Paper Moon

I love style memes, but it's rare to find an artist that can actually do a spot-on mimicking of another artist's style. Oscar Vega, however, can.

So here, have some Homestuck characters:

Condesce à la Atsushi Nishigori

Aranea à la Rumminov

Nepeta à la Jamie Hewlett

Terezi à la Omocat

Dirk à la Pablo Picasso

Gamzee à la Dr. Seuss

Mindfang à la Adam Hughes

Snowman à la Frank Cho

Roxy and Jane à la Junko Mizuno

Feferi à la Audrey Kawasaki


...It's the Picasso imitation that really blows me away because it actually shows a basic understanding of how Picasso composed his portrait images. Rather than just, you know, throwing a bunch of shapes together and claiming "looks i did a picasso!"

Fandom Tennis Match Meme:

Okay, here's how this is going to work. You comment with a fandom question. I answer it and then ask you a question that has some thematic relevance to the question you asked me.

redbrunja asked me: ( Cut for question and answer. )

Ask me questions!

So excited for new Soul Eater Not! tomorrow. I don't even care if we get another nine-page chapter of Tsugumi hatching romantic plots revolving around omelets or whatever. Which to be fair is never an unlikely possibility, because Not! may be a lot of things but quality manga it most certainly is not, but IDGAF I enjoy it anyway, especially the parts about the main Soul Eater cast members.

Speaking of which! terajk is posting some excellent short Soul Eater fics on her journal right now.

Also! The Not Prime Time multifandom fic exchange (for fandoms that are too large to be eligible for Yuletide but still small enough to not be megafandoms) is currently accepting fandom promotions. Soul Eater, Fairy Tail, and a whole bucketload of anime, manga, TV, movie, and video game fandoms are going to be eligible this year. So if you have a fandom that you would like to promote before the nomination process officially begins, here's your chance.

Related: Does anybody have any good Lucy/Erza fic they could recommend? I'm dying for some friendship!fic or femmeslash, either flavor.

Unrelated: Pop Culture Boyfriends. Highly tongue-in-cheek and yet surprisingly revealing in terms of the pop media landscape that teen and twenty-something girls are devouring at the moment. Granted, I was surprised to see only three pieces of Western media in there (Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and A:TLA) and VERY surprised to see no Homestuck references.

So speaking of Homestuck... I started re-reading parts of it a couple weeks ago when I was down and out with the flu, and sadly I believe that my love for Vriska/Tavros has been rekindled all over again. I say "sadly" because this is the most unfortunate thing that I have ever shipped. EVER. Because it has got to be one of the most disasterous relationships in the history of epic speculative literature ever created EVER. To put this trainwreck of a romance in context: Vriska and Tavros are alien trolls from an another planet in an alternative universe, and products of a culture that requires them to, at some point, have a hate-fueled "black romance" mating with another member of their species. Most teenage trolls seem to dream of having, as another troll puts it, the type of epic black romance that results in "blood rivers runnin through star systems and all nebulizin like liquid fireworks, beautiful and heartbreaking all at once." And yet even by troll standards Vriska and Tavros have a romantic arc that is such an utter disaster that the other trolls consider it to have crossed the line. Even by troll standards. This relationship isn't just a trainwreck, it's a trainwreck and a volcanic eruption and a hurricane and a tsunami and the sun collapsing into a black hole and swallowing the entire solar system all at once. And it all started so innocently, too: Vriska and Tavros were both nerdy teenage trolls who liked to roleplay, cosplay, and even play a certain children's game involving collectible tiny monsters. But then their relationship quickly escalated into murder attempts, spiderweb bondage, amputations, and eventually - of course - a duel to the death. They were poison to each other and even worse, they didn't just manage to doom themselves, but their trainwreck of an aborted romance managed to doom most of their friends too, at least to the point where it directly resulted in Tavros's RP partner getting killed and Vriska's RP partner permanently maimed. And yet - AND YET - for some reason I still have ~so many feelings~ for this pairing, horrible as it was and as horribly as it ended. I think that the horribleness of it all is part of the appeal, of course - who doesn't love a good tragedy? - but I also am kind of fascinated by the way that these two characters stuck together despite Vriska being Vriska and Tavros being so utterly terrified of her, how Vriska believed in Tavros until the bitter end and how Tavros wouldn't stay away from her despite every other troll telling him to do so, and how the fandom around the pairing does some much more insightful and interesting things with the disabilities of these two characters (NSFW) than the canon text ever did. It also doesn't help that despite everything, there is so much about this pairing that is so blackly hilarious - from Vriska's cosplay fetish to ROCKET WHEELCHAIR to "Well I'm lying on the floor in Vriska's room and we're both wearing costumes and I'm not explaining this very well, am I?" to That Thing that Vriska Did With Tavros's Severed Legs - that it's kind of hard not to laugh at it, just like it's kind of hard not to laugh at any of the doomed, doomed romantic pairings that Homestuck loves to revel in.

