Comics god Warren Ellis opines.

Hyperion at Monkeys With Typewriters bewails his sold childhood. He appears to have forgotten that the purchaser is, well, Disney, which is most people's childhoods.

I'm parked right here with a comfy chair, a big bowl of lightly salted popcorn, Anne Bishop's Black Jewels trilogy in case I get bored, and some nice music on. I am confident the Marvelistas will give us a good show.

Brian Michael Bendis posted the following twitter (swiped from JinxWorld):
# congrats to bambi's mother on joining the cast of marvel zombies :)

from the demented mind of davidlubar comes a delightful idea:
ultimate Disney/Marvel crossover match

Thanks to the lovely jelazakazone we have this heart-wrenching sign of the new partnership
AIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Brace yourself, Bridget: the Mouse just bought the Xavier institute, Spidey's costume closet, Stark Tower, Latveria, and that dimension used to imprison (terrorism suspects) intransigent superheroes during Civil War.

And oh, the places we shall go. Will the Mouse interfere with artists trying to explore their early-life mammary deprivation? Chain-hanging unidentified white goo covers? Rapes and batterings? Or, in its current tradition of letting companies do their own thing (as long as it makes money) and given the fact that the Mouse isn't so great on its percentage of female to male heroes, will it be business as usual?

Of course, I'm deathly curious as to the fate of Joe Quesada, aren't you? The article states that Marvel's chief exec, Ike Perlmutter, stays on, but he says nothing about whether or not there will be changes in staff, nor does Disney's spokesperson.

I'll link to any particularly choice articles that pop up. I'm sure there will be a few!

Joker by Brian Azzarello

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is a graphic novel; the writer is the scripter of the award-winning 100 Bullets series. I'd say this is as masterful a depiction of the Joker as Heath Ledger's, though it's not the same Joker. I read somewhere that someone thought it was more like Jack Nicholson's Joker, and I can see that, but . . . Well, you'll have to read it for yourself. The story is really that of Jonny, a small time hood who gets picked by the gang to give Joker a ride home from Arkham Asylum, and by Joker as a disciple, because Jonny's approach to life is pretty much a tabula rasa. Inspired by Joker's in-the-moment approach to those who have stolen his businesses, those who think to curry favor with him, and those who are just there, Jonny thinks to become Joker--but does he get it?


It's a total ride on the Crazy Train, definitely not for younger readers.


Wow.

View all my reviews.

I may not always post my Good Reads reviews here, but they said "post in your blog," so I thought I'd try it this once.

Tim's reading Joker now. I'm afraid to go downstairs to look for fear of seeing either massive ribbons of blood everywhere or that green, white, and red face!

This is why I still love comic books, graphic novels, I don't care what you call them. They still deliver the old punch to the gut.

Ragnell/morchades posted on her own blog her response, including Karen Healey/karenhealey's response, to my December 9 post. I think you should read it, because they passionately argue for continuing the fight to change the comics that exist, particularly with the Big Two.

Despite what I said yesterday, I'll still join in that fight, because I too grew up with these heroes and I too would like things to change. But I still believe that the best way to convince the Big Two to change is to present a viable, third party challenger, or to build up the challengers who are out there.

I did not mean to imply--I don't think I did imply--that people like Ragnell, Karen, Lisa Fortuner, Designated Sidekick, and my other comics criticism heroes have been wasting their time. I think they are heroes. I will always support them and their work, even when I disagree with them. (I have, sometimes.)

The fight is always worthwhile. I simply proposed a change of ground.


At the present time I can't create that challenger to the Big Two myself. I don't have the time, and I don't have the artists. If enough people come to me, I will find the webspace and we can go from there.

The wondersome, brilliant, and insightful Elizabeth Bear matociquala wrote this column for the Winter 2007 edition of Subterranean Press. I saw it, of course, via When Fangirls Attack, the entry for December 3.

If you read Bear's column, you'll know why it appealed to me. Check it out:

. . . I’ve been hearing some complaints that women are taking over fantasy and science fiction, getting our relationship and character germs all in it, and ruining it for honest blaster-lovin’ men. That our books are all soft and fuzzy and full of ponies with braided manes and pretty princesses and happy endings where true love triumphs over the wicked king and then there is a wedding.

