In which I'm collecting comics

Elana of Room 334 recently did a blog post about her pop culture loves and I was pretty inspired by her mention of Saga (a fantastic comic). I thought that I'd like to share with you some of the comics I'm reading.

When I was a teenager I fell in love with X-men after the first movie came out. (And yes Hugh Jackman had a lot to do with) However, after that I collected many X-men issues right up until I went to university. Then it was hard to keep up with it without the regular subscription. I didn't give up on comics though. I just started buying them from bookshops: in the full volumes. And of course, reading them in libraries. I was gathering collected volumes of Sandman and Fables and Lucifer, which still have pride of place on my shelf.

But then I moved again, to a place with a comic shop. I started getting back into single issues - the comics on the wide display shelves, the random series' to experiment with, one bit of the story every month. It's sometimes frustrating reading the story like that. The issues get battered more than a hard cover, the story is over too soon, they take up more space on the shelves, and worst of all - sometimes I miss an issue. The comics I like to collect just happen to be very popular (I have great taste obviously) which means they sell out fast. But all the same I love the joy of coming in and being handed my paper bag of comics. I love feeling like there's something to get every time. The whole collecting single issues thing makes me feel part of a community. So here's a whiz tour of my top comics at the moment:

Lumberjanes

 Lumberjanes is written by the fantastic Noelle Stevenson. She writes and draws Nimona which is a brilliant webcomic - about a supervillain and his shape-shifting side-kick Nimona, taking on the darker-than-expected protectors of the kingdom, but it's also about friendship.

Lumberjanes' is her leaving the web and getting a physical comic out there in the shops. I love Nimona to bits so when she announced this, I got my pre-orders sorted. The Lumberjanes' motto 'friendship to the max' takes her brilliant characterisations to the next level with a group of young girls at a summer camp, taking on yetis, hidden traps and wolves with ingenuity and kick-ass attitudes. It's empowering beautiful stuff. It's also only 3 issues in, so still time to get in early!

 Saga

 Where to start with Saga? It's comic about parenting and war. About love as it is, awkward sex, serious baggage, pissed off alien assasins and all. Husband and wife, Marko and Alana have had a baby. Only their supposed to be on opposites side of a conflict and their relationship is seen as more than taboo - it's pretty sick. Some people even want them dead from it. The genius of the book is that even the assasins or the tabloidists are brilliantly written and loved by the fans. This won three Eisner Awards for a reason. It's brilliant, and funny and dirty and different. It's the opposite end of the spectrum from Lumberjanes, certainly not for kids but equally brilliant for female protagonists.

Hawkeye

 

Hawkeye was a big jump for me. It was my first time after X-men getting back into Marvel universe stories. I'd read a lot about it online and wanted to see what the fuss was about. It's certainly nothing like the adventures of Wolverine. Hawkeye here is actually Kate Bishop. She's 'practically an avenger'. Actually, she has trouble just looking after a cat. Kate's doing her best to be somewhat of a private eye in LA, just trying to make ends meet. The stories are really interesting and it's doing something different with the genre. I keep missing issues though so I want to read a whole group together and find out more about her because I feel like I'm only getting half a story a lot of the time.

Ms Marvel

Having started reading one superhero comic, I thought I'd pick up another Marvel title that's been getting attention lately. I'm just at the start of this one and I'm already enthralled by it. It's Marvel's first Muslim character with her own headline title, so obviously that got a lot of media notice. And I'm glad, because I honestly did pick it up due to the hype and stayed for Kamala. She's all the things I loved about X-men when I was a teenage - people struggling with identity, with being accepted, with being a superhero whilst your parents have grounded you. I feel back at home with this story, but I know it's also going new places. I also love Carol Danvers who inspires the main character so I also feel like we've got something in common. If you want to try a superhero comic, you can't do better than this.

Pretty Deadly

Out of all of these, Pretty Deadly is the hardest one to get hold of the UK, and also the hardest one to describe. The story is a Western-Horror told through the eyes of Bones Bunny and a butterfly. It generates characters with mouth-watering names like Death Face Ginny, and a girl in a vulture cloak named Ginny. It's weird, and it's beautiful.  At times I have found the violence almost too much for me, and the story can be hard to follow, but the art is breathtaking. It is worth collecting it for the incredible splash pages alone. I find reading Pretty Deadly more like tracing someone's dream. I can see that there is a whole story going on, but I'm really just interested in the colours.

Are you reading any comics? Have I inspired you to give any of these a try? What am I missing that I should be reading?

In which I am Death and ComicCon rocks

Confessions. I haven't blogged in a whole month. I haven't actually looked at anyone else's blog in that whole time either. All of sudden I felt weary of blogging and then I was caught in a little guilt cycle. The shame I felt at abandoning my blog for so long made me afraid to look at it again. But here I am? And the worst thing I found on return was a pile of spammy messages. Not sure what I imagined - disappointed letters? A huge backlog of things to read? Well, yes that one pretty much.

