Desing-A-Lulu Initiative

We at Friends of Lulu are looking for talented artists to donate their talent to Friends of Lulu's Design-A-Lulu Initiative, a fundraising and increased public awareness effort in which we ask artists to dream up their own interpretation of our Lulu mascot.

If you can find the time to help Friends of Lulu by contributing your own unique "Lulu" design, we would most appreciate it.

Here are the specs & pertinent info:

* Our preferred deadline is by the end of January, but we will happily extend it where needed.

* Colored art is preferred but B&W is fine.

* Art should be scanned at 300 dpi.

* Torso-and-head shots preferred, though if you're inspired to draw full-body that's okay.

* Though your initial inspiration can be our original mascot Lulu (and the original Little Lulu, but not too close to her design), unique interpretations are welcome and encouraged.

* Who is "Lulu?" She's the Everywoman who reads and/or creates comic books.

* A variety of ethnicities, races, and body types for your Lulu are welcome as well.

* A request will be made for original art so we can auction it all off in a Lulu fundraising event.

* Selected art will be used for a variety of Friends of Lulu fundraising/ promotional purposes, including website & flyer art, T-shirts, stickers, and buttons.

* We will initially post the art on our blog as it comes in, then later set up a permanent gallery on our site.

Growing up with Wonder Woman.

The very first superhero I can remember knowing in my life was Wonder Woman. I'm pretty sure it was in the campy TV show starring Linda Carter, followed pretty closely by the Superfriends cartoon, but there were a lot of others in the Superfriends cartoon, so my first contact with the whole comics/superhero thing had to be Linda Carter with the invisible plane, the spinning change and the Nazi villains.

And I loved Wonder Woman. I used to run around the house in my underwear yelling that I was Wonder Woman and my jumping rope was my magical lazo (I was four at the time. My cousin was Supergirl and by joint decision, Grandpa was Lex Luthor.) I didn't miss an episode, and I loved to watch Superfriends too, just to see Wonder Woman.

As time went by, I found a lot of other Superheroes. Marvel, in particular, became my favorite, but I still kept that deep love for Wonder Woman, catching her in reruns when I could. But since at the time Wonder Woman was in licencing limbo down here in Mexico, I didn't get the chance to read her until later, when a local editorial printed the first Post-Crisis issues in a magazine entitled "Superman presents" (This is, btw, a very common practice here to avoid having to register a hundred titles you're not sure will sell. So everything is showcased by the titles that do sell. Justice League, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and Hawk and Dove were showcased by Superman. Batgirl, and some other minis were showcased by Batman. Every single story of the Marvel Universe was showcased by Spiderman. But that's for another post). I got to read the whole beginning, ending with Ares' original defeat and then... well, a couple of mixed issues. Because when you have to share space with other six or seven titles, plus Superman... well, there wasn't a lot of space for Wonder Woman to shine.

And since the Superman title was weekly back then, well, by the time that Wonder Woman had finally managed to defeat Ares, Superman had had a couple of adventures with a more experienced Wonder Woman. So actually *following* Wonder Woman was a bit hard for me.

So, despite her being the first ever superhero I loved, I have never continuously collected her comic. When getting the originals became easier, I did try to follow her, but as it was around when Zero Hour hit, well, continuity was an absolute mess and to make things worse, not only Diana wasn't Wonder Woman, but also I had no idea who the Banas were, why Hipolita was acting so weird and in general, what the hell was going on (I think the only thing that I didn't found strange was that Diana didn't had a secret identity, but that was because after loving Diana Prince, I had finally become used to the non-secret identity having Princess). I would flip through the comics I found at the LCS, and be absolute puzzled at what the hell was going on and not a single story made me want to buy the comic and say "Ok, from here on, I can try and figure out what went before as I keep buying the monthlies". Except for the story where she cut her hair. Not because of the story, I honestly can't remember any plot points of that particular story, but I loved the idea of a short haired Wonder Woman. It made for an interesting visual change.

Now. A little less than a year ago I stopped buying DC comics completely. My decision came from an interesting string of events. With Identity Crisis and the rape retcon, I decided I would only buy DC comics if they weren't written by Meltzer and there was one of my favorite characters on it. With Countdown and Blue Bettle's death, I decided that next time a favorite character of mine died, no matter the gender, that was it. No more DC comics. And then... they went and killed Kon, who was the one responsible to getting me back into reading DC. So, no more DC comics.

Except that Wonder Woman was always first, and if there was someone who could make me go back and buy DC would be a *good* Wonder Woman comic. When Allan Heinberg was named as the writer for the relaunch, I was pretty happy as I loved his Young Avengers, but I decided to cautiously wait. After all, while I hadn't bought Infinity Crisis, thanks to the good people at Scans_daily I had a pretty good idea of what had happened and that it wasn't exactly nice for Diana. And while I don't particulary hate the new secret identity or the idea of a romance between Diana and Nemesis (Mostly because until now, for me, Nemesis was a non-character. I knew he existed, but that's about it), the whole late schedule sort of made me glad I had waited. Then came Jodi Picoult, who, at least for me, was also an unknown since I haven't read any of her novels. And even for a sort of newbie like me, the characterization seemed off. I will not say anything about Amazons Attack! since I think everything about it has been said. Lets just say it was the mini that made me glad I had stopped buying DC a year before.

Gail Simone's first issue has been met by mostly positive criticism. I think every critic I read has loved it, and what I've read, I liked. But I'm still unsure. Mostly, because this has been a year where editorial mandates can mess up the work of any writer. Just look at One More Day, and that's pretty much the whole argument. Gail can, and is, amazing as a writer, but if word comes from upstairs that Wonder Woman has to have a retarded storyline, no matter how much she shines, the final idea will still be terribly bad.

And I'm through giving money to terrible bad ideas.

Guess what? It wasn't a joke. (Yes. Wizard again)

I went to the FLCS today, after a week or so of not going, and they had the latest Wizard out. The one with the 300 cover. And, despite what everyone had said on the subject, that it was just a one time thing, that it was a joke that had backfired and so on... well, Wizard is still claiming to be the #1 Pop Entertainment magazine for men.

What I found ironic is that, at least around my country? 300 was a lot more enjoyed by women than by men. Sure, the spartans were manly men who did manly men things, but they still were manly half naked men. Eye candy, you know?

And it doesn't really change anything, except that, well, they sort of lost the right to say it was a joke. Unless they're trying for that 'three times make it funny' idea. And if they are? Sorry to say, I doubt it will work.

Can we lay this particular trope to rest, please?

This is both about movies and comics, so bear with me. We're probably all aware of the Women in Refrigerator's phenomena by now. And we're probably all aware of the most usual complaint about it "But it happens to men too! It's not misogyny!" To which the answer is usually "But it doesn't happen to men as often as it happens to women." And that can't be denied because there's more male characters in comic books than female. And when a fridging happens to a male, more often than not is either a C-list character or a character who happens to be a minority. (To be an actual fridging, by the way, the character in question can't return from the death or the injury. So Batman and Superman do not count.)

Now, I am a fan of crime movies. Detective movies with grizzly crimes and machiavellian serial killers are one of my passion, so as soon as someone mentions the word "detective" in a review, I'm more often than not inspired to see it. So today I was about to watch Along Came a Spider, with Morgan Freeman, and I was quite ready for a good movie after Law and Order SVU.

The beginning of the movie, for those who haven't seen it, follows Alex Cross (Freeman) and his team as they are getting ready to capture a serial killer/rapist with the help of Alex's partner, whose name I forgot, who is working undercover as the serial killer's date. During the bust, the killer discovers that his date is a cop, she tries to arrest him but as he hits the brakes, she accidentally shoots him when she's thrown off her seat (Although she's wearing a seatbelt, so I'm not sure of how does that work) and he loses control of the car, breaking of the bridge dangling just so that he falls to his death, and she's alive for enough time as to let Freeman try and save her and lock eyes with her as she finally plummels to her death.

Which was about the moment when I turned off the tv, went to make iced tea, and then came back to pop the Fracture DVD that I had rented.

Now, I didn't got annoyed because it was yet another female character killed just to create angst for the male character. I got annoyed because right there I knew I was going to suffer through two hours of Alex emoting because he couldn't save his partner, feeling inadequate and then finally getting his act together to catch the bad guy.

