Brainfreeze: The Tumblr Experiment

Specifically, I now whole-heartedly embrace same-day digital.

This after deciding at 2:30 in the morning last night that it would be nice to read the new Green Lantern: New Guardians book. And I bought it and I read it. Just like that.

Immediate gratification, that’s the ticket!

Again: comic book companies, take note!

Dear people who design blog themes,

Black text on a dark-green background is difficult to read.

Dark red text on a dark-blue background? Difficult to read.

Light-grey text on a medium-grey background? Are you kidding me?

Thank you for your consideration.

Comics are my fun. They’re what I read to relax. If it’s work, it’s not fun.

If I want to use my Brain, I’ll write devotional poetry to pagan gods, or read me some Dumezil. (Actually both of those are also fun but they are a different sort of fun. A grown-up fun.)

This doesn’t mean I don’t read the smart comic book stuff online, because I do. Sometimes I even comment about it. But it’s secondary to the “fun” aspect.

So. I like Starfire, liked her in the original New Teen Titans way back when I was young. I have less of an opinion about her later appearances pre-DCnU (did I spell that right?). But as a young woman I liked her a lot. I liked the whole thing where she was more sexually free because of her background—but I also liked that she was so direct about it, that she didn’t really act seductive because it wasn’t necessary. That sex was pleasure and affection.  That’s not just a male fantasy—women find that appealing as well. So while I can see a bit of that in current Starfire (getting straight to the point with Roy), I am missing the joy that used to be there.

But maybe that’s accurate? Like I said, I haven’t read a whole lot about Starfire since the 80s. Maybe she had become jaded in the last 20+ years. If so, that’s really too bad.

fuckyeahjasontodd:

HEAD UNDER THE CUT FOR A GREAT AND VERY EASTER EGG-Y SPOILER

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(Source: robinless)

I’ve been reading a bit (just a bit) about the whole “girl geek cred” thing.

I am 49 years old. A mother of two daughters

I used to sneak downstairs as a little tiny girl to watch the original Star Trek in the late 60s, and I later watched it in reruns every day after school. I saw the first Star Wars movie seven times in the theater the year it came out, five of those times all by myself. I watched every episode of the original Battlestar Galactica twice each week (the second time when it came on on the Canadian channel—when I was a kid our antenna picked up three channels most days and two were from across the lake in Canada…)

And I’ve been reading comics for 45 of those years, with very few breaks (mainly, the late 90s). My mother, who’s in her 70s now, read Wonder Woman comics in the 1940s, and was thrilled when I gave her a compilation last year. My kids (both girls) have always had access to comics. They love Deadpool. The younger one still likes to play with action figures once in a while. So it’s a generational thing, passed down between the female members of my family.

I used to shamelessly bring comics to school to read during study hall.

So, geek cred? Probably not something you’d doubt in me, right?

But I didn’t care for Space: 1999 and I didn’t like Heroes, and I wouldn’t be able to answer a bit of trivia on the newer Battlestar Galactica. I’ve seen Smallville but didn’t care much for it. And although I love comics irrationally, I don’t love them all—couldn’t tell you much about the history of Thor or the Hulk other than their appearances in the pages of the Avengers. Gave up on the X-books years ago and never looked back.

And I don’t care much for Superman. I might be able to answer general questions about him, but probably not a lot about specific storylines. But I’d still love a coffee mug with the logo because it represents something beyond just Superman and his own character history. (I’m not really a logo t-shirt kind of person.)  Likewise with Wonder Woman, whose actual comics I tend to find rather tedious—she represents so much more, both within comics and otherwise. A pretty girl in a Superman tee might be comic-literate or she might not, but chances are that she at least values some aspect of the culture, right? Besides, the mainstreaming of comic book culture means that there are now casual fans of the medium.  What’s wrong with that?

I caved. I did. I went to the DC site and ordered up a digital copy of Red Hood and the Outlaws. I’m pretty fond of all three characters (in their elder incarnations, at least).

Opinion? I can only presume that Starfire intentionally misinformed Jason about the nature of Tamaraneans. Maybe by “presume” I mean “hope.” 

But the art’s okay. The writing’s okay. The characterizations are something I hope will crystallize within a few months.

I read it. And it was over. And I thought “Hm, that was really short.” And I realized the reason—no ads! Comics have gotten so much shorter since I was a kid.

Will I keep getting it? Maybe. I don’t see a compelling plot point at present but then it was a first issue.

Here’s hoping someone, somewhere, sets up a website listing all the changes with the..well, they say it’s not a reboot. Reshoe? It would be so very helpful.

I saw a bit of the first Red Hood and the Outlaws book.

I am not sure I’m going to buy it anymore.

I didn’t know I cared that much about Starfire’s characterization. Turns out I do. Not the sex thing, that I don’t care about. The lack of empathy. It’s as if all the sweetness that was so central to her was removed.

Sigh.

How did that happen? How did it happen that I stopped caring about the Avengers.

I suppose I sort of wondered that as well when I got tired of the Fantastic Four. (Which I might give another try if and when the Torch is back. Maybe.)

But the Avengers? They were my favorite since way back.

Was it change overload? Too many teams? The general dark tone of the Marvelverse in recent years? Honestly, none of those things should have done it.

But hey, more money!

Superman’s the first superhero? The JLA only got together 5 years ago? (Heck, Marvel’s 15-year sliding scale is hard enough to squeeze forty years of stories into…)

And yet the JSA characters are still around, just never formed a team. (That is a huge loss IMO but okay.) So…Superman must be a lot older than we’re used to him being? Not that I care, I’ve never especially followed Superman, but that just seems kind of awkward.

When you’re remodeling a house, there’s a lot you can do. But the possibilities are not unlimited. For example, you don’t want to take out a load-bearing wall—at the least you might want to put up a pillar or two and they’d better be strong enough to support the upstairs. If you add a second bath at the opposite end of the house from the old bath and the kitchen, you’re going to have to put in a lot of pipes; you can do it, but there’s a point where it’s not worth the cost or effort.

That’s how I’m thinking of the DC reboot-ish thingie. And I’m wondering just how much load the JLA and Superman bear in holding up the universe. Guess we’ll find out.