Tag Archives: greg rucka

Geek Girl Con 2012

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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.

Me and another "Nightwing"

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 Ten: The Wonder Woman

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Join Zoe and Chris  as they celebrate their 10th episode by discussing the problem of Wonder Woman and her confused role in popular culture. We also discuss the latest comics-related news, and what we’ve been reading.

Shownotes:
The news includes the mention of Anne McCaffrey passing away (via The Mary Sue), a Wonder Woman kickstarter project, an excellent gender-swapped digital mockup of a Nolan-verse Batwoman (again via The Mary Sue). We also comment on rumours of further DCnU changes with Gail Simone leaving Fury of Firestorms.

Chris continues to not read any further literature other than for his assignments and the new 52, where Firestorm,  Green Lantern – New Guardians, Batman, and Nightwing #3 are discussed, as well as Bunker’s introduction in Teen Titans #3. Zoe discusses her continuing obsession with reading anything written by Warren Ellis (this week Global Frequency and JLA: Classifed Maps of Hell) Novelwise she braved YA fiction with Black Ice, and fell in love with the steampunk fiction Palimpsest.

This Wonder Woman special includes discussion of Wonder Woman’s portrayals in various media, as well as her origins, including:

  • Her position in the DCU and DCnU relative to other characters and positions in other stories
  • Greg Rucka’s run on v2 of the Wonder Woman serial. Includes single issues #195-226, GNs Down to Earth, Bitter Rivals, Eyes of Gorgon, Land of the Dead and Mission’s End.
  • Rucka’s standalone project Wonder Woman: The Hiketeia (2002)
  • Simone’s run on Wonder Woman v2 #14 though to44 and v1 #600, GNs The Circle, Ends of the Earth, Rise of the Olympian, Warkiller, Contagion
  • J. Michael Straczynski’s run. Singles v1 #601 to#614 in 2010.  To be fair we didn’t read much of these and went off reviews because it was so terrible.
  • The DCnU run,  Wonder Woman v4 by Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang
  • Wonder Woman, the original TV show (we watched the pilot).
  • The failed 2011 Wonder Woman pilot, what went wrong?
  • Xena the Warrior Princess, Wonder Woman of the 90s?
  • A brief mention of the fan-created radio play Wonder Woman: Champion of Themyscira available for free on itunes by Pendant Productions which wasn’t helped by Zoe completely forgetting its name.

… And finally, we love feedback and news tips! To give us your opinions, feel free to leave us a comment, either on this blog or our facebook page. You can twit to @thewolverina or email thewolverina@gmail.com.  If you enjoyed the podcast, leave a comment on our itunes page for us to gain greater exposure. You can also receive notifications for all our podcast updates via all these options.

Thanks guys!

Reading Comics in Public Day

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First off, apologies for the lack of blog and podcast updates. I haven’t been well and my partner has been hell busy. I have the latest podcast episode on my hard drive (and have done for about three weeks now) but editing it is a royal pain, so I haven’t gotten far. We recorded it in a different place and way to usual, so a lot of background noise and interruptions occurred. I’ll get it up eventually.

A few days ago it was International Read Comics in Public Day. In celebration of this,  the amazing lady behind dcwomenkickingass created the Women Read Comic in Public too! tumblr account to share photos of us ladies reading in public (and getting an awesome logo from Sarah Winifred).

Women Read Comics In Public 2011

My friends and I decided to join in the fun by meeting up in a park near the centre of our city and have a reading comics in public picnic event. A friend that couldn’t make it in person (due to flying to Europe) came along via a picture taken earlier of her reading comics. Another friend unable to make the picnic found time to take a quick picture of herself reading a comic outside the front of her house.

We had quite a fun time, and there was a pretty large variety of stuff there comics-wise. Interestingly, I was the only one who brought along any work by either of the big two (DC). Plenty of manga, indie stuff and Vertigo though. We will definitely be doing it again next year. The biggest hit of the afternoon definitely seemed to be The Walking Dead, though my copy of Secret Six also made a huge impression. People brought their own GN’s to read, or ones they had borrowed from the library or other friends, which was a pretty big relief to me, as I was a little worried about saying I’d providing my own for everyone.

Comics I took to my reading comics in public event

Freak Angels, JLA: World Without Grownups, Gotham Central: Half a Life, Catwoman: Wild Ride, Secret Six: Unhinged, Terra, Birds of Prey: The Battle Within

On the way to the park I found a discount book store with a little comics corner .  I may have visited them, right before heading home with double the number of comics I left with.

The Aftershot: Terrible evening photography.

Not a bad score of things I’ve been meaning to get. Amusingly  the pile of The Boys trades was sitting right next to a whole pile of Tiny Titans, which made an amusing contrast. Particularly happy with finding a Rucka book and a JLU trade.