As I've seen in dozen of other cop, action, and horror films, as well in a thousand comic books. It's called Dead Sidekick in tv tropes, it's called WiR when it's a woman, and it's been around more or less since Achilles decided to reenter the war after Patroclus was killed.

Honestly? Enough is enough. Let's find someway else to motivate our main characters, someway else to make them angst for an hour before kicking ass in the second act. Dead sidekicks, girlfriends, boyfriends, gay neighbours are way, way overdone. Hell, they parody that on the Simpsons already! And in Naked Gun. I guess that by the time a particular trope becomes a joke, is well past the time it can't be used seriously in an argument, at least not in its most straightforward way.

In my mind, I ended up reminding another movie that starts with a huge catastrophe for the main hero, who ends up angsting to the point of attempting suicide for the rest of the movie. The Bone Collector, which leaves Denzel Washington's character paralytic from the neck down. And that's different because the catastrophe happens to the character directly, so one can understand how it affects him (And not in a 'you touched my stuff' way) and not think "Hell, get over it. Cops die. It's sad, but it happens." every time the dead sidekick is brought up.

The thing is, in those 10 or so minutes of Along Came a Spider I perfectly understood the problem with the WiR and dead sidekick situation. I love those type of stories, I have a huge collection of crime movies dvds. And as much as I love Morgan Freeman's acting, I just couldn't bring myself to keep watching it, just because I knew how it was all going to end. When the hero's wife gets killed, we know he'll stop at nothing for a (temporary, at least in comic book world) revenge. When the sidekick gets shot, we know that we're up for a couple of years of angsting until we get a new sidekick. When a family member gets killed in a dark alley, it will get repeated so much that it will end up in a bad joke and a tag line (Anyone remember when the old saying about comic book death was 'All comic book deaths are temporary except for Bucky, Jason Todd and Uncle Ben? Or, more recently, the current batman meme "My parents are dead"?)

When things get to the point where your audience can figure out the ending in ten minutes or three pages of your comic, well, then it surely it is the time to stop killing sidekicks, family members and girlfriends just for a couple of minutes of angst and a shocking splash page, isn't it?

Comic book magazines and the people who read them.

I've been thinking about the whole Wizard situation for all week, but I haven't been able to sit down and write my thoughts on it until now. Maybe it's a bit too late, or whatever, but I wanted to add my two devalued peso cents.

First, a disclaimer. I've bought two Wizards in my whole life. When I honestly cared about getting the news from the industry in a print form, I wasn't exactly swimming in money and for one Wizard I could get three comics so... guess who won? And when I finally got to read one, I found it quite lacking. That was in 2004, and I honestly didn't notice or cared if they had a match the rack feature or not, and I'm not going to go there and look for them to see if they had. What I do know is that there was absolutely nothing in them that would make me want to buy another one.

During all this discussion now, I wasn't thinking about Wizard and their new/old readership. I was thinking about how people on both sides of the debate seems to think that Wizard is dying, and that it needs either to secure its readership or find new one. And then I thought about the situation of information magazines in my own country. Although there's a long tradition of comics in Mexico, going from the fifties, both translating american comics and creating our own (although there's been less of that lately), and of course, manga, there has not been a successful comic book magazine in almost as long time. We've seen imported Spain magazines, and at least three attempts to do a similar magazine to Wizard, of which only one has been somewhat successful of late, called Comic Zone (I am not sure of how well is it doing, but I know it's still on print). On the other hand, manga-only magazines are quite a business, and many editorials have not one, but up to four magazines dedicated only to manga (And that's not counting the Hentai manga magazines), which range from the heavy fan-service images, to the heavy on the shonen ai side of the images and they all sell. Sure, the ones with more fan-service sell better, but even those have a somewhat balanced content for both female and male readers.

And neither Comic Zone, nor it's predecessors like Cuas! Comics y más, were as heavy on pandering with the T&A as Wizard has become of late. I am not a constant buyer of Comic Zone, but there has only been one Wonder Woman cover, as far as I remember, and there are honest articles with critical information. And for some reason, the Wizard in spanish didn't sell as well as it's precedent, and it stopped being shipped for Mexico. I do remember that most of the criticism against it was that it had no information, just hype. Which is, of course, the one criticism even die hard fans have against the original Wizard.

I've heard a lot of stories about why a comic book magazine doesn't work in Mexico, ranging from 'there's no interest', to 'there's no industry to support them'. But on the other hand, manga magazines keep coming out, keep selling, and keep getting new readers.

So maybe, just maybe, Wizard -and any comic book magazine- should take note of that. The manga information magazines aren't lacking in the sexy women department, the fan-service is quite high in them... but they still manage to be all inclusive, adding some fan-service for the women who read the magazine, adding actual information that can be of interest to anyone, not just to a small group.

(BTW, I'm not in any way proposing that Wizard should start including more information about manga. Or a 'match the package' game as the one I've seen somewhere in the discussion. I don't have the answer of what Wizard should add to be more inclusive. I just know that I don't want to read about how Infinitive Secret wars or whatever is going to be the greatest thing ever just because one cover, I want to read exactly what kind of *real* impact would that storyline have in the end. Or maybe, a critique *after* the crossover to see if it really was as good as the publishers promised)

The tale of one brave little hobbit

I'm suffering from insomnia, and the whole bruhaha with Warner Bros. and female leads in action films reminded me of something I wanted to write eons ago.
When I was in junior high, like many others of my age, I read Lord of the Rings. I can at least say that I did read it at the same time as all my class, at it was mandatory reading for that course. And, like many others, I fell in love with Tolkien's careful constructed universe.
But for some reason, call it bad translation, call it that by the end of the first chapter , my version of Lord of the Rings had a very particular difference.
See, I was throughly convinced that Merry was, in fact, a girl hobbit. Not only that, but that 'she' was Pippin's wife.
(Later I found out that I wasn't the only one. A lot of my friends here in Mexico made the same conclusion. So I can blame translation.)
Now, I went through the whole Fellowship and part of the Two Towers with this idea in mind, following brave Merry as she did exactly all the same things that Pippin did, sometimes being braver than he was, and being utterly terrified when the orcs took them, and all that jazz. It wasn't until the beginning of the last battle, when I found out my small mistake.
The thing is, it didn't matter. Merry was equally cool for me as a man as 'she' had been as a woman.
Of course, it was just my childhood version of the Lord of the Rings. But sometimes I wonder, if there had been a woman in the Fellowship, would it have been any less successful? I'm not talking about gender-bendering Aragorn, Frodo, Sam or Boromir -I believe those four really have to be male to work as characters. One of the strongest moments -for me- on the books is when Eowyn kills the Witch King, so we know that Tolkien could write strong women. And while I understand why there weren't any women in the fellowship, I can't stop wondering what if?

In fact... how much of the succsess of some of the great adventure and action epics we all love would change if one of the characters was a women instead of a man?

Because women don't sell.

It's a bit ironic that after my last two entries that were about the cool leading ladies I had found in the two last movies I saw (A trend I plan to continue as I have a couple more 'cool movies' in the to watch list), I come to the net to read that an exec in WB is saying that the company won't produce any more movies with female leads.

It is even more ironic as I had just seen the new Jodie Foster movie trailer, and upon watching it I thought "Wow! that looks like I movie I will love to see in theaters!" (And I'm still on line to see Invaders, just for Nicole Kidman, so there :P)

Now, I'm going to say something someone probably said already, and probably was said better, but I won't feel good with myself unless I say it too. And this is: "What? So the policy changed from 'very few films with leading women characters to no films with leading women characters?" Because a simple search at the IMDB showed that there hasn't been that many films with leading women characters lately distributed by WB, much less 'action' films with leading women characters.

Looking for movies with only a female leading character, that is not equal, or secondary to a male character led me to find... well, Wonder Woman, theoretically for the 2009, but honestly, who can believe that? The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, for 2008, which I guess would be cataloged as a 'chick flick', PS I love you, that is also a romance film, The Invasion, that is one of the quoted films as cause of the decision, Nancy Drew, another family film, The Reaping, and of course, The Brave One. In the 'female lead and male lead' category I can find One Missed Call, unless they seriously change the original script, I guess Sweeny Todd, judging by the trailer. Out of the first 130 titles, not counting tv series like Gossip Girl. So, in truth, this ain't really a change of politics.

