So a Facebook group I belong to, Women Creating Comics, (that I need to be more active in networking is key!) recently posted a contest call for new banners. I decided to enter and the following gallery is what I’ve come up with.
I struggled with various ideas and I’m not 100% happy with any of them. I like the pinned up pictures; I wanted to include lots of different comic book characters along with women who are creating comics currently to keep with the theme. The work desk I feel is to plain but I was going for the desk of a creator. The last one I like a lot and originally I left out the comic textures, but after adding them in I think it looks a lot better. That's my favorite out of the bunch.
So what do you guys think? Vote on the poll on my website, or comment here and give me your thoughts!
If you haven’t heard the news about Starfire getting a much needed costume update—not to mention her own on-going series by powerhouse team Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti, ofHarley Quinn fame, along with Emanuela Lupacchino—then buckle up because I’m going to break it down for you.
Costume updates are becoming the norm for the Big Two in the past few years, what with the recent influx of reboots and relaunches. Carol Danvers was one of the first to get a notable costume update, shedding her black lightning bolt bathing suit and hip scarf for a colorful and powerful full body suit, as she officially donned the name of Captain Marvel. Other recent costume reboots have included Barbara Gordon’s new Batgirl look under Cameron Stewart and Brenden Fletcher and Jessica Drew’s updated Spider-Woman wear thanks to Kris Anka.
Starfire also received a costume update when she was rebooted with the rest of the DC characters in the New 52 line two years ago.
It was met with less than enthusiasm from fans, especially women. The controversy over her costume inspired a fantasy author Michele Lee to ask her seven-year-old daughter—who was a huge fan of Starfire’s cartoon counterpart—what she thought of her hero’s new look. Needless to say, Lee’s daughter was baffled and bothered by Starfire’s comic book look. Seems DC is consistently getting told by little ladies.
I wanted to take a look at Starfire’s overall costume history and what it says about her character, including her most recent updated look. Starfire’s original, and longest-running, look appeared in George Perez’s New Teen Titan series in the late 80s. Under the pencils of Perez, this look wasn’t especially provocative and emphasizes Starfire’s free and vibrant personality. With a bright color palette of a purple split bathing suit, pupiless green eyes, and literally fiery red hair; everything about Starfire spoke of passion and brightness.
READ THE FULL ARTICLE ON WWAC!
Netflix has every Batman movie from the original Burton franchise up, and I love rewatching them all over again. One of the first Batman anything I ever saw was Batman and Robin, the fourth movie of the franchise that featured Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze.
The movie was terrible, and still is today, but it’s an enjoyable sort of terrible. The Burton Bat films all range from decent, to great, to horrible, to enjoyably horrible. The first Batman with Jack Nicholson as the Joker is good, not my favorite, but good. It’s the first mainstream version of the Joker since the original 60s version with Adam West. Nicholson is good, but Heath Ledger is my favorite live action, and my favorite overall will always be Mark Hamill’s DC Animated Universe version—he was able to toe the line between cartoon insanity and joyfully evil. Nicholsons’ Joker isn’t what I’d call “dark” in the same way Ledger’s is, but that’s okay. Different time periods required different things.
The second Batman movie, Batman Returns, is hands down my favorite of the bunch. Michelle Pfeiffer as Selina Kyle is still my favorite Catwoman to date. I adore Eartha Kitt from the 60s version, and Anne Hathaway did a fantastic job inThe Dark Knight Rises (one of the few aspects of the movie I enjoyed), but for me nothing beats Pfeiffer’s portrayal of the enigmatic Catwoman. It was also my first introduction to Catwoman as a character. Pfeiffer gave such a nuanced performance as the sexy, tragic, and complex Selina Kyle that I fell in love instantly. I cheered at the final shot of the movie where we see her silhouette implying she did survive, but her entire persona is now a mystery hiding in the shadows of Gotham where she wants to be. No other live action adaption has, for me, provided that same feeling. That mystery and intrigue tainted with tragedy and finally personal redemption and catharsis.
The look I was going for for these was something a little more horror while retaining a fantasy element. I like the combination of those two genres a lot, but I feel my intent came out more in the second cover. I went with lots of cloudy textures and white to beige coloring to enhance that fantastical tone, and of course the apple. I was originally going to make the apple gold as a callback to the story of Paris and the Greek goddess of Chaos Eris. I still might in another cover because I adore Greek myths so much.
As for the first cover, oh boy did I struggle with this one. I knew what I wanted in my mind but creating the right balance of glass breakage and coloring was difficult to fit my intended image. Originally I wanted to have more glass break around her mouth revealing a blackened razor shape smile but it didn’t work out and I had to scrape the idea. But at least in the end I was able to get that striking eye effect that I wanted.
Fonts are still the bane of my existence.
