Pai

Super Silly Sunday

2012-01-29T12:00:00.018Z

I can only only assume that marriage = death.

And check out Nasty spying on Supergirl! Lols!

Adventure Comics 406.

Wonder Woman Wednesday

2012-01-25T12:00:00.002Z

Wonder Woman 146. This wasn't the greatest run, artwise, but gave us kick ass scenes like thhis!

Lois Lane through the years #womenoncomics

2012-01-24T12:00:00.010Z

Ok, so inspired by the Women Write About Comics blog carnival I decided I was gonna write a proper blog post. With lots of words and thoughts and everything. I haven't written one of them in a while, so let's see how this goes.

OK, as I was putting together last week's post about a history of the superpant I thought gee whiz*, I wonder what a retrospective of the Lois' would look like? It would be interesting huh? I wonder how much the styles would change over the years, cos we know they've changed a lot in the comics. And y'know, as Lois is the most recognisable female figure, aside from Wonder Woman, from comics (any comics), it sure would be interesting to see how the decades changed their interpretation of her. Right? Right. Course it would be interesting.

I thought about doing a retrospective from the comics, but seeing as how thousands of people must have drawn her over the years, that would be nigh on impossible to of. Por exempla:

About all you can say is that she's usually in a suit of some sort, when she's working. But even that's not a hard and fast rule. So I decided I'd stick with looking at the on-screen appearances, by real actors.

One short google search later and I was a bit depressed. This was the only retrospective type picture I could find:

Talk about the male gaze! I don't think that Teri Hatcher pic is even from Lois & Clark and Dana Delaney did the voice for Lois in a cartoon, she never played her on screen (pedant alert...pedant alert..).
Anyway, I asked around on twitter for other retrospectives (because my google search skills seem to be abysmal) and @jimmymcg found a good one for me.

(at least i think Jimmy found it for me. if someone else found it, let me know and I'll credit you).
Top row, left to right is:
Phyllis Coates (Adventures of Superman), Margot Kidder (Superman films), Kate Bosworth (Superman Returns)
Bottom row, left to right is:
Erica Durance (Smallville), Noelle Neill (Movie serials and Adventures of Superman), Teri Hatcher (Lois & Clark)

Now, how can I compare these? They are all in suits, they all look professional. Erm, they are very much of their eras? Teri Hatcher is all 90s lines and power dressing. Check out the bob! It's interesting that Bosworth has glasses - did the movie makers decide they needed to give her a sense of intellectualism? or seriousness? That's usually what's conveyed by glasses, at least in American movie land.
It's definitely a more respectful retrospective than the first one in this post.

Women's fashion changes so much more than men's. There's so much more nuance and detail that goes into women's fashions. So many different things women can do - haircut, hair colour, hair style, make-up, shirts, skirts, hats, necklaces, high heels, ballet flats, wedges, earrings, low necklines, high necklines, the list is endless. Within each bracket there is so much choice. So many indicators that women can choose to display. I know that in theory men have the same range of choices, but truly, they don't. Go compare the range of men's shoes in any department store with the range of women's shoes. The men's range is tiny.

Anyway, to bring me back to the point, Superman has one costume. Details change, like the size of the S shield, the height of the pants, the specific shade of the suit, but it is always recognisable as the super suit. Even on Smallville, when that Clark didn't suit up until the very final episode ever, he always wore a combination of red and blue that signified him as different from the other characters.

Lois doesn't have that. In the comics she is recognisable by her dark hair, you contrast her with the other characters, but you mostly recognise her from her dark hair. In the movies, or the TV shows, it's different. these things build a Lois that is recognisable through attitude, language and relationships with other characters. But as to how she looks? That is utterly dependent on the era in which she is being portrayed.

For me, Margot Kidder will always be my favourite Lois, closely followed by Erica Durance. Yet they don't have a lot in common. Kidder is more dreamy, Durance is more fun and plucky. Even looking at the pictures from the above scan, they don't really have a lot in common. Aside from being pretty.

Oh, I can't compare these images of Lois! Instead, i shall give you some other retrospectives of Lois, stolen from a Livenjournal post by verogeller, titled 'Picspam: Lois Lane, my favourite character - Superman mythology':

Lois Lane: You are my favourite non powered superhero!

* not really. I never say gee whiz. or good golly miss molly.

This week's comics

2012-01-23T12:00:00.001Z

So reading through them I was sure I had lots to say. Now looking at my laptop with it's big empty screen i'm at a loss about what i'm to say.

*leafs through comics*

Young Justice 12. This was more interesting than previous ones, but still, I think I'll give it up. The humour seems to be missing and whenever I'm reminded that it's Dick not Tim, and Wally not Bart, I'm disappointed.
I'm also disappointed that Jackson isn't back in the mainstream DCU yet. Yep, always dissapointed, that's me.

Birds of Prey 5
Ugh this cover nearly put me off reading any comics this week.

Ugh ugh ugh. But when I sat down to read the issue, it was actually pretty darn good. And Starling is gay. She must be. Gay and likes a drink. My sort of gal. There was a couple of nice slashy panels between Babs and Dinah too, so that's nice. I am (again) dissappointed to realise that Dinah is not with ollie, and apparently has never been with Ollie, if I read the subtext right. This saddens me. But I'll get over it if I can see their relationship develop.
BoP is one of the consistently good ones. A bit more quality control on the cover art and I'd be a happy lady.

Supergirl 5
This title doesn't really seem to be doing a lot, but it sure is pretty. It's all origin, and confusion, and Kara. All Kara, even when there's other people around. Definitely pretty though.

Wonder Woman 5
No Chiang on this issue, but no matter. Imitation Chiang is brought in instead, and he draws a luvverly Poseidon. I do appreciate how they've designed the Gods in this run. It's completely unexpected, but so good. I'm curious as to why Hades has been given a flaming head, but I'm sure it will come to me soon.

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man 6
This was going great guns until lil Miles started worrying about his apparent 'criminal gene'. I'm a leetle bored of this trope now. I've seen it done over and over in Superboy (any title) and I think comic writers coudl really do with giving it a rest.
That aside, the rest of the issue was fine, and the new artist was good.

I see we have a Batman 5 in the house too, but I won't read or review that, because Batman sucks.

Super Silly Sunday

2012-01-22T12:00:00.000Z

Supes must have been hanging out with Batman for too long. Nothing else can explain the negative outlook, right?

From Adventure Comics 393.

Jay Garrick outfit

2012-01-21T21:17:00.000Z

I'm putting together a Jay Garrick outfit for the London Super Comic con. Here's my preliminary post about it.