Now, me, I love a good blastering as much as the next guy. But apparently, I’m in ur genre, spreadin’ my girl germs, and ruining it for the boys.

It seems I’ve become a poster child for female SF authors (an interviewer told me not too long ago that I was notorious for penning strong women) which amuses me to no end, because the odd thing is, I can walk around for days on end without remembering that I Am A Girl. I just don’t think about it, frankly. Except when I have to put on a bra before I walk to the corner store.

I don’t think of myself as a woman writer. I think of myself as a writer, full stop, or a speculative fiction writer, if it comes right down to it. If somebody asks what I do for a living, I tell them I’m a novelist. I don’t tell them I’m a woman novelist.

This could be me, only my area is fantasy for teenagers. In the last couple of years, there has been a lot of stuff about how we don't have enough books out there for boys. Subtext: there are too many girls writers out there. We are getting our girl cooties all over things, with our pretty princesses and our long-maned horsies and our royal weddings. We're getting relationship and character germs all over teh Bookz and the boys are running screaming with their t-shorts over their heads out of the libraries--

to read gamer manuals, gaming magazines, computer magazines, whatever's online, plus books by Eoin Colfer, Anthony Horowitz, Clive Cussler, comics, and nonfiction.

Bear is also right in that we girl writers are not being sponsored by charitable institutions as an alternate means of putting us in sweatshops. (Trust me, a lot of us would sew our fingers to the Britney t-shirts.) We are on the shelves because we have a market, and it is made up of both sexes. My own audience now stretches from ten to eighty, with more and more over-twenties at every appearance. And a lot of those are librarians, teachers, and booksellers.


This led me to a second conversation on WFA, this one being held on the blog of anon, a mouse, in the thread ur doin it rite. Bear's column was the subject, and women writers finding an audience, whether it is with the comics Big Two--Marvel and DC--was one point raised. That's when a lot of things came together for me: what the posters were saying (at least one of whom I've had knock-down, drag-out fights with), what Bear said in her first paragraph, and my last two years' experience in the world of comicdom. I had a moment of comics satori

As far as the Big Two are concerned, women are never going to get a serious foothold. I'm not as 100% positive on this where DC is concerned--they make moves like hire Gail Simone to do Wonder Woman and try the Minx line, still going when other houses would have dumped it, and my conviction wobbles. But I am certain about Marvel. I am also certain about the fanboys. Not all of them. There are seriously good guys out there, and I feel bad for them, being tainted by the brush of the rabid, vicious, snapping, wild-eyed, runny-nosed, spitting, slavering, howling, gnashing, straining, grunting, muscle-flexing, finger-clenching, vein-popping, yapping, knee-jerking guttersnipes who turn on and savage anyone who dares to breathe on their comics worldview. They encourage each other to descend to their circle of the mudpits with slaps on the back and bonus points at each tentative sign of trogdom.

And they hose any person not one of their cherished creators if that person attempts to do anything in comics. They create a closed circle of stagnant growth with the connivance of the Big Two.

We don't have to do this. Every woman who has made a name for herself and her own vision in the arts has done so by taking whatever opening she was given and muscling her way to creating her own audience, those who appreciate her unique vision. Gail has been able to do that at DC, but Lea Hernandez established her kingdom with the indies. There are women building their audiences with independent comics, creating their worlds without the savagery of the Big Two and their fanKomodos to fight. Yes, it's thankless. Yes, it would be cool to write Spider-Woman, Storm, Huntress, Rogue, Black Canary, et al., who were our heroes as kids.

But on the other hand, rather than be dissed time after time, maybe it's time to turn our backs on the asshats and build our own icons, online and via the independents. Yes, it will take years and lots of frustration to do it. It will take some of our own money and soul-crushing day jobs.

