Small wonder

So, Wonder Wife and I needed to buy a third-birthday gift for the daughter of some friends and thought it would be cool to get her some Wonder Woman-themed clothes. We took ourselves down to the local discount department store and rummaged among the toddler apparel. We didn't find anything Amazonian, but there were several items with some sort of superhero design. Unfortunately, they all had once characteristic in common:

PINK!

We talk about this stuff all the time - the gendering of children's toys and clothes and the subtle socialization that comes along with that. Sadly, it seems to be getting worse instead of better, perhaps due at least in part to the rise of Princess Culture. In any event, it's one thing to talk about it in the blogosphere and another to come face-to-face with it when you just wanted to buy a cool present. All we wanted was a star-spangled outfit - sweats, a t-shirt, a hoodie, whatever - in the Wonder Woman red, blue, and gold motif. (Wonder Wife did say it would be great if we could find something that came with silver bracelets.) Instead, what we found was nothing but girlied-up versions of superhero logos and images - nothing that resembled the actual characters or their actual design elements.

So, we out together a punk-rock tutu outfit instead, and she will be an awesome power grrl (even though we couldn't find little Doc Martens). But I lost an opportunity to spread my geek culture to the newest generation.

I guess it's Pinterest and Etsy now!

5 x 5 Book Review: The Secret History of Wonder Woman

1. First of all, this book by Jill Lepore is not a secret history of Wonder Woman in the sense that it tells the story of Diana of the Amazons, Wonder Woman, superhero, associate of Superman and Batman, member of the Justice League, &c. This is  the secret history of the creation of that character: how the motivations and values and experiences of William Moulton Marston and his associates and his unusual, cobbled-together family all fed into the Wonder Woman mythos. There are call-outs to the comics themselves, of course, and quite a few samples of four-color panels among the illustrations, but the book is more in the nature of an author biography and less an exegesis of an oeuvre; more Will in The World than Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare.

2. And this is not the secret history of Wonder Woman's creator that every comics fan thinks they know. Lepore covers the usual bases: Moulton was a psychologist (well, yes, technically - but with a much more checkered academic profile than we think); Marston was the inventor of the lie detector (well, yeah, kinda - he invented one of them); Marston was a polygamist with two wives (well, yeah, sorta - more accurately, he and his wife shared an additional wife); Marston was into dominance and submission (well, yeah, you could say that - but not in the way that most people imagine). Where the book breaks new and exciting ground is in exploring the heretofore unexamined aspects of Marston's adventures: his identity as an entrepreneur, almost an impressario; his early connections to the suffragist and feminist movements; his close connection to Margaret Sanger, the slightly tarnished saint of the movement that would become Planned Parenthood; and how he used his total control over the creation, writing, and presentation of Wonder Woman to forward his philosophies.

3. In fact, this is not really a comic-book-book. Lepore was apparently not a comics fan, someone seeking to unearth the treasure of her favorite fandom. She is a professor of American History and a cultural historian; she has written on the American experience through the lenses of language, the concepts of life & death, Colonial era war, post-independence race relations, and the writings of Ben Franklin's sister. She brings the same scholarship and seriousness of purpose to her inquiry into Marston. Her non-fan's take on the sections delving into the comic book subculture brings a fascinating perspective and sensibility and only occasionally misses a nuance. This book deserves to be shelved with David McCullough or Doris Kearns Goodwin as much as with Douglas Wolk or Scott McCloud.

4. Speaking of scholarship, the research evident in the book astonishing. The work of a historian - the sifting of documents, the collation of information, the verification of sources - is palpable on every page. This is a virtuoso demonstration, a talented scholar marshaling primary sources to build a coherent picture of obscure events and adding insightful analysis to make meaning. I am tempted to use this as the model text for my research writing class: you can almost inhale the scholarship.

