and what the horcruxes were - I thought it was fairly competent.

Just getting excited to hear all the announcements and gossip from Comic Con, and excited for my trip next weekend to see Ponyo by the Sea and see Hayao Miyazaki give a lecture up in Berkeley.

Buffy Versus Edward

2009-06-23T14:38:00.000-07:00

You must immediately go read this post from Slate's XX, and watch the re-mix video of what happens when Buffy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer met Edward from Twilight:

http://www.doublex.com/blog/xxfactor/when-buffy-met-edward

More excitement about Miyazaki

2009-06-02T08:59:00.000-07:00

I'm more excited than a grown woman should be: I just got tickets to see a screening on Ponyo, Hayao Miyazaki's new movie, and then, the next night, two tickets to see Miyazaki himself give a lecture in Berkeley! I moved to California six months ago and just knew it would pay off! Yay!

The bad news is, Comic Con in San Diego looks to be sold out, so unless anyone has secret ways to get me in, it looks like I won't be going to that.

Shows that get renewed, shows that don't

2009-05-05T10:34:00.000-07:00

Really crossing my fingers that Chuck gets renewed. Dollhouse I think was lucky to have a full half-season. Heroes will be back (hopefully with better writing!) and Reaper is cancelled. It's hard getting attached to these genre-type shows, knowing they could be cancelled at any minute.

Heroines and Their Shoes

2009-04-06T00:12:00.000-07:00

Felicity Shoulders has some very sensible comments on sensible shoes on action heroines on television. These also apply equally to female comic book superheroes, who are always fighting evil in a thong...
http://faerye.net/post/comfortable-shoes
This is a subject dear to my heart as I recently broke two bones in my foot. Practical footwear would have been a plus in my accident. But no - it was strappy sandals for me that day!

Heroes, Lost...Andy Richter

2009-03-26T23:07:00.000-07:00

So, Bryan Fuller is back at Heroes, and it shows. The newest episode, "Cold Snap," had his trademark whimsical visual details as well as above-average (at least for Heroes) dialogue. A terrific ending for a terrible character (Tracy, not Daphne.) Loved the bits with Angela!

Lost has gone downhill ever since Sawyer got together with Juliet. Blech and double-blech! And the show's depiction of Sayid was disappointing - I was really hoping they were moving him towards a redemptive end.

Andy Richter Controls the Universe is not, technically, a sci-fi show...but it does have technical writers! And likable managers of technical writers, much like me in a previous corporate career. At least I hope I was likable. And one of the guys who worked for me did look a lot like Andy Richter...
Anyway, it's out on DVD - do yourself a favor and buy it. No, they're not paying me to say this.

Dollhouse's "game-changing" episode was all right - but still left me feeling a little "meh." Plus, I could see all the "suprises" coming from a mile away. Notice though, I still haven't stopped watching...

Review of Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder

2009-02-25T12:59:00.000-08:00

I got ahold of Futurama's Into the Wild Green Yonder yesterday, and have to say I was fairly pleased with this outing of the series - in fact, I think it's the best of the four. Characters were written true to the essentials of each character, the Fry and Leela relationship was addressed satisfactorily, the inside jokes were there but not overly obvious or irritating.
Evolutionary factors were both the villain and hero of these four episodes - the evolutionary forces that caused less robust species to go extinct were labelled "dark ones" and the forces to preserve evolutionary diversity - somewhat mysterious - were the "encyclopods." A strange premise, making personifications of evolutionary theory good or evil.
The best extra was the "making of" documentary, in which...well, let's just say Lauren Tom features heavily, and it's pretty hilarious. You can also watch Matt Groening bounce around at zero G!
It never reached the greatness of the original four seasons, but at no time did I look away in disgust or get so bored I stopped watching (as happened with the three previous movies,) and the ending has some emotional resonance.
Billy West has said there is a possibility than Futurama might have new episodes on Fox, a la the resurrection of Family Guy.

Reasons to Watch Heroes

2009-02-23T11:45:00.000-08:00

An amusing and compelling list of reasons to start watching Heroes again on Television without Pity. My favorite reason was "They just generally suck less." Right on!

Second Ep of Dollhouse Review

2009-02-20T23:23:00.001-08:00

Joss Whedon's new show agains made me say Meh. This second episode - a re-hash of "The Most Dangerous Game" - with sex! - again made me feel too icky. And now I want to shower.

In other news, the likable show Chuck continues to suffer ratings problems. I'm agreeably interested in Lost once again. And I've fallen in love with the British-show-turned-American Life on Mars.

Would it kill the networks to have a likable, empowered woman on television again? Annie from Life on Mars is one of those, but she has so little screen time.

Vacant Expression Bot - Dollhouse Pilot Review

2009-02-15T18:07:00.000-08:00

TO: Joss Whedon
RE: Dollhouse

If I wanted to watch a vacant-expression-bot passively doing the will of men for money, I'd go rent a porno. Or watch "Confessions of a Shopaholic." (Isla Fisher is a talented actress, but in that movie is mostly in the passive-vacant-expression-bot mode.) And what's up with all those soft-core camera angles?

Joss said in interviews he wanted the audience to feel "icky" - well, count me ickified.

Also: For a similar plot, see "Futurama's episode "I Dated a Robot."
DON'T DATE ROBOTS!

New Heroes, Chuck in 3D

2009-02-04T10:50:00.000-08:00

So, what did you all think of the new episodes of Heroes and Chuck Monday night?

I think the reset on Heroes is pretty interesting (although I was disappointed that HRG was once again playing on team evil) and hope it continues in an interesting vein, albeit one completely stolen from the X-Men plotlines archive. It definitely looks like we're heading towards the alternate future that was first featured, where the Heroes are hunted criminals.

Chuck 3-D was too bad, since NBC didn't do enough to distribute the 3-D glasses, but a good-enough episode.

Along with Lost, I'm glad these shows are back. I've been down with a broken foot, and good television is very important for healing! In other good news, Reaper is coming back a little bit earlier, around the beginning of March!

I'm finally going to watch a little Battlestar Galactica on DVD, too, though I have flashbacks to the seventies version that I tried to avoid as a tiny tot...

No More Year's Best Fantasy and Horror anthologies

2009-01-14T11:26:00.000-08:00

I just heard this sad news here:
http://lcrw.net/wordpress/?p=768
I am really sad about this because it was one of the few anthologies that actually included poetry. And I just found out about it three years ago. And now it's going away!
This economic climate makes it harder than ever for book publishers, editors, and writers. Please do what you can to support your favorite magazines, writers, and publishers. Keep buying books!

In other news, would anyone out there be interested in helping put together a talk for ComicCon on Comic Book Heroes (and Heroines) and Literature?

Girl Geek Must Reads

2008-12-19T22:10:00.000-08:00

So it's Christmas, end of 2008, time of lists and lists and more lists.

So what is on your girl-geek must-have reading list?

1. The Elegance of the Hedgehog
This book is not brand new, but I just discovered it, and can't stop talking about it. Love philosophy, cheesy movies, Japanese pop culture, love/hate the French? You'll love this book!

2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer #1 (Season 8)
The year in Buffy comics. Let's face it: in a Bella versus Buffy smackdown, Buffy is hotter, stronger, cooler, and just an all-around better role-model. So, forget buying your neice one of the Twilight books - get her Buffy comics instead!

3. Pretty Monsters: Stories
Loved Kelly Link but was afraid Stranger Things Happen had too much adult content for your sixteen-year-old little sister? This short-story collection is still disturbing and weird, but safe for all ages.

