Why Do I Write?

A post inspired by Chuck Wendig's Flash Fiction Challenge for this week (admittedly, not fiction this time around). He asked readers to answer "Why I write." This is all I could manage. 

Some years ago, Hubby and I were invited to an artist’s house for her annual studio sale. There, we feasted on wine and snacks, enjoyed some charming chamber music from a string quartet, toured the artist’s delightfully quirky Victorian farmhouse, and met splendid people (including the artist herself). I bought a couple Christmas gifts and a kitchen sponge holder that I’ve trucked through three moves until we finally bought our house in 2012, where it sat happily on our sink for the past three years.

The piece had broken three times before. And because I loved it, I mended it patiently each time, hoping that this break would be the last. The memories of that sweet little date night brought me a spark of happiness, and I hadn’t been able to find a replacement that functioned as well or was nearly so beautiful. So each time it broke, I picked it up, took it to my studio, and glued it back together. Then, after letting it set, I’d return it to its role in the kitchen.

Then I dropped it in the sink yesterday. It broke. Again. Finally, at the fourth break, I decided I had to be done with it. I can only mend a thing so many times before I have to accept that, no matter how much I love it, the thing is just going to break on me, over and over, and become more fragile with each mend.

And I stood over the sink where I’d dropped this stupid little sponge holder and cried. I cried so hard that I had to sit down on the floor and catch my breath.

Because I realized something awful. I realized that’s where I am as a writer right now. I’m standing over something that’s broken, and I’m not sure if I have the emotional strength to pull myself together again, mend the break, and try to make something useful of it.

You must understand. Writing is breath to me. I’ve been telling stories since I could string a halfway sensible collection subjects, objects and verbs together. I’ve probably been telling stories since before that, because as a baby, I was a babbler. I didn’t care that no one understood; I’d talk to anything that would sit in front of me for thirty seconds and listen (including my audience of stuffed animals). Stories are in me. My dad would probably say that they’re as deep as my DNA, with a cultural heritage that goes back to the Eddas and Beowulf.

So I can say what many would say when asked. I write because I must. I write because it’s how I exist.

But I haven’t written anything of consequence in months. Maybe longer.

It’s not for a lack of ideas.

I’ve begun throwing the ideas away. Sometimes I reject them with an actual gesture of disdain as they come. Because what’s the point? Whenever I indulge an idea, I get a spurt of a few hundred words of productivity.

Then, I return to it later, attempting to squeeze something more out of it, and I feel as if I’m trying to wring blood from the Brooklyn Bridge.

Or worse yet, I get something “finished” and look back at it and realize the mortifying truth: I can’t look objectively at any of my work anymore. Time away doesn’t help. Nothing helps. I can’t see my own work anymore for what it is.

A part of me blames my goddamn book.

I finished a hundred thousand word epic, a behemoth that follows a monstrously feminine demigoddess across centuries.  

But when I finished and started looking for readers, I passed a digital copy to over thirty people whose opinion I trusted.

Months went by. Years, even. No one read it.

I began to believe that maybe no one was interested. Or perhaps worse yet, maybe they had read it and it was so bad that they didn’t want to tell me how much they disliked it. Maybe I’m just that awful (on every level).

I think that’s when I started looking at my writing this way. That’s when I started disbelieving my own acuity. I can look at anyone else’s work with an appropriately critical eye and tell you why and how it’s good or inadequate. But my own work? It may as well be in Sanskrit.

Now I’m left with a gorilla of a book and a pile of half-stories sitting in the dark corner of my mind that I try to shove under the couch cushions so I don’t have to see my own inadequacies. 

I try to go back to the draft, but every time I open it, I can’t get more than a few pages in without drowning in hot tears. I've edited it a number of times, but it still feels as broken as the unfinished stories.

I was published earlier this year. A story I never imagined would even appeal to anyone about a squirrel and my dad that was a backwards tribute to both Dad and Bartheleme. It was adored. But instead of being overjoyed about it, I asked myself what was wrong with me. How could I have misjudged my skill so badly? I didn’t put a word on paper for weeks.

I’ve tried other avenues, and I’ve created what, some people have said, are beautiful things in the process.

They’re nice. I’m proud of them. They express another facet of passion, I suppose. But they’re not what I dreamed of doing when I would lay crosswise on my bed and stare adoringly at their spines…

…L’Engle…

…Tolkien…

…Bronte…

…Shelley…

…Poe…

…Wrede…

...Barker...

...Bradbury...

…Yolen…

…Erdrich…

…Gaiman…

…when I’d watch them like one would watch a lover, envisioning all inside them that made me adore each and every one, and think about the worlds spinning in my own brain. When I’d imagine my own name on a spine someday, inspiring a girl like me to spin her own worlds.

But I’m beginning to feel that it’s not going to happen, that my stories aren’t worth telling. And while admitting it feels like cutting off my arm, I am beginning to wonder whether I have the right to be writing at all.

So, why do I write? Because I must. Because I breathe. Because I experience. Because it's been a part of me since before I can remember. 

But I don't think I deserve to anymore. I don't think I'm worthy of the stories I want to tell. 

I’m sorry. This isn’t inspiring. But it’s all I’ve got. I’m this broken, useless thing, staring at more broken, useless things, wondering how I’m going to exist without them, ugly or not.

I have no answers. Just a hopeless pile of clay and tears and an orphaned monster left to roam the countryside in search of a friend.

What's Wrong With a Kiss?

WARNING: Spoilers for the season premiere of Doctor Who follow (though it's not TOO spoilery). But just to be safe...DON'T LOOK if you haven't seen it yet! 

Last weekend, my Twitter feed EXPLODED...all day...with the internet equivalent of "SQUEEEEEEEEEE!" as Peter Capaldi's Doctor (Twelve...or Thirteen?) appeared for the first time on Doctor Who. He was brilliant, as I knew he would be. While there have been quibbles about the episode (yes, I'm about to quibble, too), I have yet to see anyone who hasn't jumped on Capaldi's bandwagon. He was brilliant. He was heartbreaking (that PHONE CALL...BOTH OF THEM...am I right!?). He was funny. He has attack eyebrows.

But there was another distinct theme to the Who-tweets and posts as fans everywhere rallied around the idea of a Vastra/Jenny/Strax Victorian whodunit spinoff series. These demands have been steadily increasing with every appearance the trio makes on the series. They've now taken on a feverish pitch that I'm fairly certain Moffatt and the BBC can't ignore. The trio were such a significant part of this episode (they even acquired a Lestrade!) that I wonder if the BBC isn't already making those plans.