The costs
T-shirt - already owned, as a birthday present.
The boots - bought from ebay for £2.42 plus £2,50 postage.
The jeans - bought from New Look for £25.99
The hat - bought from ebay for £9.95 plus £3.75 postage.
The spray paint for the hat - £4.55, from a local DIY shop.
The primer, to prepare the hat for the spray - £8.53
The fimo - to make the wings, £4.30 from a craft shop
The acrylic gold paint - to paint the wings, £1,75, from a craft shop.
Gold feather charms - for general decoration, bought from ebay, £0.99 plus £0.85 postage. I'm not sure how I'm gonna use these yet. We'll see. I could attach one each to the boots, cos I'm certainly not planning to do fancy wings for the boots.

Anyway, here's the stuff for the hat, as gathered so far.

I will put up in progress posts and pictures, as well as showing the completed thing. I am picking the jeans up on Thursday, but probably won't start putting things together for a couple of weeks.

I've also just realised I don't have a belt yet..hmm.. I'm not sure if the jeans have belt loops at the top. I may need to get even more crafty. This could be a problem, because I am not by nature a crafty person..

Anyway. If you go to the con and see a Jay Garrick around, it will probably be me. So come and say hi!

Gender bent Justice League

2012-01-20T12:00:00.000Z

Artwork of that group of cosplayers that turned up last year (or the year before?) on the America con circuit. Simply fabulous.

It's by Yasmin Liang.

Reynard City are looking for sponsorship

2012-01-19T12:00:00.000Z

I think I've talked before about Reynard City, a webcomic run by a friend of mine. They are currently developing a game and a tv pilot, as well as putting out roughly bi-monthly webcomics. Reynard City nurtures new talent and sales of merchandise bring in cash for the artists. It's written by a fella named Will turner, and he's gotta be one of the hardest working folk I know. They'll be at MCM Expo in May, along with another webcomic's team - DeathBoy.

Anyway RC are now offering advertising in the comics. Not like DC's advertising, I hasten to add. Here's the info from their site:
-------------------

In order to pay our artists and provide the best quality we need sponsorship. You may have already seen our website sponsorship options at www.reynardcity.com/advertise However we are aware that you want the best promotion for your money, so we have decided to extend the range of options available to you so you can decide what is best for your promotional needs.

In addition to our existing sponsorship packages we have decided to add the option to sponsor specific issues. You can either add your link to the front page where people download the issue or you can add full page adverts to a new one (ideal if you are promoting a book or webcomic!)
There are various ways you could benefit from this
* Include sample pages or teasers from upcoming issues of your comic
* Get more comissions as an artist or writer by paying for an advert for your services
* Promote your company on the front of the latest issue

(Please note- prices are quoted in pound sterling. Other currencies are available. Payment can be made via Paypal or cheque. For more information regarding content rules or any other questions please contact reynardcity@gmail.com)

Issue description page sponsorship= £25
Full page adverts= £25 for one page, £50 for three pages, £75 for five pages

-------------------
I wanted to post this in case anyone reading was interested in advertising, or if they knew anyone interested in advertising in it.

Wonder Woman Wednesday

2012-01-18T12:00:00.001Z

Why can't she have armour like this every day?
From issue 146.

The history of the Superpant

2012-01-17T12:00:00.003Z

I found this image a while ago on The Daily P.O.P:

It tickles me. I have it as my desktop now and every time I look at it I'm fascinated by the differing pants.
They start off really high on Kirk, pretty much up to his ribcage, and gradually, gradually lower until we get Brandon Routh's small briefs.
What surprises me is the cut of Dean Cain's pants - they are really high above the legs, higher than those of the previous 3 actors.

Then there's the stances of the men. I guess they've each been picked for their iconic nature, but it's interesting to see how each one holds themselves next to the other. I admit I've never seen Kirk Alyn's or George Reeves Superman, but I do know the other ones, and those stances seem pretty representative of the character to me. Well, not Tom Welling's, but the Smallville universe didn't have much resemblance to the DCU proper.

If I then look at the colours of each suit, and the S shield is designed, well, I'm left agog.

I find this such a fascinating image. I wonder if there's an equivalent one for the many Lois'?

For the record, Christopher Reeve is, and always wil be, my favourite Superman.

#Spartacusreport : challenging the government

2012-01-16T12:00:00.006Z

Over 2011 a group of disability activists got together and decided to challenge the government's welfare system reforms.

Headed by Sue Marsh, blogging on Diary of a Benefit Scrounger and tweeting on @suey2y, and by BendyGirl, blogging at Benefit Scrounging Scum, they conducted interviews, researched the meanings of the proposed reforms, analysed the data and developed conclusions on the proposed changes. This was all pulled together into a document titled Responsible Reform and launched last Monday. The twitter hashtag is #spartacusreport.

Before Christmas, Sue found out her application for DLA had been rejected. Instead of appealing that, she elected to continue working on the report. Several activists involved with the report made themselves ill and ended up in hospital, because of the workload. These activists are all sick or disabled themselves. The reforms will directly affect them.

There wasn't much national media coverage on the Monday, or the Tuesday. Despite the fact that national organisations such as Mind, The Papworth Trust, Scope and United Response support the report.

But on Friday Sue Marsh went on Newsnight, with Chris Grayling, Employment Adviser to debate the Thursday night discussion in the House of Lords.

This is a victory for grassroots activism, and a victory for the cause itself. It is amazing what these activists have done, and it amazing (in a very different way) what the government is trying to do.

Mega mega kudos to Sue and her colleagues. Take a gander at the links, especially if you live in the UK. I reckon most people who don't have direct personal experience of sickness or disability won't understand the implications of the proposed reforms. Why would you? But they ain't good. They are being proposed purely to save money.

This government is placing a greater importance on saving money than on providing a decent quality of life and standard of living to it's citizens.

This government thinks money is more important than people.

"...And that's what your holy men discuss, is it?" [asked Granny Weatherwax.]

"Not usually. There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment on the nature of sin. for example." [answered Mightily Oats.]

"And what do they think? Against it, are they?"

"It's not as simple as that. It's not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of grey."

"Nope."

"Pardon?"

"There's no greys, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things. Including yourself. That's what sin is."

"It's a lot more complicated than that--"

"No. It ain't. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they're getting worried that they won't like the truth. People as things, that's where it starts."

"Oh, I'm sure there are worse crimes--"

"But they starts with thinking about people as things..."

--from Carpe Jugulum, by Terry Pratchett.

Super Silly Sunday

2012-01-15T12:00:00.002Z

So I;ve been reading old Supergirl comics. Adventure Comics when Supergirl was the lead, to be precise, and there's a lot of awful silly stuff in there. I feel a bit mean posting scans from it, because I didn't want to mock my favourite superheroine, but there's just so much fun there! I have not laughed out loud, for so long, so genuinely in a very long time. So let's start with one scan today.

From Adventure Comics 382. Somgs from Fantasia run through my head when I see this.

Gaymazing Tim/Con slash

2012-01-14T21:50:00.000Z

By Colours07 on DeviantArt, here (might be worth clicking through to a larger version if this one isn't clear enough).

Love it.