But with such a small percentage of movies with lone female protagonist, how can they decide it's a female protagonist the thing that makes those movies go unseen? Doesn't that go against the comic book idea that you need a busty, usually half dressed female character to sell your comic? (Or is it that no Hollywood actress would agree to wear what the superheroines wear?)

I will be honest. I will go and watch The Brave One, and Invasion, not just because I want to see them, but because hell, anything that proves that it's not true that women in movies don't sell is good in my book. And I'll go and watch Sweenny Todd because there's at least one cool female in that trailer. And then? Well, thankfully Stephen King's The Mist isn't by Warner Bros, so I guess I can live without their movies.

Unless of course I find out they make no money out of movies shown in Mexico. Then, I'll have to look another way to vote with my wallet.

Dead and Breakfast Cool Ladies

Due to a lot of real life and work related issues, I haven't read many comics lately, so, my blog posts can't be about comics unless someone really want to know my opinion on Elf Quest, ten years later. And I write way too much about manga in my job to come home and write a bit more about manga, right now.

Anyway, on to what made me start writing today.

Confession time: I love B-movies. It's my guilty pleasure, and the goriest, the better. If there's a chainsaw in there, I'm in heaven. I like good horror movies, Shaun of the Dead is my current favorite, but B-movies have a special something that makes them very special. And yes, that love makes that sometimes, renting a movie is quite dangerous, since we can end with something very, very bad. Near unwatchable.

So, Dead and Breakfast was a surprise. We (my friend Sam and I) saw the trailer when we rented Apocalypse Alien. Word of warning though, don't rent Apocalypse Alien. Not even a hard core fan of Bruce Cambpell could find something watchable there. But the Dead and Breakfast trailer looked fun, had zombies line dancing, and well... As my friend Au says, Pigeons learn faster than us.

It started bad, and cheezy, and so cliché filled that I felt like I was playing my Horror Movie bingo card. You had the group of young adults who may take drugs in a small van getting lost and going to a small little creepy town, you had your small creepy house, manned by your tall and creepy old asian guy (Played by none other than David Carradine, no less) and before you got any real feeling for any of the characters, people start getting wacked with axes.

(I just have to say, though, that the songs are hilarious)

Anyway, in the group there are three women. I had labeled them as 'the annoying one', 'the blonde one' and 'the one who won't keep screaming and I hope she dies before the first half an hour is gone'.

And while 'the annoying one', played by Bianca Lawson (Kendra from Buffy) didn't made me change my mind (Seriously, who starts discussing with her boyfriend about their relationship during a zombie outbreak?), the other two? Blew my mind.

'The blonde one', Sara, played by Ever Carradine, somehow passed from being 'the friend we brought along becuase... we needed a third' to 'the girl who actually went around the house looking for something to defend ourselves with' to, in a moment that totally strains the disbelief, but somehow manages to work, being the one who makes a shotgun out of household items. She also is the one who figures things out, and the one who gets the coolest fight scene in the movie when presented with the typical 'evil bad guy is coming to get you' moment. She's just that cool.

And the other one? Sure, she starts screaming. And she only starts doing something after she gets paired up with the cute guy. But she reacts in a way that's pretty natural for someone who is suddenly trying to survive getting killed by their best friends, then has to watch as someone opens a dead body, removes their bones, and cleans them to make stakes. All in all, the fact that she didn't faint, makes her a cool lady in my book.

Also, there's something quite odd with the male characters, and it's the fact that we never get a male hero in this movie. Or, rather, the role of the male hero keeps changing, as the guys drop faster than flies. The 'good guy' who prays over accidental roadkill is the first one to get zombified and thus becomes the evil guy quite early in the film, the 'rebel without a cause' starts quite well as the leader, trying to find his missing friends, until he gets beheaded just as the first big fight erupts, then the 'idiotic boyfriend' steps up as the main character, keeping the girls safe and in general acting like our stereotypical hero of a horror movie, Ash-school, until he too gets zombified way, way early in the second fight. Then the male lead becomes the sheriff of the town (Played by Papa Winchester, I wish I could remember his name), which is all good until he too gets killed less than half an hour after he became the one to listen to. Finally, we get the mystic drifter, the one who knows what the hell is going on about, who, although he survives, gets knocked out of the fight right before he can stop the zombies.

Who stops the zombies, do you ask? Well, the girl who kept screaming that they were all going to die.

And while I would've loved it if clumsy boyfriend survived (He had a nice death, btw, getting himself chopped with a chainsaw), it's an interesting take on why girls tend to survive horror films. It's not just because they run. It's also because they know when to run, and when to take a stand. (Or at least, my favorite horror movie lead ladies know when to do that)

Die Hard has hardcore heroines

Ok, this post came to be for two reasons. Reason number one, yesterday I went to see Live Free or Die Hard and I'm still on an adrenaline high. Reason number two, while answering an anonymous on my previous Girl Characters post, and chatting with my friend Leigh I remembered something that happened during the movie and it all makes sense in my head so...

Die Hard.

(Warning, there will be spoilers here)

If I tell anyone that Die Hard has kickass heroes, no one will doubt me. Maybe the plural part, but come on, Jhon McClane is worth at least two Batmans (Sue me, I'm highly biased). The man could take out 12 terrorists without shoes, and how cool is that?

However, if I say that the women in Die Hard are kickass, I will be meet by blank stares.

But stay with me. I'll make my point. I swear.

See Die Hard 1. We meet Holly Gennero, and just by that name we know that she's a take charge lady. She's married, yeah, but she put her career first. She loves her husband, but she had to do some hard choices, and her career came first. And she might sound a bit bitchy, compared to mr. I just bought our kid a giant teddy bear, but she's a take charge kind of woman. When the terrorists arrive, she doesn't lose her cool. She's the one person who confronts Hans, and in the moment she realizes that her husband is the one making short work of the terrorists, she makes damn sure she won't make things more difficult to him. She might not be out there shooting guns and breaking necks, but she keeps her cool, and even at the end, having a gun point blank at her face, she tries to stay calm enough not to be on the way of her husband.

Now that's a cool lady.

See Die Hard 2. She's still Holly McClean, she's still out of the action for most of the film, but then we realize that the one who actually took the idiot reporter to task for what he did was her. We saw her punch him at the end of the first one, mostly as a gag, but now we find that she actually broke two of his teeth, AND that there's a restriction order against her (Why, when he put her and her husband in danger, I don't know). Anyway, when everyone in the plane gets hysterical over the reporter's irresponsible reveal of the terrorist plot, Holly doesn't panic, she doesn't get hysterical. She grabs a taser and takes care of the idiot. THEN she goes to pray, and hopes as hell that someone down there is doing their job.

Man, she's still a cool lady.

I don't remember much of the third movie, to be honest. It's the one I like less of the three, but I do remember that there are no important women in that film, even when Holly is still an important part of Jhon's life.

Which bring us to Live Free or Die Hard.

While there was a woman henchmen in Die Hard 3 -and I honestly don't remember what happens to her- Mai, the girlfriend of the main baddie this time, is as take charge as her boyfriend. In fact, she's more of a take charge type of person, as we notice from the beginning that the henchmen report to her first, and later to her boyfriend. And when she fights McClean? That scene alone was worth my ticket.

Why? Well, for starters, it's a vicious fight.

Vicious in both parts. While the camera cuts and we never see his fist connect to her face, it is obvious that he does punch her with all his strength. And she answers in kind. She, in fact, throws him out of the window, forcing him to then have to use a van to stop her.

