Newsapalooza
I'll seperate all this stuff into sections, so it will be easier to read.
Female Force Comics
...totally suck, as far as I can tell. I flipped through the Sarah Palin one at Books-A-Million. You'd think since the comic is about girl power or whatever, it would be written or drawn by a female, or at the very least have a female character narrating it? But no. We have some middle- aged guy with some unfunny cricket sidekick narrating in a totally biased manner.
And he makes sure to go on for a panel about how hot Sarah Palin is. According for him, this is totally okay for him to say because she entered a beauty contest that one time. Yes, that totally give you a right to ogle at and objectify her in a comic that's supposed to be about her accomplishments. I mean, she entered a beauty contest, she's just asking for it right? Granted, Palin doesn't have that many accomplishments other than failing to become vice president and quitting as governor, so maybe he wanted to fill time. But I thought the comic was supposed to be about Palin, not this dorky narrator and how much he wants to do her? And let's not forget Sarah herself complained about the media focusing on her looks. Way to honor her wishes, buddy. (Especially ironic considering the narrator rails against the media for being so meeeeeaaan to Sarah later in the comic)
And yes, the format of the comic is totally stupid. Instead of, I don't know, having the comics from the powerful woman's point of view, getting into her head, examining the challenges of her life and the difficulties she faced, getting poetic and prosaic and talking about personal details not wildly known to the public, we get in NARRATED to us. It's like a friggin' history lesson, and it gives no more information that you'd find on Wikipedia. And I just have to stress it's narrated by a guy. In a comic called FEMALE FORCE. With an annoying sidekick that reminded me horribly of that little fairy in the "Wizard How to Draw Women" debacle. And he interrupts his little boring and poorly done history lesson with lame jokes and biased personal antidotes. Yes, his own personal anecdotes. When the comic is supposed to be about Sarah Palin.
"Sarah hunts? Oh boy, so do I! I love to hunt!" Should we care that you enjoy killing things, Mr. Narrator? I don't. "One of my favorite things about Sarah is she hunts." Oh yes, that's wonderful. It's so sexy how she passed that law about shooting wolves from helicopters. Killing creatures that weren't even bothering you while you have the advantage of a machine gun and being a gazillion feet above them, for no other discernible purpose than "population thinning" (work on thinning your own population first) is so damn sporting and honorable. Stupid namby pamby liberals complaining about hunting! Yes, we get it, Mr. Narrator, you're a douchebag. Why are you letting us know this when the comic is about Palin.
Also, though Sarah hunts, she can't stand holding the animals eyeballs. Well, Sarah, just imagine how it feels having those eyeballs plucked out of your skull! If you're so disgusted by the gore of what you're doing, maybe you shouldn't do it! (Yes, my animal lover self is rearing it's head.)
Oh, but it's not over! The media crucified Sarah, waaaahhhh! I thought this was supposed to be a comic about women's accomplishments, not Republican propoganda? I wonder if Hilary Clinton's comic complained about what the media did to her! Somehow, I doubt it. She never entered a beauty contest after all!
And the art. The narrator may SAY Sarah's attractive, but the art sure doesn't show it. She looks hideous, and she has this constant wrinkly face with a rictus grin. The art tries so hard to be photo-realistic it ends up looking ugly and awkward. I'd rather have cartoony art that that. In fact, a cartoony, fun adventure starring Sarah Palin as its fun-loving hero, rampaging through Alaska, would be a lot more creative and readable than this trash.
Female Force's greatest sin is that the next person they plan to do it Stephenie Meyer. That's right. And no, they haven't done, say, JK Rowling (whose books had a much bigger impact on our culture than Stephenie's, who has a far more interesting and heroic life story and is just plain better...and yes, they do people outside America, Female Force has already done Princess Di). They go straight to Stephenie freakin' Meyer. Before JKR! Criminal.
Maybe I should be grateful, I'd hate to see that dorky narrator drooling over JKR. Though apparently Stephenie's books gets to be narrated by Edward, so maybe we'd get JKR narrated by Harry. Which would actually be vaguely interesting if they did it right, which after the Palin comic, I doubt they would.
But if I did it... "J.K. Rowling lived in a house. It had a cupboard. Unlike me, however, she wasn't forced the sleep in it. She just did that to me to torture me. HOW CRUEL YOU ARE, JK ROWLING!" Yeah, that would be fun.
(EDIT: Looks like JKR may be scheduled for late fall, according to this one interview. Now I'm scared, slightly.)
After reading to comic and hearing this news, I'm going to have to agree with one of the commenters at Twilight Cornfield.