ASN January update

2012-01-12T12:00:00.001Z

As usual. Here's the latest update from the Abortion Support Network:

Welcome to your ASN eBulletin. A new year brings new challenges – and a newly formatted eBulletin. We’re looking for hosts near to our clinics. We give thanks to all our supporters, who have enabled us to help many women. Keep in touch!

New Year – new challenges
New Look
Seeking hosts near to our clinics
Thank you thank you thank you!
Women we’ve helped
What these stories don’t tell
Keep in touch

New Year – new challenges
2012 is here and with it another year of trying to help women who desperately need support. As we enter our third year, we are experiencing significant growth. Between our first and second years, we tripled the number of women we heard from and the amount of funding we provided, and it looks like we’re on track to grow at the same exponential rate this year. As an all-volunteer organisation, we are faced with the ever more complicated juggling act between managing the increase in calls and the time constraints which result from having a staff that, by nature of not getting paid to work for ASN, need to fit their ASN duties around paid work and family commitments. As we continue to grow, we will do our very best to adapt ASN in whichever ways necessary to maintain our levels of service.
New Look
Like the new look of our eBulletin? Big ASN thanks to our long-time supporter and new volunteer Anna, who is designing the eBulletin from abroad. Would you like to volunteer with ASN? We’re . . .
Seeking volunteer hosts and fundraisers
Hosts
ASN has experienced an increase in requests for housing, particularly near the clinics that provide abortion to 24 weeks - Richmond, Ealing, Streatham,Brixton and Bristol. Have a spare room, pull out sofa, or air mattress and the desire to host a woman in need? Get in touch, and please pass the word along to any pro-choice friends who live near these clinics.

Fundraisers
Host a film screening, ask your pro choice friends to make a £2 Standing Order towards our £1000 campaign, help plan an ASN event, or create something of your own. For inspiration, check out our Fundraising Toolkit.
Thank you thank you thank you!
ASN would not exist without the generous donations of individual supporters and unwavering commitment of our amazing volunteers. Thank you again for all your support. Without you, we wouldn’t have been able to provide accommodation, financial assistance, and confidential, non-judgemental information to the women in difficult circumstances who have contacted us.
Women we’ve helped
In December, ASN heard from 27 women. We are immensely grateful to all of you who enable us to help such women.
* A mother of two pregnant by the violent ex-partner that she had only recently been able to leave
* A single mother who was short £100 for her abortion despite returning the majority of the Christmas presents she had bought for her children
* A young student who found out she was further into her pregnancy than she thought, which made the procedure more expensive. She and her boyfriend were able to come up with £600 * towards the cost of the procedure and the flights; ASN was able to make up the £100 shortfall.
* A single mother unable to tell anyone but one friend. Her ex takes the kids sometimes but she can't tell him what's going on and it’s hard for her to use the internet or speak on the phone as she has two older boys who she doesn’t want to know what is going on.
* A single mother of two, pregnant as the result of rape. She thought an abortion would be around £300 and spent four months saving up, only to be told that at her gestation, the abortion would cost more than £1,000.
* A married couple who found out at 20 weeks gestation that their foetus had catastrophic foetal anomalies. Between his sporadic work and her freelancing they were able to manage less than 20% of the funds required for travel and cost of procedure.
* A young couple with a disabled child. They did everything they could not to get pregnant but did anyway. They are terrified of passing this defect to another child but have only been able to raise a portion of the funds. They are not able to tell their parents as there would be pressure to keep the pregnancy.

A woman we couldn’t help
* A non-Irish woman who found out her wanted pregnancy had severe foetal anomalies with no chance of survival after birth. She and her partner agonised over the decision to terminate and in the end decided that termination is the best option for them. However, as a non-citizen she was not able to travel to England.

We thank these men and women from allowing us to share their stories. PLEASE NOTE: All amounts are in £GBP as this is the currency ASN gives grants in. It does not indicate the country of origin of the women on the case.
What these stories don’t tell
These stories, which we strip of identifying details and boil down into bite-sized case studies, are often heart-rending and seldom straight forward. These case studies can’t capture how lost, angry, overwhelmed or scared some of the women who contact us sometimes are. They don’t describe the intricacies of cases that sometimes have our phone coordinators on the phone for several hours for one case – women who have never travelled or booked tickets online, women without credit cards, women who think they can raise one amount of money but call us last minute to let us know they have far less, women without passports, women who have health problems which make abortion in a clinic setting impossible, women who think they are at one gestation and arrive to find they are in a far higher price bracket.

Let’s give another round of applause for the fabulous ASN phone team for taking these calls, the other volunteers who keep ASN ticking along, the donors who enable us to be a help to these women, and to the clinics and referring agencies who make sure that these women receive the care they need.
Keep in Touch
Are you one of the more than 733 people who follow us on Twitter? If not, sign up now! Have a friend who would be interested in receiving this newsletter? Forward this to them and encourage them to visit www.abortionsupport.org.uk to sign up to receive our monthly eBulletin.

With best regards

Abortion Support Network

+44 (0) 7897 611 593info@abortionsupport.org.uk
www.abortionsupport.org.uk
Charity Number 1142120

Abortion Support Network (ASN) is an all-volunteer charity that provides accommodation, financial assistance and confidential, non-judgemental information to women forced to travel from Ireland and pay privately for abortions in England. The cost ranges between £400 and £2000 depending on circumstance and stage of pregnancy. While other organisations campaign for law reform, ASN is the only group on record providing women travelling for abortions with the thing they need the most: money.

ASN is now a charity! Registered Charity Number 1142120

Wonder Woman Wednesday

2012-01-11T12:00:00.001Z

Philosophical Wondy! (issue 146)

Super Silly Sunday

2012-01-08T12:00:00.000Z

Locking cousins in fortresses, banishing them to orphanages...poor old Kara.

Adventure Comics 384.

Aaaaannd we have a Norwich hero!

2012-01-07T18:34:00.001Z

Woop woop, I just read Demon Knights #1 and discovered that Jason Blood is from Norwich!
But where is Norwich I hear you (Americans, and probably some British) cry? Well, it is literally in the arse end of England.

Mainland Britain can be understood as a witch riding a pig. Et voila:

Norwich is in the witch's bum.

Now, Norwich is generally known for:
Delia Smith - a middle aged cooking personality who is doing her best to teach the country to cook, and has been doing so for much longer than Jamie Oliver, She's like your mum, and not very cool. She also once embarrassed herself at a local football match, by yelling, "Lets be 'aving you"
Norwich City Football Club - they aren't, on the whole, very good. Although I think they are in one of the higher leagues now. They known as the Canaries, after the large number of Canaries we had in the late 19th century, brought over by Dutch settlers.
Age - Norwich is the oldest medieval city in England.
Viciousness - Norwich burnt the highest number of witches in the witch trials
Alan Partridge - a fictional radio DJ. The least cool person in England.

Add to this we are generally mocked for being rural, inbred farmers, you can see that it's difficult getting the city recognised. Ignore the fact that it's really cool, has a strong alternative, independent shop, arty, cultural, ethos. To the outside world, apparently we're just a bunch of slacked jawed yokels.

