Sociology

It's international Women's Day, yo. To celebrate, let's watch this video of Judi Dench (M) interrogating Daniel Craig (uh, James Bond) who appears in drag. "We're equals, aren't we, 007?" asks Dame Dench. Let's also look at the day in nerd gender relations. There was much tweeting yesterday about the new TCJ.com and the number of lady contributors. Melinda Beasi at Manga Bookshelf sums up the whole thing, and the comments have it out and then everyone sat down and ate a hearty lunch.

Last night Bosch Fawstin, the former-Muslim-turned-ant-jihadist crusader, was quizzed on the Daily Show regarding his alarm over Nightrunner, Batman's parkour-practicing Muslim French sidekick. Aasif Mandvi does the interviewing, and he also gets Chris Sims (one 'm') from Comics Alliance to explain what's happening from a comics blogger point of view.

It's strange, I suppose, to find a show so entrenched in geek culture as CES almost completely devoid of comics influence, only to discover a porn show roughly three miles away swimming in the stuff.

Obviously, DC doesn't want to risk losing the dollars of its core audience in the hopes of gaining a broader selection of readers. What if those new readers don't come? Hey, that’s a serious and valid question. Money isn't exactly pouring in. Taking a risk is scary when a comic selling 25,000 copies is considered a solid book. And so...you do nothing. You make awkward jokes when fans ask questions at cons. You put minority characters who rarely appear in big pose down images as if they are an integral part of the story. You hope to keep complaints from both sides to a very low rumbling.

Just how gay were the old Marvel Swimsuit Specials? Very, very gay, Richard Cook writes, and JR JR demonstrates:

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...

Fandom's deadliest duo are back: Ragnell (Lisa Fortuner) and Kalinara (Melissa Krause) are two writers who founded the link blog When Fangirls Attack and set off a whole generation of conversation and outrage. A few years ago they passed WFA to others due to real life stuff -- Ragnell is in the Armed Forces, and Kalinara was in school -- but it's kind of foundered since they left -- two posts explaining why there are no posts since October. So R&K are back with a NEW link blog Dispatches From The Fridge,

Ever since the announcement of the "Earth One" line of graphic novels just over a year ago, it's been a little unclear just who the line was aimed at, or how it fit into DC's various lines of books. Subsequent statements just muddied the waters. Although obviously an Ultimates-type revamp for new readers, with just one book on the schedule -- the just released JMS/Shane Davis SUPERMAN: EARTH ONE -- it was just a toe in those same muddy waters.

Kelly Thompson has part 2 of her Ladies Comics Project up and we repeat THIS SHOULD BE MANDATORY READING for comics publishers and creators. The idea of giving comics-friendly but not necessarily conversant readers various comics is a bracing alternative to the endless nitpicking of constant readers who sleep on mattresses stuffed with shredded copies of DEATHMATE. For instance, 37-year-old event planner DeAnne was disappointed the cool pop art cover looked nothing like the insides:

It's been a long year of change in the comics industry, and New York Comic Con feels like the end point of an arduous but rewarding journey. We were just doing a search for blogs posts about the show and already found fairly fascinating two think pieces that show the ascendance of nerd culture as a boon -- or a threat, depending on how you view it.

Now THIS is interesting. The other day we were talking about how the lack of strong demographic readership info is definitely felt in the comics space. It's not a scientific survey, but Kelly Thompson at She Has No Head has started something called the Ladies Comics Project where she asks her female friends -- some comics readers some not -- to pick and read a comic previously unknown to them and give their thoughts.

From a comment at Techland: