Hazardswake: I actually have problems translating the story from the comic to a text synopsis sometimes. It's like pulling my own teeth

Sooz: Yeah.
I have synopsis issues, period.
"Well you see it's... and then this.... and then over here... but also..."
"OK Sooz calm down. What is this about?"
"I DON'T KNOOOOOOOW!"

Dear Scenery:

You suck. I hate you.

Sincerely,

me

I read this a while ago when it was first published, and thought about linking it but didn't for some reason or other. Possibly "Oh God turn off the internet and get back to work on printing things oh God I need to send them this week!"

From Margin to Center: Writing Characters of Color

People of color know more about white people than we know about ourselves and one other because everything we are taught in the schools is by and about white people. Everything we see on television is by and about white people. Everything in magazines, on film, in books and on book covers is created by and about white people. Writers of color in the west almost always have white people in our books because that is what we know; it’s what is all around us.

1) I finally got a shiny pokerman (Ratattatata however the hell it's spelt). I don't really get the thing over them, but it was kind of neat to see one after playing these games a jillion times. (It is not replacing Ratcula, though. Ratcula owns.)

2) SQBR sorted the Disability Tropes of TVTropes according to disability type. While reading thru the entries for Evil Cripple and Genius Cripple I am struck with the desire to see/make a character who is wheelchair'd but has super strength anyway. (And non-genius intellect.) I think that would be much more interesting and fun.

When I was last at Comic-Con, I attended a lovely dinner with a few women but mostly men, and at one point the conversation turned to why we women had pretty much stopped reading superhero comics and were now more drawn to manga. The gentlemen at the table, all great guys and fans and not at all the type that would spew bile aimed at girls, nonetheless were completely puzzled as to why women would be so bothered by the way female superheroes are drawn (not the writing, but the pin-up style art that is prevalent). I had a tough time explaining it at the time, but the next morning I came up with the right switch that got them thinking: what if we took Batman, dressed him up in a thong, and sent him out to fight crime, all the while featuring many panels of him lounging around in his bedroom or talking on the phone in a tiny towel. When I mentioned this to a few of my (straight) male comics fan friends, their reaction was very much a look of horror and an exclamation of, “I don’t want to see that!” My response was “…And so you see my point.”

From here.

What weirds me out is how many people have a complete failure to grok that. o_O But then, I'm kind of uncomfortable with particularly skimpy-clothed, sexed-up ANYONE*, so maybe I'm just more sensitive to it.

*Outside of settings where they are supposed to be both, like porn and James Bond.

1) I feel kind of... I guess sad + uncomfortable that my Amputee Girls pics are mostly faved by people making fetish collections. I mean... I guess one could make the argument that I've got kind of a drawing "fetish" for them (and other exterior things like scars), but... IDK, it's just... odd to me. (Fetish pics kind of weird me out in general because so few of them have a sense of exterior setting or personality.)

1a) Similarly, my "Kaiju Aya" for one of the AWA badges that one time continues to get faves from people with giant girl fetishes. Which for some reason bothers me less. Possibly because there is not really a marginalized group of giant girls.*

2) I keep mentally trying out costume designs for guys that might be the equivalent of cheesecakey girl designs, but it doesn't work. Part is probably because of the culturally indoctrinated "noooo, men cannot be SEXY in costumes like that, it would render them Not Men and/or Very Silly Looking!"** but I think part is just that I've developed a kind of internal division between "srs character design" and "sexytimes character design." Or maybe something else. The result is that I just can't properly do that kind of design. Not that I need to.

3) Karen Healey requested an illustration of Sei Shōnagon and Jane Austen as a crimefighting duo. I obliged. Apparently, it is considered a good illustration.

4) I cannot type today.

*Obese girls do not count unless they are also taller than a building.
**Oftentimes, the less clothing a guy is wearing, the sillier he looks. Especially when you start removing leg coverings. Why did you make guys' legs so funny-lookin', God?

Here's some neat meta getting into the meat of the "Women in Refrigerators" trope.

Interesting if you like figuring out the cultural influences of story tropes.

yuki_onna on the importance of having the "Other" in fiction. It expresses pretty much my opinion on why folks should work to expand their stories and their "casting" of characters. I'd quote some, but pretty much the whole thing is important. So, just read the link. It is good stuff.