ANYWAY.
In Demon Knights #1 Paul Cornell made Jason Blood from Norwich, woop woop! My lovely city got namechecked in an American, international publication. I is dead chuffed. The rest of the comic is pretty good too. Very British. Lots of British language - my arse, quiet pint, bollocks, etc. And a dragon being thrown at the heroes.

I recommend it. Muchly. Gonna go buy the rest of the issues from Comixology now.

EDIT: I asked Paul Cornell on twitter why he chose Norwich for Jason. his answer was that 'I like to share out the geography'. Ace.

Wonder Woman Wednesday

2012-01-04T12:00:00.000Z

And this is why I love her so much. From Wonder Woman v2, 144.

Super Silly Sunday

2012-01-01T12:00:00.004Z

*Guffaws in laughter*
They do not tell them like this anymore. Visual humour. I see it in manga a lot, but not in many superhero comics. I love this run. It should be traded.

Happy new year everybody!

Adventure Comics 391.

The best thing for comics in 2011

2011-12-31T15:24:00.000Z

Was the August issues. Truly, they were fab. All of them (that I read) were saying goodbye to loved characters and love plots, unknowing where they would be in a months time. Then August ended with the stupendous Justice League #1.

All in all, Auigust was fab.

Happy new year folks!

At last! A real blog!

2011-12-30T20:37:00.000Z

So, I has been slack recently. If by recently you mean several months. I finally find myself re-energised (a break from work and studying, plus sleeping, boozing and eating tends to do that). Now, while I'm waiting for dinner to cook, I shall regale you with my thoughts about the latest comic books. Behold, my not so mighty ramblings....
Spoilers ahead.

AQUAMAN
Oh how I want to call him Aquaham. And I'm an Aquaman fan. I blame Spider-Pig. ANYHOO. This book started brilliantly. The things from the trench were terrifying. Then they got less terrifying and the book now seems to be about Geoff Johns Showing Us How Much Of A Badass Aquaman Is. Now, I really like Aquaman, I always knew he was a badass, but I'm now a bit tired of this being shoved down my throat every issue. Now this arc has finished, I'm hoping we can get back to more adventuring and less Badass Proving. And I hope the dog dies soon.
The splash pages of the trench were pretty awe inspiring though.

TEEN TITANS
This is the surprise hit of the relaunch. I was prepared to hate it. I kinda love it. The art is a bit, well, 90s (angular and swivel waisted and pointy pointy pointy), but the story and the writing is wonderful. And I even like the exaggerated art. So there. New fella, Miguel, wins points for not being a complete raving stereotype too.
This issue was the only one that made me laugh out loud this week. I would like to tell Tim that borrowing a t-shirt because your costume is ripped is not remotely comparable to N.O.W.H.E.R.E. 'stealing' teenagers. Bart requesting Tim take the shirt off him fuels my slashy mind Bart then modifying one of Tim's costumes and excusing it by saying 'oh please, it was in the back of your closet' is, well, great.
5 out 5 shiny stars to this series. Long may it reign (and reign in fun too! Teen Titans should eb fun, not angst ridden).

The SAVAGE Hawkman
He's savage, he's dangerous, he's got shiny, pretty, shifting, liquid artwork. Very pulpy. He hasn't got an engaging story. Sigh. Another one I wanted to love, but don't yet. We'll see, I'll hold on for another 4 issues then make my mind up.

SUPERMAN
I could easily drop this. I feel nothing for this incarnation of the Kryptonian. But, I'll hold on for a bit, cos I want to like it.

Now, for the rest of the comics I've been getting but which weren't out this week.

ACTION COMICS
Superman is a cocky lil bugger in this. I like it. It's much better than the regular Superman title. Nerdy Clarkie is lovely.

ANIMAL MAN
THE MAN WITH ANIMAL POWERS!!
You should all be reading this. It's brilliant. Easily one of the best of the relaunch, in a very un superhero way. It's very reminiscent of the Vertigo run of Animal Man. It's mature. It's probing. It's a thinker. As opposed to Justice league which is a brawler.

JUSTICE LEAGUE
For the first three issue this was my favourite of the new titles. Then number 4 seemed to be a little bit too obvious, seemed to be too trendy, too knowing. Or I could have been drunk when I read it. Either way, it reminds me of Frank Miller's All Star Batman and Robin, which is just darned amazing, in a terrible way. Justice League is macho, brazen, cocky, full of testosterone (even the ladeez are full of testosterone). It's the equivalent of 1980s cock rock or 1980s action flicks - Die Hard, Predator, Demolition Man, Total Recall. In short, exactly the sort of shit I love.

BATWOMAN
Pretty much as expected. The relaunch hadn't changed dear old Kate's history, and J H Williams is still on art. So, yeah, as expected. Good. Oh, except for the lack of Renee, who I now fear is dead. :(

SUPERBOY
Another surprise hit. I was dubious about the premise, but it's been carried out with style. And Rose Wilson. Rose Wilson (done well) makes everything better. Fact. The art is ..round? Soft on the edges? Hard where it matters? Slightly cartoony. Great, anyway.

BIRDS OF PREY rule the roost, yah?
Let's see, Dinah is made of awesome, Katana is delightfully bonkers, Starling has class and Poison Ivy is, Ivy. Yah. This is fun, and solid, and lots of other tasty things. Consider buying it!

SUPERGIRL
As much as I'm grumpy about the need for another relaunch of Kara, I have to admit this is rather good. Mahmud Asrar's artwork is lovely, and makes even the stupid elements of the suit work. The story is well handled, it's nothing like the solicit and is definitely one of the better books of the new 52. Everyone should be buying it (and I say that as a fair judgement, not just as a Supergirl fan).

WONDER WOMAN
This is amazeballs. The reimagining of the Gods is inspired, the artwork is (ignoring a few eschergirl problems) gorgeous and the story so far, works. Mostly. I'm going to ignore the terrible idea that is Zeus as Di's father. I mean really. The made of clay origin is magical and mythical and full of amazingness and Zeus as Di's father is boring. Beyond boring. I also dislike Hippolyta being blonde. I know originally she was blonde, but I don't like it. So bite me.
Ignoring those big problems, the rest of this book is fab. Fab fab fab fab.

BATWING
I'm getting this electronically. This here is Judd Winick being good, not Judd Winick being crap. When he's good he's very very good. When he's bad he sucks. This is good. Buy it.

The series I dropped were Hawk and Dove (got 2 issues, got bored), Green Arrow (my favourite character, made rubbish, beardless and boring, boo), Batgirl and Fury of Firestorm (neither were working for me, although I can see they are good).

Other than DC I'm also getting Ultimate Comics Spider-man and Dollhouse. Both are mah-ha-vellous.

I think I may be back in the bloggy spirit. Oooo.