5. Notwithstanding its rigor, the book is a wonderful read. I read mostly non-fiction these days, and much of it can be a slog; this book was quite the opposite. I took it as a vacation book on a trip to California and I could not have been more pleased. Lepore's prose is cogent and springy and occasionally charmingly idiosyncratic. Besides learning a lot, I enjoyed the book immensely. Read it and see for yourself.

The Secret History of Wonder Woman

Jill Lepore

Alfred A. Knopf, New York

Geek Girl Con Goes Fo(u)rth!

So, I made it to Geek Girl Con again this year - a four-peat! (is that even a thing?) I was intrigued by the inaugural event in 2011, gushed over it some more in 2012,  and gave a late report on it last year, and herewith is this year's installment.

Let me say again the GGC is the most inclusive, accepting, laid-back con I have attended; the contrast with the PAX event a few weeks ago couldn't be more striking. In addition to the Usual Suspects, I used an extra pass to pull in my colleague and office-neighbor, a biology instructor. She brought along her son and daughter and was not only thrilled to find so much pro-STEM content aimed at girls, but found herself having a great time right along with her kids, even though she is almost totally non-geek. It's just that kind of event.

This might have been the best year yet for me; here are three highlights before the usual parade of pictures.

Wonder Wife

As I predicted last year, the addition of Introvert Alley (a quiet-only zone where people can go to de-stress) was enough to get Wonder Wife to attend along with me, and she did so in style: we went as a cosplay team, Artie Nielsen and Claudia Donovan from Warehouse 13, the steampunkish Syfy series.

I think I did a pretty good job.

But I think Wonder Wife was spectacular!

Wonder Woman

Before yesterday, I would have told you that the last time I had sought an autograph was from Isaac Asimov at a Sci-Fi Convention in New York in 1978 (and that's a story for another time). I have never considered autographs important or even sensical.  Well, at this GGC I broke that longstanding streak: one of the guests was Susan Eisenberg, the talented voice actress who portrayed Wonder Woman in the Justice League animated series and several other projects, along with her other geeky and non-geeky work. That show, and her interpretation of Diana, has given me so much enjoyment that I just got swept up. I'm going to display the autograph proudly in my office.

Wonderful to Say (mirabile dictu)

As great as my costume was and as natural as that wig looked, I discovered after attending my first panel that the hairpiece did need some adjustment, so I went into the men's room and trimmed it with the scissors on my Swiss Army Knife (Officers' Model). A little while later, I discovered I was without my knife, apparently having left it in the restroom. I looked fruitlessly and then checked Lost & Found with little hope. They didn't have it, but took my name and number and said they'd let me know if it turned up.

I didn't expect anything, but a couple of hours later I got a text telling me the knife had been turned in. When I picked it up, the Agents (that's what they call con staff) said that even though it had been found elsewhere than I described, when it was turned in they connected it to me right away.

Tell me at what other convention of 5,000 or so people would an easily transportable, untraceable, hundred-dollar item be turned into Lost & Found and proactively returned to its owner? GGC is just that kind of event.

The Photos!

Pride of first photo goes to my partner in crime Margaret, who this year came as Ianto from Torchwood. The coffee cups turned out to be the critical part of the cosplay!

After all the reboots and re-interpretations, it was cool to see Classic Sherlock.

A totally adorable Korra; we didn't get to see it, but she was faux-waterbending with foil ribbons.

Groot meets the Dalek!

Jeanie showed up, just for Super Sissy (who is a big fan).

Agent Hill of SHIELD has a burgeoning fan following:

I am not familiar with Kill la Kill, the anime these characters are from, but these girls were rocking it awesome:

Sunday's con was at the same time as a Seahawks game, and this cosplayer covered both with SeaHawkgirl, complete with Shayera's name on the uniform and a spiked football for a mace.

After Captain Marvel won her round, I played on this giant Tsuro game. And lost.

So, listen to Wi-Fi the Robotic Squirrel: come to Geek Girl Con!

See y'all next year!