For more designs by me check out my design page!
THE IMPORTANCE OF KORRASAMI IN CHILDREN’S MEDIA
With the finale of The Legend of Korra having officially aired, we can now see the ripples its aftermath has created throughout the media. When protagonist Korra and her close female friend Asami Sato ended the show by walking into the literal spiritual sunset together, the implications of romance were hard to deny, so much so they’ve been discussed, dissected, praised, and critiqued by media and fans alike.
The show has had a rough time being handled by the stumbling hands of Nickelodeon. Due to the immense popularity of its predecessor Avatar: The Last Airbender, Nickelodeon greenlighted the show. This was in spite of some reservations that Bryan Konietzko revealed to NPR the network had in backing a show with a female lead. However, since it’s inception The Legend of Korra has faced many troubles, including clumsy Twitter handling—in a humorously embarrassing moment, the official Nick Twitter retweeted a fan made edit promoting it as an in show piece—to the network pulling it from TV all together.
The reason why the show was pulled? Content. Executives felt that the show—after the first season’s finale included two characters dying on screen—was too dark for its Saturday morning timeslot. So they pulled The Legend of Korra from it’s original Saturday morning TV timeslot and moved the show to Friday nights. Unfortunately, the time switch didn’t hold much effect and the network pulled the show completely off television, only to show the final two seasons online instead, which, coincidentally or not, only gave the creators affectionately called “Bryke”—a name coined by the fandom and derived from combining Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante Dimartino’s names—and their team more free reign.
It’s been argued by some fans that the third and fourth seasons of Korra are the best of the show’s run. With many feeling frustrated by the pacing and lack of character development in the first two seasons—not to mention the forced and at times jarring love triangle that was between Korra, Mako, and Asami—the third season focused instead on plot, characters, and began the foundation for Korra and Asami’s growing friendship. The show also closed the romantic subplots both women had with Mako after season two.
This foundation grew a prominent fanbase that garnered the attention of both the creators and Korra’s voice actor Janet Varney. However, fans were very reluctant to hold much hope that the two could actually become “canon” within the context of the show. Given that American television still struggles with the inclusion of queer sexualities in adult content, including diversity in children or family based content is even more of a pipe dream.
Yet, that’s exactly what happened. The finale aired with such strong implications that Korra and Asami’s friendship had finally grown into more, treading into romantic waters, that high profile sites such as Vanity Fair, The Huffington Post, A. V. Club, and Forbes have all commented and supported the romantic relationship between the two women. Furthermore, both creators haveofficially confirmed “Korrasami’s” legitimacy on their personal Tumblrs.
With the in-show evidence, along with the confirmation from the creators, a greater discussion is brewing about queer characters within the medium of children based cartoons. I was lucky enough to be given the chance to further discuss not only the romantic relationship between Korra and Asami, but also the inclusion of queer characters and diverse sexualities in children’s media with some fantastic fellow writers here at Woman Write About Comics.
There aren’t a lot of bisexual characters in our media, but at Woman Write About Comics we wanted to highlight some of our favorite bisexual comic book characters.
The character I decided to talk about was David Alleyne best known for New Mutants and Young Avengers. I just adore David so much and he got such a bad wrap during the Young Avengers run. Even so I wanted to talk about how important David is as one of the few characters in any fictional medium that actually stated he was bi and was a person of color.
So fandom may not have loved David but I did and I was really happy to have gotten the chance to highlight his importance in this piece.
Excerpt:
So a lot of people might not know much about David Alleyne, he played a moderately important part in various X-men storylines, specifically as a member of the New Mutants and the New X-men. David’s mutant powers consisted of the ability to telepathically absorb the knowledge and skills of those around him. However, David lost his powers after M-Day. Instead of leaving the X-Men, David continued to work with them until he was recruited by Scott Summers (aka Cyclops) to lead the young new X-men on the island of Utopia. After Cyclops and Wolverine parted ways, David stayed on Utopia and led the team until it’s destruction.
I’ve struggled with body issues since middle school. There, I said it. I was a chubby, short, frizzy-haired teenager who couldn’t stand to look in the mirror for more than a few seconds. Working out didn’t fix that; I fixed that. And when I did, working out became something I enjoyed, instead of something I felt obligated to do because of personal insecurities.
The internet, however, isn’t truly conducive to aiding me in my quest.
I searched, I scoured, but in the end even Pinterest wasn’t really beneficial in the long-run. I’m simply not the type of person who learns that way. I was also completely unready to truly devote myself to it. With such a shaky plan, any motivation I found would be quickly washed away when life got in the way.
Which is the first thing I learned when I decided to sit down, and really dedicate myself to this.
Make a plan.
Get fancy and put up a whiteboard chart outlining your routine. Go simple and use a notepad. Whatever works –just make a plan.