December Wolves: Let Me Get This Straight

I know there's been a lot of comic book posts recently. One is because they're a big new status quo to talk about that can be done easily and they're done in a serialized format so it's easy to keep track of them and there's an entire month between issues to bounce ideas around.

So I'm going back to the world of politics, because that's...something I feel like I've neglected. I think it's just because these kind of posts are harder because I feel compelled to look for links as evidence. Or maybe I'm just tired and making excuses. Comics are new and shiny. Politics less so.

It's about Obama. It's about the expectations for Obama. It's about what the story about him is versus what he's actually doing. It's about everyone projecting something on Obama.

The Obama presidency is not producing rainbows and sunshine fast enough for the American people, so there's a bunch of douchebags running around asking where's the change. They don't take into account that the GOP, since being run out of office, has been blocking pretty much anything. How Bush got so much done was he helped guide the Republican Party towards ideological purity in this sad case, literally.

The Democrats, on the other hand, have to fix the economy, while being held to "fiscally responsible" budgets by a bunch of Republicans who spent money in the last eight years like it was going out of style. It's frustrating. The Republican suggestions to help pay down the debt and stimulate sales were more tax cuts. My response is: "cute, but no."

Obama was the candidate of change, not the candidate of pixie dust and hundred dollar bills growing on trees. Obama was the candidate of hope, not the candidate of telling the Blue Dog Democrats to shut the fuck up and vote the party line. It's frustrating that the narrative around Obama's candidacy was that he came in on wings of bullshit and promised a magic wand to fix America's problems in a way no one would disagree with.

This is not to say Democrats have been faultless. Pelosi rides into office citing ethical responsibility then looks the other way while Murtha and Rangel (Rangel was the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and Murtha was known widely as one of the most corrupt Senators around.) stuff their faces AND it comes out that Pelosi knew about the torture after she claimed what the CIA was doing was news to her. Let me repeat that faster, the new Speaker of the House lied on a core issue to her continued campaigning, which focused on ethical leadership.

This is not a little white lie. This is a lie about one of the bona fides. This is exactly the kind of behavior that Pelosi railed against the Republicans for and got into office on. While I'm railing against the Democrats, I'll pause here and say Keith Olbermann is a loudmouth toolbox, just as skeezy as the commentators he spews against. He may use bigger words, but the message is the same: EVIL. WRONG. RAGE.

Let me go back to those douchebags, though. It hasn't even been a year since Obama took office and already he's been called a magic negro, had policies that haven't even been voted on yet compared to Hitler's gas chambers and his eligibility to be president has been questioned based on gossip that sounds like it came straight from 4chan. And the worst part? All of those have been presided over by the Republican hierarchy. The "magic negro" song was made by Huckabee's national campaign manager who was, at the time, a frontrunner for the RNC chair, the gas chamber bit has been fanned by Michele Bachmann and Karl Rove, and the birth certificate bit...well, just Google GOP + birth certificate.

These people put too much on Obama, whether it's Democrats or Republicans. He's a liberal guy who is president in a country where the districts are gerrymandered, except for the ones that aren't, so there's a permanently entrenched groups of Senators/Representatives because they choose the boundaries of what districts they represent. And that's why the moderates are so scared, because they actually have a meaningful fight for their seats.

It's not like the people that disagreed with Obama went away after Obama was elected, for heaven's sake. These inspirational figures are supposed to be inspiring, not superhuman. They're supposed to make other people rise above. He doesn't make all the problems go away by existing as President. These figures are human. They make mistakes and they're subject to the whims of the American people. When was this forgotten?

I don't normally go for rant posts, but something about the righteousness of the groups arrayed against Obama mixed with their profound ignorance of what's actually written on the Constitution gets under my skin. No, tyranny is not people you don't agree with being in charge. Tyranny is a gun barrel in your mouth, a soldier living in your house and the people who disagree with the way things are going being disappeared after they register anything publicly.

(In short, ask any woman working minimum wage in Juarez.)

Ultimately, the person most at fault is myself. I'll explain: It's dishonest. It's politics. When did I, of all people, forget this?

December Wolves: Yes, Zach, I'm A Prude

I've felt for a while now (40 hours) that White Boys On A Stage (Scumbag Reprise) would be an awesome song title, and since I don't have a band, I'll just use it here eventually. This one's about female characters in comics and what I contribute to if or when I choose to buy them. The title is me acknowledging the obvious.

I want to believe I'm clean on this one, but I'm not so sure.


All of this has been said before, over and over.

There's a new article that's making the rounds on iO9 on the old question of whether comic books have an anti-female agenda. It's got Freudian symbolism and an entirely too-reductive view of major flashpoints of Marvel history, so it's not like they're going for the win here. But that wasn't made me think.

Can female-centered comics sustain a meaningful audience without an assload of corporate backing or fanservice? Answer: No. Then again, can non-core titles survive without an assload of corporate backing and wacky bullshit? Unlikely. (See also: Iron Fist, Steel, Captain Britain, the Question, Catwoman or Luke Cage.) Also: Doesn't the dearth of Wolverine/X-Men titles Marvel puts out pretty much keep the lights on? Answer: Yes, writing books using characters the marketplace is interested in makes money.