Keep in mind, Bluewater only launched this "Female Force" line after some other company did comic book bios of Obama and McCain; they started with Hillary and even used a similar cover design as the other publisher.
In other words, these comics have always been a quick cash-in, and never really had much to do with the celebration of women's accomplishments. (Hence why there are no women writers or artists on these books)
I'll say. I'm going to take a look at the Caroline Kennedy comic when I'm back at Books a Million, but I doubt it will be that great. Especially if the same guy's writing it, ugh.
Harry Potter
I was wrapped up in the Fandom Wank wiki the other day, because I was looking at backlogs of JKR's trial versus the Lexicon. For those of you who don't know, the whole Lexicon thing is like this:
Steve Vander Ark: I make an online reference for Harry Potter fans with lots of quotes from the book.
JKR: Good Job! Here's a fansite award!
Steve: Yay! May I publish this as an encyclopedia?
JKR: No, sorry. Your site is basically my work alphabetized and rearranged for reference, with lots of quotes from my books, and no original commentary. It would be plagiarism if you published it. Also, I'm planning to write my own encyclopedia.
Steve: STFU meanie! I'm going to get it published anyway.
JKR: What? I just said no!
RDR books: STOP TRYING TO STIFLE OUR CLIENTS FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION! THIS IS AMERICA! YOU ARE LIKE A NAZI!!!
JKR's Lawyers: Cease and desist.
RDR: No!
Lawyers: Can we at least see the book?
RDR: No!
Lawyers: Seriously, cease and desist. Or at least respond to our letters.
RDR: No!
Lawyers: Okay, see you in court then.
JKR: This saddens me. Other books about HP are mostly original commentary and philosophy and analysis. This...is just my work rearranged. Also, it is sloppy and has tons of errors.
Steve: STFU!
*courtroom smackdown, JKR is teh winnah of course.*
When this was going on, I didn't know a lot about it, as I was out of HP fandom at the time. When I first heard of it, I was like, "But lots of HP encyclopedias are published and I thought JKR liked the Lexicon? Then I went onto her website and read her explanation, and was like, "oh, that makes sense." The end. So it's really interesting looking back at the old trial transcripts and stuff. Also addicting. Damn you fandom wank wiki! It's amazing how wanky Steve is and his publisher does Godwins law a bazillion times. But the best thing is how incredibly good JKR is at delivering a burn. Check these quotes out:
It was clearly an emotional issue for Ms. Rowling, who had flown in from Scotland to testify. She was given a box of blue tissues after she said, “I really don’t want to cry because I’m British.”
She's so adorable. <3 (By the way, context, she was asked what Harry Potter means to her, and she got a little choked up about how it changed her life)
JKR was asked whether the Lexicon was “just a Xerox copy” of her work: she said it was “very slightly more than that.” David Hammer said that there was text for every character, and she said, “Yes, is that the best you can say for the Lexicon, ‘It has text’?” Mr. Hammer responded that a lot of work had gone into it, and she said, “Yes, it was a lot of work. I remember doing it.”
OH SNAP SMACKDOWN IN THE COURTROOM.
And about Rowling's fansite award:
Lawyer: And what you say in that award is "This is such a great site that I have been known to sneak into an internet cafe while out writing and check a fact rather than go into a book store and buy a copy of Harry Potter, which is embarrassing. A website for the dangerously obsessive; my natural home. That's your language, correct?
JKR: That's my language.
Lawyer: That wasn't written by Mr. Vander Ark, was it?
JKR: Well, it probably will be at some point, but no, he hasn't done it yet.
EPIC burn is EPIC. JKR wins at life. It's amazing to see her snarky sense of humor is not just limited to her books. Oh, HP Fandom. I missed so much while I was away.
I've also been surfing the Harry Potter wiki which I didn't know existed, despite having my own wiki. But through it, I found out about this documentary on the year JK Rowling put out the seventh book. It's pretty good, some parts of it are really sad too, like how pressured she seems to feel when she releases the seventh book, because she knows how much expectation is on her. It's OK, JKR, I'll always love you, and I love the seventh book. Even sadder is when she visits her old apartment and starts crying...and remininces about her mum.
But the most interesting part of the documentary is part five, where she discusses stuff like Luna's future and Fred's death. A lot of it I already knew, but it's still very interestin for a fan.
The documentary starts here.
I should note fandom wank led to all of this. DAMN YOU FANDOM WANK!
Man, I really want that JKR encyclopedia now.
I know I should really be working on my Harry Potter fanfic instead of doing all that other stuff...but bah, I'm halfway through it! I'm working!
---
Anyway, since I've already rambled on way too long, that's it for now. More news later.
Female Force Comics
...totally suck, as far as I can tell. I flipped through the Sarah Palin one at Books-A-Million. You'd think since the comic is about girl power or whatever, it would be written or drawn by a female, or at the very least have a female character narrating it? But no. We have some middle- aged guy with some unfunny cricket sidekick narrating in a totally biased manner.
And he makes sure to go on for a panel about how hot Sarah Palin is. According for him, this is totally okay for him to say because she entered a beauty contest that one time. Yes, that totally give you a right to ogle at and objectify her in a comic that's supposed to be about her accomplishments. I mean, she entered a beauty contest, she's just asking for it right? Granted, Palin doesn't have that many accomplishments other than failing to become vice president and quitting as governor, so maybe he wanted to fill time. But I thought the comic was supposed to be about Palin, not this dorky narrator and how much he wants to do her? And let's not forget Sarah herself complained about the media focusing on her looks. Way to honor her wishes, buddy. (Especially ironic considering the narrator rails against the media for being so meeeeeaaan to Sarah later in the comic)
And yes, the format of the comic is totally stupid. Instead of, I don't know, having the comics from the powerful woman's point of view, getting into her head, examining the challenges of her life and the difficulties she faced, getting poetic and prosaic and talking about personal details not wildly known to the public, we get in NARRATED to us. It's like a friggin' history lesson, and it gives no more information that you'd find on Wikipedia. And I just have to stress it's narrated by a guy. In a comic called FEMALE FORCE. With an annoying sidekick that reminded me horribly of that little fairy in the "Wizard How to Draw Women" debacle. And he interrupts his little boring and poorly done history lesson with lame jokes and biased personal antidotes. Yes, his own personal anecdotes. When the comic is supposed to be about Sarah Palin.
"Sarah hunts? Oh boy, so do I! I love to hunt!" Should we care that you enjoy killing things, Mr. Narrator? I don't. "One of my favorite things about Sarah is she hunts." Oh yes, that's wonderful. It's so sexy how she passed that law about shooting wolves from helicopters. Killing creatures that weren't even bothering you while you have the advantage of a machine gun and being a gazillion feet above them, for no other discernible purpose than "population thinning" (work on thinning your own population first) is so damn sporting and honorable. Stupid namby pamby liberals complaining about hunting! Yes, we get it, Mr. Narrator, you're a douchebag. Why are you letting us know this when the comic is about Palin.
Also, though Sarah hunts, she can't stand holding the animals eyeballs. Well, Sarah, just imagine how it feels having those eyeballs plucked out of your skull! If you're so disgusted by the gore of what you're doing, maybe you shouldn't do it! (Yes, my animal lover self is rearing it's head.)
Oh, but it's not over! The media crucified Sarah, waaaahhhh! I thought this was supposed to be a comic about women's accomplishments, not Republican propoganda? I wonder if Hilary Clinton's comic complained about what the media did to her! Somehow, I doubt it. She never entered a beauty contest after all!
And the art. The narrator may SAY Sarah's attractive, but the art sure doesn't show it. She looks hideous, and she has this constant wrinkly face with a rictus grin. The art tries so hard to be photo-realistic it ends up looking ugly and awkward. I'd rather have cartoony art that that. In fact, a cartoony, fun adventure starring Sarah Palin as its fun-loving hero, rampaging through Alaska, would be a lot more creative and readable than this trash.
Female Force's greatest sin is that the next person they plan to do it Stephenie Meyer. That's right. And no, they haven't done, say, JK Rowling (whose books had a much bigger impact on our culture than Stephenie's, who has a far more interesting and heroic life story and is just plain better...and yes, they do people outside America, Female Force has already done Princess Di). They go straight to Stephenie freakin' Meyer. Before JKR! Criminal.
Maybe I should be grateful, I'd hate to see that dorky narrator drooling over JKR. Though apparently Stephenie's books gets to be narrated by Edward, so maybe we'd get JKR narrated by Harry. Which would actually be vaguely interesting if they did it right, which after the Palin comic, I doubt they would.
But if I did it... "J.K. Rowling lived in a house. It had a cupboard. Unlike me, however, she wasn't forced the sleep in it. She just did that to me to torture me. HOW CRUEL YOU ARE, JK ROWLING!" Yeah, that would be fun.
(EDIT: Looks like JKR may be scheduled for late fall, according to this one interview. Now I'm scared, slightly.)
After reading to comic and hearing this news, I'm going to have to agree with one of the commenters at Twilight Cornfield.
