Sorry for the long absense - but Buffy tips!

Sorry to be absent so long from this blog. In case there are any readers left, I'd like to point you to a recent post at my main blog, "Life Lessons for Writers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Of course, these life lessons apply to non-writers just as easily:
http://myblog.webbish6.com/2013/02/life-lessons-for-writers-from-buffy.html

Comic Book Pinup Style - and Geek Girl Con 2012

Hi reader! Sorry I've been gone so long. In the mean time, I've taken a new job, house-hunted, bought a house, moved...well, a lot of life stuff.

So, just for fun, find what every pinup girl who reads comic books dreams of: Pinup fashions for nerds!
http://www.pinupgirlstyle.com/profiles/blogs/capes-masks-and-the-death-star-the-pinup-guide-to-being-a-nerd
I'm partial to the comic-book bustier and Leia dress, myself.

Be aware of Geek Girl Con 2012, which is right around the corner. Jennifer K. Stuller's brain child continues to be awesome. I'm presenting a panel on "Geek Girl Poets" with fellow poet Lana H. Ayers at 10:30 Sunday morning, if you can drag yourself out of bed that early. It's a great con, super fun and relaxed, and full of really amazing television writers and stars and all kinds of cool geeky types in Seattle. Be there!

UK Guardian on Sexism in Comic Books

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?

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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...

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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...

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?