Unfortunately, this episode only managed to reinforce one of my issues with the depiction of Jenny and Vastra's marriage: though they seem to be deeply committed and closely bonded, their physical relationship doesn't seem to move past holding hands. Has there even been a peck on the cheek between them? I can't remember one.

Jenny and Vastra, by all accounts, seem to have a splendid and very realistic marriage, for the most part. But their relationship has never seemed to actually be a marriage. It's always so...platonic between them. Prior to this episode, we saw Jenny more physical with the Doctor than she ever was with her spouse.

Remember this!?

And then, after years of flirtation, fans finally saw a kiss that was years in coming. But it only happened by virtue of a life-threatening situation where a kiss from Vastra literally saved Jenny's life. Does it take a life-or-death situation for these two to show any physical affection? That doesn't really jive with the character of the rest of their relationship. So, why did it take so long for us to see this gesture that takes place daily between most loving couples? And why did it seem like it needed to be "excused" in the cloak of a dire scenario?

I realize that this is Victorian England and the pair have to keep up appearances in public, but we've seen numerous instances of their private lives. Though there's plenty of affectionate banter flying between them, it's not balanced by the physical affection that's common between a couple as madly in love as they seem to be. The audience seems led to believe that these two have plenty of physical interactions off-camera. Why does Moff seem so hesitant to depict it on screen? I always had the impression the UK was more progressive in regards to accepting a variety of relationships, but the depiction of Jenny and Vastra has made me wonder. Am I wrong about that?

I'm sure I'm not the only one asking this question. Maybe it's too much to expect that any media depict a loving lesbian relationship that expresses physical affection as well. Maybe people just don't know how to write that. But we should learn. As George R.R. Martin said when asked how he writes women so well, "You know, I've always considered women to be people." One strength of the writers of Doctor Who is that they've always been able to see even the most inhuman characters as complicated people when the dust settled. It can't be too difficult to write a well-rounded long-term relationship between two PEOPLE (even if those two people happen to share the same gender and one has lizardy ancestry) that includes the typical physical contact that takes place between a couple.

Please tell me if I'm wrong. I'd love to just have missed noticing this affection, because it SHOULD be there. Why can't everyone show their affection on TV? Why is this diversity somehow "not okay" in the twenty-first century? Are we really THAT afraid of a few hateful zealots?

Verdant

The START of a response to Chuck Wendig's weekly Flash Fiction Challenge. There is much more story here that I'll have to return to later. 

The sonic boom of his ship’s engines thrusting out of the upper atmosphere is barely a pop from the surface, the light of its warp core sparkling briefly, like a star fizzling out.

Vina sighs. She wishes her heart could feel lighter with every light year the ship puts between him and her home, but she knows this will not be the last she will see of them. There will be more, in their gleaming silver ships with their laser weapons and hypocritical directives.

She spits on the ground. Agitation quivers through her with the tension of a tairn string, though she fears nothing so sublime as its music will be the result of this pressure.

"Vina." The voice behind her is barely louder than the wind through the ferns that cling to the ground around them like girls to their mothers.

Reaching back, she pulls her ancient nursemaid to her. Age has shrunken her, darkened her skin to the color of the depths of the deepest lagoon, but the elder is still strong enough to hold her together in a crisis.

"I failed, Eeyma. I thought if we showed them a backwards and debased planet, they'd decide we weren't advanced enough and just leave us alone. I thought if we put on one disgusting show..."

She chokes back a sob.

"That's the problem," she grumbles into her elder's embrace.

"With men?" She ventures.

"No. With all of us. All of us with big brains and good intentions. We need someone to save, whether they need it or not."

Eeyma nods, sighing, and breaks the embrace to gaze into the dark pools of her charge's eyes.

"So, what will you do?"

Sides sets her jaw, hands compressing into fists.

"What I must."


Image credit: 
"Sun Spots and Solar Flares" by NASA/SDO 

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_2201.html. 

Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons  

Antidote to The Alchemist: 22 Books That ACTUALLY Encourage the Examined Life

Paulo Coelho’s atrocious mess of a pseudo-novel is making the rounds and wrongheadedly mislabeled as a “deep examination of the self” yet again. Just hearing this assertion makes me bristle. His poor substitute for a self-examination is not only trite; I would go so far as to consider Coelho’s book misleading and somewhat dangerous, since its materialistic ending could lead one to entirely the wrong conclusion about the point he was supposedly trying to make in the first place. But I don’t expect much more from a writer who can’t write a realistic dialogue, let alone characters, to save his life.

In short, it’s candy for people who come to the book looking for a hearty meal. It may be fun (for...someone, I suppose?), but it’s not going to give you any sustenance (and may give you diabetes).

Mmmm…candy.

Wait, what was I saying? Oh, yeah. Substance.

Save yourself some time and a dented wall. Because, trust me, if you have any self-awareness at all, the end of this book will make you throw it across the room (if you make it that far). If you want to read his book to become more self-aware (and more universally aware, for that matter), you might consider giving some other books a try.

Which books? Well, I’m glad you asked. I’ve assembled a “scratch the surface” sort of list to get you started. There are benchmark books, such as Plato’s Republic and other religious and philosophical source material that are also valuable, but I’ve left those more hefty books off the list in favor of books that might serve as a launching point in more accessible language and with an approach that could hopefully be an easier way to start. Once you get compelled by one or two of these, continue digging! Suspect anyone who claims to have all the answers, but keep searching anyway. The scenery on the journey is totally worth it.

Who Are We as the World Falls Down?

I know I'm a few weeks late with this reflection, but bear with me. I've been ruminating on this, so there's a reason it's been a bit late in coming.

Is anyone else fascinated by the idea that while S.H.I.E.L.D. falls to pieces, the rest of the world clicks along relatively normally? In the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode "Nothing Personal," which takes place immediately after the events of the Captain America: Winter Soldier movie, the world isn't burning. People aren't running mad. Washington, D.C. looks pretty normal as Maria Hill walks the streets.

from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., "Nothing Personal"

Cars seem to be following traffic laws, people are milling around and having what seems to be a pretty typical weeknight. It's astonishing to me that this could be the case. The hole left by a lack of S.H.I.E.L.D. is not leaving a wake of anarchy in the public at large, and that's a little mind-blowing as we witness the sky falling inside the organization as a whole.

While some people would write this off as an inconsistency, I don't think this is bad storytelling at all; quite the opposite, in fact. This indicates that while S.H.I.E.L.D. is the sun and moon to these people...while they believe that it's saving the world...it may not actually be as vital on a day-to-day basis as the agents think it is. This is a subtle hint from the storytellers that chaos can be blooming for a group of people while the rest of the world clicks on without noticing. These people have to have seen the news reports of the battle only miles away from them, but they don't seem affected at all.

