On HU
In our Featured Archive point this week, I talked about the sublime incoherence of Moto Hagio’s story, “A Drunken Dream.”
I discussed the bonus sexism of incompetent comics cheesecake.
I talked about war and masochism in Wonder Woman Chronicles volume 1.
Robert Stanley Martin discussed Anais Nin’s fiction of the 30s and 40s.
Kinukitty reviewed the manly assassin yaoi of This Night’s Everything.
I looked at Patrick Conlon and Michael Manning’s sci-fi fetish porn comic Tranceptor.
James Romberger looked at comics by Adrian Tomine, Steranko, Toth, Chester Brown, and more.
Joy DeLyria with a short history of long (and continuing) fiction.
Utilitarians Everywhere
At the Chicago Reader I review the magazine Midwestern Gothic. Neither Midwestern nor Gothic; discuss.
At Splice I argue that using children to make progressive points about schooling is not progressive.
At Splice Today I talk about how Sinead O’Connor hasn’t moved on.
Other Links
Virginia legislators stop being idiots.
Tucker Stone has some almost nice things to say about Red Hood (plus other reviews.
Kelly Thompson explains that superhero women are not drawn equally.
Andrew Sullivan on the movie Bully and the MPA rating system. Linda Holmes on the same thing.
Alyssa Rosenberg expands on my thoughts on superhero cheesecake.
Depressing piece about sexism in the video game community.
Virginia legislators will never stop being idiots. Its kinda their thing. But on rare occasion they recognize that they overreached.
That video game article is depressing but completely believable, which is partly why I don’t participate in any online gaming forum. Fighting games really do bring out the worst of the worst though. It’s probably because fighting games are very hard to play, and generally require a obsessive geek devoting countless hours to become any good at it. And there are a lot of unpleasant similarities between the gamer geek and the superhero fanboy.
MPA should be MPAA.
To at least try to keep the universe partially in balance, I actually heartily agree with your arguments on “Sinead O’Connor hasn’t moved on” ( http://www.splicetoday.com/music/forever-young-2 ) and how “There is no point in making children suffer through public school in the name of some progressive cause” ( http://www.splicetoday.com/politics-and-media ).
Some nicely-calibrated wording in that “Virginia legislators stop being idiots” article:
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It seems that at least some Republican politicians are starting to notice that their party’s crusade against reproductive rights—a crusade that’s now gone beyond abortion to encompass birth control as well—is not serving them.
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/24/as-virginia-ultrasound-rule-fails-is-gop-seeing-reproductive-rights-backlash.html
It’s not as if they disagree with the crusade, but are realizing it’s not being popular with the mass of voters…
(Time to call upon their P.R. firms! Say how mandatory ultrasounds are empowering for women…)
Re the “sexism in the video game community,” that’s no surprise. On a related vein, at the Jan. 6th posting of the most excellent “Comics Reporter,” Laura Hudson, Editor-In-Chief at the new site ComicsAlliance, was interviewed, and she told of some pretty appalling behavior:
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SPURGEON: You’ve talked a bit about this here and there, and usually in a very funny, forthright way: how difficult has it been for you to manage active commentary threads? First of all, do you have comments by your choice or is that something you’d do without but need it for the traffic or as dictated to by your employers? Second, do you detect that there’s a kind of general throwing-up-of-one’s-hands about some of the acting out that takes place on comments thread from comics culture. Because in a way, we’re 15-20 years into active on-line comments of some sort, and it seems like comments culture is as acrimonious and nasty as it was in the CompuServe days.
HUDSON: It’s been, hands down, the hardest part of the job. The only thing I can really compare it to is probably being bullied. In what other situation do you spend your day constantly being verbally attacked by people who seem laser-focused on tearing you down and letting you know in real time the very specific reason why you and everything you do sucks? It’s an incredibly bizarre experience. I think the bullying comparison is apt, particularly when it becomes a daily struggle not to let the constant flow of abuse affect you, the way you think or the choices you make. Because if you are not very careful, it can wear you down and make you feel like the world is kind of a terrible place, because so much of what you see and hear is this very misrepresentative sample of the angry, cruel people who shout the loudest.
There’s basically no sane reason why I’ve received death threats, and yet I have, repeatedly. I don’t understand what motivates people to tag me on Twitter and accost me about my perceived sexuality or weigh in on whether I’m attractive or ugly. But this is my life every day, and there’s basically no way to step away from it significantly and still do my job. And I love my job. I’m very lucky. But it’s definitely been something I’ve struggled with, and I know Andy and Caleb have as well. It is something we are taking some concrete steps to improve, however, both for ourselves and for the community of readers that actually wants to talk to each other without constant drive-by ragebombs getting dropped in their conversations.
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http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/briefings/blog_monthly/2012/01/
Atrocious, abysmal! To all those who consider the late TCJ message board the outrageous epitome of bad behavior online: was there ever anything remotely that atrocious going on there? No way; anyone aiming any comments even faintly as crass toward a woman (or gay, or transgender person) there would’ve been set upon by all with the verbal equivalent of a tossed heap of bricks.