There was nothing in that fight that required that Mai was a woman. There was nothing in that fight that requiered a male henchman. Mai had to be there, because her character was the type that would be there, and the type that, after McClane did short work of her other henchmen, would take things in her hands. She dies, of course, but she goes down kicking ass, and even her last action is, in a mirror to that of Alan Rickman, an attempt to shoot McClane. (It also has to be noted that, of all the bad guys it is her the one who thinks of bringing up the file on Jhon McClane. Smart, strong, and evil. Cool woman)

Someone next to me complained that the scene was violent against woman. I answered "What? Did you expect him to ask her to surrender nicely?" Because that would've been a lot more disrespectful, and something seen in many action movies. The woman fighter gets the upper hand because the main bad guy (Or the main good guy, depending of the type of film) underestimated her. And of course 'gentlemen don't hit women' which is a perfectly good thing in real life (In my book, anyone who hits anyone else is an idiot. Violence doesn't solve anything) but in writing someone who is trying to save his own life... One can forgive a moment of not caring of the gender of the person pointing the gun at you.

So yeah, Mai dies. And she dies after the longest, coolest fight scene in the whole film. Because man, of all the henchmen that the main baddie had, she was the coolest. (Or maybe, second coolest. Spiderboy was cool too)

And then there's Lucy Gennero, Jhon's daughter who in her mom's tradition is now denying his surname. That happens to McClean a lot. And of course, the terrorists kidnap her. But from moment one is obvious that she's not that dumb, as she does ask for identification before trusting the fake FBI guys -so she can't distinguish a fake ID. So can't I. That doesn't make any of us dumb- and she is dragged kicking and biting to the main bad's headquarters.

And when the bad guy lets her talk through a walkie to her dad so she'll beg for her life, what does she say?

"There are still five."

At gunpoint, kidnapped, just having heard that she's going to die, and what does she do? She tells her father how many terrorist are still there. She doesn't scream, she doesn't cry, she doesn't beg.

That's a hard core heroine.

That's the kind of heroines I like to read about. If it makes sense for her to literally kick ass, then have her literally kick ass. If it doesn't make sense, if she has to be kidnapped and tied up, well, kidnap and tie her up, but don't reduce her to a drooling mess of quivering fear if it doesn't make sense for her to be like that.

I could guarantee there would be less complains from women readers if that happened, you know?

Ok, explain me this

Sometime between 3:00 am and 7:00 am this morning, someone hacked the GirlWonder.org page and forums. I know the hours just because I had a bit of a trouble sleeping and read a couple of messages at 2:45, and it was working fine.

There was an argument there about how some lowlifes tend to shut down feminist blogs with threats and abuse, and some people were actually defending their reasoning saying it was just because they were bullies, not because they were mysoginist.

And then the forum went kaput.

Now, the GirlWonder project has been subject of a lot of criticism. The demand for a case for Stephanie Brown, the fourth Robin, has been labeled as 'fan entitlement' and there has been other, less polite insults thrown around against the forums, their members, and the bloggers who write for GirlWonder, especially Karen of Girls Read Comics (and they're pissed). Apparently, the idea of women reading and writing about comics and what they would like to see in comics is so threatening that some idiot had just to try and shut them down.

What I honestly don't understand is why. I can sort of see the moron-logic behind the spam attacks, the threats and the insults at forums and bloggers. That is meant to frighten and annoy to the point of either silencing the blogger or make it impossible for anyone to carry an intelligent conversation trough the comments or forums. It's hard to do that when a lot of /b/tards are posting crap, both metaphorically and literally, unfortunately. But to shut down the forum completely? Hack their way in and just shut it up? Where they really that threatened by what was being said in the forum?

I used to think the one wonder of Internet is that everyone had a voice, even those who said things we weren't comfortable with. Obviously, that is not the case.

Girl Characters and me

This is the third time I start writing this, and I hope this time, I can finish.

I've been reading a lot in forums about women characters in comics (Specially in superhero comics) and how some fanboys (Because I can't call them other way) insist that since comic books are made for guys, and guys like their women with revealing costumes and we should all shut up because after all it's just comics and why are we doing a mountain over this? Girls have manga, right? So they shouldn't complain.

(I end up wondering why it's always 'Girls' and never 'Women' but that's a consideration for another post)

And of course, this kind of discussion tend to end with either the fact that those who complain are jealous of fictional characters, or the old tried maxim: "Well, if you don't like it, do your own."

There are a lot of problems with that particular phrase, and much better bloggers have already dissected it to death, so I won't repeat what has been said.

What got me thinking, and, in time, caused this post and it's previous non-posted versions, was that yeah. Most of the women (And men) complaining about the sexism in comic books now, if they want to create comics, will most probably not do all the things that they don't like in comics. That's true. But I was thinking... what about all those future creators who do not spend any time in comic book forums and are not familiarized with the community and this type of discussions? The ones who are reading comic books and manga right now and met every possible type of awesome guys and so-so girls? (And if you don't believe how much a girl reader can hate a female character, go hang around an anime forum for a while. Even the ones who hate yaoi take female-character bashing to an art)

Back in 1994 there was this mexican comic book, drawn manga style. The main character was *everything* one could come to expect of a stereotypical manga heroine. She was cute, bubbly, had pink hair, was a professional pop singer, day dreamed about the guy she wanted to be her boyfriend, and even when she had the whole army of hell trying to kill her, she never did anything to defend herself. Her friends (Two guys, and a girl) did all the saving. Man, I hated her.

The punchline?

I had created her.

Her name is Irene, and she was my first professionally published heroine. I had started writing her story as a half a joke, you see? But in the joke, I made her... well, just as every single heroine of the manga I read at the time. Clumsy, boy obsessed, fashion victim. Incapable of realizing she was in dire danger, or trying to save her own life. I came to hate her so much that even when she was the main character of the story, I wrote a complete chapter where she didn't appear at all (Which my partner at the time called me on. But I don't think she realized how much I hated to write about miss bubbly head)

Now, the thing is... She was liked. A lot. Even when her story had been approved by the editor with the clear intention that it was only going to last for three issues (And that's a story for another day), it became the most popular story of that particular magazine, and the only one that lasted for more than four issues. And when the magazine was canceled, everyone asked what happened to the characters, as the story hadn't been finished.

I moved on. I worked on other stories, with other characters, and every now and then someone asked me when would I finish I.Doll. And after a long time, I sat and asked myself... why do I hate her so much? Why did I created a character with so many things that bother me? And I looked around at my comic book collection, with the Sailor Moons, and Fushigi Yugi, and a ton of shojo, and then how Jean Gray might be the world's most powerful mutant every five years, but she still will get killed and left powerless, and I re-read a lot of the things I had been reading at the moment I started my career, and I realized that... she wasn't that different from the 'nice girls' I read about back then. Hell, it even coincided with the Infinity Wars at Marvel, where Sue has to absorb Malice and become 'bad' to be the team leader. And, even when I *hate* the idea that one has to use sexy images to sell a good story, I even did a cover in which my heroine (15 years old, btw) was completely naked. And the editor let it be published. To this date, I don't know who was the worst offender there. Me for drawing it -even if it was a non-sexual nude- or him for not pulling back that cover.

I wrote my pinkhaired nighmare the way I did because 'that was the way comic book heroines are'. It was it, right, it was what sold, it was what was expected. And yes, I was being a sheep, but it was the influence I had. It wasn't until I was exposed to a whole lot more of comics -and, more important, to a whole lot more of comic book creators- that I realized that I was going at it completely wrong.

And it was mostly due to influence. And I'm not going to say that every single creator is responsible for what one 16 year old hopeful creator did when she was young -or that every single girl who reads manga and comics would come to the same conclusion that I did. But then, I see y!Gallery, with many very talented artists who simply shun the female form and have wrote that 'girls are icky' being women themselves. And at the office, I see comic after comic that is written by women and still propagates the very same problems we're complaining about and when I ask those creators "Why are you writing your heroine as a useless pinup model who needs the hot cute guy to save her?" they will most of the time answer either a) Because I don't like girls, and writing about girls is boring, b) well, it's my style. And (insert popular mangaka here) does the same, or, my personal favorite c) Guys draw girls with huge boobs, because that's what they like, so I draw cute guys all the time because I don't like girls.

Like most of my posts, I don't have a very good conclusion. I know that the industry gives a very clear image to those who are starting now to read comics, and I'm pretty sure that a lot of people don't like that image (Just look at the Heroes for Hire cover. Or, leaving american comics for a moment, the Nymphette situation with Seven Seas). Of course the question is... why there's so much resistance to change that image?

New Webcomic.