More to come...but if you're still shopping, here are some names of some of my favorite short-story writers: Haruki Murakami, Osamu Dazai (Blue Bamboo is his best), Catherynne M Valente, Neil Gaiman (still charming - and I love his "The Dream Hunters" comic - gorgeous and touching)

"Our Father" - Heroes Review

2008-12-09T08:49:00.000-08:00

I want to like Heroes. I really do. In last night's episode, I loved how Claire and Hiro interacted to each other and to the scene from their childhoods. I loved Claire's sunny impression of a babysitter for her parents, Hiro's touching scenes with his dying mother.
And then the writers completely spoiled those wonderful previous scenes by having Arthur Petrelli appear in the past (who, as far as we know, has never shown time or space travel capabilities - or the ability to know where mutants (sorry, Heroes) are in space and time.) What the hell? It was like - well, we have no reason to believe Daddy Petrelli can do any of the things he just did to get here, but why do we care? We're the writers! Uck. Then poor Hiro gets defeated a second time by Arthur, just when his character was finally allowed to have some gravity again. Where's the love for Hiro's character, I ask?
And what's with the stealing of Buffy Season 4's "Initiative" plot line? Lame.
And you just know Sylar and Peter didn't really kill that Arthur character. Sure, they burn Elle, but they just leave Arthur on the floor like he didn't come back from a coma just a month ago?
In other words, writers of Heroes, really? Really?

Superhero Antiheroes

2008-11-27T12:38:00.000-08:00

I watched and enjoyed Will Smith's Hancock, whose tales troubled production and mediocre reviews might make you expect a worse movie than you got. Now, the deleted scenes might help, too - the original movie felt very rushed, especially after the midway point. And some of the jokes seem geared towards the lowest common denominator. I loved Justin Bateman as a ethical PR guy trying to reform Smith's classic antihero, and I liked the explicit connection between the mythology of ancient worlds and today's superhero myths - something that I usually have to explain to classes when I'm explaining archetypes and the way that comic books reflect out culture in the same way that, say, Greek mythology reflected that culture at a certain point in time. I'm pretty sure the female superhero character was underdeveloped and underwritten - I wonder if trying to create the "twist" became more important than helping the audience connect to and understand her backstory?
Anyway, not the disaster I was expecting.

Video Games for Girls?

2008-11-19T23:56:00.000-08:00

Salon just did a new piece on a female video-game designer named Mary Flanagan:
http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2008/11/19/game_design/index.html
I've seen these kinds of articles before, and I'm interested: what do you think? Do women prefer different kinds of game-play - more social interaction, less puzzle-solving and shooting? Or is this a lie? There are a lot of you grrl gamers out there these days - what do you think?
My first experience with video games was my old Atari and the text game Zork. I also tried programming basic maze games and alien-or-asteroid zapping games in BASIC as a kid on my TRS-80. (Yes, I'm old enough to have had a TRS-80 as a kid!) Some of my favorite games currently are old-school Galaga, the first or second arcade version of Area 51 (the kind you can still find at pizza places and movie theaters,) some of the more advanced snowboarding games, or games that have an appealing storyline to me. I don't know if any of those preferences make me any different than my gaming little brother. I think maybe the gender thing gets overstated - I don't think girls or women need pink ponies or anything to pick up a game.
Do men like to play female video game characters purely for the voyeurism or because they are experimenting with gender-swapping?
That's an interesting question. Tell me guys - why do you play female characters?

Villains

2008-11-11T00:07:00.001-08:00

Heroes has started to cheer me up by being slightly less bad! Yay! I hear Brian Fuller (whose Pushing Daisies, I hear, is sadly on its way out - a charming, offbeat show) may be back on the writing staff at Heroes. And what about Joss Whedon? Can he come write the female characters?
Anyway, this week's episode, which actually added human dimension to characters rather than spinning them through mystifying plots in all directions (clones? alternate futures? dead Linderman?) felt satisfying, and most of all, I felt that there was something at stake during the episode. They made clear-cut bad guys (like HRG's former boss) ambiguously good, while HRG himself seemed ambiguously bad, creepy even. They tied random bad fire dude from level five back to the cheerleader's biological mother - they are brother and sister. ("Remember what Daddy told you? God gave you a big sister instead of a brain.") This is something they always say in writing classes - there's got to be something at stake in the poem or fiction piece, or else, who cares?

Anyway, not enough to get me out of my chair to cheer, but definitely a positive direction.

A Review of the new Futurama Movie, "Bender's Game"

2008-11-06T21:23:00.000-08:00

So, of course, after the election, we went out and purchased the new Futurama movie, "Bender's Game," for some non-election-related relaxation. How was it, you ask?
Better than the first two movies. Better, but still not great. If you squint, and run the air conditioning really loud, you can make believe you're watching the old Futurama of the television series.
The animation seemed more expensive, more sophisticated, and I could also swear they've upped the budget and gotten a full orchestra going again (something missing from the first two movies.)
My favorite bits? "Tea with Morvo" and a "Scary Door" episode in which in which the attacking aliens' weakness is exposed...
Strangely, there were no references in the movie to "Ender's Game," which seems like a lost opportunity, and a lot of references to D&D and Lord of the Rings, some of which were funny, some of which were "meh."
My least favorite thing: a bizarre misogynistic bit having to do with Leela and a shock-collar that seems very female-viewer unfriendly, and bad guys labelling Amy's "water-nympho" character a "slut," which again, seems female-viewer unfriendly. You hear what I'm saying, Futurama writers? Get a girl to go over your jokes with you, boys, before you release them into the world. A cool girl. Call me, for instance. Although, I guess Family Guy does all right and contains tons of misogyny.

New season of Heroes

2008-10-07T20:54:00.000-07:00

So, what do you think of the new season of Heroes? Better than season 2, but sort of a mashup-rewind of Season 1? What do you think of the new "Dark Willow" Claire-o-the-future? Bad ass cool, or just insane? Is Peter as annoying as ever? Did you not love Sylar's "You drink decaf, right Noah?" Hee! I think they must have finally hired a writer with a sense of humor over there, because I've laughed out loud during the last two episodes, and if I complained about anything during Heroes season 1, it was because it lacked humor.

So, what else are you watching this season? Doesn't the apocalyptic tone of Heroes seem a little too apropos these days? How about season 2 of Chuck?

Notes on samurais, vampires, and Miyazaki movies

2008-09-05T18:59:00.000-07:00

Of possible interest:

A mini-series on ABC Family of all places called "Samurai Girl" about a San Francisco teenager who must avenge her brother's murder by becoming a samurai! Has potential...
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/38195

The new series on HBO called True Blood has vampires and synthetic blood and Anna Paquin!
http://www.hbo.com/trueblood/

For you Miyazaki fans, news about Ponyo, his newest movie:
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/38173
and also an update on possible US distribution of The Tales of Earthsea movie from Ghibli...

Buffy Updates: Buffy Versus Fray, Animated Buffster

2008-08-16T22:18:00.000-07:00

So, I picked up the latest issue of the Buffy versus Fray "Season 8" comic, in which Dark Willow of the Future is revealed on the very last page (Whoops - is that a spoiler? But you totally know it's her all the way through the issue.) I'm enjoying this plotline - where Buffy learns that fairly sad state of slayerhood far in the future, and Fray's ongoing struggle with her evil twin.

