It's clobbering time!

I'm currently re-reading the two Fantastic Four books I have in my room. The two I have are part of Mike Wieringo and Mark Waid's run. I'm not sure when they did it, or for how long, but I find their run is easily my favorite of the Fantastic Four, and quite possibly, the Marvel Universe. Considering those two men also invented my top most favoritest favorite character ever, Impulse, I might be biased. But something about the Fantastic Four series as illustrated by Wieringo and written by Waid is just so full of emotion and humor.The two books I have in my room-I have several other books from the same run in storage-are two of my favorite books: Hereafter and Rising Storm. In the first Ben dies and Reed and the others go to Heaven and battle the archangels and reject their versions of Paradise so they can bring Ben back and that story always makes me emotional. Just the idea of these people loving him so much they break into an other-dimensional realm and refuse God and his offer of time in Paradise so they can be together again in life, that's just the most perfect and beautiful example of teammwork and friendship. It's on the top of my most emotional stories ever. And the cameo they have, of presenting 'God' as, I believe, Jack Kirby? That's just..perfect.

Rising Storm, I have to re-read it, but it's pretty Johnny-centric and I love me some Johnny Storm. He ends up being chosen as Galactus's herald because Reed did something and now Johnny and Sue's powers are reversed so Sue is now the one with flame powers and Johnny is the Invisible Man. He figures out a way to keep Galactus from devouring worlds until the other Fantastic Four show up and Galactus is reverted to a humanoid man. The book shows us Galactus's past and how he ended up as the World Eater. But I really just like that in Waid's run, Johnny isn't presented as the stereotypical one sided human torch. Some stories in the past have shown Johnny to be more dimensional than we would give him credit, but most, if not all of the stories I'd read, he always ended up going back to the way he was before, and the status quo was never changed. Johnny is always the hotheaded immature brother of Sue, who plays and doesn't take anything serious. But in Waid's run, he changes. I'm not sure how things are now, what with Waid no longer writing him and the whole Civil War thing, but in Waid's run, consistence was key. Johnny was given responsibility as CFO of the Fantastic Four's business, the finances side of it, and as such he acted accordingly. He didn't go back to watching cartoons and playing around with pretty girls at the end of the issue. He continued as CFO from issue to issue and you can see his more serious an mature side coming out. Waid gave Johnny a chance to grow. Wieringo gave Johnny a really cute look-ok, I admit, I think Wieringo's version of Johnny is the best one yet and no one else has managed to capture his 'Johnny-ness' the way Wieringo did-and I love their Fantastic Four. It was serious, emotional, funny, and sweet all at once. Now I gotta go get the rest of my books out and re-read them all.

Flaunt Magazine: The Wanderlust of Anton Yelchin

Flaunt Magazine: The Wanderlust of Anton Yelchin

Currently I'm in the middle of trying to acquire the copy of this issue that has his interview, it's very thought-provoking and inspirational but whenever I try to print said article, the text is too small and faint to read!

APEcon 2009

Last Saturday I went to APEcon 09 with my friend Jenna. This is the second year we've gone. We had a lot of fun and I got a sketch of Impulse and a comic about women in the civil war. I love me some women in the civil war stories! We accidently wandered into some socialist liberation party rally on the way there and it was kind of creepy as heck. But I love APEcon, I'm starting to think I might like it more than Wondercon, but I'm not sure yet. We met alot of creators and indie artists and they were really nice and willing to tell us about themselves instead of just trying to get us to buy stuff. I wish I'd gotten a couple of things but I think I can live without them. I picked alot of business cards as is my habit and I plan to preview their sites and see what else they have to offer on their sites. Next post, maybe I'll share of my favoritest sites.

Also, I'm just recently getting behind 'Glee' but then, who isn't? I think I like Kurt, Andy and Tina the best. And the OCD woman but man, Sue is the most awesome caricature of a villianess ever!