So what has been happening in my life? THIINGS! I tell you, many things have indeed happened. I went to Edinburgh and got my wedding dress and some fabulous shoes, had a crazy throat infection for a week that involved blood tests and a paramedic, went to comiccon and saw some sharks. These things did not all happen at once.

ComiCon London was amazing! I am going to share pictures of that here and now.
I dressed as Death from the Sandman in the fourth time I have worn that dress, but it took bloody ages to make and taked up lots of room so I want to get the most use out of it as possible. This time was the best yet though. I went all the way with black lipstick and darkening my eyebrows and whitening my chest. I absolutely loved being Death, but the standard of cosplay all round was incredible! We watch the parade at the end of the day but all the things we saw across the day were blow away impressive.

 

I took some photos of other cosplayers but I didn't like making strangers pose for too long and the lighting was just awful in there, so most of them aren't even passable. However the two below were amongst my favourites. 

 Jareth and Sarah from Labyrinth, one of my all time favourite films!

And then this cosplay. Seriously. This is a person, not a model. I don't think I should say anything else.

 And I bought lots of things, including the best soft toy ever. Here he is tucked up in my bed:

This totoro toy has barely left my side since I got it. The softest thing ever and works as the perfect cusion, acompanying little mini-totoro who I have had for years.

There were many other cool things, like meeting the author of one of my favourite webcomics and seeing Nel and Eric from NCIS LA, but that's probably enough words for now.

I will try and blog a little more now, although it is a month till the wedding so life is a little busy. :)

In which I review Iron Man 3 and dance in the snow

I haven't blogged again for a while and it's not exactly that I've been busy, although I am often tired from work. I have just really been enjoying Andy's company and spending our evenings watching Star Trek or playing Mario Kart wii. We bought the wii a few weeks ago and have been obsessively trying to unlock all the achievements. I've said it many times on this blog before: when I get a new game I am gone from the Internet!

I went to see Iron Man at the weekend. Have any of you seen it? I have mixed feelings to be honest (there are spoilers below). It was enjoyable for the most part, and had some good comedy lines. However, I left feeling a little disappointed. The trailer had given me hope that Pepper was really going to DO things in this film. And she did, she did have a little bit of action time. However, in the scenes leading up to her action moments it was all a complete stock-girl-kidnap. Pepper is tied up! Pepper is crushed! She is sliding towards her doom! There is a 'reach for my hand' moment! I was just a little bored. Because generally, in films, women serve the role of plot development and character development - for the male lead. Pepper is kidnapped as a motivator for Iron Man. When he is caught you think - how will he get out of this? When she is caught you think - how will he get her out of this? There is a good Feminist Frequency about how the Damsel in Distress trope is over-used in games, but it applies to films just as much. I know that Iron Man 3 did give her some degree of agency but it felt so odd to me, to put her in that stereotypical role, and see it through to it's usual conclusion (spoiler: man rescues woman) and at the end of it all give her some action. It only served to prove to the audience that she was only tied up so that she could be rescued. Because if she was really badass and clever - which she is - she could have got herself out.
If I was making it, I would have had that scene with Iron Man trying to call his suit to get out of being tied to a bed. It's funny, it's great. How about if Pepper had escaped herself, showed up and used brains to get him out and the suit was there after all that. It would have worked with the anthropomorphism of the suit, and it wouldn't have given us that boring scene of stereotypes. Because seriously, it's not only sexist it is OLD.

And on that note I have to say I am a little nervous about all these characters I love. I utterly adore Star Trek, but the Into Darkness trailor whilst exciting has a lot of stock sci-fi elements. There are bad people! Explosions! A ship crashing into water! A blonde woman takes her clothes off! Men say brave things! 



*yawn*
I am totally going to see it of course, but even if it reaches beyond those motifs, the very fact they felt the need to put a moment of Dr Carol Marcus in her pants says JJ Abrams has let me down.

It's all so silly. The Bechdel test has been circulating since the 80s. Girls have read comics, liked sci-fi since it began. Every so often a film gets it right and is successful... I wrote that. Then I went away for twenty minutes on the Bechdel test website to look at action films that pass. Um. So, the only one that passes 'with flying colours' is the Hunger Games. But my point is that a good writer and director wouldn't feel the need to stub in tropes to their work. If they can show women saving the day in a few minutes, don't spend the rest of it showing them like stock characters!

Anyway, I didn't mean to turn my Iron Man 3 review into such a long piece. In the mean time, here are some pictures of me and our wedding venue in the snow. We went back to check it out and refresh ourselves - only we had to avoid snow drifts! It's not going to be like that on the day I trust.