And, via Television Without Pity, I learned about a YouTube version of the Buffy animated series pilot. It's good, not great, but still entertaining in that "I miss Buffy" sort of way.
Here's the story:
http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/telefile/2008/08/buffy-summers-reanimated-corps.php#more
and the YouTube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnUvZP7-5LM

Why Twilight Sucks, Penelope, Hellboy II

2008-07-29T23:59:00.000-07:00

So, you say you're interested in a series created by a Mormon housewife for teenage girls that encourages them to abandon their own lives and ambitions to hang out with a guy? Look no further! The Twilight Series is here!
To read more about why this series sucks, read this:
http://www.salon.com/books/review/2008/07/30/Twilight/index.html
Not only does it steal from Buffy but make the main girl character much less interesting and empowered...But also, the writing! Hurts! my! Head!

Okay, on to more pleasant topics:

Hellboy II is a surprisingly romantic and funny superhero film, if a little uneven. I love the star and I love the character, so I was going to like this film no matter what, but the way the writer manages to inject a little sensitivity and existential questioning into a gung-ho testosterone fest is pretty great. The director's pacing left a little to be desired - there were at least ten to fifteen minutes that were realllly slow and served no purpose - but his visual reference checks:
--Miyazaki's forest spirit blooming onto the land in Princess Mononoke
--Indiana Jones fight with the giant German wrestler into the helicopter blades
--many scenes reminscent of Spirited Away and other references to La Puta/Castle in the Sky Robots
--the "welcome to diagon alley" scene in the first Harry Potter movie
are pretty flawless. So, overall, a thumbs up! I even give it a "date night" recommendation.

Penelope is a fairy-tale fable about a contemporary girl cursed with a pig's nose. The first half, in particular, is great - gothic and strange and Christina Ricci is so charming, as is a scene which has the main love interest character literally kissing a (ceramic) frog. Definitely worth a rental.

Tips for sci-fi, fantasy, and speculative fiction writers from Kelly Link

2008-07-11T08:55:00.000-07:00

If you're a fiction writer who dabbles in sci-fi, fantasy, or the speculative thing, check out this interview with Kelly Link (author of one of my favorite books, Stranger Things Happen) - she talks about her work at the low-res MFA program at Stonecoast, her teaching gig at the Clarion Workshop in San Diego (with Neil Gaiman, fellow teacher) and general publishing stuff here:
http://www.adventuresinscifipublishing.com/2008/07/aisfp-54-kelly-link-and-lou-anders/
Oh yeah, you have to get about 12 minutes in to get to her part of the interview.
Anyway, makes me wish I wrote fiction instead of poetry! I would sign up for that Clarion deal in a heartbeat - and maybe even sign up for another MFA!
PS Kelly Link has a new Young Adult book, Pretty Monsters, due out in October. I've been recommending her other two books (chock full of sex and violence) to teens, so I'm glad to have something on the "safer" side to recommend.

PS Buffy and Fray crossover comics going on now! So get to your comic shop!

Kurosawa's Dreams

2008-07-02T08:40:00.000-07:00

More from my series on the work of Akira Kurosawa...

Now, "Dreams" is a series of vignettes taken from, you guessed it, the dreams of the director. The main character starts out a young boy who witnesses a wedding procession of foxes, which is forbidden, and then goes to seek their forgiveness under a rainbow. He also speaks with life-sized dolls who celebrate a chopped-down peach orchard by dancing in ceremonial kimono. Several of the vignettes are explicitly about war - one in which a commanding soldier encounters the soldiers he sent to their deaths is particularly moving - and nuclear holocaust. Most jarring, although beautiful, was when the movie suddenly shifted into French - then English - in a piece about Vincent Van Gogh (played by Martin Scorcese) and the main character finds himself lost inside Van Gogh's paintings.
These pieces are really more like visual poems than a fictional narrative, with a lot of imagery and very little dialogue. A scene in which men are lost in a blizzard is little more than flying snow and sound effects of wind and walking for ten minutes - until they encounter "Yuki-Onna," a snow maiden. The sense that Kurosawa was trying to make sense of the Japanese society's (and his own personal) love of the natural world and the devastation that arose from technology and war really comes through in the film.
Since I've written both about the legend of the kitsune and Yuki-Onna, I really loved the film. It's not about action, it's very lyric and experimental. The more I get to know his work, the more I enjoy it.

New Futurama Movie - Beast with a Billion Backs

2008-06-25T22:53:00.000-07:00

We rented Futurama's second movie, "Beast with a Billion Backs" tonight, and I can tell you after watching the first twelve minutes, I've already laughed more than I did during the whole "Bender's Big Score" movie, which was so bad I ended up watching the math lecture in the special features again and again instead of re-watching the movie.
An early satire of "Steamboat Willie" in "Beast..." was wonderful, and the special features were fun. In other news, the sneak peek at the next movie also looks pretty promising - a satire of LOTR.

Update: Well, sorry to say, it stopped being funny after the first twenty minutes. Then it devolved into an unfunny-tentacle-porn-religion plot thing. Which wasn't really good at all. But, at least the first twenty minutes were funny! Sigh. Futurama is apparently only good when kept to those original running times of a little over twenty minutes.

Links between Mythology and Comic Books: Discuss

2008-06-15T15:57:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers,
I'm teaching a creative writing class next week, and one of the main topics is the connection between ancient mythologies (Biblical, Greek, Norse, Japanese...) and comic books, Manga, and graphic novels.
So, I've got some examples (Superman was inspired by stories of Sampson and Hercules, Wonder Woman and her mother, Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, Miyazaki's Nausicca which was inspired by both the character Nausicaa in The Odyssey and the Japanese folk tale, "The Princess who Loved Insects...)
But I'd love to hear about more! Were the X-Men inspired by tales of demi-Gods? What about Batman and the tradition of the samurai? Tell me your favorite (or most obscure) mythology to comic book connections!

What's Your Dream Superheroine Movie?

2008-06-05T22:31:00.001-07:00

So, the huge success of Sex and the City has made me optimistic about female comic book superhero movies, perhaps foolishly, given the terrible, terrible treatment given most female superheroines by Hollywood so far...do I need to mention names? Aeon Flux, Catwoman, Underworld, etc...Bad writing, bad budgets, it's like they were trying to sabotage these movies or something!
But the success must mean that girls are desperate to see movies about...gasp...girls! You know, with stars who are female. And stories that are interesting to females.
So, besides the Joss Whedon Wonder Woman movie, what would your dream superheroine movie be? Who would you cast? Who would write it?

NPR and graphic novels?

2008-05-22T09:50:00.001-07:00

NPR has a story on the influence of comics and graphic novels on three writers, including Joss Whedon and the new Wonder Woman writer:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=87867518

Feminists in Manga

2008-05-18T09:49:00.000-07:00

Ain't It Cool news sometimes leads to amazing discoveries, which is why I read it despite the sex-crazed idiots that often post on its talkbacks - and review movies. Like this article that previews a new guide to Manga by Japanese Manga artist and, dare I say, feminist-type grrl Mimei Sakamoto.
Check out her cartoon from Time Asia: "When No Choice is a Good One: A Girl's Guide to Happiness in Japan"
http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/501050829/manga.html

And here's her scathing comment, as an anime fan or otaku herself, on the young male anime fan-fascination with "moe" (fetishizing innocence and childhood) anime:
"Perhaps it's because 'Train Man' (the story of an otaku who wins the heart of a pretty woman) was such a hit, but recently I've seen all these dorky guys walking around in thick glasses and checkered shirts and it pains my heart to think that they may be hoping to meet some pretty girl who's going to fall in love with them. Sorry guys, the chances of that happening are zero...This fetish you call 'moe' is a pedophiliac fetish and is nothing more than perversion. It's not really something you should be gushing over," the manga artist says, addressing the otaku. "In other countries, they'd call what you're fantasizing over 'child pornography' and you'd all be arrested. I'm ashamed that these 'otaku' who are perpetual criminals have entered the mainstream and started an otaku boom."

