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Fantastic Fangirls Podcast 2.5: Comics Roundtable

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In the lastest episode of the Fantastic Fangirls podcast, Caroline, Sigrid, and Ali get down to what the Fangirls do best: talking about comics.

Young Avengers, Wonder Woman, and Saga all have their moment in the sun, along with a lot of other titles (okay, mostly Marvel). Feel free to comment and share any titles you’re enjoying right now.

P.S. This podcast is a bit late because of technical issues, so while I will say that spoilers are included, if you’ve caught up to the last three weeks or so, you should be fine!

Make sure you hang around at the end to hear Ali say, “Mother pus-bucket.” That’s a Top Ten Fangirls moment.

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On Colorists

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by Sigrid

Colorists don’t get enough love in comics. But they should.

I was reading this week’s new comics and gave a huge mental thanks that Marvel seems to have moved on from the era – two or three years ago? – in which the predominant color of all their comics was brown. Dark, muddy brown. I dropped the X-Force title at the time based on my dislike of the colors alone.

This is no longer the case. Comics – at Marvel and elsewhere – have made a strong return to vibrant colors and palettes that further the story. Here are a few of my current favorite colorists:

Jordie Bellaire.

In the past few weeks I have seen Ms. Bellaire’s work on Captain Marvel, Mara, and Journey Into Mystery. In these three titles alone we see the strength and breadth of the colorist. Captain Marvel has a slightly pastel scheme, punctuated by bright primary colors. There’s the real world, and then there’s superheroism.

In Mara the landscapes and crowds are massive and oddly bleak in color, while the sport of volleyball is foregrounded. This is color in support of plot.

And in Journey Into Mystery? Here we have page after page of mighty battles, drenched in alien blood. Bellaire’s color choices are the key, making the slaughter epic yet not disgusting.

Fiona Staples.

Fiona Staples is doing all of the art on Saga. And, my goodness, is it ever worth your time. This is wildly imaginative space adventure – saga, for lack of a better word – and the richness of everything alien is beautifully rendered by her art. Including the color.

Marte Gracia.

Gracia is the one bringing you the fantastic colors on All-New X-Men. This is a shadowed story, punctuated by the bright qualities of the younger X-Men. This is reflected in the colors used.

Jay Fotos.

Locke and Key, by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriquez, is one of the best comics I’m currently reading. This owes a certain amount to the work of colorist Jay Fotos. The atmospheric horror of the comic would not be the same with a different color scheme.

My thanks, to all of you colorists out there. I truly appreciate your work.

Q&A #188: Plan a comic book convention that would be perfect for YOU.

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In Q & A, a weekly feature of Fantastic Fangirls, we ask our staff to tackle a simple question — then open the floor to comments.

Plan a comic book convention that would be perfect for YOU.

ANIKA

For over a year now I have wanted to present a Ready to Wear Superhero Runway Fashion Show at a convention. It’s never come together, but a girl can dream. Anyway, Comic Book Inspired Fashion Week, that’s number one.

Number two, it’s kid and family friendly. There are specific areas for rest, with couches and quiet, outlets for recharging various electronics. And ice chips. All the food vendors have vegetarian options, and more than just soda to drink. My Little Pony t-shirts come in more than just Men’s sizes.

Number three, more space for conversation. It’s no use complaining that people only visit creators to get things signed when the atmosphere is like some kind of county fair auction house. I’m not sure how this is accomplished but creating a semi-private area for meeting with people would be a good start.

Number four, there’s a costume ball. It’s upscale and requires separate tickets and is basically the ball in Sarah’s dream/nightmare in Labyrinth except with comic book VIPs instead of random aristocracy (although, David Bowie is totally invited).

Number five, it takes place at Disney World.

CAROLINE

Back in my early days of Buffy fandom, a friend proposed the idea of “Backyard Con.” Rather than traveling all over the U.S. to attend conventions, she would invite her friends from all over the country to come visit, book a local hotel, and then hold the actual festivities in her yard — barbeque and pool party in the day, TV episodes projected on a screen at night.