Mind you, Hydra is probably keeping order on the surface pretty well, too, partially because they've planned for this for six decades and partially because it's just generally good PR to put on a good face.

But this seems to me to be a really interesting parallel to the suffering of people in places like Syria or Turkey, or even in your own culture, for that matter. On a personal level, I remember when my mother-in-law died and everything in my world seemed upended. It was so disorienting to go to the grocery store and watch people do their business like nothing had happened...because nothing had happened to them. But worlds can burn for entire groups of people, and even the people who are aware of that chaos from the outside are largely unaffected by it and move on with barely a blink. Maybe there's a murmur of sympathy or a head that shakes in disbelief, maybe we even contribute money or other donations to the cause, but the world moves forward, insistent on grinding ahead mostly in business as usual mode while a column of smoke dissipates into the atmosphere in the near distance.

What does this say about human nature, for better or for worse? At best, it means we recover quickly and move on from tragedy and that we have a very strong instinct to rebuild even as things continue to fall apart, which is a part of how we've managed to survive as a species. At worst, it means that we can be massively tone deaf to the suffering our fellow human beings as cultures burn right under our noses, because on a subconscious level, we're afraid to dive in and be voluntarily exposed to that monstrosity. We don't believe it can happen, so we don't really see it. Sometimes the instinctual propensity toward survival is a horrific thing.

Falling in Love with Batgirl

I've posted briefly before about Batgirl (or, more specifically, about her roommate), but I really only got into the comics in the past couple months as I've snatched up the last few TPBs from the New 52 (a reboot DC did of most of its lineup, mostly to attract new readers). Yes, I'm behind. I'm also just now getting into Arrow, which my husband has had us consuming gluttonously on Netflix and Amazon Prime (Green Arrow was one of his absolute favorites growing up). We watched the entire first season in about two weeks, and have been steadily pouring money into the TV to consume season 2. Yes, yes, we watched six episodes in one day at one point. I won't say how many we watched in a weekend. And now we have to WAIT until FALL for more!? AUGH.

But, back to MY new favorite: Batgirl. Way cooler than Greenie. Just don't tell Hubby.

I've almost abandoned Wonder Woman right now in favor of catching up on Batgirl. I find the story compelling and  And Gail Simone is, in a word, brilliant. Batgirl is a real person, with believable thoughts and problems and dreams. The plot is compelling (almost compulsive), and her secondary characters have life and personalities beyond just the ability to highlight Barbara. Gail Simone turns Barbara's experience from a refrigerator girl into a real moment that has a definite, sometimes crippling impact on the way she approaches life and the battles she faces both in her "normal" life and in her life as a superhero, even after her body heals.

For those who are unaware, Barbara Gordon was paralyzed by Joker in Alan Moore's graphic novel, The Killing Joke (if you haven't picked this story up and read it, do it NOW. Come back when you've had the heartbreaking experience so we can start a support group together or something). She regains her ability to walk in the New 52. Unlike some of the reboots, Simone actually adds credulity to Barbara's renewed ability by explaining (at least to some degree) her regained ability. Instead of just hitting the "reset" button, she explains how Barbara came to regain her ability to walk and uses the insecurities from her miraculous cure to grapple with some serious issues as Barbara resumes her crimefighting duties under the cowl.

I'm two TPBs in. Her brother is terrifying. Also, what do you think about my acquisition from Planet Comicon? My own itty bitty Batgirl! I almost considered giving her her own Tumblr or Instagram account and posting "The Adventures of Itty Bitty Batgirl."

You're laughing again. I know. I'm hopeless. But hey, Gates McFadden has an "Adventures of Tiny Crusher!" It could work, right?

Right!?

Well, at least the crickets agree with me.

Next up: Batwoman (I already started...I NEED BOOK 2!). And probably Guardians of the Galaxy. I want to be up on the current universe before the movie.

My (In)Famous Bacon Brownie Ice Cream Recipe

I've been asked for my recipe for bacon brownie ice cream a million times, and since the request has come from so many places, I decided to make it available on my blog to make it easier to share. I know this isn't a food blog, so you'll forgive me if the geekery leans toward bacon and gastronomy rather than Star Trek and Batwoman for this particular post...those subjects will be back for the next post, I promise!  

I feel like a broken record saying this, because so many chefs have said it so many times before, but the real secret to making this amazing is getting the right ingredients. Fresh, preferably local and organic milk and cream are best (especially if the cream comes in a bottle with some thick creamy goodness hanging around the mouth). The same is true with the bacon--fresh, preferably local and sliced by a butcher. I do cheat when I make the brownies, but use the best "cheat" you can find--I go with Gheridelli brownie mix if I'm making the gluten-laden kind and Bob's Red Mill for amazing GF brownies if you have guests with celiac-type issues. 

So, here it is, in all its glory...my recipe for Bacon-Brownie Ice Cream. Enjoy. In moderation. And maybe have a salad for dinner. 

What ya need: 

For the brownies: 

• High-quality brownie mix and required ingredients (but don't put ALL the oil in! Read on!)
• Also note: If the brownie mix makes only an 8x8 or 9x9 pan of brownies, you'll need two. This assumes you've prepared a 13x9" pan's worth of brownies.
• 8 strips of uncooked bacon 
• Reserved bacon drippings
• About 1/2 cup chocolate chips, if the brownie mix doesn't include chocolate chunks

For the ice cream: 

• 4 1/2 cups milk (We used skim. Gotta save the calories somewhere!)
• 2 3/4 cups sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 vanilla beans
• 4 1/2 cups whipping cream

How ya do it: 

1. Okay, start by making the bacon. Line a cookie sheet with high sides with tinfoil. Set a cookie cooling rack in the pan, and lay the bacon on the drying rack. DO NOT PREHEAT THE OVEN.
2. Put the bacon in the oven, THEN turn it on to 425 degrees F. 
3. Let the bacon cook for about 15-25 minutes (depending on how thick it is) until it's nicely browned. 
4. Pull the bacon out of the oven and let it cool. Reserve the bacon oil. 
5. Okay, now time to get to work on the brownies. Measuring out the oil or melted butter, START with the reserved bacon fat from the brownies, then add whatever oil is necessary to make up the remainder of the oil requirements. 
6. When you have the brownies mixed, crumble and then fold in the cooled bacon. 
7. Prepare the brownies as package directions dictate. 
8. While the brownies are cooking, you can start making the ice cream. Heat the milk until bubbles form around the edge of the pan. 
9. Remove from heat and add the sugar and salt. Stir until they're dissolved. 
10. Then, slice open the vanilla bean and scrape out the gooky insides and add that to the milk mixture. 
11. Stir in the whipping cream. 
12. Cover and refrigerate 30 minutes. 
13. Remove brownies from the oven and let them cool completely (it wouldn't hurt to refrigerate them for a few minutes, too). Rip the brownies to big crumbled shreds.  
14. Once the mixture is cooled, add to an ice cream machine and chill per the machine's instructions. 
15. When the ice cream is ready to come out of the machine for its final chill in the freezer, stir in the crumbled brownies. I did this in three phases to keep the ice cream from melting too much. 
16. You'll probably want to let it firm up the rest of the way in the freezer for a few hours before eating. But I know you already licked the spoon you used to fold the brownies into the ice cream, and that is TOTALLY ACCEPTABLE. You did all the hard work, after all. 

