Geek Girl Con 2012

Posted on August 24, 2012 by Wolverina

GeekGirlCon’12 was pretty awesome. I’ve never really been to a convention on that scale before (other than the Supernova expo, which is not the same).

Basically, I have never met a more friendly group of people, and I haven’t had that much fun in a long time. The entire convention seemed to be wrapped up in this bubble of chill, intelligent and fun activities, speeches and discussions. The market was full of cool shit and I met some of my favourite authors! I cannot get over how generous everyone was with their time in offering to make sure this random Aussie girl who rocked up enjoyed herself.

Requisite dorky cosplay shot. The dork is me, the cosplayer the red Nightwing.

Some of the more exciting adventures bullet point style:

Karaoke singing with Kyrax2, her family and a few other friends (Jason, Day and the two sisters whose names I have completely forgotten because I am way too tired).
Getting compliments for my costume, when I wasn’t intending on wearing one. I wore my Nightwing shirt and blue armsocks and forgot my hair was blue until I got to the convention centre.
Going to the epic panel on the treatment of disabilities in comics, which had Jill Pantozzi, Teal Sherer as well as Greg Rucka and Jen Van Meter. I knew most of the panelists were awesome, but I was especially impressed with Jen and her points, probably because I hadn’t seen or heard any interviews with her. Which is a shame!
Meeting Van Meter, Rucka, and Simone on the Saturday and getting an embarrassing number of books signed (which are now mailed back to Perth). By the way, Gail Simone’s husband is a total legend!
Meeting Byran Q. Miller and getting my Batgirl: The Flood trade signed (and getting the 3rd trade in the series).
The Negotiating Ninja panel. Very good look at how to approach work as a freelancer.
The coding and “maker” panels. I am not much of a tech or hacker nerd, but it was cool to be able to go learn and enjoy myself without feeling judged for being a n00b.
Rucka’s amazing panel/talk on writing with a Y-chromosome.
Discovering there was no Womanthology wikipedia article in the middle of the Womanthology panel. This is utterly bizarre and kind of terrifying, given the amount of information normally detailed about comic projects.
Getting autographs from about six of the Womanthology ladies – including Renee De Liz – in my Womanthology sketchbook (because my copy of the actual book hasn’t arrived yet).
Drinking with Jason (of ComicsBulletin) and visiting the Fantagraphics indie comic store, which was absolutely mind blowing with all the interesting stuff they had.
Seeing that people had put How I Got My Boyfriend To Read Comics stickers on books, laptops and bags around the convention. So happy with how they turned out (I had some made for the swag bags).

The leftover How I Got My Boyfriend To Read Comics stickers.

Definitely worth it. I don’t know how but I’m going to 2013.

Podcast about Batgirls.

Posted on September 15, 2011 by Wolverina

A wild podcast has appeared! This time only slightly out of date (took us two days to get this up).

We discuss some of the new DC titles as well as looking at the various Batgirls and their roles in DCU and DCnU.

We love feedback. To give us your opinions feel free to leave us a comment, either on this blog or our facebook page. You can twitter to @thewolverina and if you enjoyed the podcast, feel free to leave a comment on our itunes page! You can receive notifications for all our podcast updates via these sources.

Thank you and enjoy!

Where comics are mentioned for the first time

Posted on January 18, 2011 by Wolverina

First post in awhile! Apologies, I got distracted by other projects and actual comics!

So… Batgirl: Rising

I’ve been avoiding a lot of post-RIP bat-comics lately, due to lack money and my dislike Grant Morrison’s writing. So when my musically-inclined neighbor told me that the new Batgirl series was awesome I was a bit wary. Stephanie Brown (when written well) is one of my favourite characters, but Batgirls seem to have a long and glorious history of being shitted all over and I didn’t want to read another War Games style shitting on. Still, he insisted on lending me Batgirl: Rising, the first trade of the new series.

I was then a little reluctant as Bryan Q. Miller was someone I’d only heard of attached to this and Smallville which…well, has anyone other than Ollie Queen come out of Smallville looking good?

Fortunately everything that I love about Stephanie has nailed in this series. The similarity to Huntress in her determination and lack of Bat-vigilante approval is there, but without the ‘killer’ instinct that Huntress has. The girl is bloody stubborn, and doesn’t let fuck-ups slow her down, and most importantly doesn’t let any other character intimidate her into not being herself.

Miller manages to handle her rather mixed background well. The comic refers to her past enough to be believably the same character as Spoiler, but there are some changes for the better: her relationship with her mother and the college start are quite sweet. Her relationships with Tim and Cass are absent but obviously things that were there. The ‘re-adoption’ of Steph by Barbara is also handled well, and they have a snarky, fun dynamic.

Occasionally it does fall into some tropes that are irritating and a little old. The most obvious example being the melodrama around Steph hiding her Batgirl identity from her mother – like we haven’t already seen this storyline play on and on and on… with a bat-sidekick *cough* Tim Drake *cough*. Still, Miller’s fun writing style tends to mean you forgive the weaker points, focusing instead on Steph’s flirtation with that detective, and her fucking wonderful dialogue with Damian and Babs.

I have one real complaint with Batgirl: Rising though. What the hell is with the penis vehicle? I mean, duh, she’s always had more balls than male characters like Drake, but does she really need that added level of visual Freudian compensation?

Anyway my entire point of this review? I realise I was slow to here but: Go. Read this. Now. If you don’t read bat-comics, find a good starting point. Read that. Then read this.