I find it hard to improve on this model. Pool everybody’s comics that they maybe-don’t-exactly-want-anymore in a giant bookswap, box up the rest to mail off to libraries or overseas troops. Maybe bring in a few artists who will draw commissions (and like barbeque!)

So that’s my con idea. My backyard might not be quite big enough to accomodate this, though.

Does anybody out there have a pool?

SIGRID

I would really like a comic convention that followed the pattern of the science fiction conventions I attend. I want to do away with the endless tables of huckstering and have lots of panels in which people talk about topics of mutual interest. I want to see writers, artists, and editors playing Iron Artist as they do at CONvergence. I want panels on third-wave feminism as there are at Wiscon. I want hotel parties thrown by fan groups and industry organization and other local conventions, as there are at both CONvergence and Wiscon. I want a chance to mingle and talk over coffee or dinner. And I want it all in a nice hotel, like the Concourse in Madison, with not too many people. Eight hundred or so, tops.

A big party with my friends and friendly acquaintances, more or less.

So what about you? Plan a comic book convention that would be perfect for YOU.

Fantastic Fangirls Podcast 2.4: 2013 Movie Preview

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In our newest podcast, we talk about upcoming movies in 2013. In fact, we had so many 2013 movies to talk about that we’re just covering January through March in this episode. Anika, Sam, and Sigrid talk about some things that have caught their eyes. We’ve posted the links to some trailers below so you can follow a long.

Previews:
Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters
John Dies at the End
Bullet to the Head
Warm Bodies
Beautiful Creatures
A Good Day to Die Hard
Jack the Giant Slayer
Oz: The Great and Powerful
The Host

Along the way, Anika mentions an article that will forever influence her opinion of James Franco:

James Franco is not a good actor. But it’s not a lack of effort which makes him mediocre at best, merely a lack of talent. Franco compensates by making it a point to be interesting. He picks roles he has no business doing, seeks out projects that better actors might be afraid to touch, and damn his ability he’s doing them anyway. James Franco should probably try to get by solely on his James Dean good looks, he should probably go wherever that crooked smile takes him, but he’s not interested. Talented or not he’s out there doing the insane and the ridiculous.

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Q&A #187: What is a comic you are currently enjoying?

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In Q & A, a weekly feature of Fantastic Fangirls, we ask our staff to tackle a simple question — then open the floor to comments.

What is a comic you are currently enjoying?

ALI

I know he’s my boyfriend, but seriously Thor: God of Thunder by Jason Aaron and Esad Ribic is just insanely good. I think it’s probably my favorite book out of Marvel NOW! so far. It’s just so freaking epic. I mean, it’s like Simonson good. And Old King Thor is just the greatest thing to happen to comics in a long time. Ancient and grizzled, the Odinson sits on the throne of a fallen Asgard with a missing eye, using the Destroyer’s arm as a prostethic for his own lost limb. And still the old battle axe fights to defend his lost kingdom. Aaron is brilliant about using him in small doses so you always want more of him.

Also there are Icelandic vikings.

MARIE

Over the holidays, I pretty much overdosed on episodes of Young Justice and X-Men Evolution. Both series primarily featured angsting superpowered teenagers, so to ride off that high I started getting into Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona’s Runaways.

an image of The Runaways cover

I currently own Volume 1: Pride and Joy and so far, I find the writing extremely clever and the characters really fun to follow. With a teaser like, “All young people believe their parents are evil…but what if they really are?” I can already tell that this will be a wild ride.

an image of The Runaways cover

SIGRID

Hawkeye.

The thing is, that when you start out in life — when you take your first stab at adulthood, when you leave college or enter the workforce or get married for the first time or join the Peace Corps or the Air Force or you buy your first house or get your first dog — you don’t know what you’re doing. So you look around you and you try to convince everyone that you have got this. That you’ve earned the right to be an adult. That you can handle life like a goddam grown-up. Someone wants an answer? You’ve got it. Someone wants a solution? Problem solved. You are so there.