Makes about 6 quarts. And you'll need it all when word gets out what you've made.

Extra pro tip: To make this SUPER wonderful, melt two parts of your favorite chocolate (or butterscotch, or peanut butter...) chips in the microwave (GENTLY...15 seconds at a time, then stir!). Add one part coconut oil. FAST AND EASY magic shell! 

You might want to have salads for the next COUPLE days...

[Untitled]

Another Wendig Flash Fiction Challenge. This is a quick draft I whipped up inspired by two of the sentences from the challenge. Enjoy. Or be haunted. Either way, I will consider it a success.

She had lived for seventeen days inside the stanza, reeling around the intermingling eroticism of line breaks, reveling in the ache of each point of punctuation. Coming up for air was optional. Instead, she breathed the rhythm of internal rhyme, melodies dancing inside an evocatively executed turn of phrase.

But a poetic pattern can retain inertia, too. When the voices from above awoke her from her subterranean reverie, she climbed out of the cool darkness of the Underworld and into the garish glitter of daylight. This world was boorish, alien, hostile. The body snatchers could take you from your own imaginings, impose theirs, like some sort of bland, jingoish brainwashing mimicking Matheson’s worst nightmares.

She tried to breathe and was met with only a carcinogenic smog, carefully landscaped and pruned hedges, the trees and bushes boxing her in. Even nature wasn’t natural; it was some honed and harnessed mimeograph of itself, a poor print copied when the toner was low.

Everything was prison. Every liberty outside of the lines was a lie. The only world that truly was had been ripped away, like a baby cut early from the home of the womb.

All that was left now was to fit in, to pretend the spirits tumbling in the gyre just beyond her reach were only a fantasy.

Get a job.

Find a “real” hobby.

Attract a boyfriend.

Buy a canary.

And pretend, for every day thereafter, that she wasn’t drowning in polluted sludge, that every breath wasn’t a breath closer to death and further from reality.

But then, the hope of subversion arose, a glimpse of color through the gray, prisms dancing just on the edges of perception like a promise for eternity. She could run crosswise in small ways…finding an avant-garde obsession that could help her imagine that she was descending back into the nether-regions, the wild revels where the moon shimmered across open water and birds flew so high she lost them among the stars.

Sneak behind authority’s back, flinging nine to five away with yesterday’s news, imagining the manager standing helpless, wringing his hands as she floated above the confines of Twitter and one-hundred-twenty characters…or fifteen inescapable archetypes.

Then the assurance that nothing was new insists its way into her subconscious like mildew, chewing away the worlds threatening to claw their way back up from the banks of the Styx. The penitentiary of history itself sits on her chest like an incubus. Why waste time when it only apes what Adam built in the first place?

This is how the criminal disappears after the inventor erodes. When the Dreamer ascends and is trapped in the waking world, the only opportunity to break free is to break the rules. And then breaking the rules seems like too high a price. That despised despotism, the demands of the doldrums, suddenly become precious. Stockholm, Munchausen…the tyranny of embracing the mundane.

What happened to the music of the spheres? All that is left is a pop refrain in 4/4 time, five notes, two lines, one octave, advertising lipstick and Lincolns. And this is acceptable. This is as it should be. Who has the drive to dig deeper? Who has the time for whims of inspiration?

Then she becomes, by inches, in bland bylines, a slave. The goddess, the mother of universes, forgets.

And all that lies ahead is dust. 

11 Lessons Learned from Planet Comicon

Chef Vader with the best guest
appearance EVER by Jar-Jar Binks.
EDIT: Just found out he has a
Facebook page! LIKE HIM!

Hubby and I went with a few friends to our first "big con" (Planet Comicon in Kansas City) last weekend, and we had a BLAST.

My first experience with a con was actually on the other side of the event, helping a group run a little con in Wichita, so this is not only the first time I'd ever been to a "big" con, but it's also the first time I'd been at a con solely as a paying guest. It was interesting to experience it from this vantage point after starting my con experience on the other side of the aisle.

So, if you're thinking about going to your first con in the future, below are a few things you should know. Some of this is common sense, but as my dad says, "Common sense isn't always that common." Plus, it's a nice platform to talk about the highlights of the day. Double win.

1. Meeting Certain People may be More Moving Than You Anticipated

We met Sylvester McCoy (Doctor #7 from Doctor Who), who was the primary reason for our attending the con in the first place. #7 is a great Doctor, but he's not our absolute favorite, so I thought meeting him would be pretty awesome, but not something that would inspire any great emotional response.

But he took us by surprise. Mr. McCoy is the sweetest man in all the world. Cliche, I know, but it may very well be true where he is concerned. I know the job of signing things and meeting a new person (or people) every minute or so can be psychically exhausting, but he looked into our eyes, smiled, asked about our day and where we were from, and started signing. When he finished, he stood up out of his chair and took each one of us by the hand and thanked us kindly for our support and our time before we left.

Walking away, we realized that we were both a little choked up by the experience. We had thought (hoped) he'd be a nice guy, but the genuine kindness of him was surprisingly moving. Not only had we met a man who is massively significant to the history of pop culture (which is cool in its own way), but we'd met a man who radiates peace and kindness, and that is always a treat.

2. Meeting Certain People may Turn You into a Blithering Idiot

Duh, right? Yeah, well. I think we all also think that we're too cool for that.

LIES. All LIES.

I met one of my early childhood heroes, LeVar Burton, at the con this year. I always loved reading, but I was also a bit ostracized for it and Burton's show, Reading Rainbow, taught me that there were lots of people out there who thought reading was as awesome as I did. He was also a major character in one of my favorite shows of all time, and probably THE SHOW that got me into science fiction, Star Trek: The Next Generation. If I had managed to get my bearings before being interrupted, I know I would have had a great and memorable little conversation with the guy.