But back to the event. You can see all of the pictures I took of our little event on my flickr page. I submitted a few to the tumblr account too. As I’m really happy with how some turned out, I’m even putting some of my favourites behind the cut.

Continue reading →

Where I declare undying love for Greg Rucka

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… Or a more accurate title would probably be: “Episode Two of How I Got My Boyfriend To Read Comics is out!”

In this episode, we discuss the feedback we received and thank those that recc’ed us to others. News is discussed in the news section, while we still bitch about Flashpoint. I talk about why I haven’t had a chance to read any comics while Chris decides to act like he has taste by talking about Batwoman: Elegy. As for our two main reviews, we discuss the older Gotham Central series and then the Batman: Child of Dreams manga style comic we borrowed from Chris’s friend and fellow warhammer nerd (who incidentally, has amazing painting skills). I hope you all enjoy!

We welcome comments, questions and general feedback! We welcome suggestions on what to review as well!

We are now on the Itunes Store!
I forgot to post about this earlier but How I Got My Boyfriend To Read Comics is also available through the itunes store and can be subscribed to over here! So free to leave feedback on the itunes store!

Unfortunately I managed to crash and virus up my laptop the other week. So while I have it back up and running, everything has been re-installed, I’ve lost a fair number of unfinished blog posts. So apologies if you were desperately hoping to hear my opinions on the books I’ve been reading lately, it’ll be probably a little while longer before I start pumping out posts again.

Free comic day! A photo blog

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For the first time I managed to make it into the city for the free comic day activities. I did have fun, though to be honest the first place I went to smelt terrible, and there were too many young people making loud noises and too many neckbeards telling everyone what they should think about comics for me to really find it enjoyable.  This is probably mostly to do with Wolverina becoming a grumpy old lady about 40 years too early however, rather than the places actually having a  bad atmosphere. I mean. Those young whippersnappers having fun! And those rude young men! On my lawn! *gets out a shotgun and sits back in her rocking chair* HOW DARE THEY.
*ahem*

Still, really it was nice catching up with some people I haven’t seen in awhile, and getting the chance to go through a real live store for a change.  Also I got good loot!

seven free comics I got

The free comics my partner and I got.

I have to admit I’m only really excited about flicking through the Young Justice and Batman: The Brave and the Bold comic. I don’t really understand the whole free comics day movement in general though.

8 singles and 2 GNs

I spent about an hour in the 50cent and $1 section of one store

I didn’t really buy much that was exciting. Picked up a couple of issues of Superman/Supergirl/Superboys that looked interesting. Kinda wishing I’d grabbed more supergirl, but I guess I can always head back their sometime. I’m intrigued by the Stormwatch: Team Achilles single though, I have no idea what the hell it’s about. The Boys vol. 2 should be fun to reread and was in the marked down section, I guess not everyone loves gore?

The five Gotham Central paperbacks

I'm stupidly happy to have gotten the whole series in the paperbacks even if they don't all fucking match exactly

<3 Can’t wait to actually have a chance to read all of Gotham Central from the beginning now! Expect reviews! Also please ignore the lace curtain in the background, it stops our neighbours from being able to see in from their window. 😛

Not the post you were looking for

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I’ve been reading a fair bit recently. Unfortunately I was mostly on a… critical theory, I guess you’d call it binge. This means lots of philosophy and english literature podcasts, lots of time on wikipedia and reading very 101-type books like Sophie’s World and many many feminist and queer articles. Of course I still barely feel I understand this subject so I’m not comfortable writing about them. I am pleased with how much I’m learning and how the theory is helping my understanding of the media I consume.

So it’s possible I’m missing being an English student a little. 😛

Still. In even more nerdy news I spent many many hours sorting and boarding and bagging my comics, and that along with my complete run of Impulse arriving means I’ll have something to read and review soon.

Amazon.co.uk is giving free shipping to Australian customers. This was also good news and gave me a chance to stock up on some older GNs that aren’t necessarily available on book depository. For those of you not playing from australia, some context. Books and comics are incredibly expensive in Australia. To the point where it is much cheaper for me to buy a book or GN from Amazon (even with shipping)  than it is for me to a book or GN second hand. So I buy online a lot so I can take photos like these:

Nightwing, Gotham Central and Birds of Prey

I spent a little more than 25 pounds

I’m fairly sure that’s the last of Simone’s first run on Birds of Prey that I need to own the complete run, which I’m pretty happy with. I’m less happy that I can’t seem to find the original vol. 1 of Gotham Central, only editions that include Half A Life. Still I now own 4 of the 5 volumes in the version I want so that’s nice.
I do know the Nightwing I bought is terrible, but still it’s Nightwing (and the Dixon run of GNs seem to be out of print).