TL;DR version: This is the worst thing that I have ever shipped, and I have recently fallen in love with the pairing all over again, and I REGRET NOTHING.

Fortunately The Serendipity Gospels updated last week with so much deliciously horrible Vriska/Tavros shipping that it is glorious. Glorious.

Thursday evening reading: Doujinshi Nation

In which Heidi MacDonald connects the dots between current legal shakeups in the American comics industry, how this compares to the Japanese publishing model, and what all of this has to do with Ghost Rider/Star Wars crossovers, the Static fan movie, and the Shocking True Story of what happened to that guy who drew the Wolverine ABCs.

Mike Landis (writer of Chronicle) films his celebrity friends re-enacting the death and return of Superman:



Starring Elden Henson, Elijah Wood, Mandy Moore, and Morgan Krantz with cameos by Simon Pegg, Ron Howard, Elmo, and about a dozen other famous people whose names escape me but I know I've seen them before.

http://www.comicsbeat.com/2011/11/28/gender-swap-avengers-poster-gives-us-lots-of-butt/

Strong male characters, y'all.

So I realized that I've had this narrative kink for a while, but only just recently did I figure out how to articulate it. (Thank you, Thundercats reboot!)

I have this inexplicable love for stories in which the heroes find themselves possibly doomed to re-enact the tragic lives of their ancestors and/or past reincarnations, but then find some way at the last minute to reverse that fate.

I remember that Sailor Moon hit this kink in a big way when I was a teenager. Come to think of it, this trope shows up a LOT in other shoujo manga as well. Homestuck sets up the trope in the most literal way possible by having the trolls grow up in a culture where they're encouraged to follow the same life paths as their ancestors. There was even a thread of this in Avatar with the Roku/Sozin and Zuko/Aang parallels.

The 2011 Thundercats reboot is clearly moving in this direction as well. And yes, this post title is a direct reference to the way that Tygra's character arc is being set up to parallel both Tygus in the distant past (who is the only other tiger in the series so far) and Grune in the immediate past (who is a saber-toothed tiger, a fact that admittedly it took me a while to pick up on - and it's not like the writers were even being subtle about it, either!).

When I think about this trope, though, I can't help but notice that all of my favorite examples of it come from decidedly kid-oriented media. In fact, I'm having a really hard time coming up with any examples of it in sci-fi or fantasy stories geared toward an adult audience. Homestuck may be a possible exception, as it doesn't seem to be deliberately aimed at any age group in particular and has attracted a mixed teen and adult audience, but at the end of the day I still think it's a deliciously juvenile story that revels in its own immaturity, and it's definitely not "more or less for grown-ups" the same way that, say, something like Star Trek or a George R.R. Martin novel would be.

So... why is that, exactly? I dunno. Maybe it's inherently a juvenile trope?

Can anybody else think of any examples from not-so-kiddie-oriented media? The best that I've been able to come up with is possibly the original Star Wars trilogy, but it doesn't quite fit the bill because a) Luke struggling to not repeat his father's destiny is not the same as struggling to not repeat his distant ancestor and/or past reincarnation's destiny, and b) Star Wars was intended to appeal to both a kiddie and an adult audience at the same time, so it's not quite as "adult-oriented" as I'm looking for.

Deb Aoki has some damn smart things to say about DC's New 52, Catwoman, Starfire, and manga.

The article is long but well-worth a complete readthrough. Among one of the issues that Aoki tackles is the question, "Why are female comic book readers so upset about sexist depictions of Catwoman and Starfire, but never express rage at exponentially more vile manga fare like Tenjo Tenge or High School of the Dead?" The answers are actually pretty simple:

Maybe it's because I'm not as emotionally invested in who these characters once were or what they represent. I never had memories or expected the characters in TenTen or HSotD to act a certain, more virtuous way. These characters are never concurrently marketed as 'kiddy versions' for younger readers.

As Mikey San from the One Piece at at Time Blog (@OPataTimeBlog) mentioned, "There is no way I am letting my 9 year old bro pick up that Red Hood title. He knows Starfire from the Teen Titans cartoon and really...Yeah. I rather not bust his bubble about her."

