Awesome icons of the Female Saints of Television, by Spencer Salberg. Prints are available here.
“Our Lady of Having it All”
Source: heymonster
DC’s “Essential” Graphic Novels List Short on Women
In April DC announced that they would be distributing a free 121 page guide to their Graphic Novels. The guide will included DC’s backlist and will be distributed to fans, shop owners and libraries. Here’s a look at the cover via Publishers Weekly.
I got an early look last week and its an impressive piece. The upfront part has 25 “essential” graphic novels and there are a few surprises on the list. The guide is broken down into groupings - Vertigo gets it own list, MAD does and even All-Ages. There’s a long reading list in the back that includes the chronological reader for each title within its subgroup.
In other words this is going to be popular. And used to make a lot of buying decisions. And that’s why I was both surprised and saddened by the character sections. Here’s the characters who get their own multi page spreads on their backlists:
Batman
Superman
Green Lantern
Flash
and
Green Arrow.
But what about Wonder Woman? You know - member of the Trinity? The top female superhero?
Well, despite this guide being 121 pages and despite Green Arrow getting a two page spread via Bleeding Cool, this is what Wonder Woman got:
A two-page spread called “Women of DC” that also includes Batwoman, Batgirl, Catwoman and Huntress. The intro verbiage name checks the male superheroes as “icons” and then describes the women as just as powerful. They are called “dangerous” as well and the section picture is the cover of Batgirl Annual where Batgirl and Batwoman are fighting.
And the backlist recommendations were in the spread were puzzling The first volume of Wonder Woman from the new 52 (which I love) and then two volumes of the JMS reboot. It’s not like there aren’t more titles - Wonder Woman does get her own section in the back that has five titles. The exact number that Green Arrow has in his two page spread.
As you can imagine as someone who pretty much devotes a lot of time to promoting the female superheroes of DC Comics, this was a bit of kick in the ass.
How hard would it be in a 121 page guide to give Wonder Woman her own section? Why jam her in with the other female characters? Why couldn’t Wonder Woman get the same real estate in the guide than say, MAD Magazine?
But the real reason I’m upset is this guide is going to be used by stores and libraries to order books. So if Wonder Woman and the other ladies of the DCU downplayed the orders of the backlist will be impacted. I have visited many libraries and when I check out their Graphic Novel sections (usually in the Teen rooms) the number of books with female heroes is usually very small.
This guide isn’t going to improve that.
Getting people into female heroes and getting female readers isn’t going to get better when the female characters are marginalized and awkwardly bundled together. Catwoman and Wonder Woman don’t have anything in common except their gender no matter if the “dangerous” is dropped into a description.
It’s a cliche but it’s true - actions speak louder than words. A publisher can say it cares about its female heroes but if it doesn’t expend the level of promotion on them they way they do male characters the words don’t matter.
*sigh* So the female characters got lumped into one spread with a short summary, even major characters like Catwoman and Wonder Woman, while the major male characters each got their own spread. This seems like part of how “people aren’t interested in female heroes” can become a self-fulfilling prophecy where they get promoted less, and the results of the difference in promotion leads to less sales, and justification for less promotion.
Source: dcwomenkickingass
Since there is so much back and forth, I feel that people need to have this video to get the context of what happened.
I’m really upset about this. My response to the girl’s question was of exasperation which you can hear (I say “Aye Dios Mio.”) She DOES start asking about the subtext in the show. When I heard the crowd collectively booing though, I got really uncomfortable with my own response and also theirs. When I heard Jensen’s response, I was stunned into silence and didn’t record, take pics, or really even hear the questions for a bit.
You cannot see this in the video, but I was on the side the girl was on, very close. As soon as everyone starts booing, Clif, who was standing right near her, goes up to her and began having a conversation with her. She stood to the side for a bit after she stepped away from the mic (which was right after she said “I meant no disrespect”) and I thought perhaps Clif had heard all of her question and was going to let her ask or she was going to ask a new question, but after a bit she walked away.
On the way out of the panel, my friend said she saw the girl in the ballroom, wiping at her face. I didn’t see her myself, but I don’t think you need to be a genius to guess she was upset.
What happened was not okay. Jensen needs a better response. Fandom needs a better response. We need to safeguard against this, either through screening questions or the actor being a bit more adult about it and owning up by saying “that’s not how I intended to play it, but you’re welcome to your interpretation.” These types of questions are not going away; we need to learn how to interact with them like adults. All of us. Myself included.