Wonder Woman Wednesday

2011-12-28T12:00:00.001Z

From Wonder Woman 124, vol2.

Belated Merry Christmas!

2011-12-26T10:43:00.000Z

Comic by Mike Maihack
I hope you all had a wonderful day :)

Super Silly Sunday

2011-12-25T12:00:00.000Z

Streaky resembles a demon cat, dripping acid or something here..
We didn't see enough of Streaky in this series. :(

From Adventure Comics 383.

December bulletin from ASN

2011-12-23T12:00:00.001Z

Here's December's ASN bulletin.
----------------
ASN December eBulletin: Tis the Season to help women

Welcome to your ASN eBulletin. ASN on national TV. We’ve almost hit £1,000! ‘Tis the season to say thank you to those helping women – including our volunteers. And in November, ASN heard from 29 women. Hear some of their stories – and keep in touch!

• ASN on 4Thought
• £163 to go!
• ‘Tis the season to be grateful
• Women we’ve helped
• Keep in touch!

ASN on 4Thought TV
ASN’s Mara Clarke was invited to speak on Channel 4’s 4Thought on the topic of whether or not abortion clinics should be prevented from providing counselling to women seeking abortions. While we wish they hadn’t cut the part about ASN’s providing financial assistance and accommodation (our main purpose) we were glad to have the opportunity to provide our view. Well done Mara on flying the ASN flag and raising awareness among women who might need our help now or in future, as well as potential supporters and the general public. See all 7 4thought pieces on this issue here:
http://www.4thought.tv/themes/should-abortion-clinics-be-stopped-from-providing-counselling/mara-clarke

£163 to go
ASN’s campaign to raise £1,000 a month in regular income (standing orders from people in the UK and regular PayPal donations from those abroad), launched in March 2011 is going strong, and our monthly total is now at £837. If 32 of you give £5 a month, or 16 of you give £10 a month, we will reach our goal. Details of how to do this can be found here. Don’t forget to register for Gift Aid. And thanks!

‘Tis the season to be grateful
It is not possible for us to spend enough time thanking the family planning clinics and other organisations who send women our way, help them access the services they need, and fight for the rights of women living in Ireland and Northern Ireland to access safe and legal abortions in their own countries. Please consider donating, supporting or getting involved with one or more of these amazing and important organisations.

The organisations helping women access safe abortions
 bpasadvocates for and provides high quality, affordable services to prevent unwanted pregnancies with contraception or end them by abortion with 19 clinics and 36 consultation centres located throughout the UK.
 South Manchester Private Clinicpromotes the sexual health of men, women and young people. It offers abortion treatments and free pregnancy testing, sexually transmitted infection screening and a fully comprehensive contraceptive service.
 Marie Stopes International is the UK's leading provider of sexual and reproductive healthcare services. They are committed to providing all the help you need to make informed choices about your health.
 The Calthorpe Clinic in Birmingham supports the right for people to limit their family. For 40 years, it has been providing surgical and medical terminations for thousands of women each year.

Women on Webis an online medical abortion service that aims to reduce the number of deaths due to unsafe abortions in countries where abortion is highly restricted or illegal. WoW helps women in these countries gain access to a safe abortion using pills.

The groups fighting for abortion law reform – a partial list of the many, many organisations who are working to make abortion legal in Ireland and Northern Ireland – ASN is cheering you on and we happily wait for the day when your efforts successfully put us out of business!

 The Northern Irish Family Planning Association (nifpa) recently launched a video on abortion in Northern Ireland to highlight the 150th anniversary of the 1861 Offence Against the Person Act that has resulted in 150 years of discrimination and denial for the women of Northern Ireland.
 In addition to providing services to women in Ireland, The Irish Family Planning Association (ifpa) campaigns for law reform, believing that abortion is an intimate aspect of private life, intricately linked with human rights values and principles that protect a woman's sexual and reproductive rights.
 Abortion Rights UK is the UK’s national pro-choice campaign, working to defend and extend women’s rights and access to safe, legal abortion, to all women in the United Kingdom – even if they live in Northern Ireland.
 Safe and Legal (in Ireland) Abortion Rights Campaign
 Alliance for Choice
 Belfast Feminist Network
 Choice Ireland
 Cork Woman’s Right to Choose Group
 Safe and Legal (in Ireland) Abortion Rights Campaign
Abortion Funds
 The National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF) is a network of more than 100 grassroots abortion funds and practical support organisations (including ASN, who wouldn’t exist without NNAF’s help and support!) that help to make sure that all women and girls can access abortions.

 Before ASN, there was the Irish Women’s Abortion Support Group (IWASG), a group of Irish women in England who helped women from Ireland and N Ireland travel over for abortions from 1980 to 2000. Their story was told in Ann Rossiter’s book, Ireland’s Hidden Diaspora.

Pro Choice champions
ASN could not exist without our amazing ASN VOLUNTEERS,who answer calls from women between work, family and other commitments, write our materials, design our annual reports and websites, raise our funds, balance our books and get the word out about the work we’re doing. Our without our supporters, who provide the funds to help women access safe and legal abortions.

Thank you thank you thank you!

Women we’ve helped
In November, ASN heard from 29 women. We are immensely grateful to all of you who enable us to help women.

This month, we’d like to let women speak to you in their own words:

i have contacted ye in email and ye rang me back i couldn answer as i was with family i need this uregent as i dnt want a baby as i have a young baby and i had very bad postnatal depression after and was very hard cope i woudn be able deal with anther baby aswell as im jus getting back on my feet d last few mths i need this done asap as its getting me down nd findin it very hard and i have noone to talk too bout this i cant cope with another baby would be to much

I really appreciate how much effort you have gone to in providing me with all of the information. I did not expect so much help at all and it was a great help. I really am very grateful, I had never heard of your organisation before and I'm sure there are probably many others who are in a similar situation to me who would like to know about it too.

I have just found out that I am pregnant and desperately need to have an abortion I need some form of urgent help. Although I am in a stable relationship, my partner is not supportive of me having an abortion, despite the fact that neither of us are ready for a baby. He has told me he will never look at me the same again 'knowing that I have killed it'. But I can't possibly have this baby! I can't tell my parents because they will be so disappointed that I am pregnant in the first place but at the same time I don't think they would support an abortion either. I feel completely alone and trapped. Whatever I do somebody gets hurt or is disappointed in me but I truly feel that abortion is my only option. A baby deserves a good life and right now I can't provide that. Please help me in some way. I'm desperate.

To all at Asn,I would just like to express my deepest gratitude to all at ASN who have helped me in the last two weeks. Words cannot descibe how grateful i am to you all. You have helped me by both providing practical advice and much needed funds to ensure that it would be possible to travel for a abortion. Me and boyfriend will never forget the help and support you provided. The abortion was done and was only possible because of the help we recieved, having a abortion is hard enough emotionaly without the added stress of trying to arange travel and money. You all at ASN made it possible and I only hope that in the future I will be in a postion to help other women and girls the way you have. Thank you so much, Student 18.
ASN thanks these women and men for sharing their stories with us, and for permitting us to share them with you.

