season of the bitch

If you’re at all interested in comics, comics for girls, Ryan Kelly, or Brian Wood, or just in giving me some love, my review with Janelle of The New York Four is here and my blurb on the BUST blog is here.

If you go to the one on Newsarama, hitting Recommend would be awesome–we’re currently the 5th most recommended, and I’d like to see that go up. Comments are excellent, too. Want to show the men in the industry that comics for women are a good investment, as are woman critics.

Plus, you should check out the book. It’s really cute.

Williamsburg, that is. But then some guy roped us into eating at his restaurant by promising free drinks–and it was so heavenly.

Then I found a feminist film theory anthology with the out-of-print Mulvey essay I was referencing below. For $7. So now I can polish that entry up and try to submit it somewhere…

And now I actually feel creative again.

Or if not that, then they want you to be something that you just aren’t, even though you might wish you could be. That’s worse.

-Kate in ‘Girl You Want’

My review of DEMO is here. Go on, read it. Then come back here and delve into this post.

I’ve mentioned Laura Mulvey’s theory on ‘the gaze’ in film before, and linked there to a good summation of her, plus some notes on reactions to her. Even more basically, she posits that film assumes a male spectator who takes pleasure in looking-at. She differentiates between “voyeuristic” looking, which asserts control over the person or thing looked at, and “fetishistic” looking, which turns the object of the gaze into something pleasing in and of itself–a fetish.

I wrote a paper deconstructing this a bit back in the day, threw some Kristeva in there, and was given a pat on the back and a department award.

But I’ve never seen a better examination of this whole theory, and how it leaves the movie theater and comes into our lives, than DEMO #5, ‘Girl You Want.’

(If you haven’t read it yet and you think you want to, go, buy the new collected edition, and then come back and read this. If you have read it, or you probably won’t but want to see what I’m on about, keep reading.) » Read the rest of this entry «

…a review of something that keeps exponentially getting more academic in my head each time I think about it. Which would be great, except the crowd I’m reviewing it for is Newsarama.

So not so much with the citing cultural theorists and talking about “The Gaze” and stuff.

Which is funny, because the commenters on the boards at the ‘Rama are always whining about our lack of analysis and such. But if I gave ‘em the analysis that I want, their little heads would probably explode. (Except, of course, for the few that would love it.) So you’ll get it all here, when I get done with the review I’m actually on deadline for.

Sometimes I think I should just get a Ph.D. and have done with it. And then write about comics and other such things, and stick my head in the sand whenever politics comes around, only coming out to vote. There is a reason I’m burying myself in comics and novels right now, and ignoring the election: Obama quickly grows more disappointing with each article I read, these days.

Change, yr doin it rong.

Comics, meet politics. Politics, meet comics.

Good stuff, that.

Speaking of comics and not of politics, I’m off to Chicago tomorrow for the comic con, work, and friends. Unless I decide to get some blogging in, I’ll be working and drinking all weekend, so you will have to miss me. Until Tuesday at least.

Look sad.

Keep an eye on Newsarama for my reports. Possibly liveblogging the Warren Ellis panel, if the setup is there.

Yeah, still in comic-geek heaven and will be for a bit longer, anyway. And since I am, I want to point out this excellent blog on women and/in/who read comics.

This post in particular made me happy, because I just read that book (Garth Ennis and Amanda Conner’s The Pro) myself and thought about blogging it. I read it much the same way as Karen did, and it illustrated perfectly why I love Garth Ennis despite because of his gross-out humor. He manages to be shocking and broadly funny without being actually racist and sexist, and frequently uses that no-holds-barred attitude to point out actual inequities.

Go read her blog. Even if you don’t read comics.

On a related note, Pop Feminist has more wonderful on being a nerd. Love her.

Links to what I did this weekend: Garth Ennis Panel, DC Sunday Conversation, Avatar Comics Panel (otherwise known as ‘So You Wanna Know What Warren Ellis Is Up To?’), Vertigo Panel and Dynamite Panel. I was a busy girl, but it was totally worth it. Plus, met some cool people, so look out for me shilling for their books shamelessly. (and look out for a post on why creative people have to help each other out.)

Geekery of a different kind caught up with me today in the form of my absolute favorite political types calling me and meeting me in NYC after I got off work. They live in Chicago, so I haven’t seen them since the PA primary, and it was truly excellent to see them. You know how every once in a while, you met people that you really just get along with and feel like you can be yourself around and they get it and actually like it? Yeah. Love.

Finally, I am a dedicated hockey fan, not so much a Pittsburgh Penguins fan, but a long-standing feud with an ex-boyfriend brought me to deeply hate the Red Wings, plus I want to see someone break Gretzky’s records, so I’m cheering for the Pens. And they won in triple OT tonight–though I missed it, what’s even more fun is my friend who had never watched hockey before I dragged her to a bar to see the Pens beat the Flyers to advance to the finals is texting me about it. I win. And here’s a special Beautiful People post just for that:

Petr Sykora, who scored the OT game-winner to force a Game 6 on home ice for the Pens.

Oh, yeah, I’m a super-geek. Spent the weekend covering some panels at the Wizard World Philly con, pawing through boxes of 50% off trades, and realizing that cute boys are into comics–and write and draw ‘em, too.

Still got plenty of that awkward “wait, you’re a girl? and you’re here? without a boyfriend?” look from people, but  it was a lot of fun, as was the afterparty on Saturday night, and barhopping with my friend Nick and his friends. Artsy fun people.

I also bought a print from an adorable girl with a Spider Jerusalem tattoo (if you don’t know, you won’t get it) and now I need to get a frame for it so it can go on my wall. Yay for supporting artists. Her website is here.

And then I listened to lots of people talk about lots of stuff. Geeked out on new upcoming comics that I can’t wait to read, and that I certainly don’t have money to buy. And sat 5 feet from Garth Ennis and listened to him talk about some of the best comics everrr in his adorable accent. Awesome.

Yeah, I guess there was some election-related BS this weekend, but I just don’t care.