And here is my ceramic sheep riding a toy scooter.

What did you think of Iron Man 3?

In which Hamleys gets the tour

Lego Queen and Lego guards

Lego Kate and William, plus a Lego telephone box. (There was also a Lego Harry and Duke of Edinburgh, but that's enough Lego royalty for me)

In front of a stuffed polar bear. Not a real-stuffed bear, one made by people who make cuddly bears. Seemed a bit of a leap in production to me. The photos have now moved to being in Harrods.

Teen fiction section in Harrods. I love their layouts. Look at the random giant chess piece!

Minifigure made from other figures. I've called her Belinda and she is awesome! Andy and I spent Saturday night making new Lego people after breaking up all the ones I own. The new ones have names and character backgrounds now.

Opening up my tax return's wealth

Wolverine thinks he is sneaking, but Magneto can already sense he is there!

The completed chopper. Took a little time that one.

On Saturday Andy and I took a trip to the toy shops. We got an unexpected little windfall in the form of tax returns for both of us which is very nice. And being mature tax-paying grown ups we took our government money and spent it all on booze Lego and Magic cards. Yup.

I was actually planning to go to Hamleys and Harrods toy shops all along in order to do a review of them for Bad Reputation. Bad Rep is an excellent online feminist magazine that I have written for once before. I wrote a piece suggesting that the Lego Friends series isn't as sexist as it may have first seemed. I am really pleased with having it out there because Friends has continued the trend I predicted of bringing out more empowering sets. Anyway, the next planned article is one looking at which of the major brands is the best at arranging their shop in a non-gendered way. I went to Toys R Us for it ages ago, so now I have lots of notes and want to form them into something interesting. I'll talk know more on that and link to the article when it is done.

As research trips go, it wasn't bad! I ended up having a great chat with the Lego rep in Hamleys who showed me pictures on his phone of all his sets and I like to think we bonded a little. I bought the Marvel set with the chopper, Deadpool, Magneto and Wolverine in Hamley's. It is honestly the most I have spent on any set in a very long time. I might buy a lot of toys, but I generally keep it to small amounts at a time. But we had free money! So what the heck eh?

I took a bajillion photos of the Lego display models (which were amazing), but with all the kids around and weird lighting, they aren't very good I'm sorry. (I'm always afraid taking photos in toy shops cause it's illegal to take photos of other people's kids and all that). There was also a Lego dragon and a Lego porter in Harrods which I haven't shown here. I always wonder whether they are imported or the staff devote whole days to the structures.

And, as for the outfit time... I really love this look, but it was a horrible day outside so didn't get many photos of it. I am wearing an asymmetrical skirt that goes 'swoooosh' behind me when I walk and makes me feel so sexy. I confess to being utterly vain when wearing this and looking in shop windows to see it floating out behind me. It's also green chiffon with an underskirt so the lightness makes the swooshing even easier. Doesn't show in still photos though unfortunately. I felt like a proper Londoner on Saturday though with my hat and fancy skirt and wearing lipstick and, of course, being inside Harrods. It's also interesting to see my style developing post-uni.

Outfit Elements: Hat: Camden market, T-shirt: Meat Loaf gig, Skirt: New Look, Waistcoat: Matalan, Key Necklace: gift

How was your weekend? 

I hope Deadpool has plastic katana and gun there.

In which I review some awesome blogs and think about the universe

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I decided to break away from my usual habits in blog reading of looking up fashion blogs like Sea of Shoes and pining for beautiful clothes. I thought I would try looking for more things in my other interest –comics. What hero doesn't love reading comics and picking up tips? I found a list called the Comic Blog Elite. I've been scrolling through trying to find new good things to read. So many of them were just reviews of comics. I think if you are going to do that there has to be something to mark you out, other wise how can I choose which one to read?

I confess I have been kind of drawn to things to do with girls, like Has Boobs, Reads Comics or My Comic Book Crisis

Because hey I like girls being involved in comics. Interestingly both their latest articles are a pretty image feast. The former doing hot guys in cosplay and the latter doing the marvel swimsuit edition. Like this:

(Image credited to Marvel and My Comic Book Crisis)

Images like that kind of make the ridiculously huge breasts of Storm and Wonder Woman seem more acceptable. There was also a picture of Collosus in leapord print boxers...

However the best new blog I have found is 'Comics make No Sense'

Seriously I have been laughing hysterically at this for days whilst I back read it. He takes old comic panels and points out the ridiculous in them. I found another blog that did a similar thing but the commentary here is the true wit and the other one posted the panels with no further comments.

I have found it so funny that I was hunched over my laptop in near tears. If that's not a recommendation I don't know what is. :)

I have in the mean time been making a list of major problems with the universe and how they can be solved by origami.