Keep in Touch
Want to make sure you have all the ASN news as soon as it happens? Follow us on Twitter or like us on Facebook. Also, from next month, this eBulletin will have a new look and feel, courtesy of MailChimp and another one of our fabulous volunteers.

Thank you thank you thank you!
ASN is funded almost entirely by the generous donations of individual supporters – like you! Without ASN, the many women we help wouldn’t be able to access vital financial and practical support towards covering the costs of their procedures and their journeys. Donations to ASN are vitally important to the lives of women faced with unplanned pregnancies.

We are entirely volunteer-run, and our small overhead costs are covered by a regular donation. This means that any money you donate goes directly towards the cost of a woman’s abortion or transport to England.

Thank you again for all your support. Without you, we wouldn’t have been able to provide accommodation, financial assistance, and confidential, non-judgemental information to the women in difficult circumstances who have contacted us.

With best regards
Abortion Support Network
+44 (0) 7897 611 593
info@abortionsupport.org.uk
http://www.abortionsupport.org.uk/
Charity Number 1142120

Winter Solstice

2011-12-22T12:00:00.001Z

Happy Winter Solstice everyone. Today is the shortest day of the year, for which I am very glad. I loathe the cold. I know the temperature is likely to worsen before Spring, but at least the days start getting longer. I am a summer person. I am sure these dark days contribute to my state of lethargy during winter time, they certainly contribute to my difficulty getting out of bed in the morning.

I am not feeling very mentally prepared for today. Usually, for each holiday, I contemplate it and, well not exactly meditate, but take time out from everything to give myself some headspace and, without trying to sound really wanky, centre myself. This year, I have been so busy over the last couple of weeks, and so damn tired (due to courses, and work, and family visiting and everything), that I have had bugger all energy to do much but read or occasionaly internet.
So, to celebrate the mid point of winter, I am planning to make this recipe, a vegetable stew with herby dumplings. It looks warming, substantial and seasonal. Pretty much what I need at this time of year. I also get to leave work at 3pm today, hurrah! So from now, until the 3rd of January I get to rest, eat, drink, see friends, read and forget about courses and work and other tedious things like that.

Happy Solstice everyone!

Wonder Woman Wednesday

2011-12-21T12:00:00.000Z

Gotta love Cassie.

State benefits in the UK

2011-12-20T12:00:00.020Z

I've been following Diary of a Benefit Scrounger for a while now. It's a campaigning site focusing on the proposed cuts to welfare benefits in the UK. There's a few posts I think people should read.

The Very Definitions of Irony -the writer of the blog has severe Chron's disease, osteroporisis and malnutrition. She takes chemo shots every 2 weeks, has had major seizures and a stroke. Her application for Disability Living Allowance has been turned down.
3 Claimants die after being found for fit for work
An open letter to Iain Duncan Smith
Did you know this about your ESA50 form - Given how strict we are about data protection, why do royal mail sorting officers open the ESA50 applications, and sort them in the post office? What's it to do with them?

Who is the most deserving? - Since 2008 75% of applicants got gurned down for Employment Support Allowance. Apparently they weren't sick or disabled enough.
We all know someone who could work but doesn't - don't we? - Hidden, secret disabilities and illnesses.

Illiterate estate agents

2011-12-19T12:00:00.000Z

I have my house on the market. It's not really getting any interest (a pox on the current housing market. Or not. A pox would probably make it worse). Our estate agents sent us an ill-spelt Christmas card. I was going to upload a picture but I am having problems connecting my phone to the computer.

Anyway, it wishes us a a Prosporous New Year.

Bad spelling winds me up. First there's the thing about not being able to spell, then there's the thing about not using spellcheck, on a professional communication. Arg. I hope their spelling doesn't reflect on their ability to sell houses.

Oh, and I am aware that my posts are full of typos. I must drive my readers nuts over some of my creative spelling choices.

Super Silly Sunday

2011-12-18T12:00:00.001Z

For the kick. And Superman booby traping something for his kid cousin. Dick.

From Adventure Comics 382.

Re-reading Wonder Woman comics..

2011-12-15T20:39:00.000Z

Specifically Gail Simone's run, and specifically Wonder Woman 34 and 35. The one where Wondy and Diana team up to find the enemy in a meta fight racket.

I came to a realisation. Black Canary, as written by Gail Simone, is SallyP. It's true. Go read the issue. then go read Green Lantern Butt's Forever, Sally's blog. They are the same person!

(And in case anyone is wondering, that's a high compliment from me!)

I betcha Di likes checking out green butts too.

Wonder Woman Wednesday

2011-12-14T12:00:00.000Z

There's nothing quite like Hippolyta kneeing a Nazi in the nuts.

Super Silly Sunday

2011-12-11T12:00:00.001Z

Things that really annoy me: people not knowing the difference between insure and ensure. And this is meant to come from a university? Sheesh.

From the 1972 Supergirl run, issue 1.

Wonder Woman Wednesday

2011-12-07T12:00:00.000Z

From Wonder Woman 184. More extinct beasties!

2011-12-05T12:00:00.002Z

Things I like about Christmas:
Christmas Trees.
Fairy Lights
Sparkles and spangles
Mince pies
Making someone happy by giving them an unexpected yet good gift
Yorkshire puddings
Christmas pudding
Port

Knowing I am loved as evidenced by the stupid amount of gifts I get
The time off work
The fact that everything closes down for one day (It should happen more often)
Delicious food
Carols!

The days getting longer
My awesome quilted advent calandar, made by my mother:

Seriously, isn't it cool?
The bunting made by my mother (sadly I don't have a picture of it, but each piece has a different fairy on it and one is doing rude things with a mushroom)

Things I don't like about Christmas:
The stress and pressure of gift giving and receiving
The stress of trying to fit in seeing all family and friends (this never works out as well as I want)
The business of the streets and the shops
The anxiousness of trying to get Christmas dinner ready
The feeling of being not good enough or worthy of familial affection
Other people
Crap Christmas Music
Do they know it's Christmas/Feed the world. Whatever the bloody thing is called.

At the moment the good things are outweighing the bad things, which is a turn up for the books.

Wonder Woman Wednesday

2011-12-01T12:00:00.001Z

From Wonder Woman v3. The great Dodson's are on art duties. Ok, so it';s not Diana, it's Donna, but with armour as beautiful as that who cares?

Wonder Woman Wednesday

2011-11-30T12:00:00.001Z

Although this took place in the middle of Jiminez's run, he didn't do the art and so it was awful, ruining an otherwise inspired story. But, this cover is good and images of Wondy fighting mythical beasts deserves a place in Wonder Woman Wednesday.

Wonder Woman Wednesday

2011-11-30T12:00:00.000Z

From the end of Phil Jiminez's run.