And then your life happens.

By the time you’re starting a second time around — by the time you’ve gotten married and divorced and remarried, by the time you’ve made it to management, by the time you’ve gone back to graduate school, by the time you’ve acquired kids, by the time your parents are getting older and sicker, you’ve flirted with bankruptcy, you’ve quit partying, you’ve crashed a car, you’ve fucked everything all to hell six ways from Sunday, you’ve gotten a new job — you are done having answers. You’ve figured out the secret, that everyone is faking it the same amount. By the time you’re taking a second or third stab at this whole being a grown-up thing, you know that easy answers are cheap and flawed. You know that idealism will falter. You know that you can try your best and fail utterly. You understand, down to your bones, that you are not really a very nice person.

But you know that you have friends, that you are trusted and loved. You know that you are going to be stupid-stubborn idealistic all the way down. Because if it hasn’t been kicked out of you yet, it never will be.

Hawkeye.

So what about you? What is a comic you are currently enjoying?

Fantastic Fangirls Podcast 2.3: Comfort Media

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To kick off the new year, Caroline, Sigrid, and Ali got together to talk about the things they watch — and read, and listen to — when they’re looking for a little comfort, reassurance, or inspiration. Topics we touched on included The Vorkosigan Saga, the Buffy musical, and a certain movie about a certain princess and her dread pirate who just can’t bring himself to stay dead while true love is waiting.

We weigh the merits of comedy and action flicks for getting us through the tough times, touch on the dangers of taking your favorite books to an isolated house in the mountains, and wonder if it’s possible to listen to Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska. (Spoiler: Yes.)

In the comments, we invite you to talk about your own philosophies of comfort media. What are the texts and tunes that you turn to, time and time again?

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From the Editor: Done for now, DC

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Dear DC Comics,

I love your characters. I love Barbara Gordon, I love Kate Kane, I love Diana Prince. I love Cassandra Cain, I love Stephanie Brown, I love Dinah Lance. I love Harley Quinn, I love Selina Kyle, I love Pamela Isley.

I really love your characters.

When I saw the College Humor ad, Greatest Villains of Nerd Culture, “The Imposter,” in your comics, I sighed. I sighed, but I let it go. I am used to knowing, from remarks at comic conventions, from interviews, and from the comics you make, that my readership is not your main concern. I am a queer woman, nearly forty years old. I am not your core demographic. I’ve continued to read DC comic books because I purely love these characters.

Yesterday I saw another of the Greatest Villains comics run as an ad. This one was “The Youth.”

Now, DC, I am giving you all the benefit of the doubt that I can. It’s possible that you intend these ads to be a wry commentary on yourself as the sort of fool who might actually hold the views espoused in the comics. Perhaps you are trying to say that you obviously think calling women and children the greatest threats to nerd culture is ridiculous. I really, really hope you are. Perhaps you are running all six of these comics, including The Alpha Nerd, and I haven’t seen them. Perhaps you intend to do so and haven’t yet.

I’m having some trouble with that interpretation. Without seeing you publish the Alpha Nerd companion to The Imposter and The Youth, what I’ve seen is that first you tell women they are a threat to everything you love, and then you say the same thing about children. DC, this makes me sad. You just called your future readers supervillains who ruin all you hold dear.

I can actually handle you telling me I am a supervillain destroying comics. I am used to that. But you just said that to my kids, DC. You just told my kids — my kids who purely love Justice League, who think Booster Gold is hilarious, who love The Flash, my daughter who is incredibly happy that The Question is a Latina just like her — that you hate and fear them.

Do you actually think that my kids love for The Flash ruins all of your things? Are my kids wrecking all of your most beloved nerd properties? Why are you afraid of them?