Hit and myth

So, I read this pretty good graphic novel trilogy. It's about an Amazon warrior - a princess, actually - who discovers her parentage is not what she thought, and that she's actually one of the many offspring of that king of the gods and serial adulterer, Zeus himself. When this revelation comes to light, it of course upsets Hera, who is extremely jealous and has a habit of punishing not Zeus, but his children by mortal (and other) women.

Hera's attempted amercement starts a chain of events that leads to the Amazon allying herself with (and coming into to conflict with) various Greek gods (such as Hermes and Strife) and mythical creatures (such as a tag-team of killer centaurs). It is a dark voyage the heroine takes, leading her to hell (the person and the place) and revealing knowledge heretofore withheld from her - such as the Amazonian tradition of raping sailors and then killing any male offspring (a practice curbed by Hephaestus's taking them in as laborers).

The story is set in the present day, and the warrior encounters some of her half-siblings: other modern children of Zeus, living in the 21st century with the spark of the immortal flowing through their veins and possessed of some paranormal powers as a result. She also finds herself protecting an unwed mother, a promiscuous, rash, angry, lower-class young woman - the kind of girl often called a "slut" in certain circles - who is presented unflinchingly, unapologetically, and sympathetically. And who wields a mean shotgun. Oh - and there's a spaceman, too,

It's a pretty good story. It just isn't a Wonder Woman story, although it says so on the cover. Yep, that's my précis of Blood, Guts, and Iron, the first three volumes of the collected New 52! Wonder Woman series.

After I read this story, I felt the same way I did at the end of Man of Steel, the latest Superman movie. It wasn't an exceptionally bad movie, although it wasn't a very good one, and the Krypton scenes were wonderful (if a bit overstuffed). But it certainly wasn't a Superman movie: none of the elements of the mythos (can we call it that now?) associated with the character was there to any appreciable degree. There was some window dressing of names and places and such, but really, it would have been a better movie if the protagonist hadn't been Kal-El and it could have been judged on its own terms.

I think Diana got the same short shrift in these volumes. This isn't a bad story - the summary sounds a little bit like one for a post-modern, magical realism novel, and the comic pretty much reads that way as well - but where's Wonder Woman? Where are the themes and motifs that made her part of the Trinity and put her onto the landscape of American - world - culture? Does she really need to find out everything you thought you knew was a lie™? Does she really need to be a daughter of Zeus - wasn't being an Amazon enough? Does she really need Orion of the New Gods and a bunch of Hellblazer cast members to help her out?

Ah, then, maybe I'm overreacting - or mis-contextualizing. Maybe the relationship between my Wonder Woman and the New 52! Wonder Woman is more like the relationship between the Martin Nodell Green Lantern and the Julie Schwartz/John Broome Green Lantern. I mean, if there had been an internet in 1959, would people like me have been decrying the major transformation of their favorite hero not just in theme and appearance, but even in name and history as well?

I dunno. For now, I'm going to ignore WW.52 and just remember "my" Wonder Woman. Time to get out the DVD of New Frontier...

Random Geekage

So, here's some stuff that's just been hanging about for a bit:

Have you every played Arkham Horror? Heckuva game. Maybe two-three hours of gameplay, and only four days to set things up:



Seriously, it makes Carcassonne look like tic-tac-toe. But it is fun.

***

This was my desk display a while back:

Yeah, I noticed the D20 isn't lying correctly. I've changed offices (and jobs) anyway.

And here's something Super Sissy gave me as a gift:

(Yes, I noticed that the D20 is again out of position.) 

I'm still trying to figure out what to do with them. I feel that they all should be eaten at once; otherwise, it would be like losing a die. But that's too much chocolate for me to eat all at once. I thought of bringing it to to the game and sharing it, but I DM for a party of six, so that would mean I don't get any.

***

A colleague at work is fighting (and beating) a major health challenge, and some frineds of hers gave her this for inspiration:

I'm not sure whether it reminds me more of the Ross Andru WW or the Dick Giordano WW, but it was sure nice to see a superhero-themed artifact at work that I had nothing to do with!