RIP Anne McCaffrey

2011-11-23T13:23:00.000Z

She died last night, from a stroke, aged 85. I am really sad about this. I adore the Pern books. I first picked them up as a teenager just when I was starting to read again. For a few years the only books I really read, with iinsatiable joy, were the Discworld ones. That's what being depressed does for you. I must have read other books too, but I don't recall getting enthralled and diving into any ones other than the Discworld ones.

Coming out of my fug, I picked up the first pern book, was delighted, and then raced as fast as I could throught he rest of the series. I was borrowing them from the library, several at a time, and I remember going talking to the assistant, trying to work out with her which one was next in the series and glowing about the stories. My face was lit up. That almost never happened to me.

I never wanted a dragon, I wanted a fire lizard. I wanted to be there when they found AIVAS, I wanted to learn with them, I wanted to see threadfall and I wanted to go to a school where they taught crafts, and real skills, not just academic knowledge.

As I've got more life experience my understanding of the gender politics of Pern has changed and I've got more out of the stories with each re-read. Every time I read the Masterharper's death scene I'm at risk of crying (I don't cry).

Anne McCaffrey and her worlds will be missed. I realise she hasn't taken full authorship of the recent books, that's been done by her son Todd, but her influence will be missed. I am ever so grateful (and lucky) to have been giving the opportunity to discover and read her worlds.

Wonder Woman Wednesday

2011-11-23T12:00:00.002Z

From Jodi Picoult's run

Accessible site maps on a nature reserve!

2011-11-19T17:28:00.000Z

I recently went to France and was lucky enough to visit the Marquenterre nature reserve in the Baie de Somme. I saw a kingfisher there!! My first. It was brilliant and I'm still excited about it.

I also noticed that they'd made their site maps accesible to blind and visually impaired people. How you ask? By placing braille over the written text and by using different types of material as the key for the site map. See here:

Isn't that just fabulous? So simple yet so effective. I've never seen that kind of thing in England.

Wonder Woman Wednesday

2011-11-16T12:00:00.000Z

From Jodi Picoult's run.

Definitely not a Wonderful Wonder Woman Wednesday

2011-11-14T12:00:00.003Z

Dear artists.
Pants like you've drawn on Wondy here won't stay like that. The gusset will shift about and expose her labia. The only way it won't is if it's pulled really really tightly and then you'll probably see her labia anyway, and quite possibly it will cause a serious chafing injury.
Please, draw underwear sensibly, even if it's outerwear.

Thank you.
Also, those poses are candidates for Escher Girls.

Regards,

Saranga

Abortion Support Network update - November

2011-11-13T12:51:00.000Z

Here is their November e-bulletin:

Welcome to your ASN eBulletin. ASN’s 2nd Anniversary Party was a rousing success; and ASN’s founder would like to say a few words about where we’ve been and where we’re going. Miss the party and want an annual report? Women we’ve helped in October. And Carnival Rights Belfast highlights the absurdity of the 150th birthday of the Offences Against the Persons Act. Read on!

2nd Anniversary Celebrations
Want an annual report?
And now, a word from our founder
Women we’ve helped
Carnival Rights Belfast
Gift Aid now on website

2nd Anniversary Celebrations
Thanks ever so much to those of you who donated, sent support and/or attended our event on the 26th of October to kick off ASN’s third year. For those of you who were unable to attend, you can view photos from the night taken by the fabulous Emma Campbell.

We were thrilled to see so many new faces at the event, and to have the chance to say hello to old friends. Cake was eaten (thanks, Louise!), copies of ASN’s 2011 Annual Report were snapped up and over £200 was raised between donation buckets and our 50/50 raffle.

ASN is exceptionally grateful to the women who motivated us with their speeches at the event. Alison Peters from Marie Stopes International spoke of the hardships faced by women who come to her clinic in Bristol. Our special guest Diane Abbott (Shadow Health Minister and MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington) inspired us with a speech about the importance of providing practical support for women in Ireland and N Ireland while she and others are fighting for law reform. We also received a message of support from Dawn Purvis, who spent years being the only member of the Northern Ireland Assembly to speak out in favour of a woman’s right to choose abortion. You can find out about the great work that Ms Abbott and Ms Purvis are doing by following them on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/hackneyabbott and http://twitter.com/#!/dawnpurvis respectively.

“Women from Ireland North and South experience the added anxiety of having to travel across the sea in order to exercise their right of choice. Your organisation, team of volunteers and donors have helped make that journey a more supportive one. All credit to you as you celebrate your 2nd Anniversary.” – Dawn Purvis

You’ve got Mail
Did you miss the festivities but want an annual report? You can download a copy here or email us your address and we will post you one. Donations toward postage appreciated but not required.

Looking forward, looking back – A few words from our founder
I had the opportunity to address people directly at the anniversary party and wanted to do the same for those of you unable to make it.

The first glimmer of ASN was seen at the bottom of a glass of red wine a few years back – the idea that an American-style abortion fund could work in England. I spoke to the widest range of people I could get to take my calls – the ifpa, nifpa, Marie Stopes International, bpas, the Calthorpe Clinic, Alliance for Choice, Ann Rossiter of IWASG and many more – to see if any group was providing this sort of support and whether or not women from Ireland and N Ireland still needed it. And then I started interviewing volunteers, and ASN became “we”.

It’s hard to believe that in just over 2 years we’ve grown from an idea in my head into an organisation with that has heard from hundreds of women, has had more than 30 volunteers, and is now a charity that MPs even consider speaking to. We tripled in size last year in terms of women helped and grants given, became a charity, and added on a Board of Trustees.

That’s a lot of change in a very short period of time, especially when you consider that every single one of us is juggling our work for ASN with our other responsibilities – families, partners, and in most cases, full time work. We are doing our best to continue as we began: as an organisation big enough to reach women in need and appeal to potential funders, and small enough to both enable us to be extremely flexible in helping the women who approach us; to be an organisation that can be run by volunteers who often have to make and take calls and emails between meetings or instead of lunch.

With the help of you – our wonderful supporters and volunteers – we can still say that we’ve never had to turn down a woman who could not access an abortion without our help. I want to thank each one of you for your support, for your trust in our organisation, for your compassion for women in need, and for your understanding as we navigate our rapid growth.

Here’s to another great year!

Mara Clarke, Founder

Women we’ve helped
In October, ASN heard from 24 women. We are immensely grateful to all of you who enable us to help women, the phone coordinators (Katie, Maddie, Sarah, Jane and Mara) who help these women navigate their way to a safe and legal abortion, to Women on Web for the amazing services they provide, and to the clinics and other groups involved for making it all possible.

Women we helped this month included:

A single mother who, not knowing she was pregnant, had several x-rays and was on a number of medications.

A woman who called us the morning of her teenage daughter’s appointment from the airport. The loan they were expecting had fallen through the night before and they were terrified they’d be turned away if they turned up short of money.

