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.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
New season - wht r u watching?
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...
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...
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
The Unaired Pilot of Heroes
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...
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...
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Mother Jones, shortchanging female comic book supersuperheroes
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
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
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Comic Con News...
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!
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!
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Villainess Appearance at ComicCon
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!
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!
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Buffy Comics - Season Eight Issue 2 and 3
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.
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.
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