Pretty interesting stuff, huh? Here's the whole article on Aintitcool, which includes a lot of other anime news as well.

News - a Live Action Witchblade Movie?

2008-05-12T19:47:00.000-07:00

Wow, first the live-action television show is finally out on DVD, now this!

A Witchblade live-action movie, based on the comic book, will start production this fall. I thought it was very promising that several Top Cow guys will be very involved in the movie. Here's the Variety article about the movie (Thanks Aintitcool News for the link!)

Those of you who don't share my enthusiasm for Witchblade yet, I hope the movie will change your minds. Sara Pezzini is the quintessintial ambivalent, tormented female comic book antiheroine.
Now, if only they would make a really cool Wonder Woman movie...Darn you Joss Whedon - why oh why didn't you make it when you had the chance?

Comic Book Saturday!

2008-05-02T18:54:00.001-07:00

It sounds too good to be true - but it is! Check out your local independent comic seller this Saturday, May 3, for a free comic book!
Here's the web site for more info: http://www.freecomicbookday.com/

In honor of the day, this person posted some comic-related poetry on her blog, including my own "Female Comic Book Superheroes." Check it out!
http://lisachellman.com/blog/2008/05/poetry-friday-meets-free-comic-book-day

Kurosowa's The Hidden Fortress, and new comics!

2008-04-13T13:15:00.000-07:00

After not being blown away by "The Seven Samurai," I finally got what Kurosowa fans love about him after watching "The Hidden Fortress," apparently one of the main inspirations for George Lucas' Star Wars: A New Hope. A spunky teenage heroine probably helped endear the film to me, as did repetitive use of curse words and slapstick humor by the two peasant/clown characters - who were the models for C3PO and R2D2. He had a great eye, a good sense of humor, a way with scoring, and a way of making a movie visceral and satisfying. If you haven't seen it, "The Hidden Fortress" is a suprisingly fun popcorn flick. I also felt that, besides the resonances to A New Hope, I felt there were echoes of the film in Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke.

A new comic series called "Fables" has been called to my attention, in which different folk and fairy tale characters come to life in the contemporary world, and I finally got my hands on the last three Buffy comics (I've been living too far from any comics stores for six months now...) And I read there's going to be a Buffy/Fray crossover soon, which is good, since I became very attached to Fray's character.

X-Files Movie

2008-03-31T13:11:00.000-07:00

Is anyone else getting excited about the new X-Files movie? The more shaky, fan-filmed versions of the movie trailer I see, the better, I say! Still very few female tv role models can hold up to the scientific Scully, and I love David Duchovny in his role as Mulder.

In other news, the second-rate Japanese anime version of Witchblade is making me impatient for TNT's Witchblade non-anime movie and seris to come out on DVD, already! I guess the anime version's Sara is okay, but Sara Pezzini as the tough-talking cop who defied the always-bustier-wearing comic stereotype was better.

Ten tips for great short stories

2008-03-14T13:33:00.001-07:00

I'm not a fiction writer, but I think these are helpful tips, whether you're writing for a literary or a sci-fi audience:
http://io9.com/366707/8-unstoppable-rules-for-writing-killer-short-stories

Poetry, Robots, and Post-Apocalypse: an Interview

2008-03-06T11:51:00.000-08:00

Think poetry and post-apocalyptic anime landscapes have nothing to do with each other? Check out this interview at the Poetry Foundation:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/feature.html?id=181239

Teaching a Class on Mythology and Comics

2008-03-03T13:26:00.001-08:00

I'm going to be teaching two weeks straight - two weeks of junior high kids who come to this site to learn to do art, to dance and to act in a play and make puppets out of wax and, with me, learn about the many connections between poetry, mythology, and comic books.
I grabbed up a bunch of illustrated mythology guides in case the kids didn't have much of a background - one illustrated Greek and Roman, one illustrated Norse, and a giant 40-pound World Mythologies Guide, which include everything from Egytpian, Native American, East Asian, etc, to African and Celtic, with lots of fascinating pictures. I'm debating whether to bring in a beautifully illustrated "Tales of Genji" I found in the Manga section, but it does have some female nudity, so it's probably fof the list.
Then I was trying to decide which comic books were safe enough - that is, free of blood-and-guts-and-nudity - to bring in for these junior high kids (who will be chaperoned, so I really can't break the rules.) Astonishing X-Men? Some new Gail Simone Wonder Woman? Fray? Buffy? Even the ones I consider pretty safe have a surprising amount of adult stuff in them.
Recommendations? Ideas?
I'm going to have them do some writing exercises every day, including writing their own creation-type myth, two persona poem in the voices of a villain(ess) and hero(ine), a character sketch of a comic book character that includes some archetypal realtionship to a mythological character...some fun, right?
Thank you, Centrum Young Artists Project, for setting something like this up. Should be a blast!

Poetry and Comics, Chuck Renewal

2008-02-22T16:23:00.000-08:00

Bookslut alerted me to an interesting blog post:
http://garysullivan.blogspot.com/2008/02/poetics-of-comics-bill-randall-on.html
on the relationship between poetry and comics. Obviously, as a comic book geek who is also a poet, this was an interesting topic for me.
I'm teaching a class in a few weeks in which I'll encourage kids to write about comic book characters, mythology, and even illustrate a comic book character of their own creation. It seems like a good way to include stuff kids are naturally interested in (say, comics and graphic novels) with things they may not initially be so excited about (ancient mythology, persona poetry, archetypes.) Maybe I'll post about how it goes.
I personally would love to have a poetry graphic novel or comic. Maybe publishers will start publishing hybrids like these soon.

In television news, Chuck was renewed, yay! Although boo, Heroes won't be back til the fall. Reaper has a few more new episodes to burn, but not sure about its renewal yet. In other news, we need more female-centric hero shows, no? Neither Bionic Woman or Terminator's Sarah Connor Chronicles really scratched that itch, what with their bad writing and bad acting and all.

No Flying, No Tights

2008-01-15T19:43:00.001-08:00

Sometimes you find a web site so uniquely cool, you must tell people about it right away.
Here is one:
http://www.noflyingnotights.com/

Witchblade News, Heroes finale

2008-01-12T12:54:00.000-08:00

Hey all! Sorry for the long haitus, for which I have very little excuse, except I moved, came down with a bad case of bronchitis, and have since been hiding out in the new rental house.

But this news item, if not the lackluster "season finale" of Heroes, shook me awake:
TNT's Witchblade series, inspired by Top Cow's comic of the same name, is heading to DVD release, finally! This series, especially the first season, was unbelievably exciting - lots of interesting, high-budget special effects, and strong acting (if not from lead Yancy Butler) fr0m a lot of minor characters.
Here's more, but not much more, on this release: http://www.TVShowsOnDVD.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=8771

So, Heroes - Nathan getting shot was supposed to be a big surprise, but seemed sort of inevitable - Peter saves the world from the release of the virus (in older scripts, he did not) and bad old Kensai gets buried alive, a la Alias. This second season just didn't have the juice, the "wow" factor, or the first season, and I hope when it comes back it will be with renewed, more creative writers.

Anyway, that's all the news for now! Not watching much television due to the writer's strike, but looking into acquiring some Gaimon Sandman comics, among other things. Happy 2008!

The latest on Chuck, the penultimate epi of Heroes

2007-11-27T22:52:00.000-08:00

First of all, congrats to Chuck - this excellent show has been picked up for when the writer's strike is over, for a full season. This show is like watching a wonderful movie (Office Space meets Alias?) for an hour every week. I love it!

