Pages

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

"Supergirls Gone Wild" --
Article in the July/August issue of "Mother Jones"

The headline?

"Female fans take revenge on the boys of DC Comics."

You should all check out this article in the entertainment section of "Mother Jones" magazine, on stands at the beginning of July and for which I was interviewed. It's written by Speakeasy.org's Charlie Anders, no stranger to the female comics blogging community.

It starts with Stephanie Brown, careens into "Women in Refrigerators," wades into the "Supergirl" mess, and ends with a hopeful note regarding Gail Simone and her tenure on "Wonder Woman." You've got "When Fangirls Attack," Spiderman's radioactive sperm, "porn face," Eddie Berganza's infamous "DC Nation" column, and even a quote from yours truly.

I think it is significant that such an article has shown up in a print format as opposed to the hundreds of online pieces on the same subject. I think this story has legs...if you would excuse the expression.

And for all my rants on why I feel that DC will never give Stephanie Brown her own trophy case -- they're really starting to look, in the media at any rate, like creeps for their stance. "Mother Jones" may be more on the liberal side of the pub spectrum, but you know this article is going to be bookmarked, quoted, and reproduced everywhere from message board forums to feminist term papers from now until doomsday.

6 comments:

  1. Val, any idea (or feeling) if the Steph Brown Monument omission is a DC editorial wide thing or just part of Dan Didio's thought process?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have posted and no doubt will post again this line of reasoning re: Stephanie Brown, in the hopes that maybe some one will A) listen, B) respond to my arguments in a convincing manner so that I might be better informed. To wit:

    Stephanie Brown died as Spoiler, not Robin, in an identity wholly separate from Bat-family. She was, and is, in Batman's eyes, a sympathetic outsider. Appreciated, but never completely trusted. Stephanie is no more likely to recieve a trophy memorial than Nightwing or Comm. Gordon.

    ReplyDelete
  3. "any idea (or feeling) if the Steph Brown Monument omission is a DC editorial wide thing or just part of Dan Didio's thought process?"

    The monument omission decision has remained consistent through two "Bat-Book" editorial regimes which leads me to believe it is an official decision that stems from on top. Any change to an established character or resolution to a controversial issue has to be decided by On Top -- lone editors don't have the authority to do these things. If a "Bat Book" editor just decided to have the memorial drawn in w/o Didio's approval, they would most likely be called to the carpet for it. So the ball is in his court.

    ReplyDelete
  4. "Stephanie Brown died as Spoiler, not Robin, in an identity wholly separate from Bat-family. She was, and is, in Batman's eyes, a sympathetic outsider. Appreciated, but never completely trusted. "

    If he didn't trust her or care for her enough to give her a case after all that had happened, he had NO BUSINESS getting her involved as Robin in the first place. The whole thing makes Batman look like a grade A douche.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Jonathan Tweet is a Role Playing Game designer, who worked on the newest version of D&D, in fact.

    He had what I thought was an interesting post on the dilemma of misogyny in fantastic storytelling, where it seems like a "heads I win, tails you loose" kind of situation

    http://www.jonathantweet.com/jotgamemisogyny.html

    I'm wondering if you've read his thoughts already, and if you have any reflections.

    ReplyDelete
  6. "Mother Jones" may be more on the liberal side of the pub spectrum, but you know this article is going to be bookmarked, quoted, and reproduced everywhere from message board forums to feminist term papers from now until doomsday.

    Wow, I hope you're right! And I'm glad you found the article helpful. I think considering we only had about 1,200 words, it came out amazingly well. And I was super grateful for your help.

    One minor correction: I don't work for Speakeasy.org. I do have an account with them. You could call me OtherMag.org's Charlie Anders. :)

    ReplyDelete