In 1979 I went to work for a literary agency. It was there I learned that 80% of us--people in the arts, including writers, DON'T MAKE A LIVING AT IT. Most of my friends have day jobs. I knew, after three years of reading income statements, reverting rights for authors, and going over contracts, that my chances of making a living were slim. I was going to write anyway, because I was dirt poor and had nothing else to make me better off. So I worked as a secretary and wrote. I began to publish a book here and a book there. Then I was told I could do better if I wrote boy heroes--but I didn't want to write boy heroes. So even though I knew I could do better, I kept writing girl heroes, because that's what I wanted to do. Things got really bad in the 90's, when I quit working in an office and tried to get a writing career off the ground--but by then I'd become one of the 1% who can barely live on her writing. By 2000 I was one of the .5% that made a good living at it. And I was still writing girl heroes.

Fuck the meanness and the smallness of the mainstream comics. Let's do it for ourselves. Let's build a new publishing empire. We know there's a market, otherwise who is manga selling to? But who needs this abuse, from the publishers who make fun of us to the fanboys who abuse us? Let's do it like we want it.

Edited to add:
Note: you may notice a troll in the comments. Please do not feed the troll. I was wrong to mention him. If we don't feed him, he will go away, if not wither up and die. Thank you. /tammy/end Note


Big surprise: I'm at a low boil over Rational Madman's post on Wonder Woman #14. His comments about her looks were pure low-grade cheese and had nothing to do with a review, but that's what this guy does when attempting to talk about feminism: he goes for the low ground.

I can't talk about his comments on the comic at present. I just returned from my local comics shop, having gone in search of it (I was at a science fiction con over the long weekend, one that didn't sell comics). I wanted to read for myself after all the discussion and maybe contribute my opinion, but lo! It's all sold out!

I'm assuming some of those buyers are guys, and they aren't all disgusted with the comic. For that matter, where were all those men complaining how anti-male Birds of Prey was, as the "Rational" Mad Man claims?

I know! Maybe they don't think Gail Simone is anti-male! What a concept!

More when I read the new issue.

I've been studying long and hard ever since When Fangirls Attack posted the link to Pink Raygun's criticism, The Real Result of Virtual Rage, and am grabbing a moment before zipping off to California to voice some thoughts I think are meaningful, or useful, or worthy of thought, or something.

>>At the Comicon, I found that when I say the words “I run a genre entertainment site geared toward women,” people in the comics industry are immediately on the defensive, visibly tensing up as if they expect me to berate them about a cover or a statuette or some other issue, when all I want to do is set up an interview.<<

You know, Pink Raygun, this is mostly on them, assuming we are all of one mind, with the same reactions and the same ideas. Remember that "hive vagina" thing we're batting around? We do not all think/react/speak alike.

>> Once I’ve assured them that I’m not part of the manufactured outrage on the internet, <<

It would have been nice if you had remembered we are not a hive vagina, too. "Manufactured outrage" makes it sound as if you feel we are just looking for reasons to crank up a firestorm; that there is a vast cabal of us searching for issues to single out so that we may then speak with one voice, using a set or previously agreed-upon arguments that all of us don't necessarily agree upon. It reads as if you believe we get angry as a tactic, not because we are genuinely angry. You belittle our emotions when you claim they are manufactured, and you belittle our arguments.

There were ways to inform your potential interviewees that you were not there on the attack without cutting at other women who are trying to enact change.

>>chick + comics = raging female<<

And again, that is the perception of those who don't take the trouble to read the blogs of feminists writing about comics, or they would know there are as many stone fans as there are angry critics, and that many are critics because they are fans. This broad generalization is the result of ignorance, and the attitude of people who can't bother to look harder at a specific population. It is also the reason there are so many outspoken female comics fans: because the industry can't be bothered to look at individuals and listen to what they say. They would rather dump all of us into a trash receptacle and ignore us. It works to the detriment of fans who just want a dialog, and it works to the detriment of fans who would like constructive change. In the end it will also work to the detriment of the publishers, who will lose that market share at a time they can't afford to lose potential fans.

>>So, why the apprehension, tense jaws and panic stricken eyes? No doubt due to the rage that runs rampant on the internet.<<

This is like blaming the watchdog for barking when there are burglars in the yard.