So, this episode lacked the power, wit and grace of the previous one, had way too many plotlines, and just fell flat. Let's hope the next episode, which, if the writers don't get working soon, is going to be the season finale, isn't the big disappointment that last year's season finale was. I was pretty much looking forward to Hiro kicking Peter's butt in this episode, but, sadly, they're saving that for next week. Have you ever heard of an "idiot" plot? This means everyone has to be an idiot for the plotline to work. So, this week, Maya, Peter, Mohinder...Micah's cousin...wow, how incredibly easily manipulated are these characters? I hate losing respects for my imaginary friends.
On the plus side, it was nice to see Claire standing up for herself with Elle.

On a somewhat related note, if you love superheroes and poetry, or someone you love does,
This book makes a great holiday gift!

Cautionary Tales - Daddy Issues and Why Can't Every Episode of Heroes Be This Good?

2007-11-19T22:04:00.000-08:00

Okay, where did they dig up the writers for this episode? Have these writers been asleep for the first seven or eight episodes? How is it that suddenly, Heroes becomes funny, snappy, heart-rending, and action-packed after a snoozer of a half-season? I was literally jumping up and down off my couch and pacing the whole episode? What happens next? Argh! No, Writer's Strike! Don't take away this new and improved Heroes!

So many witty lines ("What is your power - human punching bag?" "Do you still have Mr. Muggles Doggy Bath?" Dark!) And how great was Mrs. HRG tonight? Finally he faced his fears about his own death, and became his kick-ass old, sort-of-evil-sort-of-good self? And how weird is it that the writers complicated the boring characters of Mohinder and Matt Parkman? Good times.

Also, the whole Hiro investigating his father's murder, and paying his last respects in back time, was pretty great. "We have the powers of gods, but that does mean we should play God." Superheroes, man, all those moral and ethical delimnas.

Four Months Ago...and Chuck, Meet Summer!

2007-11-14T08:28:00.000-08:00

It's a sad story because you just know Chuck is going to get cancelled because of the strike. But when Chuck (ie Seth Cohen, the older-and-more-spy-like) met Summer in last night's episode (Chuck Versus the Truth) I just wished the show would go on forever. So much fun!

On Heroes, we finally got to solve some of the mysteries (How Peter wound up with amnesia, how Nathan was healed, how DL died) but others were left unsolved - like, how did the Bennett's get back together? This, again, is a show that is just getting back together just before the writer's strike will cause it to go dark.

And I am a writer, so I support fair wages for work performed, but at this point, I think they're doing themselves more harm than good. One of their key sticking points is getting paid for downloads of episodes, and I think that's still such a new revenue stream (ie not that successful a revenue stream) for companies that the big media networks aren't going to budge on it. I've always worked for a set-fee for my media contributions, and never got a per-download bonus or anything. That would be nice, though. How about it, MSDN?

Heroes Moving in the Right Direction, just in time...

2007-11-06T10:34:00.000-08:00

Yes, the last two episodes of Heroes have moved towards the action, bringing the characters together, setting up a conflict and challenge for the Heroes to confront (Adam/the Virus.) Why did it take SO LONG to get going? One of my poetry professors told the class, people have short attention spans, your poems must provide constant rewards for the reader or they will stop reading. Applies to television too. Too little reward, and your loyal fans dissapate.
And now that the writers' strike is upon us, will it derail the momentum? Even worse, does this mean the end of "Chuck," "Reaper," et al and a deluge of reality television and game shows?

In other news, the Buffy comic (Season 8 - see Dark Horse Comics for more details) has been really wonderful. I heard that Joss Whedon and the actress that played Faith are going to team up for a weird "Dark Angel" type series where "blank" human superbeings are imprinted with memories and abilities for nefarious missions. Could be good, could be awful. I'm reserving judgement til I hear more.

Fight or Flight or: on Heroes, Something Finally Happens!

2007-10-26T08:42:00.000-07:00

I was pretty happy with episode 5 of Heroes, in which: things actually happened! Matt confronted his father, "Mastermind" (whoops, I mean "Nightmare Man") and lost him - Elle confronted the Irish mobster brother, and killed him. I mean, at least there was a little action...
In other news, Reaper was picked up for a few more episodes, but no word on my other fave new show, "Chuck."
In still other news, the sexism and jerkiness of Hollywood power players never ceases to amaze...a bit about the doom of the Wonder Woman movie from an article about the Justice League movie on IGN.com:
"There may be another -- and nastier -- reason why a Wonder Woman spin-off film might be questionable now. According to DeadlineHollywoodDaily.com, Warner Bros. president of production Jeff Robinov recently decreed, "We are no longer doing movies with women in the lead." This is reportedly in response to the lackluster performance of two recent female-driven Warners releases, The Invasion and The Brave One."

Heroes Proving a bit...yawn...

2007-10-19T18:35:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, sorry I haven't been posting, I was out of town for a few weeks and then had a lot of tv to catch up on.
I'm sorry to say it, but the new season of Heroes has been a whole lot of not exciting for me. I can barely stay awake through a whole episode. With the most interesting characters split up and in different locations and timelines, and a lot of new characters (I call them the Heroes Others) that no one cares about, well, who can blame me?
But, two new shows have been stepping up to entertain - Chuck and the Buffy-esque (laughs, fighting against darkness, kooky friends, bad parents...) Reaper.
I haven't got my hands on the new issues of the Buffy comics either, so I will report on those later as well.
Bionic Woman hasn't been all that great (what it lacks in humor in makes up for in Alias-rip-offs?) Is there anything else I should be watching? Are you like me, getting fed up with the woefully unfocused sophomore year of Heroes?
(PS All you Pushing Daisies fans...yes, I've seen it, was clever and cute, but you know, I can't commit to a show I know for sure is going to be cancelled before the season is up...)

Geeked out Chuck, Four Months Later

2007-09-25T08:47:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know I'm supposed to talk about Heroes, but...

How great was it that the new show Chuck (an homage to The Man With One Red Shoe, Johnny Mnemonic, Alias, and other twisty genre shows) name-checked my childhood computer and favorite game in the first five minutes of the show? I mean, I learned to program on a TRS-80 and my favorite game was Zork! My mom and I used to write down maps for each other for the maze. Geeked out!

So what did ya'll think of Four Months Later? I think I was so excited to have Heroes back that the actual event let me down a little. I did like Typhoid Mary (I mean Maya - yet another comic book ripoff, but I liked the actors and the angle) AND Claire's new flying stalker boy. I was disappointed with the way Hiro's dad went down (literally) and that Hiro missed a chance to say goodbye.

New season - wht r u watching?

2007-09-19T22:30:00.000-07:00

Of course, I'm looking forward to the return of Heroes, and later on, Lost. Distinctly missing Buffy and even Alias.
But the new shows...what should I watch?
Here are my thoughts for now:
Chuck (the tale of a geek turned spy) seems like it might be appealing.
Reaper, the story of a boy whose parents sold him to the devil, might be good too. I've watched the first episode of Beauty and the Geek (oh, how I love that show, I admit it, it's like delicious evil caramel popcorn.)
But good female-centric genre-crossing action? I'm feeling a little "eh" about the Bionic Woman, probably because I'm old enough to remember the first iteration...

