Fandom

A Facebook page has sprung up to organize a protest march against the new awful designs of the new 52. It seems some folks don't like the new fresh DC designs that are all new:

A licensed massage therapist/cosplayer named Amber is concerned by some Wizard shows where something called cosplay massage has been exhibiting, something she feels is unsuitable for a family convention. and it's not just skimpy costumes. Its the element of fantasy entering into a therapeutic service.

Because that last item was a little gloomy, here's Anita Olin's story of how she got into reading comics, from tis month's Sequential Tart:

Now that Nerd Culture is just regular Culture, thanks to the Internet, you'd think everything would have been settled, but there are still some skirmishes going on. And only this week a new mini-ruckus erupted and oddly enough, it was among the girls.

Now, one of the GOOD things about the internet is that it has allowed girl geeks to be just as proud and out as boy geeks and to, indeed, show that they like geek stuff, something that was doubted for a long time.

Speaking as a lifelong nerd myself, I can testify that back in the neolithic age of nerditry, if you had girls genes you were not taken seriously as a comics fan, wrestling fan, Star Wars fan, or anything else that boys thought was just for them. Oh, the looks I got when I said I had read Robert E. Howard. For a long time, I felt like I was the only one. In fact while I was at WonderCon, I was chatting to Sergio Aragones about the olden days and he said, "Remember when you were the only girl?" and I could only laugh in agreement.

While we were checking out our ego Google alert, we found a response to our brief critique of a piece on the Anaheim Comic-Con that didn't mention a single comics type person. The writer of the piece, one Matt Patches, says he was right to stay mute on comics, because everyone expects to find comics and cartoonists at a comic-con so it is not noteworthy enough to report:

Comic-Con is now like the state fair, as events in Orlando, Memphis, Rockford, WI, and Kansas City took place over the weekend.

It seems there is a new sheriff in DC's digital town, and she goes by the name Molly Merrell. This new member of DC Online has just delivered a smackdown on rowdy posters at DC's Source blog:

As tweeted by Dave Gibbons, Pat Curley recounts the very beginnings of comics fandom -- a historic confluence of Julius Schwartz, Jerry Bails and Roy Thomas -- and shows that even then the feedback loops of fandom and editorial were closely aligned:

Comedian/actor/sometime comics writer Patton Oswalt expresses clearly the vague feeling we've often haphazardly batted about here: as Geek Culture becomes the norm, it is...

I see Saruman was at the Fantagraphics Bookstore Anniversary party on Saturday. It's good to see him getting out of Isengard more. [Via twitter but lost the link!]

This profile of the Seattle Fantagraphics store in a college newspaper gives us all a chance to admire their gold leaf signage, but it also presents yet another example of the eternal conflict of art and people with mustard in their goatees as they argue the merits of graphic novels in bookstores and what that means for bathroom privileges.

It happened at Dragon*Con. Need we say more? Someone please add music, pronto, so this can become the greatest video of all times for today.