3. Geeks Can be Jerks Sometimes

Unfortunately, my meeting with one of my childhood idols was squelched somewhat by the girl behind me asking if Burton would pose for a photo with a little cardboard standup from a show I'd never heard of (that wasn't of him...? I don't get it...). He talked to her and not to me, responding to her request, and I was out of there before I knew what happened. If she'd had a modicum of consideration and waited to make the request until her time, I would have enjoyed that encounter much more. And, ya know, been able to ask him the question I've always wanted to know: "What's your favorite book?"



We ran into this great group of cosplayers while we were resting our feet late in the day and they graciously granted a picture. 

4. Geeks Can be Amazing

On the flip side, the prior event was our only "bad" experience of the day. Gathering at a con is like finding friends that you didn't know you had. Most of the people were not just decent, but flat-out wonderful. The cosplayers were friendly and accommodating and always more than happy to chat about the characters or the their costumes and pose for lots and lots of pictures. Every sideways comment to someone standing next to you in a dealer's stall could turn into a half-hour conversation about Jayne's moral turpitude in Firefly. Oh, and Batman and Wonder Woman were an absolutely adorable couple...FINALLY!

5. You Don't have to Hit the Panels to Learn a Lot

We kinda...forgot entirely about the panels while we were there. I heard later on that the panels cost extra. I'm not sure if that was true or if that only applied to the TNG panel, but regardless, we had a good time walking around and meeting and talking to some really neat new people. Even just flipping through the back issues in a long box could lead to an unimaginable discovery. Which leads into...

6. Find the Artists and Writers of Your Favorite Comics

This was my favorite part of the day.

Artists and writers are so ridiculously underrated. You know all those characters that you love on TV and in movies (and in COMICS!)? Guess who give them breath and power? While everyone has a part, if the writing is bad, then the entire endeavor is screwed. Unless you're writing Transformers. I think my four-year-old nephew could write a watchable version of Transformers.

But anyway, I'm digressing.

I may be slightly biased due to the fact that I'm a writer myself, but I really, really enjoy talking to the creative folks in artists' alley. In many cases, these are people who inspire my creativity on a regular basis. It may sound odd, but Greg Rucka's Wonder Woman is one of the characters who inspired me to start writing about the Bride of Frankenstein (and I MISSED him! AUUUUUGH! I shall never forgive myself...). These people are bright, they're funny, they'll appreciate your support. Your stories about how they inspired you will be edifying and meaningful for them. They will share cookie recipes. Seriously. This is where we spent most of the day.

And, FYI: Greg Horn is AWESOME (Hubby had a nice exchange with him about Green Arrow, which made him exceptionally happy). Horn's also a heck of a salesman. Jill Thompson is also exactly as fantastic as I expected her to be. We talked about baking cookies and her Kickstarter. Her handler (/daughter?) was also absolutely fantastic. Talked to her at least as much as I talked to Jill. Kinda wish I'd have gotten her info...we had a lot in common.

7. A Con is WAY MORE than a Great Big Geek Store with Celebrities

This is a criticism I hear from people from time to time, and while I can understand how it may feel this way sometimes, there's so much more value to a con than just the "stuff." I think my article speaks to that a bit, so saying much more here might be a bit redundant. But of course, a con, like any other experience, is exactly what you put into it. If you just troll the con as a mall, with lots of people dressed funny, then that's what you get.

8. If You can Meet Wil Wheaton, DO IT!

This is probably my biggest regret of the con. We decided to skip Wil, partially because we were wearing out and partially because we heard the line for him was about two hours long. Well, friend, do you know why it took Wil two hours to get through the line? Because he and his wife, Anne (who is also epic, by the way), were taking the time to have a REAL CONVERSATION with everyone who came through. Support this awesome, sweet man, people. Buy his books. Watch Table Top. He's one of the good ones. We will definitely take time to meet him next time.

9. Pre-Planning is VITAL

I was twiddling around on Twitter on the drive home and learned that one of my absolute favorite comic writers was at the con (Greg Rucka, who wrote some of my all-time FAVORITE Wonder Woman comics), and WE MISSED HIM. Yes, I said it before, but I kick myself a little every time I think about it. I'm not sure how this happened, as I'm pretty sure we walked artists' alley about thirteen thousand times, but I was devastated. I would have planned explicitly to see him if I would have known he was there.

A lot of cons turn off pre-purchase tickets early (one of my pet peeves about this one was HOW early Planet Comicon turned off advance ticketing--we went to the site a week before the con and they were already deactivated). This is due to the fact that organizing tickets and entries is a MASSIVE HASSLE for the staff of the con. So, the further you plan ahead, the more likely you are to be able to get in and get your tickets with a minimum of hassle. However, that leads into the next item...

 10. HYDRATE!

This is a lesson learned not only from this con, but from Peter Pixie, the MC at our "little con." The you  adrenaline and excitement of the con can make you forget to do basic things like drink water, and while you might be able to go a surprisingly long time without eating (though, note--not as long as you may think!), you will not make it through the day without a steady supply of water. Keep some with you, keep drinking throughout the day. You don't want your day shortened by a trip to the ER because you collapsed. I've seen it. It's not a pretty thing. Be sure to take some time out of all the excitement to meet your basic needs!

11. A Well-Run Con is a Beautiful Thing

There were a couple minor annoyances at the con (not enough signage at entrances, which is always a problem, and I felt like pre-purchase tickets did cut off a little soon), but overall, everything went very smoothly. When you attend a con and it goes well, tell them so. Take a few minutes to write the con organizers and tell them explicitly what you liked about the con and why you would come back. I don't just say this as a massively partial bystander (as someone who worked a con before), but also because it is so hard to know, on the other side of the con, what people appreciated. It's easy to know when something goes wrong--we almost always hear about that--but the good stuff sometimes goes unnoticed and may not always get repeated if it's not highlighted. TELL them when the lines move quickly and when you were given courteous treatment. The con will only get better from there.

Our Lady's Child

Chuck Wendig hosts a weekly flash fiction challenge over at his blog. This week's  challenge was to take a Grimm's fairy tale and revamp it to a randomly chosen genre. And do it in fewer than a thousand words. I got "Hard Sci-Fi," and imagined the story "Our Lady's Child" with a very different sort of a child. And a very different sort of Lady. 

Image from an original movie poster for Fritz Lang's Metropolis.

I understand what it feels like to be alone in a crowd as I press through a clutch of people gathered in front of a club shaped like a matte black cube. Holograms dance, ghostly, above the crowd, advertising the talent inside.

People stare. I can calculate the milliseconds more their faces linger on mine than others as I pass. Mother didn’t care to make me fit in. I gleam like a new appliance, brushed steel glittering in the garish neon and peevish streetlights that turn the night into a carnival. I seem to be the opening act.

My readings say it’s below freezing, but I can’t tell. I don’t have breath to mist the air like everyone around me. I have no destination.