Quickly, let's review female-centered comics I might be interested in. (From a major publisher, of course. Independent comics are a whole other cup of tea. I have a vague understanding of two universes. I will travel to others soon.)


I'm not buying Gotham City Sirens because I'm not sure what the fuck is going on with Paul Dini. Dini is not a dumb writer. He knows how to do female characters, as seen on his work in the animated Batman series. I had high hopes but the covers were pretty fanservice tops and I had no idea what was going on. Therefore, I didn't keep reading, which ended up being a good thing. Apparently #5 had Poison Ivy gave a cactus an orgasm and that's when I walk away.

Detective Comics (grandfathered in because of Batwoman) (do you see what I did there?) I buy the day it comes out. I am a good consumer, letting DC know that if they keep Greg Rucka writing a female character that's not bait for kidnapping or LOOK HUGE BOOBS and drawn by one of the most talented and imaginative artists in the medium, it will move units.


There's also Batgirl (right), which features Oracle and has a teenage girl putting on a costume with a bat on it and oh God, is this another high school "how am I going to divide up my time" comic? Maybe, not quite? There's an interesting B story about franchising a superhero name, which might be metacommentary on the universe the characters are set in, so this one seems inconsistent but worth keeping an eye on.





Cinderella I buy day and date. Am good consumer, especially because I talk about it publicly and keep the word of mouth going. I'm not entirely sure what to think about her open-shirted-ness for the first 10 pages. It seems just on the edge of plausible but possibly gratuitous. Then again, this is comics. She's not leaning down to pick something up on a panel, so it's a victory, just not a moral one.




Psylocke. I haven't read it or bought it. The covers are mad fanservice-y (see immediate right) and I feel awkward picking it up. Again, I don't want to support the trend of female characters in a thong or nonsense clothes, but the ongoing should be interesting. Female psychic ninja who'se British dumped into an Asian body. Given that the X-Men started out as an extremely political racial allegory, this title could be developed into some cool post-colonial stories. Put Fraction on it and the possibilities are endless. But it's only been two issues.


Ms. Marvel (getting canceled at issue #50, three issues away.) I'm late to this and I'm not sure if I should feel bad about that, but the Spiderman date issue was fun while not being unintelligent and the characters related to each other believably. Also, she's not fat, she just doesn't look like she has an unsuperheroic eating disorder. Go die.

Wonder Woman, the flagship DC character, should be a no-brainer, but honestly, I don't know where to begin with her. Start at the beginning, douchebag, is one answer, but I have trouble going back to the old drawing style. I'm a fan of color. I like Greg Rucka, so perhaps it would behoove me to pick up his Wonder Woman run and see where it goes.


I already buy two of these books, though. Is that enough? I have a limited amount of money and comics for me are not things I require to live and since I have not yet turned into a profitable enterprise, I'm loath to part with my hard earned money for something that I'm not reasonably sure about. I mean, hell, I still haven't picked up the new Lawrence Arms seven inch yet. But, if I want female ongoings that don't make me exasperated, then one of the best ways is to get into them when they're nascent.

I'm dancing around the question: Ought I to subsidize the books even when their quality hasn't been proven? It feels strange to be saying that explicitly. Look at Immortal Iron Fist. The main character was an Avenger and before that was in Daredevil and was a white dude doing white dude things, punching obviously bad people, getting laid and stopping HYDRA. That didn't last past the number 27, though if you throw in the one shots and Immortal Weapons issues, breaks 35. That comic was proven quality, even when Brubaker/Fraction left it and it got 11 issues.

I have other comics I can spend my money on items that I will actually enjoy, so I can vote with my dollar, but I'm not sure what my vote of no confidence in these series means to those publishers. Does buying Cinderella and Batwoman send a message to publishers that at least one segment of the marketplace will stand a female-fronted superhero book without fanservice being an integral portion of the ongoing, or just that the marketplace will tolerate spinoffs?

Does one person make much of a difference? Word of mouth helps, certainly. Can I reasonably stomach the parts that are meant to create and nurture a fanbase while the writers get their sea legs? Or, are these ongoings doomed to a small run to begin with and we ought to take what we can get? 20,000 people bought Iron Fist and Captain Britain at the end of their runs, so one person, numerically, shouldn't make a difference. That's a cop out, though.

It's a way to avoid saying the things that ought to be said. I'm not going to confuse that with talking shit on publishers, but I will say that if there is an ongoing with a female character I'm interested in (from a major publisher) that doesn't treat me and my pocketbook like a 15 year old kid, I will buy it as reliably, if not more so, as the other comics books I buy regularly.

I don't know if that's a major statement, enlightened self-interest or equal-ist. But it's what I've got and what I, as an attractive target audience (see left) am willing to commit to. And that might be the major statement in this piece.

December Wolves: From Fabletown With Love

Nothing was coming yesterday or today and I'd bought Cinderella: From Fabletown With Love #2 of 6 with the purpose of reviewing it for that other place which I don't currently want to name a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately, by the time their schedule and mine coincided, the review wouldn't be timely, so here is my "exclusive" review of Cinderella: From Fabletown With Love #2 of 6.

This marks the first time cutting and pasting portions of multiple takes were made in one of these videos. Yep. Cutting edge of technology there. If you're wondering what the design of the shirt is, it's a Converge shirt, with art by their vocalist, Jake Bannon.