In a related note, David Willis, creator of Shortpacked! expressed similar sentiments, albeit in webcomic form in this comic strip.

No-Stances Emperor (@sdshamshel) added: "I think part of it is that DC's characters all have to share a universe, and as a result, a cumulative message. HOTD girls were built from the ground up to be cheesecake and fanservice, and they don't impact the titles around them."

And Omari's Sister (@Omarissister) chimed in: "Because TenTen never claimed to be sexually liberated. You know going into that one that it's a violent skinfest."

Or maybe it's because stories like TenTen and HSotD that cater to male fantasies co-exist with manga content that is written by and for female readers, vs. being the dominant voice/house style of the medium in their country of origin.

Shorter version: Manga readers (both male and female) who care about not reading crappy depictions of women can easily ignore the existence of titles like High School of the Dead and its ilk, because these titles a) are niche series rather than mainstream/dominant genres of manga - yes, even in Japan, b) are conceived of and marketed from the beginning as male wish-fulfillment fantasies that never try to pass themselves off as "lolz empowering wimmins!", and c) do not include characters that are much-beloved by female (and male) readers from other mediums or several decades' worth of past comic books.

I would also add that when a mainstream manga series gets enough of a fanbase to say that it has honestly produced some iconic badass female characters - like Sakura from Naruto or Rukia from Bleach - then you WILL actually start to see Fanrage On the Internet when those characters are portrayed in a sexist manner within their title series. Because we all care a lot more about female characters who are awesome being portrayed poorly than we do about female characters created to be masturbatory fantasies being portrayed as, well, masturbatory fantasies.



Anyway, that's just one of the issues that the entire article tackles. Aoki also has some very insightful things to say about Tiger & Bunny and Sailor Moon, too. So go, read!

I know that everybody and their dog has already linked to this fantastic post by Laura Hudson over at Comics Alliance, but since it simply cannot be linked enough, here you go:

Since pointing out my issues with Starfire yesterday, I have received numerous e-mails -- from men -- accusing me of slut-shaming. Since there are a lot of people who don't understand the sexual dynamics that are in play here both creatively and culturally, I'd like to dissect this a little bit and explain why these scenes don't support sexually liberated women; they undermine them, and why after nearly 20 years of reading superhero books, these may finally have been the comics that broke me.

[...] This is not about these women wanting things; it's about men wanting to see them do things, and that takes something that really should be empowering -- the idea that women can own their sexuality -- and transforms it into yet another male fantasy. It takes away the actual power of the women and turns their "sexual liberation" into just another way for dudes to get off. And that is at least ten times as gross as regular cheesecake, minimum.

[RIDICULOUS IMAGE OF MOSTLY-NAKED STARFIRE CONTORTING HER BODY IN A BIZARRE WAY INSERTED RIGHT HERE - seriously just see it for yourself at the link.]

Why is she contorting her body in that weird way? Who is she posing for, because it doesn't even seem to be Roy Harper? The answer, dear reader, is that she is posing for you. News flash: Starfire isn't being promiscuous because this comic wants to support progressive notions of gender roles. Starfire is being promiscuous so that you can look at pictures like this:

[MORE NSFW IMAGES OF STARFIRE INSERTED HERE - images that were, yes, actually printed in the comic.]

If you really want to support Starfire's "liberated sexuality" like she's somehow a person with real agency, what people should really be campaigning for is more half-clothed dudes in suggestive poses to get drawn around her, since I'm sure that's what she'd like to see. But people don't really want that, do they? Because it's not about what Starfire wants. It's about what straight male readers want. And they want to see Starfire with her clothes falling off. And hey, hey -- there's nothing wrong with that specifically, but let's be honest about what's happening and who we're serving (or not serving) and at whose expense. And let's be honest about the fact that this treatment happens almost exclusively to women, which is a huge part of what makes it so problematic.

Memo to mansplainers: Stop using the word "slut-shaming" if you don't even know what it means.



Next, in more happy news: Fate/Zero is going to begin streaming on all Nico-Nico websites on October 1st with subtitles available in Korean, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. FUCK YEAH!

Every now and then Marvel actually manages to use their marketing to successfully hoodwink even their most cynical comic-reading audience. Which is exactly what happened with the lead-up to Schism and I kind of love Marvel for it.

And now for some linkspam: DC's New 52 covers as re-imagined by independent cartoonists. Hat-tip to the always fabulous Project Rooftop blog for the link.