***

I think she was afraid of me, a little. Every once in a while I’d catch a flash in the darkness of her eyes that would tell me she was worried she’d flown too close to the sun. She’d catch herself, smile, pull a strand of dark hair back into the haphazard haystack on top of her head, and look away, but she couldn’t hide from the algorithm. Body language doesn't lie.

We spent years together. She’d run her fingers, the color and roughness of willow bark, across me, call me “perfect.” Then she’d open up a panel and fiddle with some wiring or replace a circuitboard as she imagined more improvements.

“Now you’re perfect,” she’d chuckle. We both knew it wasn’t true. Her hands would be inside me again.

After seven years, ten months, and four days of tweaking and upgrades, I wake from Regen and find a note left on my optical readout:

Five,

I am going to be gone for the week. I have left access codes for the three rooms downstairs that have previously been off-limits. Use Room 1 and Room 2 as you desire. Do not enter Room 3.

Mother.

It seems strange that she would leave me access to a room and then disallow me from entering. Illogical. But she could be illogical, sometimes.

I find after a day that losing my daily regimen makes me restless. I’m accustomed to company, and it’s gone. I decide to examine the first room.

The first room is the size of a walk-in closet, empty but for a Page device in the center of the room on the floor. As I cross the threshold, another note from Mother pops up on my optical readout:

Select “Upgrade.”

M.

I pick up the Page, a light, rigid piece of plastic three by four centimeters and a centimeter thick, and touch the “UPGRADE” button pulsing blue in the center. I sense the download and upgrade rewriting the critical thinking and reasoning components of my drive structure. When it completes, another message flashes and is gone.

                GOOD GIRL.

The Page becomes inert. I leave it where I found it in the room and exit, the door sliding shut soundlessly behind me.

I try to evaluate what’s been upgraded, but it’s difficult to tell when a change is made. The old files are deleted, so while I retain memory, the perspective shifts aren't always obvious. Like watching a revised version of a film you've only seen once, sometimes you see the changes made and sometimes you just know things are different without knowing how.

Stepping through the second door two days later, another change strikes. Memories flood my perception. Mother’s memories. Some others, too. Her daughter. She had a daughter? Some strangers. Wave after wave of human experience. I process, file, remember. Eventually, they are all mine.

The feed stops two days later, and I immediately cross to the third room.

I sit outside the third door, feeling an unfamiliar itch. I must know what’s back there. But Mother said no. But so much has changed. What more could be in this room? What gift could she be hiding there?

I step forward. The third door slides open. The room seems vast, bathed in light. I step inside.

“Four days. You only lasted four days.”

Mother steps out of the light. She shakes her head as she passes. I follow, silent. I’m not certain what to say. Did I break something? I don’t understand.

Upstairs, she sits down at her workstation and stares at me. Her shoulders are stooped. Her eyes are black holes.

“Your programming is insufficient. The ethical subroutines are obviously not adapting. Your curiosity programming overwhelmed it. I failed. Hopefully the new model will be better.”

Mother turns her back, tinkering with the model she’s named six-point-zero splayed on the counter in front of her. Two floating screens at eye level create competing, flickering blossoms of blue and green illumination across her face.

Seconds crawl like a year as I calculate what to do. I step back among the cannibalized pieces of earlier rejects and watch her work.

A shimmering white projection of the schematic for 6.0 hovers above the body like a soul waiting to descend. Mother touches it and zooms into the wrist area to tweak an imperfection. I lift my wrist and look at my own hand, closing and opening my fingers.

Mother glances up and meets my eyes, then turns her attention back to the next project.

“Are you still here? I don’t need you anymore. Go.”

“Go where? Do you need more parts? I can go to Supply…”

She waves her hand in my direction, not looking up from her work, “Go wherever you want. Right now I don’t even want to look at you. Out.”

***

It’s been 120 hours, 32 minutes, and 13 seconds since she rejected me. She hasn’t called me back. Power levels are red. I find a bench in a green park and sit. She’d be delighted to know my power levels have lasted so long between Regens. Wouldn’t she? A sensation like a rock dropping into an empty bucket settles inside. Is this how heartache feels?

I hope Mother

S.H.I.E.L.D: Good Guys or Bad Guys? It Depends on When You Ask

Promo Photo from Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

This will probably be evolved and continued over time and may turn into a real, "researched" paper, but for now, I want to get my thoughts down and see where they go.  Further input is encouraged in the comments!

I blame Clark Gregg.

Okay, maybe it's not entirely his fault, but the actor who has done such an incredible job filling what was originally a minor role in Marvel's movie series has definitely made an impact on the way many people perceive the shady organization known as S.H.I.E.L.D. Named originally Supreme Headquarters, International Espionage, Law-Enforcement Division, the organization's title changed in 1991 to Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate, and then it was altered again for the Marvel movie release to Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division (there's plenty to culturally analyze just in THAT fact).

S.H.I.E.L.D. has a long and checkered history within the Marvel universe. The organization was originally created during the heyday of international espionage in films and books, when 007 and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. ruled the entertainment world. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby introduced the organization, fully-formed, in Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., and filled in the backstory as stories necessitated.

S.H.I.E.L.D. has always been problematic, in spite of the fact that their main antagonist (HYDRA) is very obviously evil. In the classic response to the question, "is the enemy of my enemy my friend?," S.H.I.E.L.D. often works at odds with superheroes, sometimes claiming they exist to keep heroes in check, but acting in questionable ways and sometimes diametrically opposed to the interests of the people they claim to protect. They almost certainly will lean toward restricting the civil rights of the superheroes themselves in many cases.

I really need citations. They're all in my brain and I promise I'll intersperse them as I spend time researching this idea, because I know these paragraphs aren't the only thing I'm going to write about this.

Promo image for Civil War via Marvel and the magic of the Interwebs.

My first inclination is to suggest that the post-9/11 world created a need for S.H.I.E.L.D to be heroic since our heroes proved they couldn't save us, but I'm not sure this is the correct response. Civil War, which was a response to the fallout from the culture developed in the wake 9/11 in spite of the fact that it was authored years later, established pretty conclusively the fact that even though heroes were dangerous, the government (and, by extension, S.H.I.E.L.D.) was worse. Two years after Civil War, we see Joss Whedon's Dollhouse float the same idea. Greater power inevitably equals greater corruption, which pretty much means that no one is safe. Ever.

(And yes, on an only quasi-related subject, I'm fairly certain that our Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D Coulson is an LMD. But time will tell. How would that cloud the agency's current "good name?")