>> The thing is, those tense jaws and panic stricken eyes don’t make me feel empowered. It doesn’t make me believe that some goal has been achieved.<<

They aren't supposed to. These are the reactions of those who don't care to face the ideas and the people who make them apprehensive. They are the reactions of those who have decided every woman will jump first and ask questions later, because they have already saved all of us into a batch file. That means they don't see you as an individual, either. That should make you unhappy, at least.

You are blaming other women for the reactions of these people, when what other women are doing is simply expressing their opinions. It is the other people who choose to react this way, and to take their anxiety out on every woman they see, until they establish her "good girl" credentials. You're blaming the wrong parties.

>>It just makes me work harder to reassure them that I’m not interested in manufacturing rage to increase hits to my own website.<<

Does it occur to you that, rather than add those increased hits--a lot more work in answering posts and handling people who grow more furious--maybe some of us are genuinely upset? That this is an area we care about as much as you do, and we would like to see our paper counterparts treated with respect? That we would like to see more variety and equality, rather than the sex displays and brutality that currently pass for entertainment? This is an insult to anyone who truly cares about comics and has cared about them for years, even decades.

>> It makes me work harder to get the message across that there are women who read comics without getting into a tizzy. <<

Again you belittle those who don't deal with comics as you do. A lot of those women who you claim "get into tizzies" are your readers--is that the respect you give them and their concerns?

>>It also makes me work harder to gain trust - trust that I won’t ask leading questions, that I won’t set traps and that I won’t misrepresent what was said.<<

This is an honorable way to conduct an interview, and I respect it. I wouldn't do an interview any other way. Why can't you just do what you like, proceed as you want, without sniping at other women?

Telling women to be nicer so as not to get other girls (like you) in trouble is a tactic that was used on feminists from the very beginning. It's just another way to try to silence those who are making painful arguments. Chiding feminists and telling them that they are making your work harder with their noise is a way of attempting to silence any complaints they may have.

Silence has never served women who want to be treated as people worthy of respect. If we had allowed ourselves to be silenced, Pink Raygun, you wouldn't even be permitted to conduct interviews of anyone but other women, or interview them on subjects other than those that are considered solely the feminine province. Comics would be definitely excluded.

Kalinara, who with Ragnell runs the wonderful When Fangirls Attack", has posted an incredible piece of analysis on living as a woman and why it's important to criticize comics from a feminist standpoint and demand change on her own blog: All Women Are Me Damnit. Please give it a read. She is passionate and clear and deeply moving.

Edited to add:

Shelly of Shelly's Bookshelf has posted her view, "What It Is To Be A Woman, which debates Kalinara and gives a point of view different from Kalinara's. I add it here because I also understand what Shelly's saying and have experienced some of life the way she has. I've had things both ways, and I think both of these women give us a lot of food for thought.

The recent hoorah over the Mary Jane laundry collectible statue has resurrected my soon-to-be former boss Joe Quesada's claim about his and Marvel's fair-mindedness with regard to women in comics, stated in this quote from last summer:

"But, let me also add, that just because there is a lack of female writers doesn’t mean that we’re going to hand out a charity gig to a female just because of her gender. That to me defeats the purpose. As a father of an only female child I would want all doors open within whatever field my daughter decides to one day choose. But I would also want her to walk through those doors on her own merits, not on the charity of others or to fill some quota, and I suspect that when she’s old enough to understand that, she’ll feel the same.

Edited to add: Here's the context of the quote--scroll down to Newsarama's question about women writing for Marvel, which includes the whole discussion. I tried to include it before and couldn't get it to work, till I discovered my .html wasn't enabled for this page. ::sigh:: Long time, no lj. Also, below someone posted tekanji's material from the original discussion, with my thanks!

back to the orig:
Boiled down, Quesada's is an old argument: "I can't be a misogynist/sexist: I have a wife/daughter/daughters!"

I ignored this last summer, I think because I was tired. Seeing it again now, I think I want to make a few points.

Men with daughters have sold them into marriages with men who have buried multiple previous wives who died of too many hard births, for centuries. Men with daughters have sold their daughters into marriages with old men, notoriously cruel men, and complete strangers, for the proper price, for centuries. Men with daughters have sold them into slavery, because they needed the cash, or they felt they had too many daughters. Men with daughters have urged them to remain with brutal husbands and endure drunkards because that was what women do. They have turned their daughters from their doors when their daughters have come home, fleeing their husbands or because they have nowhere else to go. Men with daughters have thrown them out on suspicion of sexual dalliance with inappropriate young men, pregnancy, or because they have been raped. Men with daughters have beaten them, sometimes to death. Men with daughters have raped them and given them to their friends for sexual abuse. Men with daughters have turned them out as beggars, thieves, and prostitutes and kept their earnings. Men with daughters have sent them out to work in shops and factories and kept those earnings. And throughout much of the modern world, men still do these things.

edited to add: Goddess forgive me, how could I have forgotten the millennia of men who, on being told their wives had given birth to daughters, ordered them to expose those daughters to the elements, or to kill them, or get rid of them, because they were girls? How could I have forgotten, with The Tudors glitzed-up version of history playing on Showtime, the men who disinherited their daughters, set their wives aside, divorced their wives, or even had them killed, for the crime of presenting them only with daughters for children?

So I do not think that having a daughter automatically makes a man a supporter of women, or even sympathetic to women's issues. In fact, I have to watch myself, to keep myself from suspecting that having a daughter does not make a father into one more oppressor, particularly when he does not make an extra effort to present female-positive artists and writers in his magazines, and female-positive characters in those same magazines. When he continually oversees the same-old-same-old cheesecake images, the same-old depowering abuse/rape/torture scenarios for female "heroes" and characters, and continues to concentrate on hiring and showcasing male talent, it makes me doubt his words about his daughter having a fair shot at any career. It makes me wonder just which doors he wants to have open for his daughter, for any man to have open for his girl children.

Luckily I know plenty of men out there who find out what their girls are up against and have their consciousnesses abruptly raised. Nothing is too good for their little girls, and that includes opportunities and salaries. Too bad they aren't the editors-in-chief of major comic book companies.

I don't know what else to call it, and it's REALLY starting to bug me. Tim and I are clearly listed as co-writers on the cover of the White Tiger books, and in the credits, but nine times out of ten, when the books are discussed, I'm named as sole writer. This really burns my bacon. We did all the interviews together; we've talked about the book in blog posts as co-writers, and yet people seem determined to forget there's two of us in this. It gets really interesting in the slams. It's almost as if people want to forget there's a guy in this, too, so they can heap extra scorn on the girl. On the praise side, they want to give me all the credit, never mind that Tim writes the whole first draft (after we bash out the outline together)--a pretty serious contribution.

What is this? With a female involved, people want to go blind to the man's share? Or--just as insulting to Tim--because I'm the Name--people assume he's my Arm Charm, and I do all the heavy lifting? His contribution is getting ignored, for any reason, and it's pissing me off.

As far as the blame thing goes--it's not that I want him to get the hosing I'm getting because people find parts of the books "lame," or "unconvincing," or insulting to Latins, or because they feel they've seen it before. But would they have posted Tim's photo and said he looked like a frumpy old white guy? Would they have accused a man of being too talky? Would they have smacked him around for a single line ("That's a girl!")? (Which, he reminded me, was actually one of his lines.)

I knew I would get the jumping-on, particularly after my Civil War critique. But I didn't think Tim would be ignored for everything, including the praise.

Part two of Weird . . . Sexism:

More and more these days I am being asked why I choose to write female heroes, and/or when will I write male heroes. I'm polite in my answers, because people honestly seem puzzled by my choices, but I'm starting to boil a little, and I'm definitely building up a head of frustration. Why does no one ask male writers why they write male heroes?