The Unaired Pilot of Heroes

2007-08-29T12:33:00.001-07:00

So, bought the Heroes DVD yesterday and watched the deleted scenes and the unaired pilot. I could see why they retooled the pilot - the pacing felt slow and awkwardly off and with subtitles like "I'm Being Followed By a Moonshadow" - unavoidably cheesy. The pilot that aired ended up being better. However, I liked the idea of showing DL and his powers earlier than the third episode (though I'm glad they cut the subplot of having DL out to kill Nathan) and let's face it, Radioactive Nuclear Physicist/Terrorist Amid made a lot more sense than "randomly radioactive Ted" who didn't even really have a backstory. I know why they cut it, I'm just saying.
In regards to the deleted scenes, I was really sad they cut out some funny stuff (the Matt and Clare discussion ("What's Twilight Zone?" "They still have Flinstones, right?") and Hiro and Nathan's Lone Wolf or lonely Uuuf talk) as well as the fact that Clare's little brother was also an adoptee - setting him up to be superpowered as well...
Anyway I was glad to have it last night, since I've injured my back it was nice to have something to take my mind off of it. Fall premieres can't come soon enough for me. What new shows will you be watching/recording? I think I'm going to give the weird "Chuck" spy show a try, along with maybe one other - I can't fit too much more television into my schedule, what with Heroes and Lost already in rotation...

Mother Jones, shortchanging female comic book supersuperheroes

2007-08-09T14:47:00.000-07:00

I would be remiss if I didn't address the article from Mother Jones Magazine: Supergirls Gone Wild: Gender Bias In Comics Shortchanges Superwomen

This was sort of a no-brainer for me (really? a lack of strong female characters? Stripper-wear abounds? Women stuck in refrigerators? I've never heard of anything like this before...not!) But anything to raise awareness, I guess, of the abuse and cheap-lazy-writer-gimmick use of rape of women in comics.

Joss Whedon's Fray is a good example of a comic book character who can kick ass, get into and out of trouble without any help from the guys, and manage to have an actual personality (with good AND bad attributes - wow!) I've always been a big fan of the Witchblade character, Sara Pezzini, although she is drawn like stripperella in metal bondage wear, a. because she had a real job as a cop and b. containing her own violence is a big an obstacle to her as stopping the violence acted out against her by others, which says something about female...and human...reactions to power.

More women would read comics if women were portrayed as realistic, strong characters with gray areas and not just stick-figure-with-boobs male accessories. This is not a mysterious revelation, people, it's common sense. We want to see ourselves, but better.

I don't usually stick poetry in this blog, but two poems that sort of sum up my feelings on 1. the cliches of women in comics and 2. violence against female comic book superheroes:

Female Comic Book Superheroes

are always fighting evil in a thong,
pulsing techno soundtrack in the background
as their tiny ankles thwack

against the bulk of male thugs.
With names like Buffy, Elektra, or Storm
they excel in code decryption, Egyptology, and pyrotechnics.

They pout when tortured, but always escape just in time,
still impeccable in lip gloss and pointy-toed boots,
to rescue male partners, love interests, or fathers.

Impossible chests burst out of tight leather jackets,
from which they extract the hidden scroll or antidote,
tousled hair covering one eye.

They return to their day jobs as forensic pathologists,
wearing their hair up, donning dainty glasses.
Of all the goddesses, these pneumatic heroines most

resemble Artemis, with her miniskirts and crossbow,
or Freya, with her giant gray cats.
Each has seen this apocalypse before.

See her perfect three-point landing on top of the chariot,
riding the silver moon into the horizon,
city crumbling around her heels.

Women in Refrigerators

“Not every woman in comics has been killed, raped, depowered…turned evil, maimed, tortured, or had other life-derailing tragedies befall her, but given the following list…it's hard to think up exceptions…” Gail Simone, from the Women In Refrigerators web site

You never rescue us, always ten minutes too late.
You find the note on the counter about a surprise in the fridge.
And in the next frame the surprise, the punch line:
Susan or Sally hacked into pieces, left to chill.

If by some chance we do grow powerful or popular,
we are blinded, kidnapped by demons, put into wheelchairs,
impregnated by rape. Our memories are stolen. We lose
children and husbands, are condemned to asylums.

If we’re lucky, we are changed into the villainess.
Frankly, we’ll take the spandex, play
the supporting role as long as it buys us time,
until someone comes along to free us,

to write us back to our real selves:
our dormant wings undamaged, injuries healed,
we rise once more to command the wind, put on armor,
race against the slivered edge of night.

(Poems by Jeannine Hall Gailey, from Becoming the Villainess, Steel Toe Books, 2006

Comic Con News...

2007-08-02T23:14:00.000-07:00

The best news out of Comic Con...Futurama's first movie-on-DVD (which will be on Comedy Central next year as well) will be called "Bender's Big Score" and released THIS YEAR probably in November. I've already watched the clip (and the panel) on YouTube...

And Heroes will be back in only one long (and a few weeks) so I'll have more to chat about then - some cool-looking new tv shows on the way...

If any of you want to share any other Comic Con news...it will be welcomed!

Villainess Appearance at ComicCon

2007-07-11T10:11:00.000-07:00

Listen, I know I usually try to keep my supervillainess identity on this site a secret (thinly veiled, perhaps, but still...)
But I was so geeked out and excited by the following that I have to post it. My name was listed without my actual last name - which, you know, increases the mystery - but a group of people are presenting on High and Low Art at ComicCon, and my book is one of the topics! Eeeee!

Here's the listing from the ComicCon Schedule:

Saturday 1:00-2:30 Comics Arts Conference Session #11: High Art and Low—Richard Becker (CSU Northridge) discusses the nature of the narrator and authorial self-insertions in comics, like those of Lee and Kirby, Gerber, and Morrison, and the schism between schools of storytelling in which the writer is very visible and another in which the writer seeks to be completely invisible. John A. Walsh (Indiana University) examines Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol stories and their punctuation by appearances of and allusions to similarly fracture, damaged, and outcast artists and works and asks whether the members of the Doom Patrol are artists or heroes and if there’s a difference. Jason Mott (UNC-Wilmington) uncovers the history of comic book superheroes and traces their evolution from serving purely as devices of metaphor for poets to becoming the subject of extended development and progression by award-winning poets such as Brian Dietrich in Krypton Nights and Jeannine Hall in Becoming the Villainess. Room 30AB

Sure, the talk is opposite the Q&A with the "Heroes" cast and crew - but that wouldn't stop you from attending, right? I wish I was going to be in San Diego July 28! Anyone who goes and gives me a report of that session gets a free Supervillainess gift!

PS - I'm listed only two column inches away from Masi Oka!! It's almost like meeting him!

Buffy Comics - Season Eight Issue 2 and 3

2007-06-05T21:42:00.000-07:00

A brief review of the second and third issues of the Joss Whedon post television show Buffyverse comics - in which Dawn is a giant, Amy is attacking Buffy with a dreamscape haunted by Ethan Rayne (and images of Spike and Angel) and Buffy must be awakened by the kiss of true love (who can that be?) Andrew continues to be Andrew with the slayerettes, and did I mention Willow comes back but is then sucked into a portal?
These comics definitely keep the appeal of the show - clever dialogue, the easy comaraderie of the "Scoobies" and our curiousity over what these guys have been doing since Sunnydale blew up. Not quite as good as seeing it "in real life" - or in a television or movie format - but definitely the Buffy fix I have been looking for. I hope the series just keeps getting better. My only complaint is that there are too few pages and that sometimes I can't tell Buffy is Buffy because of the way they draw her - sometimes distinctly like SMG, sometimes just like a generic cute blonde, which can be confusing.
I have actually pre-ordered the 4th issue from a real-life comic book shop down the street.

Stop an Exploding Man by Flying Him Into the Sun?