This review brings up some important points on some of the "comedy" (in this case, in manga, but also in anime) that ends up being more unpleasant than funny. (Mariaholic comes up in it at one point.)

Why can I read Ikkitousen or Ultra Sword and have absolutely *no* issue whatsoever with it, yet this kind of manga - which isn't 1/1000th as offensive and violent as Ultra Sword - makes me want to stab something?

It came to me after a little thought - the issue is one of *power.* As anyone knows who has ever studied anything about sexual violence knows, the crime is not a crime of sex, but one of power. The criminal seeks to impress upon the victim that they are the one with the power and can therefore take away any and all power the victim might otherwise have.

Which was my problem watching Mariaholic, and reading this made me better able to put it into words:

What stories like this are doing is showing us (realistic) bullying and telling us, "Ha ha! It is so funny!" Which is a pretty terrible thing, as pretty much anyone who grew up as a geek should know. (Unless you grew up in some sort of amazing Majority Geek culture or something, in which case, um, congrats I guess. You lucked out.)

Maybe I'm weird in that I grew up with the idea that abuse of any sort is not actually funny. I have trouble conceiving that others would feel differently, but I guess the bullies of the world have to come from somewhere.

-Had yesterday off, spent almost the entire day inking a page for Reliquary. I do not like this page. It looks good (if I do say so myself) but it has lots of buildings and crowd scenes, which make for lots of work. >:( Such is the life of an artist. (An example of how long it took to do this one: the bottom two panels took the entirety of Wall-E to finish. And they were fairly simple.)

-Watched WKC show with parents. I come from a family where squealing over doggies is Family Quality Time. Mom wants p. much every dog, ever. We all really liked the puli this year. I have, after further reading, come to the conclusion that I would like to get a Portugese Water Dog, since it seems best-suited to my lifestyle and all. (Other than the lack of a large water source in my backyard.) DOGS!

-Decided to get Dad to record shows on his cable for me, which can then sit around until I have free time that I want to do art in. (I tend to work best with something nonfiction going on in the background, like educational shows or DVD commentary. I have exhausted my stock of DVDs with commentary, sadly.)

-I would like the weather to stop changing all over as it makes parts of my body ache, and this is unpleasant.

-I'm replaying Persona 3, and it is fun. Also, Normal level is easier than I expected it to be, possibly because I got used to P4's combat, which was harder.

...I guess that's it, really. I have a nicely boring life, which is why this thing is mostly taken up with links to other material and all.

A Japanese cartoon and three Japanese comics. Ones behind cuts have some spoilers, in canse anyone cares:

( Mariaholic ep 1 D: )

( Papillon vol 2 D: )

( the Wallflower vol 18 :DDD )

I picked up Fire Investigator Nanase on a whim, mainly because of the cover art. I mean, look at that- you can tell it's going to be about someone who's an ultra badass! And it did not disappoint!

Nanase is a natural talent at detective work associated with fires and arson. Three years ago, she unknowingly saved the life of a creepy serial arsonist, Firebug, who was about to burn to death in the middle of his own work. Since then, he's gotten Creepy Obsessed with her, and as of the start of the stories in this volume, is contacting her to help her out on her investigations.

I would seriously love to keep reading this series- Nanase is an awesome protag, and the depiction is not annoyingly sexist like one might be used to seeing: The only incident in the first four chapters I've read that could be borderline is when Firebug kidnaps her to "test" her knowledge of fire, and at the climax she has to strip off her outer garments because they're soaked in a flammable chemical; Firebug walks in and starts doing the usual weird guy talking, though he honestly doesn't seem to care that he's seeing her in her undies, beyond the fact that it means she was smart enough to avoid burning to death. HELL YEAH GO WRITER. (And go artist: she is in Sensible Underwear, rather than lacy girly shit that would not really work for the character. FUCK YEAH.)

The only problem I have is a personal one: I am FUCKING TERRIFIED of burning to death, and this comic has lots of graphic charred corpse and people on fire scenes. So I can't properly get into it because I am too busy suppressing phobia stuff.

So I would like to recommend anyone that likes action/mystery/drama stuff and everyday heroics to give Fire Investigator Nanase a try, because this is a really nice book so far.