Worse, why do girls and women ask me this? Okay, I can understand it--sort of--when moms of boys ask me. They want female-positive books with heroes their kids will read. And I point out the truth. I have a boy hero, Briar, in the Circle of Magic universe, and in fact he's one of my most popular heroes, though I think it's more because he's just plain fun, and he knows how to deal with girls. His three co-heroes are female, after all. Moreover, because my other female heroes tend to be involved in primarily masculine fields of endeavor--knighthood, war, policework, revolutions--they are surrounded by boys and men who are friends, teachers, rivals, and foes. My male fans read my books because they are adventures, not classically categorized "girl books." I just have always believed that girls want adventures, too, and since none were available when I was a kid, I have always written adventure novels with girl heroes. Boys, once they get past the girl on the cover, almost always respond.

And for the rest, it used to be that seven out of eight novels had boy heroes. Now the figure is more like six out of seven, though I have a feeling that the number of boy heroes may be rising with perception that boys don't read, and we must save our boys! (and jettison our girls, or feed them clique novels with makeup and girls and boys sabotaging one another).

It really hurts when girls ask me this. Are they so beaten down by our culture's superior value on boys that they don't understand why someone would prefer to write for them, showcasing their strengths and possibilities? Do they find it so strange that someone would willingly showcase them? So brainwashed that they think there's something wrong with me that I prefer it, or that I prefer girl heroes, and not princesses, or princesses in disguise, or orphans in quest of families, or loner socialites, or rocker wanna-bes, or girl victims? (Not that I don't value the books in which girls begin as victims--I read them myself, and really like the way the characters learn what's going find strength and a way out. But I prefer a different approach, and when girls ask me why I'm doing it, I need to start asking, "Why aren't more people doing it? Aren't you worth as many heroes as the boys get?"

When the adults ask me, that's when I really start to burn, though I always stay polite. Again, I have to wonder if they ask male writers who specialize in boy heroes why they do that. I want to ask the media people whose side they're on, though I do wonder if they don't wonder if they ask me the question to allow me to make the point that there aren't enough girl heroes out there, and why not? But honestly, why is it strange to like to write for girls?

Aren't they worth it? Look at them on the soccer field, or bent over a book. Watch them in the mall, looking at music or clothes, or at home or in gym, practicing headstands and somersaults. Do you see them in class, getting all fired up about injustice, or in a club, dancing to set the world on fire? Do you see them bent over sketch pads or lap tops, working away, or read their internet posts, where being unseen sets them free to say what they think? They're a more tremendous resource than oil or water, and they are trashed, ignored, lectured, talked down to, shoved aside, told they're hos/sluts/technoignoramuses, tied up and abused in games/movies/comics/television, handed diets until they collapse from the weight of them--and yet they are still thinking, still active, still passionate, still idealists. They are world-beaters.

Why aren't more people writing for them, and I mean "for", as in, in ways that makes them feel like what they are: a powerful force. People who make a difference. Not toys, not negligible quantities to be shoved aside every time people get their panties in a bunch about boys, but serious players on the world stage. Serious contributors to everyone's lives.

It's been over a week, actually, but this is the first time I've had the chance to sit down with a clear head and some quiet to revel in the fact that Tim and I are now official, published, comic book writers, our childhood dream. White Tiger: Obsessed hit the comics stores on the 15th--I actually signed my first copy that night, courtesy of my old friend Oona in the Bay Area, who had grabbed hers at the Shattuck Ave. Comics store in Berkeley. I got to see the display for myself at Midtown Comics in Manhattan the Wednesday before Thanksgiving--no big, special deal, just Angela, right among all the other comics a last. What a rush!

The reviews so far have been good to middlin', with very few (like a handful) out and out bad. Some people plain don't like it. Others are surprised it's any good. (!!) The only regret I have is that far too many people attribute the whole thing to me, when it's very much a 50/50 proposition, and just as much Tim's project as mine. He deserves as much credit for the good stuff, and more for some of it.

Here are some, and there are more on Newsarama and Comic Book Resources if you care to search:
http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/reviews/116354417171076.htm

http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/reviews/116388636260983.htm

http://www.silverbulletcomics.com/news/story.php?a=3296
http://www.thexaxis.com/misc/whitetiger1.htm

http://www.aboutheroes.com/content/2006/11/white_tiger_1_review.php

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=91649

http://comicpants.com/?p=741

http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/forums/showthread.php?t=40685

http://ettacandy.blogspot.com/


In the meantime, work on the other books goes forward. I have color notes on #3 to finish by the end of this week, while I'm touring in Canada (no, I haven't been home yet!), and Tim's doing the first draft on #6. And next Monday (the 4th), I'll be HOME!!!!!!!!!!! I haven't been home since 10/24!!!!!!