And lest ye all think this is only an SPN problem, think again. I’ve seen this type of thing in literally every medium to large fandom I’ve been in (the small ones generally miss it by virtue of their size). I initially tried, but I can’t watch the video because I know it’s going to be humiliating and I don’t need to see that, but there have been enough of these over the years for me to get the jist.
I think in these contexts it is more of a con/actor problem, rather than a fandom problem. Everyone seems to assume this poor girl was in fandom, what if she’s not? Then how would she know not to ask that? She even apologized, I really don’t think she realized what she said was going to be a bad question. In the case of fans without fandom, the actors need to request the con screen the questions or they need to have a standard response that doesn’t insult people. Unlike others I’m not calling Jensen a horrible person, I just think there needs to be a little more forethought (“what if this does happen again”) and a little less wishful thinking (“that will never happen again”).
I also believe many of the responses around twitter are full of assumptions and that’s really not going to help this issue. Check yo’selves fandom.
(via ealperin)
Kaʻiulani, the last crown princess of Hawai’i.
Kaʻiulani was a teenage student in England when the Hawaiian monarchy was overthrown. She traveled to the US in hopes of preventing the annexation of Hawai’i. Elegant, multilingual, and well-spoken, Kaʻiulani impressed journalists and President Grover Cleveland but she was not able to restore the monarchy. The situation stalled with the monarchy out of power but no formal US annexation. After four more years in Europe, Kaʻiulani returned to Hawaii as a private citizen and witnessed the 1898 annexation of her country. She died less than a year later at the age of 23.
(via jujuberry136)
Source: coolchicksfromhistory
1.44 megabytes of pure evil.
All you people don’t realize how evil those tricky buggers are until you’re doing VERY IMPORTANT SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH and the computer you’re using will ONLY TAKE FLOPPIES. Why? Because no one wanted to: a) spend $40K to buy the new software, or b) tempt fate by upgrading the hardware accidentally crashing the entire system in the process.
Then you have to spend hours (sometimes days) searching the mines of Moria or the Alderaan asteroid belt just to freaking find one. Then that has something protected on it, so you have to find another one.
TL;DR: FLOPPIES ARE THE BANE OF SCIENTIFIC AND ENGINEERING RESEARCH.
(via jujuberry136)
Source: fuckyeah1990s
therearecertainshadesoflimelight:
good god
The first seal has been broken.
Umm..this is brilliant.
In the immortal words of George Takei:
Source: pinkricee
![thosewhowork:
Things like this constantly infuriate me. If you would like a cookie, have a mother fucking cookie. Don’t eat sixteen boxes of Oreos in one sitting [I’ve tried. Didn’t end well.], but be aware that if you choose a cookie over a bowl of fruit, you are not a bad person, you will not gain ten thousand pounds, & you will not die.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdel6k7Qkv1rd2fk4o1_500.jpg)
Things like this constantly infuriate me. If you would like a cookie, have a mother fucking cookie. Don’t eat sixteen boxes of Oreos in one sitting [I’ve tried. Didn’t end well.], but be aware that if you choose a cookie over a bowl of fruit, you are not a bad person, you will not gain ten thousand pounds, & you will not die.
(via lazulisong)
Source: weight-loser
Last night’s Daily Show was a real vocabulary-booster. Click here to watch.
POLL: Over 40% of Americans don’t know if Obamacare is still law
I’m not sure what’s worse: that people don’t understand what is and isn’t in the law, or that people don’t know whether it still exists.
Remember that time a 12-year-old punched out the Punisher and then tried to apologize for it magically?
Runaways #26. Written by Joss Whedon, pencils by Michael Ryan.
Epic meeting. Team of Capt Jack and Cas save the world.
MISHA!!!!!!! JOHN BARROWMAN!!!!!!!!! TANGO!!!!!!!!! TOO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(via hellotailor)
Source: sdkay
“Science is the new rock ‘n’ roll.”
From Nowhere Men, art by Nate Bellegarde.
Image is selling the t-shirt now and I want it badly…
everyone is going on and on about loki’s hair in the new Thor 2 trailer
but
CHRISTOPHER ECCLESTON??!?!?
(via doctorwho)
Source: doctorsexyinthetardis
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