Someone you're not

I just saw the very first episode of the original Star Trek series, the very very first one, before William Shatner was Kirk. It was about Christopher Pike-I actually wrote Chris Pine first before I noticed- and had Majel Barrett as Number One. She later on went to play Nurse Christine Chapel in the Star Trek series. Anyways. I found myself wishing they could have continued that particular crew's adventures. They had Spock there, but a kinder and gentler version, and they had a hyper active ensign, whose name was probably never mentioned. Pike called the doctor a dirty old man and the doctor told him drinking was the solution to a lot of problems and these aliens tried to hook Pike up with three women, and I was thinking, 'does he have to choose?' and it was pretty damn awesome considering it was from the 60s. I mean, some of the lines and actions were pretty racy for those standards. I loved the ending, how the girl got what she wanted and it turned out the aliens weren't bad, they were just trying to help the woman be happy. D'awwwww.

But anyways. I loved how Number One was shown. Considering this was the 60s and women were just beginning to come into their own rights considering equality and the such, to see Gene Roddenberry give a high ranking position to a woman, to have the captain tell her 'we need the officer with the most experience to watch out for us', to have her (and the other female officers) wearing pants, and to have even the doctor defer to her...Well..it was pretty cool. She was so authoritative without coming across as bitchy or overly compensating for something, she was able to remain in charge and in control of her emotions when the aliens were humiliating her in front of Pike. She was able to admit her mistakes and learn from them, and she was, in general, a well written female character in a show from the 60s. I didn't detect any sexism in that show. I wish they could have continued that particular show, but if they had, we wouldn't have had Kirk and Bones and all the rest I suppose. I think I'd rather have Bones than Number One, but I wish I didn't have to choose.

Cute!

In looking up Sally Jupiter cosplay, I found this cosplayer, and her friend. The friend isn't cosplaying, but the actual cosplayer wrote in her blurb that she felt her friend looked so much like Malin Ackerman that she made her take a picture with her as Laurie. I think it's so cute! I kind of want to get my bangs cut like hers now.

Also, in case I didn't mention, I recently got back from a trip to Japan, and I have a blog that I co-write with my friend, Jenna. The link is here!

I'm looking forward to the next APE con, whenever it is, I'll have to look it up and see.

I just recently finished Alison Bechdel's "Funhouse: A Family Tragicomic'. I found the beginning, and some aspects, particularly the part where she talks about her father and her reading classics to be kind of overwrought, and I found some parts of her narrative to be trying too hard, whether it was to be sentimental, or dramatic, or to prove to the reader that she'd studied her literature, but once she stopped trying to show off her classical knowledge, and focused on her story(or rather, her father's story), I found it an interesting story. I felt so bad for her father, being trapped in a marriage and a small town and a life he felt himself too big for. He was gay, and he had to hide it from everyone. It ended up alienating him from his own kids. But I liked how at the end, she explains that his failure to be himself, helped her be strong enough to be herself.

Recently I just

finished "The Virgin Suicides" by Jeffery Eugenides, and watched "Bigga Than Ben' featuring Ben Barnes and Andrey Chadov. Well..Let's start.

I have this weird long relationship with 'The Virgin Suicides'. It came out when I was in middle school and I wanted to see it because I was intrigued by the title and because it starred Kirsten Dunst, who was my favorite actress at the time. I wasn't allowed to see it though and eventually forgot about it until I was in college and caught the ending of the movie on tv. I liked the way it was set up, kind of melodramatic but really poignant at the same time. I resolved to find it and watch it on dvd. I forgot about it. Then I saw the middle of the movie when it re-showed. Lather, rinse, repeat, etc. I kept seeing parts of it and kept resolving to see it all, then forgetting. Eventually I did see the whole thing, except for a couple of minutes in the beginning. So anyways, I liked the movie, but when I was told it was based on a book, I decided to go read the book. I never found that exact book but my roommate had another Jeffery Eugenides book, "Middlesex' and let me read it. I like his tone, his style of writing, its overly blown and full of attention to details, some of which is irrelevant to the story but helps to maintain a picture in the reader's head. When I look at his work critically, I think it comes across as him trying too hard to be relevant, to be thought-provoking, to be dramatic. But god, I wish I could spin a tale like him! I try not to look at his work as a critic, I enjoy his ideas and his way of getting them across. I finally found a copy of 'The Virgin Suicides' and read it. I think I like best of everything in the book, the fact that no one ever knows why they killed themselves. There's only conjectures and theories, but I find it more unsettling and more true to life to feel like the girls killed themselves for a mysterious unknowable reason. It leads the reader to think on why they did it. I think, maybe the girls killed themselves because their baby sister killed herself and they couldn't live without her, with the feeling that they could have done something, or should have done something. I don't know why Cecilia killed herself, but I felt for her the most out of the entire book. I liked her the most, and I wish she had lived longer in the book so we could get to know her better.But that was also another point of the book, was that it was written from these neighbor boys' points of views and not the girls', so we never get to know the girls at all, so we never get to understand why they did what they did. If we got to know Cecilia better, her suicide would probably make sense or its impact be lessened by our familiarity with her. I don't know. But I'm glad I got to read the book. It was one of those novels that I just couldn't put down and as soon as I finished, I just sat there thinking about what I'd just read. I sat there running the descriptions of the boys emotions in my head, and thinking about Cecilia and everything they'd said about her. What motivated her to take her life? Was it because of her that her sisters killed themselves too, or was Cecilia just the last straw? What kind of person had she been like when she was alive? Was she depressed? Was she just too dreamy for this world, like one of the characters suggested. I liked the book. It'll stay on my bookshelf for a long long time, along side the 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' and that book has its own shelf.