Ok. So I decided to get off my comfortable chair, and during a bit of rehabilitation (Broken arms are a bitch, I just thank every single deity in the universe I still can draw, and that the broken part of the elbow doesn't affect that) and re-start an old project. It's a webcomic, and it will start running this Monday (July 23). Hope you enjoy it (And that this time, I don't lose my blog password -again-)

More on Friends of Lulu Awards Nominations. Now, open to all.

Lulu Award Nominations and Voting Extended to Non-Members!

In an effort to reach out to and recognize an even greater sphere of women creators, Friends of Lulu has decided for the first time ever to open the nominations and voting of our Lulu Awards to non-members! In order to accommodate our new voters, the deadline for nominations has been extended through May 7th, 2007!

In case you’re new to Friends of Lulu, our annual Lulu Awards bring honor and recognition to the most inspiring and noteworthy women in the comic book industry, as well as the efforts, achievements, and works that reflect Friends of Lulu’s goals. It’s up to you, Lulu members, to make the nominations and to vote for this year’s shining stars!

Nominations for the Awards are made by and voted on by current members of Friends of Lulu. The Lulu Awards are handed out during our evening awards ceremony at Comic-Con International in San Diego each year. (It’s always a blast!)

Start thinking about who you want to nominate for this year’s awards.The Women Cartoonists Hall of Fame nominees must have published work, whether self-published, company-published, or web-published. An individual cannot win more than once.

Past winners include: Roberta Gregory, Naughty Bits, Artistic Licentiousness - 2006; Rumiko Takahashi - 2005; Lynda Barry - 2004; Wendy Pini - 2003; Lynn Johnston - 2002; Trina Robbins, Hilda Terry (tie) – 2001; Marge Henderson Buell - 2000; Ramona Fradon - 1999; Dale Messick - 1998; Marie Severin - 1997.

The Women of Distinction award is designed to recognize those women who have made considerable contributions to the comics industry in non-creator roles like publishing, editing, reporting or retailing.

Past winners include: Diana Schutz, Editor, Dark Horse - 2006; Heidi MacDonald - 2005; Maggie Thompson - 2004

The Lulu of the Year Award honors the creator(s), book or other project whose work best exemplifies Friends of Lulu’s mission.

Past winners include: SCHOLASTIC/GRAPHIX, Publisher: Babysitters Club, Queen Bee, Breaking Up - 2006; Shaenon Garrity, Girlamatic.com, Modern Tales; Flight Anthology (tie) - 2005; www.Girlamatic. com, Lea Hernandez, Editor - 2004; Free Comic Book Day, Joe Field, Organizer - 2003; Sequential Tart, Marcia Allass, Editor - 2002; Go Girl!, Trina Robbins and Anne Timmons - 2001; From Girls to Grrlz: A History of Women’s Comics from Teens to Zines, Trina Robbins - 2000; Scary Godmother, Jill Thompson - 1999; Action Girl, Sarah Dyer, Editor - 1998; The Great Women Superheroes, Trina Robbins - 1997.

The Kim Yale Award nominees must have published work, whether self-published, company-published, or web-published. Nominees must be nominated for this category within three years of their first published work. An individual may not be nominated more than twice, and cannot win more than once. The award is named for comics writer Kim Yale, a founding Lulu member who passed away in 1997.

Past winners include: Leigh Dragoon, By the Wayside - 2006; Vera Brosgol (Flight, Hopeless Savages B-Sides) - 2005; Lark Pien (Long Tail Kitty) - 2004, Raina Telgemeier (Take-Out Comics) - 2003; Ashley-Jane Nicholaus (Haven) & Gisèle Legacé (Cool Cat Studio) (tie) - 2002; Anne Timmons (GoGirl!) - 2001; Rachel Hartman (Amy Unbounded) - 2000; Devin Grayson (writer, Catwoman, Black Widow) - 1999; Carla Speed McNeil (Finder) - 1998; Jessica Abel (Artbabe) - 1997.

So here’s the deal. We need you to nominate the people you think should receive the awards this year. Review the nominee requirements, think about who stands out in your mind for each award.

Then go to our online nomination form (http://www. friends-lulu. org/awards06nomf orm.php) to submit your nominations.

If you don’t have internet access you can send in your nominations via snail mail to:

Lulu Award Nomination 2007
83 Russell St
Suite 3R
Brooklyn, NY 11222

Nominations are due MAY 7, 2007.

Nominate whomever you wish, up to THREE per category, as long as they fit the requirements. If you are able, please include additional information (i.e. publisher, date of publication) about each individual, so we can verify the nomination quicker and easier.

We couldn’t do it without you, so if you are interested in sponsoring the Lulu Awards, please contact the board (board [AT] friends-lulu [DOT] org) for more info.

Calling for Nominees for the Lulu Awards.

I suck at formal introductions, so I'll go straight and to the point with the official announcement:

Nominations Now Being Accepted for the 2007 Lulu Awards!

It’s that time of year again—time to nominate the brightest and best for the 2007 Lulu Awards! Our annual Lulu Awards bring honor and recognition to the most inspiring and noteworthy women in the comic book industry, as well as the efforts, achievements, and works that reflect Friends of Lulu’s goals. It’s up to you, Lulu members, to make the nominations and to vote for this year’s shining stars!

Nominations for the Awards are made by and voted on by current members of Friends of Lulu. The Lulu Awards are handed out during our evening awards ceremony at Comic-Con International in San Diego each year. (It’s always a blast!)

Start thinking about who you want to nominate for this year’s awards.The Women Cartoonists Hall of Fame nominees must have published work, whether self-published, company-published, or web-published. An individual cannot win more than once.

Past winners include: Roberta Gregory, Naughty Bits, Artistic Licentiousness - 2006; Rumiko Takahashi - 2005; Lynda Barry - 2004; Wendy Pini - 2003; Lynn Johnston - 2002; Trina Robbins, Hilda Terry (tie) – 2001; Marge Henderson Buell - 2000; Ramona Fradon - 1999; Dale Messick - 1998; Marie Severin - 1997.

The Women of Distinction award is designed to recognize those women who have made considerable contributions to the comics industry in non-creator roles like publishing, editing, reporting or retailing.

Past winners include: Diana Schutz, Editor, Dark Horse - 2006; Heidi McDonald - 2005; Maggie Thompson - 2004

The Lulu of the Year Award honors the creator(s), book or other project whose work best exemplifies Friends of Lulu’s mission.

Past winners include: SCHOLASTIC/GRAPHIX, Publisher: Babysitters Club, Queen Bee, Breaking Up - 2006; Shaenon Garrity, Girlamatic.com, Modern Tales; Flight Anthology (tie) - 2005; www.Girlamatic. com, Lea Hernandez, Editor - 2004; Free Comic Book Day, Joe Field, Organizer - 2003; Sequential Tart, Marcia Allass, Editor - 2002; Go Girl!, Trina Robbins and Anne Timmons - 2001; From Girls to Grrlz: A History of Women’s Comics from Teens to Zines, Trina Robbins - 2000; Scary Godmother, Jill Thompson - 1999; Action Girl, Sarah Dyer, Editor - 1998; The Great Women Superheroes, Trina Robbins - 1997.

The Kim Yale Award nominees must have published work, whether self-published, company-published, or web-published. Nominees must be nominated for this category within three years of their first published work. An individual may not be nominated more than twice, and cannot win more than once. The award is named for comics writer Kim Yale, a founding Lulu member who passed away in 1997.

Past winners include: Leigh Dragoon, By the Wayside - 2006; Vera Brosgol (Flight, Hopeless Savages B-Sides) - 2005; Lark Pien (Long Tail Kitty) - 2004, Raina Telgemeier (Take-Out Comics) - 2003; Ashley-Jane Nicholaus (Haven) & Gisèle Legacé (Cool Cat Studio) (tie) - 2002; Anne Timmons (GoGirl!) - 2001; Rachel Hartman (Amy Unbounded) - 2000; Devin Grayson (writer, Catwoman, Black Widow) - 1999; Carla Speed McNeil (Finder) - 1998; Jessica Abel (Artbabe) - 1997.

So here’s the deal. We need you to nominate the people you think should receive the awards this year. Review the nominee requirements, think about who stands out in your mind for each award.

Then go to our online nomination form (http://www.friends- lulu.org/ awards06nomform. php) to submit your nominations.