Here's some meta on the changes in story length in superhero comics, in reaction to Morrison's run on Final Crisis. It's pretty neat, I think.

This is a problem I encounter a lot in comics these days. Once upon a time, a single comic book would feature multiple self-contained stories in one issue. A story that took up the entire issue was touted as a "book-length novel", as though anything longer than eight pages was some sort of epic. Eventually, the paradigm shifted to multi-issue storylines, then miniseries, and then miniseries-within-series (like Batman: Year One), and then one day Dennis O'Neil realized that he could just do that whenever you wanted, and so the fairly typical storyline "Ten Nights of the Beast" was given special trade dress on the covers of Batman #417-421, as though it were some groundbreaking event instead of Batman beating up a post-Cold War assassin. Today, we live in the era of storylines being drawn out over the course of multiple issues, multiple titles, etc., whether they need to or not. The goal should be to make any single issue stand alone to some degree, so that even if it continues from another comic and ends on a cliffhanger, you still feel like you got a full story out of it.

Dayum, y'all- I got Will Eisner's Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative because, well, Eisner, and I'm reading it and it's good comicking advice, but DAMN is it ever US- and White-people-centric.

Like, the chapter "Images as Narrative Tools," in which we are told, "The comics' creator can now count on a global distribution of his work. To communicate well, the storyteller must be conversant with what is universally valid." [Emphasis mine.] And what standards of reference does our intrepid author consider "universally valid?"

Beauty- displaying a blank head shape with a pair of profile silhouettes, one masculine, one feminine, with traits taken straight out of 50s mainstream America.

Heroism- A blond, square-jawed Charles Atlas clone in skivvies.

Evil- A hunched-over skinny dude with a big, crooked nose, scraggly hair, and a scruffy beard.

Granted, he starts the chapter off talking about stereotypes and their use in comicry, but still! Universal, my eye!

Even better, a few pages later we get treated to how "objects have their own vocabulary in the visual language of comics." "Good Knife"- a pocket knife. "Bad Knife"- something looking vaguely like a jambiya.

Did I mention this was copyright 2008? Yeah.

For those of y'all just itching to start lecturing me about the narrative past contributing to these stereotypes, I already know. EVERYONE already knows that. Doesn't make it a great idea to assume that the whole world considers Mighty Whitey to be the be-all and end-all of heroism and beauty. (Hell, I can come up with a jillion references from those Japanese comics alone that show that this standard is by no means universal.)

So yeah. Eisner- good on comics structure, terrible on other stuff.

So. Regardless of whether I'm a fan, the question of how my media portrays people like me, and people I'm supposed to identify with (presumably not the 3rd guardsman from the left, who is secretly bi and dark-skinned under his helmet, and has a fabulous slashy angsty backstory someone, somewhere has written) is of interest. No, literature is not responsible for providing me with appropriate moral guidance and role models. (Although I wonder who you think is going to, instead?) But stories that are not aware of the context in which they're read . . . are not going to succeed at entertaining or teaching me anything.

From here.

There have been some further things on it, but most of them I'm not posting since most of the ones I've seen have been either totally batshit reactions (that have now, mercifully, been delorted/flocked) or reactions to those reactions.

But there are two that I think are pretty good at explaining stuff for anyone who's still not sure what the fuck.

Nojojojo's post is titled, "We worry about it too." It pretty much shows that, well, everyone screws up in writing stuff about The Minority*, because we live in cultures where there are screwed-up tropes regarding The Minority:
This is what I mean when I say that all of us have absorbed the messages and biases of racism; even after ranting about this exact thing, I did it myself without thinking. And didn't I feel like shit when I realized it.

Bellatrys's post starts with an exemplary quote of the issue, then goes into more in-depth stuff about why, specifically, pitching a fit about having your writing criticized is not the best plan ever. (Well, it's rather more pointed than that.)

[It's kind of long and full of many points, so no particular excerpt.]

Though really, the whole thing boils down to my new favorite quote.

Hopefully this has at least been useful to people, because Lord knows there's way too much stupidity going on elsewhere. (I am pleased to say that I have not noticed anything horrible from my flist. Which means that either y'all are generally cool or that at least you have the sense to hide your horrible posts. -_^)

*As in, insert-relevant-group-here, since this doesn't apply only to race.