When the internet doesn't work I have a moment of panic and think:

It's true I could read.

I could play scrabble.

Or I could save the universe.

Threat of Nuclear War -I really want to sneak around destroying all the nuclear weapons but I have a feeling that would just go terribly wrong. I don't know enough about science to carry this out successfully. This isn't Wonder Woman where I can carry it into the sea under my arm and leave it there feeling that was a job well done.

World Hunger –Already tried this one. Paper creations are just bad for the stomach. See entry

Racism – That one is really about the way people think. Not sure I can make people change their minds with my weapons. And tbh mind ray guns and the like usually fall into the villain category.

Global Warming –Ok I should definitely be able to do something about that. Like I could make a giant mirror for the sky. Or huge paper fans. Actually John could just make more ice caps for the polar bears. I might get him onto that. You know how it is with guys though. You have to poke them a bit before they save the universe.

Also I can make sure all my origami paper is recycled! Actually... I really prefer using nice washi paper and after it turns back to paper from being a gorilla or whatever it is usually ruined. Curses. Even my small attempts at saving the universe backfire.

The thing is when we aren't being attacked by super-villains or space robots it is pretty hard to save the world from these kinds of things. At least we keep the zombies at bay though!

Let me know if you know of any good comic-related blogs I should be reading.

In which I go to the cinema and read comics

This has been a pretty good week apart from the fact that my body has given in and decided to have a cold like everyone else.
I have been drinking so much lemsip and paracetemal that I was getting dizzy. In fact I was feeling so ill that when there was a massive car crash in town and I needed to lift a car up I made a spider monkey rather than a gorilla to do the heavy lifting for me. Like this one:

Trust me it just got in the way and made the fireman angry.

I did take a trip to the cinema and watch Scott Pilgrim with John. It was definitely very epic. Never have I watched a film that made me want to high five people so much. I also came out of it with a very strong urge to go to rock gig. John said he would be sad if there weren't Chinese dragons fighting above the audience and I see I am going to have to persuade him NOT to recreate the scene with ice dragons Hitsugaya style.

I also happened upon a Wonder Woman comic. I don't generally read Wonder Woman. It kind of seemed to go against my feminist sensibilities. Yet when I was flicking through this one (from the 70s) I saw the phrase 'women's lib' and decided to give it a go. It was actually really good. All about when Diana Prince had no powers other than knowing karate and yoga. The adventure? She took down a corrupt supermarket owner who paid his female staff ¼ of what the men were being paid. They got him done by the police by finding out he didn't have fire extinguishers. Definitely very interesting to read it alongside stories with the more typical crazed psychopath as the villain. It's this one if you are interested. (Also after some internet research it doesn't sound as though it continued to be very feminist)

In other news I read this really interesting interview with Neil Gaiman. Oh he is so very shiny.
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/10/the_vulture_transcript_neil_ga.html

Have a good week guys.

In which I dress up as Princess Mononoke.

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Sorry for the long delay in blogging. I have been incredibly busy so had no time at all.

I did however have a fantastic party. It was rather belated for my birthday as folks had been occupied at the weekend.

I spent aaages making my costume for it. It was themed on 'things you would find in a forest' and I spent ages on the planning. I went for a walk in the woods with my sister and gathered sticks and things and wild feral apples and put them in jars around the room. I bought beautiful lights disguised as cherry blossom and then wound plastic ivy around the window bars and dotted playmobil trees and unicorns around the tables. It looked so beautiful and atmospheric.

Here is a picture of one of my friends in costume, looking 'atmospheric'. :)

Thinking about planning the party with my sister, I have just realised that having a sister is kind of unusual for a superhero. I think the heroism works for them in the comics because they are all 'an only child'. So much angst.

I'm trying to imagine batman with a big sister. She wouldn't have stood for all that emo nonsense with dressing in black and going travelling to 'find himself.'

Or imagine if Spiderman had a younger brother who caught him flexing his muscles in the mirror. A little brother would have just laughed at the skin-tight outfit, although probably been quite jealous.

The only ones who had siblings were heroes in teams, I think without them people like Iron Man can only think of operating on their own. (Although I suppose he had friends who helped but shhhh)

I think it is similar to how in children's fantasy novels the parents have to conveniently disappear. They are always orphans. Although it is something that I really like in the Doomspell books. The kids there have parents, worry about them and try to protect them from the witches and so forth. Really really good series actually.

But anyway I do have a sister.

I dressed up as Princess Mononoke for the party. Finally linking back to my first bit about spending time on the costume. I went on a little tangent there.

So here are some photos:

Notice, still wearing a mask. :P I love costumes so very much. I really want to do a 'wolf suit' from Where the Wild Things are one day.