2007-05-23T13:39:00.000-07:00

So, the season finale. Yes, there were some plot holes (um, why didn't Sylar and Peter use, like, ANY of their mulitple powers? Freezing? Melting metal? No? And why didn't Peter fly himself out of dangerous range, or have Hiro teleport himself away?)
But, there was a lot to enjoy - Ando and Hiro's final exchange ("You look badass." "Really?") HRG's first name reveal, and Claire's "I already have a family" and subsequent face plant after jumping out a window...the flashing images in Sylar's eyeballs...
So, Lost finale tonight. Then we'll have to find something new to occupy ourselves with...

Landslide - and what's next?

2007-05-15T13:54:00.000-07:00

How cool was last night's episode? HRG's: "Your last thought." Even Niki, upon seeing Matt: "Didn't I throw you out a window?"
And how many shows have the cohones to kill off three or maybe four of their main characters in a non-season-ending episode? Ted, I expected. Linderman had it coming, as did HRG's terrible boss, the backlit Eric Roberts. I mean, Lost teases us for weeks with Charlie's possible death - only one character! Heroes serves up action!
So, who will stop the exploding man? Will Hiro? Or will Nathan step in and fly the bomb to safety at the last minute? Will Sylar find, kill and eat Candace's brain, giving him the dangerous ability to shapeshift? What are your spoilery guesses for the season ender?

Spin-off

2007-05-14T16:54:00.000-07:00

Pre-Landslide Posting:
NBC has greenlighted a new spinoff of Heroes to take up the space that the new episode gap left us this year called Heroes: Origins which will be kind of standalone episodes about other Heroes not included in the show. Sounds cool to me!

PS Has anybody else been getting back into Lost? I swore I would stop watching that show, but I've watched pretty much every episode the last few weeks. Compulsive!

The Hard Part - Otherwise known as "The Holding Pattern"

2007-05-08T23:41:00.000-07:00

An okay episode. I thought an epi focused on Sylar would be more interesting.
My favorite line was Claire's "The universe could not be that lame."
Who is betting that Mama Petrelli in that last scene was really evil shapeshifter/Mastermind Candace?

Cannot wait for the final two episodes!

String Theory - It Just Don't Add Up!

2007-04-30T22:45:00.000-07:00

OK, sorry to be the annoying fangirl here, but...tonight's episode has so many logic holes it made my head hurt. "Take That, Causality!"
1. Why didn't Matt "reads minds" Parkman realize the president was Sylar instead of Nathan?
2. Why didn't Haitian "reads memories" superguy realize the president was Sylar instead of Nathan? and why didn't the Haitian's neutralizing powers reveal Nathan as Sylar?
3. If Claire was never killed by Sylar, why did he regenerate when Hiro stabbed him in the alternate future universe? Also, Claire never died, so why did Hiro think she did?
4. WTF?

In future, my dear writers, don't pick up time loops that you're not powerful enough to handle.

In other news, I went to a reading by Peter S. Beagle, author of The Last Unicorn, and many other cool things. It turns out he's a Buffy fan! Who'd a thunk it? And his favorite actor from the show was Spike. And that his father told the story that appeared in BTVS - the one where Dawn brings her mother back from the dead with demon power - which was apparently ripped off from a famous sci-fi author. Ha! Anyway, Peter S. Beagle was super cool, and now I have a signed copy of the alternate version of The Last Unicorn signed to my little brother, who is also a huge P. S. Beagle fan.

PS For my birthday, couldn't they have done an alternate universe that made more sense?
PSS I'm excited about the little girl who apparently has the power to take down Sylar. But, since he wasn't the exploding man after all (as Peter explained in anti-logic alternate future universe) - maybe it doesn't matter?

.07 Percent and the future that probably won't happen

2007-04-24T23:06:00.000-07:00

Was the "fight the future" line from Isaac supposed to be a winking reference to the X-Files movie? And what about HRG's "Cherry Pie" line referencing Twin Peaks? However, as fanboys from Aintitcool have pointed out, Heroes current plotline most baldly references the graphic novel "The Watchmen" and the X-Men's Future/Past episodes. In fact, some might say they "lift the entire plot from" rather than reference.
Nevertheless, I was happy to have my show back last night. It took me a few minutes to really engage with the characters again. I was looking especially forward to the Peter/Sylar face off, but was ultimately disappointed (uh, invisible Peter - when you see glass floating in the air, either move the glass into your enemy with telekenetic powers, get on the damn ground, or, you know, sneak around your enemy while you're invisible and bash him on the head! Didn't all that training teach you anything? Oh, and Mohinder? After you knock out a bad guy, go ahead and take him out all the way. Don't just leave him to kill the hottest guy on the show!)
I was sorry, but not surprised, about Isaac's death.
The whole "future that won't really happen" thing - next week's episode, reminds me of the "possible futures" that Charles Wallace and Gaudior got thrown into in Madeleine L'Engle's "A Swiftly Tilting Planet." A good thing we had that book as children, or we'd never know how to follow all the comic books' timeline logics. "Might-have-been" moments must be spotted and changed!
And who will end up being responsible for the explosion - Peter? Sylar? Nuclear boy what's-his-name? Tune in next week for the inevitable drawing out of the answer for another week!

2007-04-22T20:25:00.000-07:00

One more day til the new Heroes! Who can wait? Mohinder - dead? HRG - can he escape? And what's the deal with Hiro being in the near future?
Buffy "season 7" comic - number 2 - is out!

Heroes teaser, best line

2007-04-06T20:15:00.000-07:00

How great was the Heroes teaser during 30 Rock last night? SOooo cheesy, yet so delicious!

Best line from last night's The Office?
I'm not a hero. You know who's a hero? Hiro from Heroes. And also Bono."

Lindeman and the Company - and Buffy!

2007-03-31T14:36:00.000-07:00

Finally got ahold of the new Buffy comic, "season 8" - where Buffy is leading a gang of slayers on covert ops across the world, Dawn is a giant, Xander's still one-eyed. The cover of Buffy with the Scythe - out of this world.

So, from the spoilers, it looks like Lindeman has a healing ability - much like those healing aliens from the X-Files who healed Mudler's mother - and could be the head of "the company without initials."
And, in yet another X-Men ripoff, Hiro and Ando see a future in which mutants - I mean Heroes - are tagged and hunted by the president after the explosion in NYC. Can they stop this future from coming to pass - and will Nathan become president?

Who else thinks April 23rd is way too far away?

Heroes season finale spoilers

2007-03-22T17:12:00.000-07:00

Check out this from scifi wire:
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?id=40615
Looks like we're in for a "cliffhanger" type ending of the season. In three parts. Hrmph.

Miyazaki News, Heroes Update

2007-03-19T11:29:00.001-07:00

All righty, ripped right from the headlines of Nausicaa.Net, a fantastic-sounding update about Miyazaki's new movie, featuring animals that want to become human and a boy on a cliff:

March 19, 2007 Miyazaki's Next Film AnnouncedHayao Miyazaki's next film was announced today. The title is "Gake no ue no Ponyo" (Ponyo On A Cliff) and is scheduled for release in the summer of 2008.The plot revolves around the Princess goldfish Ponyo who wants to become human and 5 years old boy named Sosuke. Key words of the film are "father", "mother", and "a cliff". While not announced as the location Tomo-no-Ura in Seto-naikai is the likely setting as Miyazaki spent some time there last spring.The model for Sosuke is Goro Miyazaki (Hayao's son) when he was 5 years old.This film is expressed in a watercolor and pastel-like freehand drawing. Studio Ghibli President Toshio Suzuki mentioned, "70 or 80% of the stage is the sea. How will we express the sea and a wave in a freehand drawing, it's the director's challenge."Additional news and commentary from GhibliWorld.

The next epi of Heroes will be titled .07 percent, which I believe to be a reference to how many people will die in the NYC exploding man incident unless it is stopped. I hope HRG can get out of the clutches of his horrid company.

