Ask Me About My Broken Fandom

A few days ago while I was at home burning through some of my remaining vacation days there was a giant ass shit storm on comics twitter over Mockingbird #8, Chelsea Cain and comics fandom. If you want the full professional blogging experience just google it, since you're here though I assume you're not looking for any of that. Long story short Chelsea Cain noted novelist wrote a short comic book series about Mockingbird (as seen on Agents of Shield). When the last issue came out (it was canceled a little bit ago) she quit twitter and said something to the effect of comic books fans can be really awful. She specifically called out comic book fans saying she has been a bestselling author and never had to block anyone on twitter before writing Mockingbird.

Once she deleted her account that's when the real fun started. Any website with any sort of nerd leaning coverage picked up on the story. A hashtag on twitter was created in her support and it was one of the top trending tags for at least a day. Very quickly some in the comic book community started to push back. They wanted to see screen shots of the harassment or it didn't happen. They also wanted to remind you that Mockingbird was terrible and if you liked it you should feel ashamed. Also the last issue deals a bit with Mockingbird's history of sexual assault in (what I found to be) an awkward manner so if you did like the issue guess what? YOU ARE THE SEXIST NOW.

This story dominated comics twitter for about 48 hours. Most comic book professionals were very supportive of Chelsea Cain but a few wanted to make sure everyone knows the reason Mockingbird was canceled was because of low sales and you can't complain about a book being canceled if you're not buying it. One noted professional who is not new to controversy like this chose his words pretty poorly (again this is my opinion) by saying something to the effect of "hey, at least the trolls buy comics". It was sort of an admission no one wanted to hear while this was going on. Like when Tom Brady is in court because he may or may not be tampering with the footballs you don't need Bill Simmons telling you "say what you will about him cheating, but all Tom Brady does is win Superbowls!"

Yes, comic books are a business but no one wants to hear that Marvel is in anyway catering to the worst of their fan base.

Twitter and comment sections were filled with guys like my man Ry here who thinks that comics aren't for everyone. If memory serves me correctly he follows this up with some tweets about how comics were made for the male gaze and should be filled with hot ladies, not ladies who are hot to rage against the patriarchy.


I mean if I had a nickel for every time I've read SJW this last week I'd have like 20 Nickels, because after about 20 times I bailed on reading more about this and just focused on Overwatch. I don't know what to do about people being shitheels to each other, I'm just some schlub on the internet that thinks there should be all kinds of comic books for all kinds or people. When I read a comic I don't like I don't @ the author. I might say on-line why I didn't like it but I'm not here to try and make people feel bad for their work. What do people gain from that? And why are people so insane when it comes to characters and comics they don't own? You don't own Thor. You don't write Thor. You don't get to decided if Thor is a man or a woman. If you don't like it don't buy it, if someone else is liking it and you're not it doesn't mean one of you is wrong. Two different people can like two different things without it meaning anything.

Maybe we should invent a time machine and go back and warn Al Gore not to invent the internet. Or maybe we can hurry up the deal that will sell the internet to the Chinese my dad was telling me about. I cringe thinking about how my kids are going to handle stuff like this. The first time some slobbery gatekeeper tells my daughter that comics are for boys I hope she punches him right in the neck. BOOM NECK PUNCH! Don't worry honey, I'll bail you out of jail if I have to.

Blizzard Says No to Sexy Butts

Strap on your tinfoil hats, we have a video game controversy brewing.

I've blogged a little bit about Overwatch recently. It's an upcoming FPS from Blizzard that's been in beta for what seems like forever. The hook with Overwatch is that instead of playing as a generic space marine or vault hunter you get too choose one of several different characters to play as, each with their own personalities and skill sets. Think Halo meets Street Fighter. While I don't have time to participate in Betas or anything, I think the game looks really cool and was hoping to try it out on my new rig when it comes out.

Enter the controversy. Someone participating in the beta complained to the Blizzard developmental team that one of the characters "victory poses" was just a gratuitous ass shot and really wasn't true to the character (see above picture, the pose on the far left). Blizzard agreed and said they were going to change the pose. I know, what you're thinking WHAT A LOAD OF HORSESHIT! I'M OFFENDED AT YOU BEING OFFENDED!

Or if you aren't a Trump supporter, you probably couldn't care less. Talk about a tempest in a teapot. If you look at all of the character designs and victory poses for Overwatch you'll find plenty of fan service, so it's not like Blizzard took away all the butts. They just changed one pose for one character. Of course this led to tons of outrage on reddit and twitter. Suddenly our first ammendment rights to look at digitally rendered asses are being trampled and if you don't agree you're just a tumblrina or dirty SJW. It's so ridiculously silly.