If you are truly not afraid of my kids, then you have allowed your advertising to gravely mis-step. The ads you have chosen to permit are profoundly misrepresenting your intentions. The humor you have chosen does not strike up the chain of power. Your College Humor ads are not sticking it to the man, not speaking loud against tyranny, not slyly deflating the rich and mighty. The ads you are running target the disenfranchised, the weak, the edges of your chosen geek sphere. You are targeting women and children, mocking and vilifying them. This is not humor, to strike at those with less power than you. This is bullying.

DC Comics, you’ve made me sad this week. But I don’t think I’ll be sad for long. This week, the Republican party in the United States reaped the rewards of vilifying special interest groups, marginal communities, people of color, not-heterosexuals, people who like science, women, immigrants, the margins and the marginal. The funny thing is, when you add all those marginal groups up, they end up the majority.

Ask the GOP how that’s working out for them.

DC, I won’t be buying your comics for a while. I won’t say I’m done, because I truly hope that you recover from this error in judgment. I want you to do better. I want you to learn and grow and change. I want you to stop thinking my kids are your death knell. I hope that you’ll reconsider your recent promotional materials and advertising, and come up with something based not on fear and anger, but joy and hope. I would love to see ads celebrating how diverse your readers are, how broad your reach is, how comics and nerdery are mainstream. How the culture wars have been won by Batman and video games. How this is a party to which you proudly invite everyone.

I look forward to seeing you again.

With respect and sincere hope for the future,

Sigrid Ellis

Skipping to Conclusions: Young Avengers in the 212

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Marvel recently released a Point One issue of their forthcoming Marvel Now project. In that issue was a short piece featuring the Young Avengers. Or, at least, featuring a Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie story with America Chavez and Loki in a cafe.

There was punching. As you might expect.

Here’s the thing —

Jamie McKelvie posted this to his Tumblr. And that post changes my understanding of America Chavez in all sorts of good ways.

The post contains an image from the comic, of Chavez diving off of a building with the caption “I was on Earth-212.” When I read this in the comic, I dismissed it. Marvel has all sorts of numbered earths, and aside from my knowing that the mainline Marvel U is Earth-616, I don’t pay attention to any of it. But the other piece of McKelvie’s post is a link to the Azealia Banks’ video “212″. This is a deeply obscene song, not at all safe for work. But it is also a song of delightful bravado, of angry swagger and front.

In my estimation there is a difference between insecure swagger and angry swagger. Insecure swagger says “This is who I am; collaborate with my identity and fit into my world where I demand you do.” Angry swagger says “This is who I am; leave me alone to be myself or I will fuck you up.” Both sorts are aggressive, both sorts are arrogant, both sorts are in some ways afraid. But one won’t be satisfied until everyone else validates them. The other wants to be left alone to thrive. I read Banks’ “212″ as the angry sort, the sort that insists on being who and what she is, and fuck you if you think otherwise.

For McKelvie to tell us that the Chavez line is a deliberate Banks reference changes my view of Chavez. Deepens it. I now associate Chavez, a character I know not a thing about, with that kind of swaggering bravado and anger, with self-assurance and self-determination and a little bit of punch-you-in-the-face.

Well, okay, the punching is actually text. Chavez punches Loki in the comic. But comic characters punch each other all the time. With this song running through the back of my head I feel that I better understand why the punching in this case.

America Chavez, with this Tumblr post, went from Another Marvel Hero I Know Nothing About, Probably She’ll Be Fine, to an interesting, angry young woman with a chip on her shoulder and a lot to prove. I pre-ordered the comic already, on faith in the creative team and an interest in the previous Young Avengers. Now I’ll be buying it because I’m interested in America Chavez and her swagger.

Thank you, Jaime. I appreciate your post.

Saga, vol. 1, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

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by Sigrid

Saga is one of the best science fiction stories I’ve read in the past few years. Not merely the best in comics, mind you, but simply one of the best.