By the way, Civil War is what really made me love Captain America...if you haven't read it, you'll gain some serious respect for the guy in those pages. Oh, and the story also made me seriously despise Spider-Man. Like to the point of indignation. The side stories vary in their quality, but the core story is a serious page-turner that asks some serious questions about the nature of freedom and how we defend the freedoms of even those we fear shows the true quality of character. But it also shows the deep, almost subconscious, need to relinquish control to authority as a security blanket in the aftermath of horror. And the true horror that can rise in the aftermath of letting go of our most basic civil rights. So, in spite of the sides that are chosen, power is still something to fear, because those in power have no more idea how to handle the aftermath of catastrophe than the average person.

Even the animated series Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes depicts S.H.I.E.L.D. as autocratic and potentially dangerous, to the point that the Avengers actually form outside of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s commission and, while they lend a hand to the agency from time to time, they also actively resist actually falling under its umbrella (by the way, the difference in depiction of Tony Stark between this series and Civil War is fascinating, considering what side he ends up landing on in that series...even more fascinating is the fact that both depictions are believable within the scope of each storyline).

But then, almost suddenly, we get to a point culturally where we want to feel "safe" with the idea of government agencies. When did this happen? Did we forget that these people aren't heroes but people, with foibles and, potentially worse, the spark of corruption in every soul? Did we suddenly miss Mulder and Scully? I don't know. I don't have answers. I'm still trying to formulate all the questions.

Any thoughts out there in Internet-world? Is this all Coulson's fault? Is this what happens when you start to give faces to the people in power, even if they're not perfect?

Life in the Leaves: Reading Update (The Female Man)

The Female Man

by Joanna Russ
Paperback, 214 pages
Published March 17th 2000 by Beacon Press (first published 1975)
ISBN: 0807062995 (ISBN 13: 9780807062999)

I've seen people argue that this book is outdated and no longer topical.

I'm really confused what rose-colored glasses they're wearing, because as far as I can tell, the majority of this book is still far too true. I've been in these places far, far too often to write off the circumstances in this book as some so flippantly have.

"Give us a good-bye kiss," said the host, who might have been attractive under other circumstances, a giant marine, so to speak. I pushed him away.

"What'sa matter, you some kinda prude?" he said and enfolding us in his powerful arms, et cetera--well, not so very powerful as all that, but I want to give you the feeling of the scene. If you scream, people say you're melodramatic; if you submit, you’re masochistic; if you call names, you're a bitch. Hit him and he'll kill you. The best thing is to suffer mutely and yearn for a rescuer, but suppose a rescuer doesn't come?

Sure, we don't have men telling us that we "belong" at home any more (or at least not as often). There are women in the army now, female firefighters, women working in construction and architecture and mathematics. But how many women are in active combat? Zero. How many women run Fortune 500 companies? ALMOST Zero (fewer than 5%). There’s still a significant disparity of women in mathematics and the sciences. We still can’t play “male” sports. We're reduced to breasts and our sex more often than even we want to admit. We're still, after all this "liberation," confined to the role of Chopin's "Mother-women" strikingly often.

In college, educated women (I found out) were frigid; active women (I knew) were neurotic; women (we all knew) were timid, incapable, dependent, nurturing, passive, intuitive, emotional, unintelligent, obedient, and beautiful. You can always get dressed up and go to a party. Woman is the gateway to another world; Woman is the earth-mother; Woman is the eternal siren; Woman is purity; Woman is carnality; Woman has intuition; Woman is the life-force; Woman is selfless love.

"I am the gateway to another world," (said I, looking in the mirror) "I am the earth-mother; I am the eternal siren; I am purity," (Jeez, new pimples) "I am carnality; I have intuition; I am the life-force; I am selfless love." (Somehow it sounds different in the first person, doesn't it?)

Honey (said the mirror, scandalized) Are you out of your fuckin' mind?

But the worst part about this--the most terrifying aspect of this book--is that the sentiment this book calls out still lay barely below the surface of, at the very least, American culture (being American, I really can’t speak to the rest of the world with much knowledge). We claim to be a "post-feminist" society, but patriarchal thinking still lurks beneath, and it takes very little prodding to bring its apologetics to light, in both men and women. It’s somehow worse that we think that this is all past us, I think, because by pretending it doesn’t exist, we’re simply letting it live. We’re letting the monster continue its devouring cycle, eating us all as we go about our lives, like the invisible aliens sucking away human brains in “They Live” that only those with the goofy glasses could see.

I’m a sick woman, a madwoman, a ball-breaker, a man-eater; I don’t consume men gracefully with my fire-like red hair or my poisoned kiss; I crack their joints with these filthy ghoul’s claws and standing on one foot like a de-clawed cat, rake at your feeble efforts to save yourselves with my taloned hinder feet: my matted hair, my filthy skin, my big fat plaques of green bloody teeth. I don’t think my body would sell anything. I don’t think I’d be good to look at. O of all diseases self-hate is the worst and I don’t mean for the one who suffers it!

Women are still considered "inadequate" in so many circumstances. Our own autonomy and ability to make decisions for ourselves regarding basic medical procedures and life choices is still not only questioned, but those rights are actively being stripped on a regular basis. And when we dare to say, "how dare you!" we get slapped in the face. We get laughed at. We get told our concerns are ludicrous.

And that’s without taking into account societies that still exist where women can be jailed for driving. The countries where mutilation of women is still allowed and accepted. Where wives are still bought and exchanged as property, where they can be beaten and bred like livestock.

But sure, we’re post-feminist. Really.

Alas, it was never meant for us to hear. It was never meant for us to know. We ought never be taught to read. We fight through the constant male refractoriness of our surroundings; our souls are torn out of us with such shock that there isn't even any blood. Remember: I didn't and don't want to be a "feminine" version of the heroes I admire. I want to be the heroes themselves.

What future is there for a female child who aspires to being Humphrey Bogart?

I wish this book were much more outdated than it is. I wish I didn't see my own experiences in Jeannine and Joanna. I wish I hadn't been to that party where I was called a shrew for saying no. In a society where a white man serves less time in prison for a rape conviction than a black man does for possession of half an ounce of an intoxicant while the woman in the assault is blamed for “inviting it,” something is still royally fucked up, and those who don’t see it are deceiving themselves.

Her secret guilt was this:

She was Cunt.

She had “lost” something.

Now the other party to the incident had manifested his essential nature, too; he was a Prick—but being Prick is not a bad thing. In fact, he had “gotten away with” something (possibly what she had “lost”).

And there I was listening at eleven years of age:

She was out late at night.

She was in the wrong part of town.

Her skirt was too short and that provoked him.

She liked having her eye blacked and her head banged against the sidewalk.