If you don’t have internet access you can send in your nominations via snail mail to:

Lulu Award Nomination 2007
83 Russell St
Suite 3R
Brooklyn, NY 11222

Nominations are due MAY 1, 2007.

Nominate whomever you wish, up to THREE per category, as long as they fit the requirements. If you are able, please include additional information (i.e. publisher, date of publication) about each individual, so we can verify the nomination quicker and easier.

You must be a member in good standing (dues paid up to date) in order to nominate. If you are unsure whether you are up to date, please contact Shawnee Gibbs (Shawnee at Friends- Lulu dot org), our membership secretary, prior to sending in your nominations. We couldn’t do it without you, so if you are interested in sponsoring the Lulu Awards, please contact the board of directors (Board at Friends- Lulu dot org) for more info.

Equality in death

One of the main ‘defenses’ I’ve read about the treatment of women in comics is that ‘bad things happen to males too’. And that is true. It’s hard to explain why the death of a woman, such as Phantom Lady, can be considered a bit misogynistic, and on the other hand, the death of Superboy is not a show of hate against males.

Thinking about how to make the argument on how it’s not that female characters die, but how they die, I remembered one of my guilty pleasures, Battle Royale.

Now, Battle Royale is a gore fest. Out of 42 sort of main characters, 40 die. And they don’t die in their sleep, no. We get to see their faces blown off, ripped open, riddled with bullets, stomachs torn in two, and so on. Of the three incarnations of Battle Royale, the manga is the bloodiest. My partner in the Oubilette, Aurea D’Nabe, correctly classified it as a ‘morbid’ manga. It’s designed to shock the viewer, and it doesn’t pull any stops to do so. If it has to be violence, its with violence, and if it has to be with sex, its with sex.

All of the volumes in English were sold wrapped up because of the violence, but there are certain chapters, particularly in volume 8, that get really close to a hentai comic. Girls get naked and show their panties a lot here.

But ignoring that little fact –that right there would be a mark about how Battle Royale is indeed sexist, because the girls get naked for no apparent reason than to get naked- it is a very good example of how one death is not the same as the other. After all, the 42 kids are neatly divided, 21 girls, 21 boys, and the survivors are one girl and one boy.

The exact same number of female characters and male characters die on it, so we can see how their deaths are different, and if that matters.

Needless to say, there will be a lot of spoilers.

1.- Yoshitoki Kuninobu, boy 5. Two shots in the head. We get to see his tongue ripped open with the first shot, his eyeballs go out of his skull with the second. Dies defending Noriko. Killed by the Program Director. He didn’t kill anyone.

2.- Fumiyo Fujiyoshi, girl 18. Knife in the middle of the forehead. No gore at all except for the pool of blood under her head. Dies for trying to ask a friend the rules of the Program. Killed by the Program Director. She didn’t kill anyone.

3.- Mayumi Tendo, girl 14. Arrow on the side of her head. No gore except that we see the arrow sticking out. Killed by Yoshio Akamatsu when leaving the school. She didn’t kill anyone.

4.-Yoshio Akamatsu, boy 1. Arrow on the side of his head, we see his eyeball pop out. Killed by Kazushi Niida. Killed 1 girl.

5.- Megumi Etou, girl 3. Throat cut open with a sickle, we get to see the whole process. Killed by Mitsuko Souma. She didn’t kill anyone.

6.- Hiroshi Kuronaga, boy 9. Killed by bullets, we only get to see the body. Killed by Kazuo Kiriyama. He didn’t kill anyone.

7.- Ryohei Sasagawa, boy 10. Killled by bullets, we only get to see the body. Killed by Kazuo Kiriyama. He didn’t kill anyone.

8.- Izumi Kanai, girl 5. Killed by bullets, we only get to see the body. Killed by Kazuo Kiriyama. She didn’t kill anyone. The translation hints that she was going to be raped by Hiroshi and Ryohei, but readers of the original say that was added by the adaptation.

9.- Mitsuru Numai, boy 17. Killed by bullets, we see the process for five pages. Killed by Kazuo Kiriyama. He didn’t kill anyone.

10.- Sakura Ogawai, girl 4, and Kazuhiko Yamamoto, boy #21. Suicide by jumping off a cliff. No gore. They didn’t kill anyone. She decided when to jump.

11.- Tatsumichi Oochi, boy 3. Head split in two with a machete during a fight with Shuya Nanahara. Quite gorish, but not extreme. He didn’t kill anyone.

12.- Kyoichi Motbushi, boy 20. Arm blown off by shotgun, then a shot to the stomach. We see the blood, the bone and the intestine going out (later in a nightmare scene, we see a second hole in his chest). Killed by Shogo Kawada. He didn’t kill anyone.

13.- Yukiko Kitano, girl 6 and Yumiko Kusaka, girl 7. Shot to death, from the back, then shot in the head while trying to call the other students to stop killing each other. Their agony lasts 9 pages. Killed by Kazuo Kiriyama. They didn’t kill anyone.

14.- Yoji Kuramoto, boy 8. Got his head shot off while on top of his girlfriend. Brains and all are seen on panel. His girlfriend tries to put the brain back into his head. Killed by Mitsuko Souma. He didn’t kill anyone although he held his girlfriend at gun point.

15.-Yoshimi Yahagi, girl 21. Head blown off, shot through the eye, after we get to see her past as teenage prostitute. Killed by Mitsuko Souma, she didn’t kill anyone.

16.- Kazushi Niida, boy 16. Beaten, eye out of his socket, arrow pushed through the back of his head all the way to his tongue, completely graphic. Killed By Takako Chigusa. He killed one boy, tried to rape one girl.

17.- Takako Chigusa, girl 13. Shot in the back, after she killed Kazushi when he tried to rape her graphically. Killed by Mitsuko Souma. Killed one boy.

18. Kaori Minami, girl 20. Shot trough the side of her head after she went insane due to her acne. Killed by Shogo Kawada. She didn’t kill anyone, but one girl died in part thanks to her actions.

19. Sho Tsukioka, boy 14. Head blown off, cleanly in two, by collar explosion. Killed (indirectly) by Kazuo Kiriyama. He didn’t kill anyone. It’s made a huge deal that he’s gay.

20. Hirono Shimizu, girl 10. Thrown in well, drowned. Also, had a terrible infection at the moment. Died trying to climb back out. Killed by Toshinori Oda. She didn’t kill anyone.

21.- Keita Ijima, boy 2. Shot in the head, graphically. Killed by Shinji Mimura. He didn’t kill anyone.

22.-Yutaka Seto, boy 12. Shot in the head, repeatedly and graphically. Killed by Kazuo Kiriyama. He didn’t kill anyone.

23.- Shinji Mimura, boy 19 . Shot in the stomach, in the head, back all over, and suffered an explosion, and shot in the head once more while trying to kill Kiriyama and destroy the program with a bomb. Killed by Kazuo Kiriyama. He killed one boy.

24.- Tadakatsu Hatagami, boy 18. Head cut in two with sickle. Killed by Mitsuko Souma. Almost killed one boy.

25.- Yuichiro Takiguchi, boy 13. Shot in the stomach by Tadakatsu, then raped by Mitsuko, and had a sickle run through his head. Killed by Mitsuko Souma. He didn’t kill anyone.

26.- Toshinori Oda, boy 4. Shot through the groin by Kiriyama. Quite gory. Killed by Kiriyama. He killed one girl.

27.- Yuka Nakagawa, girl 14. Accidentally poisoned by Yuko. Killed by Yuko Sakaki. She didn’t kill anyone.

28.- Chisato Matsui, girl 19. Shot to death through the stomach. Killed by Satomi Noda. She didn’t kill anyone.

29.- Yukio Utsumi, girl 2. Shot to death through the chest. Killed by Satomi Noda. She didn’t kill anyone.

30.- Haruka Tanizawa, girl 12. Shot to death through the side. Killed by Satomi Noda. She managed to kill Satomi with her last breath.

31.- Satomi Noda, girl 17. Shot to death through the head. Killed by Haruka Tanizawa. She killed 3 girls.

32.- Yuko Sakaki, girl 9. Jumped to her death. Caused the deaths of 5 girls, and her own.