I’m not going to recite the plot, here. But there will be spoilers.

the cover of the graphic novel Saga

People argue, constantly, over what science fiction is. Over what it should be, what it’s for. I believe that science fiction is a set of rhetorical tools used to examine stressors in the human present-day. We take a thing that concerns us and we look at it obliquely, we look at it askance, we fictionalize it until we can see the threads of possibility removed from the mire of immediate circumstance. All fiction does this, of course. It’s one of the things fiction is for. Science fiction is one set of tools for the job.

a panel from Saga, a character on the toilet

Saga uses those tool brilliantly. The nature of humanity is prodded and questioned in the various aliens, particularly Prince Robot IV. Friendship is interrogated in the relationships between bounty hunters. Love is examined and defined as the young couple, Alana and Marko, carve (sometimes literally) a new life for themselves and their infant in this war-riddled universe.

a panel from Saga, a character and his large pet cat

But a story isn’t merely a collection of deep, self-important themes. A story must be told through specific characters about whose fates we, the readers, care. And the characters Vaughan and Staples have created are fantastic. They are richly imagined takes on archetypes. This is important. We need the archetype so that we know something of where we stand in this science fiction setting. Yet we need this particular rendition of the type to be new and fresh in order to make the story worth the time spent reading it. To call Saga “Romeo and Juliet in Space” gives you some, limited, information. But that does nothing to tell you how likeable, strong, and engaging Marko and Alana are.

a panel from Saga, Marko and Alana

Saga is a story about parenting, about how having a kid is an undiscovered country that no-one can explain to you ahead of time.

Saga is a story about the rank stupidity of war, about how self-sustaining cultures of conflict can be.

Saga is a story about principles, about what we do for them, with them, and what having them does to us.

Saga is a wry, quirky, flippant surrealist story about the possibilities of the Science Weird literary subgenre.

Saga is a brilliantly-realized work of serial graphic art, full of stunning visuals I hadn’t known were missing from comics until I saw them.

Saga is laugh-out-loud funny.

Saga is a train-wreck story of fore-ordained doom from the first lines of narration.

I highly, highly recommend you give Saga a try. (The first volume is available as a collected edition both in print and digitally.) It may not be to your taste — it is strongly science fiction, it is strongly visual, it does not stop to explain anything you might not get right away. Nonetheless, I ask you to give it a chance. Vaughan and Staples are telling a story of astonishing scope and depth, of intimate detail and nuance. You, Gentle Reader, will want in years to come to have known about Saga from the beginning.

a panel from Saga, Alana and her baby, the words "I want to show our girl the universe."

Q&A #173: Pick a character who has appeared in a film — what does he or she think of their portrayal on screen?

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In Q & A, a weekly feature of Fantastic Fangirls, we ask our staff to tackle a simple question — then open the floor to comments.

Pick a character who has appeared in a film — what does he or she think of their portrayal on screen?

CAROLINE

Wolverine wishes to be clear about one thing: he does not wish that he were taller. That might be something that bothers other strong, tough masculine men and leads them to have insecurity complexes (can you imagine how hard Cyclops would be to take if he were short? That probably explains that Marsden guy’s career.)

Anyway. Wolverine does not in any sense wish he was as tall as Hugh Jackman, who he could totally take in any kind of fight.

He likes the jacket, though. That’s pretty badass.

a still from X-Men; Rogue and Logan on the train

MARIE

Rogue’s a little miffed that Anna Paquin doesn’t assume a proper southern drawl, even though she’s perfectly capable of doing so as that waitress on True Blood. She feels a bit wistful at the film’s choice to have her first join the X-Men under Wolverine instead of the Brotherhood under Mystique. Her younger self on screen seems much less angry and bitter than she was as a teenager. “What if?” bubbles to the top of her mind, a question that plagues her too often. But being who she is, she shakes herself out of it and thinks about asking Professor X if she can get that black leather outfit in her size.

SIGRID

He likes that Heath Ledger fellow. The man seemed to grasp the nuance and complexity of a comedic life.

So what about you? Pick a character who has appeared in a film — what does he or she think of their portrayal on screen?