So I just have to ask the nasty question. See, I figure it doesn't apply to my character, because we specify her costume, and Black Widow's, are made of special S.H.I.E.L.D. miracle fabric, which sheds stains, doesn't wrinkle, breathes . . . all mod cons. It's supple, like Spandex, but I'm assuming it doesn't grip like Spandex. And then there's that whole breathing thing. This costume material breathes. But it's mentioned over and over again, elsewhere, that a lot of female superhero costumes are made of Spandex.

Spandex doesn't breathe. Ask anyone who's worn it. Frankly, I don't see how any of the heroes who do wear it manage not to keel over from heat prostration, particularly the ones who don't have rapid fire healing abilities. Now, it's the female ones without the rapid healing in the Spandex I wonder about. Women, can you see where I'm going with this?

Is there a prevalence of yeast infections among female superheroes, do you suppose? Because you get the heat of action and combat, and materials around your va-jay-jay that don't breathe, and starches and yeasts in your diet, and the itch starts. Is that one of those things they talk about in the superhero women's room? Do they compare the relative merits of diflucan versus suppositories--and side effects? Diflucan, believe it or not, makes me sleepy. But a cream, and Spandex . . .

Call me vulgar, but I wonder about these things.

Then there's heat rashes. Has anyone spotted streaks of baby powder on those skin-tight outfits?

I truly don't. I've been really testy of late, as my last two journal entries attest, but I do have my upside. One of our feral strays, Feral Baby, came within two porch steps of me today and spoke to me. She's been coming closer and closer in the last couple of weeks, to the point that she'll sit at the bottom of the porch steps when I'm putting food in the dish, and she'll sit ten feet away in the yard and let me talk to her for a while, but this is a first.

We've been recording WOLF-SPEAKER at Full Cast Audio's studio's last week and this week, with me as narrator and my beloved Spouse-Creature Tim as the wolfhound Prettyfoot (he'll fill in other small parts). My friend and the company's owner Bruce Coville is doing Blueness, who was based on our cat Barnacle Bill, and they have an adorable kid named Emily doing the young kitten Scrap, based on our own Scrap. David Baker is back as the Badger God, Dan Bostick as Numair, and the fair wondersome Carmen Viviano-Crafts as Daine. It's been great being in the studio with the Hobins recording (Todd, who also composes as well as engineers, is our Tkaa, and Brett is Short Snout) and David Baker directing. I enjoy this so much--the camaraderie with the actors, David, the engineers and Victoria King, who does continuity, vocal coaching, keeping track of takes, and other arcane production tasks, the drives out to the studio, breaks when I go to commune with the fish in the river. It's a treat.

We've gotten the first White Tiger #3 sketches from our artist, Phil Briones, with some extra feedback from him, and it looks like we're more in sync than ever. It's gratifying. Tim and I have gone over our share of bumps working with each other, and integrating an artist, who has specifications of his own, is also hard, but it seems to be coming together. Ruwan, our editor, tells me the colored pages are coming in, which means the dread process of inserting balloons now begins. I pared our text down as far as possible, but will it be enough? Behold my gnawed fingernails.

And call me pathetic. I check the Amazon and Barnes & Noble online sales rankings for TERRIER, even knowing they fluctuate wildly depending on sales of even a couple of books. The book is only in preorders, since the pub date isn't till October 24, but in the last two weeks it's been in the 4500-3500 sales ranking range. (The lower the number, the higher the rank.) And that's what it was on Amazon online today, but on B&N it went from 1400 to 950!!!!!!!!! I can't stand it I can't stand it I can't stand it!!!!!! I know it will do well, but I want it to do really REALLY well, and I want this to be a SIGN!!!

Okay. Taking a breath now. Back to work on White Tiger #4.