33.- Mizuho Inada, girl 1. Shot in the head by Kiriyama while in her underwear. Killed by Kazuo Kiriyama, didn’t kill anyone.

34. Kaoyoko Kotohiki, girl 8. Lets herself be shot by Kiriyama after he almost kills Hiroki Sugimura. Killed by Kazuo Kiriyama, didn’t kill anyone.

35.- Hiroki Sugimura, boy 11. Shot by Kiriyama, after Kiriyama and him fought and Hiroki was almost beat to death. Killed by Kazuo Kiriyama, didn’t kill anyone

36.- Mitsuko Souma, girl 11. Shot in the head by Kiriyama, after she got naked to try and seduce him. She also was raped as a child, something that is shown many times in the manga, AND tended to get naked and touch herself. Killed by Kazuo Kiriyama, killed 3 girls and 3 boys.

37.- Kazuo Kiriyama, boy 6. Shot in the head by Shuuya Nanahara, after a 2 volume fight. Killed by Shuuya Nanahara (With a lot of help from Shogo Kawada, and using Noriko as a human shield). Killed 6 girls and 8 boys (Or maybe 9. See below)

38.- Shogo Kawada, boy 5. Shot in the stomach. No idea by whom, but probably Kiriyama. Saved Shuuya and Noriko. Killed 1 boy, 1 girl.

Survivors: Shuuya Nanahara, boy 7, and Noriko Nakagawa, girl 15. Is worth of mention that Noriko didn’t kill anyone and was dragged along the way for the 15 volumes.

Now, the problem here is that for a story that shows that everyone can do the unthinkable when pushed far enough, girls are still considered weaker and passive. In the original novel, at least, Noriko is the one who pulls the trigger on Kiriyama, showing that she was along not only as the symbol of all that was pure and nice and to be the main characters’ future girlfriend, but in the manga she’s the perfect damsel in distress. She gets shot, she gets sick, she gets to cry a lot, and that’s all she does. And the only reason why I can stomach her, is because Shuuya is pretty much the same, even when he does get action scenes.

What really bothered me now that I did this list –and that I honestly didn’t notice on first reading, when I was doing the reading one volume at the time- was that girls do nothing. There’s one girl who really fights against his would be male killer, Chigusa, and that’s because her would be killer is also her would be rapist. If he hadn’t threaten her with that, she would’ve let him go. Most of the girls don’t kill anyone, and the three with the high body count are a girl who kills her friends in a hysterical panic attack (All victims are girls), a girl who poisoned accidentally one of her friends and caused the mentioned panic attack, and Mitsuko Souma. She’s touted by the fans as one of the two ‘cool’ characters, being the evil girl as opposed to the evil boy Kiriyama, but not only she has a much lower body count, when one does examine the deaths, one can think that Mitsuko managed to kill them almost by accident. Not to mention that, to explain why a girl could become such a dangerous killer, we have to know, repeatedly, that she was raped as a child, by her step father, became a prostitute as young as 13, AND her real father abandoned them. She dies, naked, begging to her ‘daddy’ to fulfill the promise that ‘it would never hurt’.

(As a contrast, Kiriyama is such a dangerous killer because he can’t feel. He has brain damage, and doesn’t feel any empathy towards anyone. He’s a sociopath, who nevertheless was loved by his father. However, apparently in the final shooting, Shuuya manages to hit the nerve connections back in place as his final words are ‘I can feel again’. Somehow, I can’t help but feel that Kiriyama was given a lot more thought as a villain than Mitsuko)

And that’s the difference, see? It’s not that horrible things don’t happen to male characters when they happen to female characters. It’s that horrible things happen to male characters when they try to prevent them from happening, while horrible things happen to female characters when they’re just sort of standing there. All of the ‘good’ guys were forming teams and planning to try and destroy the program; all of the ‘good’ girls were… hiding. The ones who formed a team was a team to see if they could last until the third day, and then… well, either wait for someone else to have a plan or die together. As friends. And they managed to kill each other in a panic attack brought by hysteria. Guys roam through the island trying to find their loved ones and defend them to death, girls… cry a lot when found and stay around doing nothing when there’s a psychotic killer with a shotgun on the lose even if they have a gun. (And of course, guys get their clothes ripped a little bit. Girls get naked)

And while I do understand that Battle Royale comes from Japan, who doesn’t really has a very equal culture (‘Baby making machines’, anyone?) and thus it deals with a very different kind of sexism than American, European or Mexican comic books, I thought this is a perfect example of what not to do. Hey, Mitsuko is a perfect example of what I was saying about T&A not being inherently sexist. I wouldn’t have minded her parading herself naked at every single chance, if it hadn’t been for her rape backstory. Her rape backstory makes her a tragic victim, who was twisted so much that she does equal sex with taking advantage before they take things away from you. Without the rape backstory, she could’ve been a girl who knew she was gorgeous, and in a ‘kill or be killed’ situation, knew to use all the weapons in her arsenal. (And there's also a lot to say about the fact that apparently, the translator, Keith Giffen, decided to add a lot of extra mentions to rape across the story. What? Beheading and shots through the brain weren't shocking enough?)

As I say, I like Battle Royale. Its gory, it’s violent, and the story has some resemblance to Lord of the Flies and The Long Walk, which are one of my favorite reads. Given that its based on a book that criticizes Japanese culture, I understand why girls are nothing more than ornaments in the plot, mostly used to show how gentlemanly are the good guys.

But now let’s examine the deaths of Pantha and Superboy the same way. Pantha dies, rushing into battle without a plan, and gets beheaded with a backwards punch, that the guy who threw doesn’t even realize how strong it is. Superboy dies, heroically, saving the universe.

One is doing something, the other has something done to her.

Is it really that hard to see the difference?

Bad Idea / Good Idea, and when continuity matters.

Last year, I made a post about how every single character, no matter how lame, how silly or how old, was someone’s favorite. (In case you’re curious, it was this one )

What prompted that post was my concern for one of my old favorites, Robbie Baldwin, aka. Speedball. When I did the post, I hadn’t read anything of Civil War, but I knew that things were not looking good for him and the New Warriors. Despite my misgivings, I caved in and bought Civil War 1 and was appalled as to how they were written because, frankly? None of them sounded in character. However, I understood the need for a huge catastrophe, and thought, ok. I hate that Namorita and co. are dead, but hell, the situation called for it, and while I rather have the Dan Slott version of what happens to small towns when supervillians and superheroes duke it out (Aka. the ‘Hulk has never taken an innocent life’ defense), I understand why Marvel thought they needed to be a bit grimmer.

At least no one was getting raped.

Then I got Frontline, and was pleasantly surprised to see that Speedball had survived the blast due to his powers. And that he was saying what everyone should’ve noticed since the fourth page of Civil War: It wasn’t the heroes that caused the blast. It wasn’t the heroes who were responsible. It was Nitro.

For 8 issues of Frontline, that was Robbie’s only defense (Btw, I love She Hulk, but her appearance as Speedball’s lawyer was abysmal. No matter how much she wanted to push the Registration on him, she should’ve never advice him to plead guilty. He was innocent, doing all the things every single other superhero has ever done. But I digress).

Due to a lot of traveling, I missed getting Frontline 9, and so, Frontline 9 and 10 were waiting for me in my pull list the next time I went to the comic book store. I flipped through them –a habit I have- and upon hitting the last page of Frontline 10, I promptly canceled my subscription.

I can’t buy a book where the character I’m following does a 180° change of mind without any explanation or real reason. Robbie’s powers mutated –why? It’s anyone’s guess- and he killed four people. That I can buy. That I can sort of understand. The fact that suddenly he’s blaming himself for all the Stamford’s deaths is absurd. He wasn’t the one who blew up then, he wasn’t the one who purposely blew up next to a school yard.

Not to mention, that, really, Penance’s suit is the worst thing I’ve seen in a comic book in a long, long time.

But what really, really nags me of all this is that continuity wise it makes no sense. Not that there are a lot of things in Civil War that make sense in continuity, but this particular one is, frankly, one of the worst I’ve seen.