***

The prodigious Mark Evanier posted this picture a little while back:

I am not the biggest Laurel & Hardy fan, but I sure do love me some Spy Smasher. A quick check of the Grand Comics Database revealed that this was the October, 1942 issue. Under Stan's hand there is a photo inset of Kane Richmond. who starred in the serialized motion picture Spy Smasher based on the comics.

(It's not this picture, but I like this one, too.)

It just so happened that just a day or so before I came across the Laurel & Hardy photo, I had been watching the Spy Smasher serial. On my laptop. On an airplane. What a world. Anyway, it made me wonder what the connection was, but I can't find any.

***

Well, that's the ice broken. I think regular blogging will recommence now.

One the seventh day of Newton: role-playing (and a birthday!)

So, another pal has a birthday today (don't we call these late-year births deduction babies?) and this gives me the perfect excuse to post this great Wonder Woman panel that I got from who knows where (but here's a random citation) because she (my pal, not WW) has one of the best analytical minds that I know and is smart about gender and identity politics and has played house in any number of ways herself and I thought she'd appreciate it:

Anyway, happy birthday, Wheylona!

(Relation)ship of fools

So, I was looking at stuff on ScansDaily and I saw with my own eyes an excerpt from some recent Superman magazine that clearly shows that Superman/Clark is dating Wonder Woman/Diana and that Lois Lane is dating some guy. (I forget who, but he seemed nice.)

I guess I had heard that this was the direction DC was going with the New 52 business, but I must have either blocked it out or forgotten it. (I could easily have forgotten it - current superhero comics have pretty much fallen off my radar screen.) Actually reading an in-continuity sequence that showed this as the status quo was bit surprising. This is just such a stupid idea that seeing it actualized makes me feel a bit like I am peering into the Bizarro world.

I am sure that the comixweblogosphere (or what remains of it) is all abuzz with deconstructions and  interpretations and criticisms pro and con, so I will offer only two succinct arguments:

Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane published by National Periodical Publications 1958-1974.

Sixteen years, 137 issues, moving close to half-a-million copies per issue in its heyday.

Excerpt from "For the Man Who Has Everything" by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, 

published in Superman Annual #11 (1985) and, as far as I am concerned, 

the last, best word on the subject.

Re-search: the Eastern Western

Chambara or chanbara describes a genre of Japanese cinema: specifically, what most of us would likely call "Samurai movies." The name literally refers to "sword-fighting" movies; someone saying that they like chambara would be in many ways like an American saying they liked Westerns.

I didn't know this term until I stumbled across this delightful re-envisioning of the Justice League by illustrator Alex Mitchell:

(Here's the original deviantart page and full-meal-deal on Project Rooftop)

Like other good cross-genre interpretations, the designs seek to find the key, core elements of each character and manifest them through different tropes. "A child of dragons, raised by peasants" is perhaps the most economical re-imagining of Superman to 17th century Japan: it captures his alienness, his power, and his grounding in the common man. I'll let you explore the materials yourself, and you really should; both the concepts and executions are consistently wonderful.

One illustration in particular caught my eye: that of the chambara Wonder Woman. There was some dim echo in my brain as I looked at the image, and I couldn't let it go. My google-fu was strong enough to eventually track down the source of the tickle:

I don't know where I would have run into the image on the right: 19th century Japanese woodblock artists are not usually on my radar, and this is Ishi-jo, wife of Oboshi Yoshio, one of the "47 loyal ronin," an 1848 print by Utagawa Kuniyoshi from the series Seichi Gishin Den. (Thanks, wikipedia.) The resemblance is certainly striking.

I don't know that Mitchell used this image a reference; it's likely that he did, since Ishi-jo was an onna-bugeisha, a sort-of female samurai from the upper class, a description which certainly fits the character of Lady Incredible. Whether or not this particular image was the source, Mitchell's re-creation of its sensibility, or rather his blending of that sensibility with a Western comic-book aesthetic, is extraordinary.

I just love this whole work, exquisitely detailed in idea and image, and it deserves a wide audience.