In case anyone is wanting to continue wading through long discussions along the same line as yesterday's thing, there are more links, some of which have Recommendations for people who are saying, "Fuck what do I do to not be a total jerk? D:"

Deepad does some responding
So in this post, I'm actually going to talk to people who consider themselves White writers. We can have this conversation here, once, and I can point back to it to prevent future discussions with POC from being derailed. Here's some responses to what I've been reading around this discussion, including stuff culled from my comments.

Includes "I'm a white male, and this suggests that I'm not allowed to write anything but white males," and "Am I wasting my potential influence as an ally by not attempting to write an Indian fantasy? Or would I be adding another tiny brick in the road that could lead Western suburbian bookbuyers to the place where they would enjoy Other fiction written entirely by that Other?"

Yeloson gets sarcastic and also explains some things
If every time I spoke about women, I painted them as some mysterious other- magical and wise, vicious and cruel, stupid and helpless, lusty and animalistic, unfathomable and alien? You'd tell me I'm crazy and a sexist dick and you'd be right. (and yeah, there's guys doing this still.)

You'd say this not only because I'd be telling lies, but because these falsehoods are so easily shattered that I would have had to went through considerable effort in mental gymnastics, in not interacting with women (either literally or practically by behavior), that in the end, "But, but, no one pulled my head out of my ass, I NEVER KNEW" would not be a valid excuse. My not knowing would be the result of a lot of work on my part.

Truepenny makes a post that I think is pretty good. The comments are not as good.

And because I mucked up the URL yesterday, here is the actual puppycam link, for those who have to detox or just want to see beebee shibas.

Finally, I am relinking the Remyth Project because there are some awe-inspiring entries added since yesterday.

There is a conversation happening elsewhere about Writing the Other (as in, Other Races, Other Religions, Other Sexes, und so wieter). It has a lot of good points going on, I think. It also involves the best, sanest response I've seen to some heavy criticism of an author's handling of sticky issues.

(I linked this particular entry because it seems to have most of the relevant links and also has an excellent response to a lot of the stuff that keeps getting brought up in these things.)

I also need to remember to order that Writing the Other book sometime, once I get my next paycheck.

ETA: Slightly related- On "Showing Your Ass"

ETA2: This question came up a few times in the comments here, and I think this thread covers it nicely.
is it better to try to write Indian characters, knowing that as a white American I will be de facto presenting a false or incomplete picture, or to not write them at all?

Criticizing Old Stuff, in which Ragnell (who is awesome) talks about reading old adventure books.

And the thing is that complaining about racism and sexism in old stories seems pretty unfair because the stories are well... old. They're a product of the culture at the time so there will be lots of race and gender issues there. Any complaint gets the defense that "Hey, it was written in the 30s. He didn't know better." And I suppose that defense would be all well and good if not for the fact that this stuff keeps popping up in modern fiction because modern fiction is built on the roots of the classics, and some of those roots are just plain rotten.

. . . .

See, even if you think its unfair to judge a classic by contemporary standards, there's still a usefulness in there. It's not only exercising the old analysis muscles on past works, it's catching problems in future works before they happen. Thinking critically about the stories that inspire us will force us to think critically about our own stories.

And ideally, thinking critically about the fictional world will translate to thinking critically about the real world. And that's the ultimate goal, isn't it?

So like half of you already know all this and can probably scroll past to posts that are more insightful and up-to-date.

For the rest of you, who may or may not have been aware of Minx.

Um, it's dying. Because DC apparently sucks at proper marketing.

See, it was supposed to be something to connect with the manga-reading girl audience, and the YA lit crowd. Both of which are pretty good markets.

However, the folks in charge didn't bother checking to see WHICH manga and YA stuff was ultrapopular, and just went with vague and bland "chick flick" style stuff. There were some really good books, but for the most part it was about as exciting as melba toast. And in almost every place I've seen 'em sold, they were STILL being sorted into the "graphic novels" sections- which most YA and manga readers are skipping over- rather than where their intended audiences would find them.

The moral of the story is: if you want an audience to read your books, you should probably market in the direction of that audience. Otherwise, you're just going to get the teensy dregs of people like me who are looking for "Pictures, words, and panels." And we do not make up a very big audience.