I understood this perfectly. (I reflected thus in my dream, in my state of being a pair of eyes in a small wooden box stuck forever on a gray, geometric plane—or so I thought.) I too had been guilty of what had been done to me, when I came home from the playground in tears because I had been beaten up by bigger children who were bullies.

I was dirty.

I was crying.

I demanded comfort.

I was being inconvenient.

I did not disappear into thin air.

I don't think this is just a story that speaks of the frustration of women, though. I think this is the struggle of the Other in all forms. I see this frustration in my gay friends trying to become recognized as a married couple (as people at all) in a state that has now legally endorsed segregation and discrimination on the grounds that they’re “offensive” to certain parties. I see it in my minority friends, especially those of mixed races, who try to function not as their race, but as individuals. It's the struggle of the Other, not in the 1970s, but EVERY SINGLE DAY.

If we are all Mankind, it follows to my interested and righteous and rightnow very bright and beady little eyes, that I too am a Man and not at all a Woman, for honestly now, whoever heard of Java Woman and existential Woman and the values of Western Woman and scientific Woman and alienated nineteenth-century Woman and all the rest of that dingy antiquated rag-bag?" All the rags in it are White, anyway.

The J's (as they're known later in the book) are each incarnations of the aspects of the Other who tries to remain functional in a society built against her. Some of them are incarnations of wishful thinking--the women or the self we want to be (though Russ shows the flaws in those "idealized" selves, too, much more than Gilman does in Herland), and the others are compartmentalized into the societies of the present or the past, but they make a compatible whole. They are the Same. They are still, for all their flaws and angst, us. The sooner we see the alientation we still allow, the sooner we can actually have the liberty we claim already exists.

How am I to put this together with my human life, my intellectual life, my solitude, my transcendence, my brains, and my fearful, fearful ambition? I failed and thought it was my own fault. You can't unite woman and human any more than you can unite matter and anti-matter; they are designed not to be stable together and they make just as big an explosion inside the head of the unfortunate girl who believes in both.

Russ speaks, in this book, to a demon that still feasts in society. We’re not post-feminist. We’re not all evolved past this shit, and I think she’d still say that today. We’re deceiving ourselves into thinking that we’ve evolved when we’re still clubbing each other about the heads in order to feel morally, intellectually, socially superior. Evolution’s still going retrograde, and Joanna saw it in 1975.

As my mother once said: The boys throw stones at the frogs in jest.

But the frogs die in earnest.

Life in the Leaves: Reading Update (Air, Vol. 1)

Air, Vol. 1: Letters from Lost Countries

by G. Willow Wilson, M.K. Perker
Paperback, 144 pages
Published March 24th 2009 by Vertigo (first published March 10th 2009)
ISBN: 140122153X (ISBN13: 9781401221539)

I was crazy about this book before I even opened the cover. It shows a scene that calls to my mind James Dickey's poem "Falling," which is on my list of top five favorite poems EVER (yes, I have a list). The image gives me the same breathless feeling I get when I ramble through the poem, and that giddiness made this purchase a no-brainer.

Then, the first page makes a Satanic Verses reference. Which is one of my favorite books of all time. Double love.

From the second page, though, I fell out of love a little, at least for a while. Pushing so quickly into the action without establishing the characters on some identifiable level for the reader is difficult. I realize the medium implies a "nonstop action" flavor, but my favorite comics have been those that manage to use the action to establish the character in some sly way, and I didn't think that Wilson was terribly adept at that for at least the first third of this volume (which would be a couple full comics, had I been reading it in the serial form--would I have had the patience to continue with it if the first couple issues had been so disappointing?). And Blythe's "dysfunction" doesn't count as character establishment. In fact, her disorder just made me think she was stupid for taking the job as a stewardess to begin with.

The dialogue is stilted and unrealistic in a lot of places, to the point that it took me out of the story a few times, especially in Blythe's first encounter with the Estian Front (not too much of a spoiler, as this happens in the first couple pages). The "Two-Face" style bad guy is wooden...as in balsa. I'm not sure that he's going to hold up as anything interesting in the future.

The art is...I think another reviewer said that it's very eighties. For the most part, I'd agree with that. The artist has a great eye for composition, but the art itself feels a little rushed and cheap, like he or she was trying to get panels cranked out without much care for the actual artistic integrity overall.

But, hang in there, passengers. There's some turbulence, but, like any pilot (as in the show, not the captain of an aircraft), it manages to hang together by the end of the volume. The magical realism in the world Wilson establishes and the way it weaved its way into the plot dazzled me, and the layers that were established saved the narrative by the end.

The story also raises some really nice questions about the nature of reality and how that reality, or lack thereof, affects our own identities. As some of you know, I'm a bit of a sucker for good philosophical questions being raised in my comics, so this has earned a pass from me. I still don't give too much of a damn about Blythe or her mysterious friend (...what's his name again...?), but the story itself is at least compelling enough for me to want to snag the next volume and give it another chance.

So, the jury's still out. Maybe Volume 2 will manage to breathe a little more life into the characters and keep me hooked for Volume 3. We'll see.

Pauline Saves Mario! Now in your neighborhood arcade!

As some of you probably know, a father re-programmed Nintendo's Donkey Kong game a few months ago to feature Pauline as the hero, rescuing Mario from the great ape, for his daughter. And gamers everywhere, male and female alike, ooohed and aaahed at the awesomeness that was an inverted version of an unquestionable classic with a  female protagonist. Other stodgy real-life versions of The Simpsons' "Comic Book Guy," with no sense of humor or understanding what it's like to be a minority in a genre, trolled and bitched and moaned about why it was unnecessary and how people were corrupting a classic game...but we don't give a damn about those losers. Though a YouTuber created a video compiling the best (worst) of the troll comments that will, in turns, make you laugh and lose all hope for humanity.

Well, Clay Cowgill, the owner of an arcade in Portland, Oregon, has hacked the original arcade version of the game to re-cast Pauline as well and is making it available to patrons at his arcade. Here's hoping that Nintendo will take the hint and actually begin offering this awesome inversion more universally, hopefully without biting their thumbs at their fans like Fox managed to do last week when cracking down on "unauthorized" makers of Jayne hats, sending cease and desist notices to infringing knitters everywhere (don't even get me started on that...or maybe you should, since I have some actual legal discussion to make there). Yeah, I think that'll be a topic coming up shortly. I've studied IP enough to have a unique perspective to offer there that I've not seen presented elsewhere. And I have LAW to back me up. Watch out, Fox! The little guy knows how to read, too!

Anyway, I'm digressing. Donkey Kong is awesome. And more awesome with Pauline as the hero. Now, can we get Princess Peach to save Mario from Bowser sometime soon? Or maybe...ooo! Even BETTER! Zelda needs to save LINK, dammit!