2007-03-09T21:31:00.000-08:00

Witchblade fans - here' some news from Aintitcool.com:
"Bandai will be releasing their edition of the Witchblade manga in June. Top Cow, publishers of the original Witchblade comic will first be publishing the manga in a colored, flipped edition before Bandai's right-to-left, black and white version."
I've heard the Japanese Sara will no longer be a cop...

Parasites Lost

2007-03-05T21:42:00.000-08:00

The rundown of the latest Heroes episode...
Oh, Mohinder...you were so close to not being chumped.
I liked Nikki finally outsmarting Jessica. Way to go, formerly useless girl!
It's important to watch the reflections of your shape-shifters, HRG. Wow...they cribbed X-Men's Mystique without even changing her sex/attitude/personality, the way they did with Wolverine etc. That shape-shifting character is so horrible. I don't like villainesses who don't have a sense of subtlety or nuance. Note to Heroes writers: it's always best for the bad guys to have some likable characteristics, and heroes to have some unlikable ones.
That's why Lindeman's reveal was so great - the cooking speech, etc. Happiness versus meaning. Maybe Linderman hopes to be a sort of evil Xavier - controlling and collecting the mutants for his own purposes?
The last image of Mohinder was so heartbreaking. I hope Peter kicks some ass next time...the wait til April will be too terrible!
PS How great was it that the Haitian's secret contact was...Claire's biological grandmother? And, in case you didn't know, Haiti's citizens speak French and Creole.

2007-02-26T21:20:00.000-08:00

In the immortal words of Bender - "Oh. Your. God."

This whole episode - yikes! I would say one of the best yet. Genuinely tense and emotionally impactful, too. When Matt shot Claire to save her adopted mother - when Hiro's father revealed that "the company" was going to take Claire if she started to manifest - when radioactive guy - (he's a menace to himself and others? I don't know - he is definitely NOT a good guy, and I'm not feeling so friendly towards Wireless, who put him up to the hostage thing, either) went nuclear after being shot- the scene of HRG hugging his doomed family under the eyes of his creepy boss - Claire's expression when the Haitian shoots her adopted father...
Overall, this episode both builds and destroys empathy for "The Company Man." I mean, he betrayed and shot his own partner for doing the same thing he would later do with Claire - shielding her from the eyes of his bosses. You also have to wonder - why was it so important to save the cheerleader? What heroic acts has she got in front of her? Easily the most heroic of all the characters except Hiro, Claire has acted bravely in the face of danger, risking - if not exactly her life - a lot of pain for others. And kudos to the young actress (who also played a wily babysitter on Malcolm in the Middle) who makes us feel so invested in the character. She would have made a great Buffy.
Questions from the promos - looks like Simone may not be dead after all? Or is she one of Isaac's tormented visions? Or she's a zombie? Oh, why can't we have new Heroes episodes every night?

Heroes Death - Unexpected? and Japanese pop art

2007-02-19T20:45:00.000-08:00

Okay, before we go into the Heroes death, I wanted to talk about some way cool pop art from two women artists about my own age - check out:
http://www.galerieperrotin.com/artiste_.php?id_=17&nom_=Chiho%20Aoshima&dossier=Chiho_Aoshima#
By Chiho Aoshima
and http://english.kaikaikiki.co.jp/artworks/list/C5/
for work by Aya Takano
Super cool anime aesthetic, but demented and good. I wish I could do this kind of thing!

So, I bet, if you read any spoilers at all, anywhere, you probably knew Simone was going to die. Not a huge surprise. And we know there's another death coming on March 5th. I'm betting (and this is not a spoiler, just my conjecture) that Isaac's going to die in the next two episodes as well. The surprising thing about this episode was how it was kind of slow, slow, then unexpectedly full of action - and how unremittingly dark it was. I mean, it's nice to see cheerleader finally unleash on HRG, and Peter use his powers to actually kick some ass (even if its poor Isaac's) and go all Matrix - but I miss the moments of humor, which even Hiro and Stan Lee couldn't supply this episode. Mohinder...he's probably high on my list of goners, as well. Who's next on your list?

Run!

2007-02-15T21:48:00.000-08:00

So, this episode was okay, it advanced the plot, but Mohinder shouldn't have been so easy to fool - but I thought it was great when Claire threw a rock at her bio-hero-father's car, and then when she told HRG, "You're NOT my real father." Of course, she doesn't know he's grounding her to keep her safe from Sylar, who is still on the loose and more powerful every minute - hey, now he can melt stuff! And how sad was it when Claire's adopted mom could no longer recognize her own previous Mr. Muggles?
PS When is Hiro going to get his powers back already? And I heard the terrible news that Hiro won't be part of season 2! Oh, okay, how about getting rid of the only character anybody cares about!
I was also happy Lost was back to characters I actually cared about - I mean, Desmond is at least sort of interesting, compared to the blandly weird Others.

Distractions Etc

2007-02-06T19:20:00.000-08:00

So, last night's Heroes episode, Distractions, seemed to up the pace a bit, a bit more action and answers. Having watched X-Men 2 the night before, I almost felt like the cheerleader's mom was going to say "You know those mutants you've heard of? I'm the worst one..." when she showed her daughter her "Pyro" abilities. The actress playing Claire's mother looks so much like her. Other goodness: Hiro and Ando's interactions with Hiro's sister and father. And the license plate number on Hiro's Dad's car - was the same as Star Trek's Enterprise.
I'm just not crazy about the actor playing Sylar's acting skills. Did anyone else feel that not only did the actress playing Claire' adopted mother outacted Sylar, but that the DOG was outacting Sylar? (After all, it is a blood-eating dog. Weird!)
The invisible man pushing Peter off the building, then punching him in the face - hilarious.

News from the Whedonverse

2007-02-03T21:08:00.000-08:00

So, Joss Whedon is off the Wonder Woman project. Disappointing, I think it would have been interesting to see what Joss could do with that character. Interestingly, there's talk that the studio's picked up a script with a 1940's-Era Wonder Woman, which would be great - that was really the best era of the Wonder Woman Comic book. Here's the story - posted by Joss - on Whedonesque.
In other Joss news, here's a story on the "8th season of Buffy" comic book on MTV.com. I'm excited to see what they do with it, though disappointed Spike and Angel won't be used much, I think because of cross-market liscensing problems. Yes, another comic book to keep track of!
Someone dropped me a note about Witchblade's Japanese Manga - if anyone has any new info on this, let me know!

Heroes Episode - The Fix

2007-01-30T18:41:00.000-08:00

Sooo, overall this episode was bit of a letdown - except for the last two minutes, which revealed Claire-the-indestructible cheerleader's "Pyro" mother, and Hiro's father, Sulu/George Takei.
When the writers spend too much time on Niki's character, the fun quotient of the show goes down, and why they're withholding power from Hiro - which seems pointlessly frustrating.
I did like the new invisible guy, too, although why he seemed so hostile to Peter - I like the idea that his character might be misanthropic, kind of a House-like hero - he seemed bizarrely unwilling ot help Peter, then did a 360 turnaround for no reason.
This show's strength is its use of archetypal characters - pulled right from not only X-Men from Joseph Campbell - with a welcome dash of multi-cultural and feminist story lines - and a fast-moving plot with plenty of rewards (hello, Lost!) along the way. I don't know if the show will be able to sustain itself, but maybe it will attract better acting and writing talent as they go along, which is, as I recall the arc that many "genre" shows improve by.

2007-01-25T20:33:00.000-08:00

Slate has a cool article on comics that take on the human side of superheroes here!