Keep in mind, Bluewater only launched this "Female Force" line after some other company did comic book bios of Obama and McCain; they started with Hillary and even used a similar cover design as the other publisher.
In other words, these comics have always been a quick cash-in, and never really had much to do with the celebration of women's accomplishments. (Hence why there are no women writers or artists on these books)
I'll say. I'm going to take a look at the Caroline Kennedy comic when I'm back at Books a Million, but I doubt it will be that great. Especially if the same guy's writing it, ugh.
Harry Potter
I was wrapped up in the Fandom Wank wiki the other day, because I was looking at backlogs of JKR's trial versus the Lexicon. For those of you who don't know, the whole Lexicon thing is like this:
Steve Vander Ark: I make an online reference for Harry Potter fans with lots of quotes from the book.
JKR: Good Job! Here's a fansite award!
Steve: Yay! May I publish this as an encyclopedia?
JKR: No, sorry. Your site is basically my work alphabetized and rearranged for reference, with lots of quotes from my books, and no original commentary. It would be plagiarism if you published it. Also, I'm planning to write my own encyclopedia.
Steve: STFU meanie! I'm going to get it published anyway.
JKR: What? I just said no!
RDR books: STOP TRYING TO STIFLE OUR CLIENTS FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION! THIS IS AMERICA! YOU ARE LIKE A NAZI!!!
JKR's Lawyers: Cease and desist.
RDR: No!
Lawyers: Can we at least see the book?
RDR: No!
Lawyers: Seriously, cease and desist. Or at least respond to our letters.
RDR: No!
Lawyers: Okay, see you in court then.
JKR: This saddens me. Other books about HP are mostly original commentary and philosophy and analysis. This...is just my work rearranged. Also, it is sloppy and has tons of errors.
Steve: STFU!
*courtroom smackdown, JKR is teh winnah of course.*
When this was going on, I didn't know a lot about it, as I was out of HP fandom at the time. When I first heard of it, I was like, "But lots of HP encyclopedias are published and I thought JKR liked the Lexicon? Then I went onto her website and read her explanation, and was like, "oh, that makes sense." The end. So it's really interesting looking back at the old trial transcripts and stuff. Also addicting. Damn you fandom wank wiki! It's amazing how wanky Steve is and his publisher does Godwins law a bazillion times. But the best thing is how incredibly good JKR is at delivering a burn. Check these quotes out:
It was clearly an emotional issue for Ms. Rowling, who had flown in from Scotland to testify. She was given a box of blue tissues after she said, “I really don’t want to cry because I’m British.”
She's so adorable. <3 (By the way, context, she was asked what Harry Potter means to her, and she got a little choked up about how it changed her life)
JKR was asked whether the Lexicon was “just a Xerox copy” of her work: she said it was “very slightly more than that.” David Hammer said that there was text for every character, and she said, “Yes, is that the best you can say for the Lexicon, ‘It has text’?” Mr. Hammer responded that a lot of work had gone into it, and she said, “Yes, it was a lot of work. I remember doing it.”
OH SNAP SMACKDOWN IN THE COURTROOM.
And about Rowling's fansite award:
Lawyer: And what you say in that award is "This is such a great site that I have been known to sneak into an internet cafe while out writing and check a fact rather than go into a book store and buy a copy of Harry Potter, which is embarrassing. A website for the dangerously obsessive; my natural home. That's your language, correct?
JKR: That's my language.
Lawyer: That wasn't written by Mr. Vander Ark, was it?
JKR: Well, it probably will be at some point, but no, he hasn't done it yet.
EPIC burn is EPIC. JKR wins at life. It's amazing to see her snarky sense of humor is not just limited to her books. Oh, HP Fandom. I missed so much while I was away.
I've also been surfing the Harry Potter wiki which I didn't know existed, despite having my own wiki. But through it, I found out about this documentary on the year JK Rowling put out the seventh book. It's pretty good, some parts of it are really sad too, like how pressured she seems to feel when she releases the seventh book, because she knows how much expectation is on her. It's OK, JKR, I'll always love you, and I love the seventh book. Even sadder is when she visits her old apartment and starts crying...and remininces about her mum.
But the most interesting part of the documentary is part five, where she discusses stuff like Luna's future and Fred's death. A lot of it I already knew, but it's still very interestin for a fan.
The documentary starts here.
I should note fandom wank led to all of this. DAMN YOU FANDOM WANK!
Man, I really want that JKR encyclopedia now.
I know I should really be working on my Harry Potter fanfic instead of doing all that other stuff...but bah, I'm halfway through it! I'm working!
---
Anyway, since I've already rambled on way too long, that's it for now. More news later.