Way back in the 90’s, there was this completely stupid crossover done by Marvel, in which every single hero was attacked by his evil clone. The Infinty War crossover was one of those things that I didn’t understood at all because I only got to read the issues of the series I was reading, including New Warriors 27, which surprisingly was a Speedball solo issue.

That’s right. Speedball vs. Blackball. Even the cover claimed it was because no one demanded it.

It was also the issue when Robbie’s dad, the DA on a town where masked heroes *were* illegal, found out that his son was a superhero. His mom had known for a couple of issues before, when the New Warriors saved her from the Force of Nature.

Now. Robbie arrives to Springdale after his double. The town has been half destroyed to the point of that the orders on Speedball are ‘shoot to kill on sight’. What does Robbie do when he realizes he’s been accused of something he didn’t do?

“I can’t surrender myself- They’ll never believe it wasn’t me who did all this!. Especially cro-magdad—he thinks Speedball is responsible for everything wrong from the trade deficit to Hammer’s last album! I can’t hold out either—if they start shooting at me, the ricochets could hurt this family--!”

Exclamation points aside, we can see his two priorities : Finding the right culprit and not letting the family behind him to get hurt.

WHEN the police start shooting as he flees, he realizes he can’t let the bullets bounce off him as he usually does, and he actually manages to stop them with his bubbles. This was back when Nicieza was doing all kind of weird experiments with Robbie’s powers, making him a whole lot more interesting. The panel with the cops watching the bullets fall is priceless.

But the big pay off of the issue, and the reason why it popped into my mind as soon as I started reading about ‘Penance’ and later, thanks to scan daily, the actual dialogue of the scene when he puts that torture kit they’re calling a suit, was the final confrontation between Speedball and his dark side, at his house, when his darkside is threatening his mom.

Now. This was the 90’s. The decade best known for suffering heroes, unending angst and ‘cool’ and ‘dark’ stories. And Speedball faced his dark side, conquered it, was quite bothered as to how he managed to conquer it, which stayed with him more or less until he was replaced by someone else pretending to be him. Even so, the guy pretending was a perfect copy of Robbie, and was the one who brought closure to Robbie’s relationship with his dad.

Sure, it took roughly 30 issues, but it dealt with Robbie’s issues with his anger, his lack of control with his powers, his relationship to both parents, and a final resolution to the ‘Art / Law’ debate. That’s character evolution, and the excuse that it was the same writer doesn’t work since it was dealt by three different writers as far as I remember.

Going from “I’m not guilty” to “Accepting guilt would be accepting my friends are dead” to “It was all my fault, 121 points of pain” in the lapse of 10 half issues? Not so much.

Yes. Another sexism and comics rant.

I’ve been thinking about writing this since December 28, when I saw the link to the Cenizas’s editorial “De Feministas y Fangirls: La ironía en pleno” at When Fangirls Attack. My first impulse was to groan and check the date. December 28 is the equivalent of April 1st here, so it could be a joke. But it had been posted on December 26, no luck there. My second was a lengthy answer to the Cenizas’s guys asking exactly why they were addressing the points made in Girls read comics (And they’re pissed) assuming they were from WFA, and how could they simply not get the point. I erased that answer, and then I realized that the reason why it made me mad was because GRC (And the entirely of Wonder-girl org) are mainly English speakers. Even if they found the Cenizas’s link, which of course they did, they wouldn’t quite understand what they were saying. Which of course takes the dialogue part of it out of the window since there’s not going to be a debate.
So I thought about translating it. And tossed the idea right out of the window too since, frankly? I don’t think the world needs yet another ‘if you don’t like big boobs, you shouldn’t be reading comics anyway’ rant in English. Does the world needs another ‘it’s not about the big boobs, damn it!’ rant? Probably not. But I’m going to put it in English and in Spanish, so… what the hell.

Anyway, among all the things I read at Cenizas, there were two that jumped out from the whole text. The first one was “The tits and ass are the only thing that justify that the geeks of spandex wearing superheroes aren’t seen as gay”. The second one was their closing statement, in which, bluntly, they state that if you’re a feminist, you have no business being a superhero fan girl, because to complain about sexism in superhero comic books is the same as “being a vegetarian and taking the meat out of the tortilla in the corner’s taqueria”.

I have issues with the first statement because it perpetuates the comic book geek stereotype. The guy living in his parent’s basement, wondering how is Jean Grey’s sex life, incapable of talking to a real, three dimensional woman. I have issues with it because it objectifies the female characters even more than the superhero comics we’re discussing, and demeans the male readers. There’s a lot to be said about that, how suddenly reading superhero comic books is inherently childish, but I was going to talk about sexism, so I’ll stick to sexism.

The second comment brought the attention of Karen Healey, the actual author of Girls Read Comics, and in her journal there came a discussion of how people can eat tacos without meat, which brings an interesting cultural difference. In Mexico, if it doesn’t has meat, it’s not a taco. So what the guys at Cenizas are saying is that if you haven’t got sexism on it, it’s not a superhero comic (I’m hoping they were limiting themselves to superhero comics, although the mention of the Sensational de Traileras, a pretty known soft porn comic book from Mexico makes me doubt it) and I have to disagree. Yes, Tits and Ass are required in soft porn and hard porn comic books. They’re porn comics for a reason. I don’t think anyone in the anti-sexism group wants the T&A to disappear from sex comics, because being anti-sexism is not being anti-sex. Yes, some T&A is expected to be found in comic book where half of your cast is dressed in spandex, but no one expects Power Girl’s breasts to disappear –in fact, many feminist blogs I’ve read love PG’s curves. But T&A is not the problem. The problem comes when the characters are treated like nothing more than furniture, shock value, and window dressing. The problem comes when female characters are raped, killed, maimed and torture just for torture sake (And, before anyone jumps, it’s the same thing when male characters get raped, killed, maimed and tortured. It’s just that usually? When a male character is tortured, it’s not just to spike sales with very few exceptions)

Now, not every single woman who has been brutalized in a comic book is a sign of misogyny. Not every single gay character who is mistreated is an example of homophobia. But when you pile every single time it happens, the picture it shows it’s a bit disheartening. Yes. There is sexism in comic books, everywhere. Yes, it started quite early, when girls were there just to be rescued. But as things have changed in the world, they should change in the industry. Not all superhero comic books are sexist. Runaways is a perfect example. Young Avengers is another. X-Factor has a wonderfully diverse cast and the women in it are strong, three dimensional woman. She Hulk is a riot, despite of the covers. I haven’t read Birds of Prey, or Manhunter, since currently I’m not buying any DC comic, but I’ve heard wonderful things about them both. Spider-man is not sexist (Aunt May kicks ass). Superhero comic books are not inherently sexist, and they do not need to be sexist to be superhero comic books.

Actually, scratch that. Nothing needs to be sexist, not even porno comic books. Because having a woman prancing naked on a book doesn’t mean that the comic is sexist. It can be sexist, but it doesn’t need to be.
Because, well, let’s remember one thing:

Sexism: 1.- Attitudes or behavior based on traditional stereotypes of sexual roles.
2.- Discrimination or devaluation based on a person’s sex, as in restricted job opportunities; esp. such discrimination directed against women.
(Dictionary.com)

So, killing a woman character because a character had to be killed =/= sexism. Killing a woman character because it is a woman = sexism. Having a woman character fight crime in swimsuit and high heels = / = sexism. Having said female character do nothing except pose and being captured by the villians= sexism.

Hey, when all it’s said and done, Manga is more inherently sexist than superhero comic books. But then, Japan is a country culturally more sexist than the US or Mexico. Which brings us to cultural differences. Mexico and the US are very different countries, with different stories of feminism. Feminism there meant a very different thing and is a very different movement than what is here. They don’t have a Ciudad Juarez, for example. Yes, there’s sexism everywhere. But now it is illegal to fire someone based on their gender.

The old ‘there’s sexism everywhere, what are you going to do about it?’ excuse doesn’t work anymore. Yes, there’s sexism everywhere, and everywhere women and men are working together to stop it, to make it disappear, for true equality. Who says it can’t disappear from comic books?

And please, remember. Disappearing sexism doesn’t mean making the T&A disappear or adding even more shots of Nightwing, Green Lantern and Batman’s ass. It means treating all characters equally, which, in the end, will only lead to better stories and isn’t that what we all want in the end?