It's funny, since Pac-Man was corrupting the minds of the youths, video gamers have been fighting a battle over how mainstream culture looks at video games. For the most part we've come a long way but every once in a while something comes along like this that just reinforces the basement dwelling, Cheeto eating, virgin stereotypes. Good job "hardcore gamers", this is exactly the kind of attention you want your hobby to attract.

Dear Links

Why the “Future of Women in Comics” Thinks It Helps to Be Terrifying. Kelly Sue Deconnick (not in costume) is one of my more favorite comic book writers right now. Not really based on her run on Captain Marvel (which I liked but didn't love) but because of two of her other books Bitch Planet and Pretty Deadly. Pretty Deadly being one of the raddest books I've read in a LONG time. I met her once at ECCC and she was SO COOL.

Anyway, it's cool to see her and the issue of women in comics get some big mainstream press like this.

Hollywood is missing the one thing that makes Superman great. Man, this times a thousand. I hate that people somehow think that Superman isn't interesting or relatable. The best Superman stories are inspiring and uplifting, it's kind of like Star Trek at the end of the story you should feel better about the human condition not worse.

From Tomato Cans To Mike Tyson: The Definitive ‘Punch-Out!!’ Fighter Power Rankings. Man I LOVED Mike Tyson's punch out (and it's arcade brother Punch Out) but I was terrible at them. I don't think I ever made it past Bald Bull, heck in the arcade I don't think I ever made it past Don Flamenco. Still good times were had.

Dear Idiots, Stop Leaking Comic-Con Trailers. Ugh... this guy. Where to start? First off the idea that somehow Comic-Con would be worse off if the big movie studios decided to come is arrogant and short-sighted. That actually sounds great to me and a lot of people that you know... actually read comics. If you read any of the coverage leading up to Comic-Con you might have seen that one of the big stories was that Marvel decided to skip Comic-Con altogether this year. Actually, MARVEL STUDIOS skipped Comic-Con. Marvel was there with lots of new comic books to show off. It's frustrating for this old school nerd to see people treat movies as the final destination for comic books, like each book is just a pitch for a movie or tv show.

But I digress, this guy can get bent and so can all the studios that believe they can show a couple thousand people some hotly anticipated footage without having someone record it. They literally live-stream the panels over the internet but then when it comes time to show 2 minutes of footage that's supposed to stay in San Diego? If you're showing footage at Comic-Con you should be prepared to post it to youtube immediately. Otherwise just don't show footage, the crowd will still clap and get happy when you trot out Ryan Reynolds for a little Q&A.

LinkGate

What Is GamerGate? Here’s An Explainer For All The Confused Non-Nerds Out There. Uggg... Against my better judgement, here's a bunch of bullshit on GamerGate. If you haven't been following the GamerGate scandal consider yourself lucky. It's 99.9% trumped up bullshit and an excuse for bullied nerds to in turn do some bullying of their own. If you really need an example of how people on the internet can be awful for the stupidest of reasons just show them anything related to GamerGate...

The Future Of The Culture Wars Is Here, And It's Gamergate. Double uggg... If something as stupid as Video Game Journalism can devolve into the shitshow that Gamergate has turned into imagine if it was a more relevant topic like politics or religion. Are you for gun control? Well I hope you're ready for your address and phone number and credit history to be leaked to the interweb. You don't think 9/11 was an inside job? Hope your blog can handle a ddos attack. You don't want to hear about our lord and Savoir the flying spaghetti monster? Don't worry in 5 minutes we will have someone at your F'ING DOOR READY TO SPREAD THE WORD!

What Happened To Felicia Day Is Everything Awful About #GamerGate. Triple ugggg... I've been to the GamerGate subreddit, I hear it's where all the "real" GamerGate is happening. Not the trumped up sexist lies the lamestream media is reporting to make these real GamerGate warriors look bad. They have NOTHING. At most they have been able to point out that video game journalists are dependent on big video game companies for access to do their jobs and that can sku their reporting. Guess what dipshits, that's the problem with journalism everywhere. If a reporter for Road and Track dumps all over Ford guess who's not getting invited to the next Ford media event. ESPN pulled out of a report on head trauma in the NFL because they're in bed with the NFL and didn't want to jeopardize that relationship. Politics in DC have always been like this. If a reporter is too critical of the powers that be they can have their White House media pass pulled.