I have been reading Marvel Comics' Civil War series, which pits superhero against superhero when the country passes laws demanding that superheroes register their real identities with the government. Many heroes obey; others fight; some opt out; many go to prison for believing they have a right to their privacy. (If you're noticing parallels, that's the point.) It's intriguing, depressing, well- or not well- written, depending on the authors. It's a Really Big Thing.

MARVEL COMICS CIVIL WAR #4 SPOILER HERE:
So. One of the many plot lines involves the Fantastic Four. Reed Richards, science nerd, superbrain, stretching guy, and the epitome of Germaine Greer's Father Phallus, is on the side of the act's enforcers, helping to come up with ways to round up and register dissenters, including former friends of his (Captain America leads the strongest group of those who fight against the registration). Johnny Storm, the Torch, was beaten up by an anti-hero mob and put in the hospital in a coma. Sue Storm, Reed Richards' wife, the series' ÜberMom, powerful Invisible Girl, and the glue holding the Four together, has been begging Reed to visit Johnny, who is family. Reed has been finding excuses. He's also been ignoring her attempts to discuss her unhappiness with the registration act, the arrests, and his part in the whole thing. She's been getting angrier and unhappier. I've been wondering what she sees in this clueless dipstick all along. In Civil War #4, she finally does it. She bails. And here's the letter:
(I said this was a festering boil of a spoiler. If you didn't get that, I'm not sorry and you didn't read the big spoiler notice up above.)
My darling Reed ...
I know Johnny's out of the hospital and the family is back together again. I know I should be happy, but I'm not.
I'm so ASHAMED of you right now, and ashamed of myself for supporting your fascistic plans. I hate what I've become, and that's why I'm joining Cap's SECRET AVENGERS team.
Please understand: This is not another cry for attention. This is not me trying to distract you from your all-important work.
This is because our hands are soaked in [XXXXX]'s BLOOD and you're so blinded by your graphs and social projections that you can't even SEE it.
Johnny and I will be working UNDERGROUND from now on, and that's obviously no place for Franklin and Valeria {the other kids}.
That's why I've left them in your care and beg you to give them the time you have so often DENIED them in the past.
I also didn't want your last memory of me to be tainted with all the blazing fights we've had in recent weeks.
Hence the oily-fish dinner (good brain-food), the bottle of your favorite claret (an excellent anti-oxidant) and making love one final time (good for the immune system).
I hope I don't look like a coward for leaving this way. I hope you don't think I'm a bad wife or, worse still, a bad mother.
I'm doing this for the best of reasons and pray that your genius can RESOLVE this thing before one side ends up slaughtering the other.
I love you, Reed. More than anything in the world.
Please fix this.
Susan.
XXX

Okay. He's a fascist. He's got blood on his hands. He's helping to lead the side that she is about to fight against. But she hopes his "genius" can resolve things for both sides (one assumes well, so she and Johnny Storm don't die). She asks her fascist to "fix this." She leaves her children with said bloody-handed fascist whom she herself says has denied them his time in the past.
PLUS
She's not going off to a church social, folks--she's going off to fight, in a war, in which friends of hers have been mauled, imprisoned, and killed; she has just declared herself and her intentions to a man she knows has positioned himself securely in the leadership councils of those who have brought all of this down on them, and . . .
she fixed him a smart dinner
she poured out his favorite vino, which is also heart-healthy
and she gave him a farewell TUMBLE.

This is supposed to be a female hero? This is supposed to be a rational, intelligent woman? This reads like a kewpie doll with a squeak and a writing chip programmed by someone who wasn't mouthing the words as he went! It's not just me, is it? She just talked both ends against the middle and told a man she accuses of being a murderer that he's responsible but he can kiss and make it all better and she's helped to make him healthier while she goes and fights on the other side? Does that mean it'll be okay if she and all of her friends get killed?

The writer is Mark Millar. And I am just out of my mind with this. I've seen some comic book females made to say crazy stuff, but this is just too twisted. What was he thinking Was he thinking? Or does he believe this is what really goes on inside a woman's--inside a mother's--head?

These are the days when you wish the characters could just rear out of the pages and sock the writers.