Yeah, I love Douglas Adams's stuff that much.

He Aint Here, But He Sure Went Past

Title from the Clash's Jimmy Jazz song.

I've been watching reruns of the Star Trek show, the original one, and really appreciating it and what it did for generations. I'm not going to go into the whole technological aspect of it, and the fact that it was years ahead of its time with its portrayal of women and its willingness to have people of different races in prominent roles, its all been said and explored and done. I found this site that does a really good job of listing the different women and the different ways that they were considered strong women and I like to read it and see what characters I have yet to see and adore.

The site is Star Trek Women: The Women of TOS Its a fascinating read and I like to skim through it, and read about the different personalities and learn how Roddenberry dealt with them.

I remember, as a kid, watching my generation's Star Trek,TNG, wondering why the moment a woman showed up and was confident and was boss and was, basically, a strong woman, they died, or transferred, or left in some form, or was quickly rewritten to be more gentle, more..weaker..I still don't know why. I liked Troi and I love Beverly, but Troi was dressed so inappropriately for someone in her professional field, so I was conflicted. Beverly was just bombastically kick ass. She was my first exposure to doctors in Star Trek and I loved her, so well rounded and so competent yet not too masculine, in that she could straddle the line between being boss and being a woman so well that I doubt anyone could use the usual go-to terms to degrade a woman in position to refer to her. In case that last sentence didn't make sense, I mean, usually, when people are intimidated by a woman in an authority role, they refer to said woman as a bitch, whore, cunt, other degrading terms tailored specifically for a woman. I doubt any one could call Dr Crusher those words! But I've heard people refer to Troi as a whore..I liked her. Lt. Yar was a strong woman too, a strong force. And I realize the actress quit, but I wonder if maybe she quit because she knew the writers wouldn't treat her character well and wanted to go to a different show where she could be a strong female role character without worrying about being suddenly demoted or sexualized.

Well, that went off into a tangent I didn't mean to go off into.

I was only going to talk about how I like Star Trek and enjoy when they have Bones and Chekov in scenes together. Bones was always my favorite from when I was little and saw the movies, and seeing the new movie made me really adore and love Chekov (probably mostly based on how he was portrayed by Anton Yelchin, that is one awesome guy-I've read interviews with him, he seems like a guy I'd love to buy a drink for.Once he's 21, that is.-)So to see the original show and to see my two favorites, Long Time Fav. Bones and Newly Admired Chekov in scenes together makes me giddy. All they needed was to add Nurse Chapel in the mix and I'd have been ecstatic!

I LOVE NURSE CHAPEL!

I've only seen her in one episode but I already love her. Must be something about women medical officers.

Also, can anyone believe that Nurse Chapel and Luxuwanna Troi are the same woman? They are, and I can't believe it! She looks so vastly different from one show to the next!

I really hope she's in the next Star Trek movie, and I really hope the actress they pick is able to capture her...Chapel-ness..You know, competent but compassionate, a good natured foil to Bones' irascibility, and rocking the blue uniform. Also, I really hope, if she is in the next movie, they don't reduce her to a romantic interest for anyone, like they tend to do for other movies. She's cool enough to be a single gal among good looking men. Yes ma'am