But no, lets ignore all of that. In the grand scheme of life the fact that IGN gave Call of Duty too high of a score is a big fucking deal and totally worth ruining peoples lives over. Get bent GamerGate.

140 up-close photos of ship and vehicle models constructed by ILM for the Original Star Wars Trilogy (1977-1983)

Why I Love Speed Wagons (And You Should, Too). Before I inherited my Passat Wagon I thought wagons were kinda cool but now that I've had one for a full year I can 100% say wagons are awesome. Don't get me wrong, my car still kinda sucks but that has everything to do with early 2000s German "engineering". The actual functionality of a wagon is second to none. I love it and I wish more auto manufacturers would make a traditional wagon. None of this crossover nonsense. Low and boxy is how I roll.

The Future of TV Is Great If You Hate Sports. I tweeted about this a few days ago but you probably don't follow me on twitter (@KevinNewburn) so I'll repeat: The idea of switching from your regular cable service to 10 different a'la cart streaming options doesn't sound very appealing to me. Not to mention that cord cutters are just fooling themselves when they still keep the cable company around for their internet provider. I'd much rather see Cable companies provide more varied options when it comes to subscriptions than have to subscribe to a dozen different aps. I have this feeling that net nerds keep thinking that there's some magical streaming TV option out there that's going to provide everything you want on demand for a ridiculously low monthly fee but there's not.

Kindergarten teacher quits to make six figures twerking for a living. This article sounded sexier than it ended up being.

Who sexed up Spider-Woman and does it matter?

About a week or two ago Marvel announced a couple new titles, one of which was a new Spider-Woman book. No big deal, right? I mean there's a handful of really adamant Spider-Woman fans out there but Marvel has something like 6 different female driven comics right now and what feels like a dozen different Spider-Man books. A new Spider-Woman book should have just been a regular announcement, but it wasn't. The image above is why.

What you're looking at is the preview of an alternate cover by renowned European (ie erotic) artist Milo Manara. Now let me preface everything I say here by saying I'm a slight fan of Manara's work. I have I think all of two or three comics he's drawn and I have a couple Milo Manara pictures in my "unsorted reference picture" folder on my computer at home. I'm what you'd call a lowercase fan. Anyway, the point here is that holy cow this cover is receiving a lot of negative attention, mostly on comic/geeky blogs but in a couple buzzfeed like places too.

Obviously the cover by Manara is provocative, I can't imagine that it wasn't supposed to be. When you hire someone with the pedigree of Milo Manara you know you're going to get a sexy cover but I don't think there would be as big of an uproar if this was just a sexy cover. The reader's eye is immediately drawn to her ass or more specifically to the super-wedgie she's sporting. It pushes this from what many would consider sexy to near obscene. It doesn't feel very powerful either, the way she's on all fours with her butt in the air it comes across as pretty submissive. More sex doll than superhero.

Just for fun, let's contrast that cover to the way she's been drawn in some of her most recent and memorable appearances:



My point here is that Spider-Woman is not exactly the most demure character ever created. That's not to excuse the Manara cover, I don't really like the cover. Marvel as of late has made a big push to attract female readership, isn't a cover like this by an artists like Manara the exact kind of thing that pushes away female readers? Well, that's why I tried to include some context.

I'm not 100% sure Marvel was targeting female readers with a Spider-Woman series. I have a feeling that Spider-Woman was aimed directly at the stereotypical fanboy, the one with Cheetos stained fingers and impure thoughts about She Hulk. Those guys still exist, and they have money too. As much as I love the current She Hulk or Ms Marvel books I'm sure there are plenty of readers that wish Ms. Marvel (now Captain Marvel) was still fighting crime in thigh-high boots and a swimsuit. Should Marvel completely ignore those guys?

That was an honest question, I don't have an answer. Does Marvel have anything to gain making books for the stereotypical fanboy? Does a near vulgar alternate cover (lets remember it's the alternate cover not the one you will see on comixology) alienate a large untapped group of readers? The cynic in me says that a Spider-Woman solo title was dead in the water anyway and probably won't last more than 12 issues. This might not be the kind of attention Marvel thought they were going to get but I doubt they're that upset about it. Attention is the exact reason you hire Milo Manara to draw alternate covers in the first place.

To sum up, I have very little opinion on the matter. I'll leave you with a picture of Spider-Man in a similar pose (spandex wedgie included) and the question. If this cover was the exact same, with Spider-Woman swapped in for Spider-Man, same pose and everything, would it look like the Spider was about to mount her?



Does that illustrate a difference in what you can get away with drawing male vs female superheroes? Is that sexism? These questions and more answered probably never...