A student on limited budget and unable to cope or afford a child. When she went to the student financial aid centre, she was told that this was a “foreseeable expense” rather than an emergency, so they couldn’t help. As a result, she’s decided that when she gets back to Cork, she will be putting all her efforts into campaigning for a change in the law.

A woman who was early enough in pregnancy to be referred to Women on Web who was extremely pleased not to have to travel to obtain an abortion.

A lone parent who was seriously distressed about not being able to raise enough money to fund her abortion, who said that until she spoke to ASN, “This whole experience has made me feel like I’m being burned at the stake”. In the end, we awarded a smaller grant than we’d agreed to because she rang us the day before the procedure to say she’d raised an extra £50.

A couple who found out late in pregnancy that their child had catastrophic abnormalities. In addition, they could not believe that they would have to pay for the procedure themselves, especially as she had previously lived in England. They were only able to afford the procedure with a combination of a grant from us and a generous reduction in fees from the clinic.

A woman who had an abortion before and became pregnant again despite taking hormonal birth control. She has no money as she’s only just paid off the loan she took to pay for her first abortion. Upon hearing that we could help her, she had this to say: “I’d like to get on a stage in front of people who are anti abortion. Even though it breaks my heart to do this it has to be a woman’s choice. It would be selfish for me to have another baby – I can barely afford the kids I have. The stories on the side of your website make me feel like I’m not alone. If I could jump through the phone and hug you, I would.”

A recently separated woman with several children, including one with serious health issues. We were able to provide funding and accommodation for the two nights she had stayed here. She had never left her children before. “If I am not able to do this before I am 18 weeks and 6 days the cost doubles to over €1500, at the moment it is €700 which seems impossible. I just cannot see any way to do this. I had no idea that women in Ireland had to go through this.”

Email from a woman:
i live in rep. Ireland I just found out im pregnant and at the worst possible time, i am only 18 and have no means to be able to have a baby, i Have just started a course. I feel so cheated me and my boyfriend made a drunken mistake but i went and got the moring after pill immeditely. I duno what im going to do, I cannot afford nor provide for a child yet i cannot even afford an abortion. I feel sick thinking about it all feel like i have no choices due to a lack of money. I do not feel ready to be a parent and nor does he.

ASN thanks these women and men for sharing their stories with us, and for permitting us to share them with you.

Carnival Rights Belfast
Free to Choose (F2C) is a collaboration of activists who have come together to highlight the absurdity of the 1861 Offences Against the Persons Act being on the Statutes for 150 years. Their series of events is entitled the ‘Carnival for Sexual Rights and Freedom; Pro-Choice, Pro-Sexuality’. The group consists of representatives from Alliance for Choice, Belfast Feminist Network, the Rainbow Project, and Irish Congress of Trade Unions Youth Committee. Several events are happening around Belfast and Derry beginning 12 November. Check out their Facebook page for more info. http://www.facebook.com/CarnivalRightsBelfast

Thank you thank you thank you!
ASN is funded almost entirely by the generous donations of individual supporters – like you! Without ASN, the many women we help wouldn’t be able to access vital financial and practical support towards covering the costs of their procedures and their journeys. Donations to ASN are vitally important to the lives of women faced with unplanned pregnancies. We are entirely volunteer-run, and our small overhead costs are covered by a regular donation. This means that any money you donate goes directly towards the cost of a woman’s abortion or transport to England. Thank you again for all your support. Without you, we wouldn’t have been able to provide accommodation, financial assistance, and confidential, non-judgemental information to the women in difficult circumstances who have contacted us.

Wonder Woman Wednesday

2011-11-09T12:00:00.000Z

Women's introduction in the new DCU - the conclusions! part 3

2011-11-07T22:18:00.000Z

Phew. Nearly there.

As a reminder, you can read the introductory post setting out what this mini project is about here.
You can read the findings, i.e. the nerdy numbers, here.

My first reaction upon looking at the numbers was one of pleasant surprise. 45% of women were introduced without reference to their sexiness and without establishing them as a love interest. This is pretty good. This means that the women are introduced as just another character, and their gender/sexuality are not relevant to the story (at that point). It would be nice if the percentage was higher, but actually it's not too shabby.

It's important to remember that these numbers don't tell you anything about the quality of the book, and certainly don't tell you anything about whether the depiction of the characters is sexist. For example, the Wonder Woman book featured Hera in a cloak, clearly naked underneath, and also 3 party girls who served as Apollo's Oracles. The Flash introduced Iris leaning over a hole and the image is all boobs.
The depiction of these are not sexist at all, but when you contract them with Catwoman or Starfire in Red Hood, you can see that those books are clearly sexist. Yet each book gets a yes for drawing the woman sexually.

Having a woman introduced as a love woman is also not necessarily sexist, given that stories about human relationships are pretty important in the grand scheme of stories. The problem (in my mind) would be if all storied about women put them as love interests. But clearly that is not the case here.

The data also doesn't tell us about the ratio of male characters to female characters (something I regret not asking about actually).

The data also doesn't tell us if the women were introduced with other roles as well as love interest. Also something I regret not asking about.

Right now it feel that my conclusions are mostly about what the data doesn't tell us. Hmm.

What do you all think? What conclusions can you drawn from the data? Is there any other way you'd like to see the data analysed? Do you think I've missed something?

Let me know! Let the discussion roll!

Women's introduction in the new DCU - the findings! part 2

2011-11-07T22:16:00.001Z

You can read about my goals with this mini project here. I recommend you do read that post as it will explain exactly what we were analysing, and without reading it, this data won't make sense.

Now, what did we find out?
We've got 52 titles..
In which there are 97 female characters (including one kid)...
Looking at the titles -
27 of the titles feature female characters that look sexual, either by their clothes or because of the way they are drawn. That's 51% of titles.
29 titles introduce female characters as a love interest. That's 55% of all titles.
Combine these, and there are 33 titles that feature female characters that are either drawn sexually, or are a love interest. That's 63%. Some characters are drawn sexually and are love interests, some are love interests but not drawn sexually, and vice versa.

Of the female characters themselves...
41 are drawn sexually, that's 42%.
41 are love interests, again, 42%.
53 characters are drawn sexually and/or are a love interest. That's 55%.

4 titles had no major female characters in them (Batman and Robin, Detective Comics, Justice League and Men of War)
No women were introduced as the love interest of other women.

I looked at the ratio of titles per subgroup and female characters per subgroup. You'd hope that if there was an even spread of female characters the ratios would be roughly similar. They aren't. Instead we have:
Subgroups: Batman:Green Lantern:Justice League:Superman: The Dark: The Edge: Young Justice
Titles per subgroup: 11:4:11:4:7:9:6
Female characters per subgroup: 14:5:20:6:15:15:19

So, no correlation between female characters and subgroups.

Justice League Dark, Suicide Squad and Legion of Superheroes all have 3 female characters that are drawn sexually. No other comics had a higher number of sexually drawn characters.
Justice League Dark had 4 female characters as love interests, this is more than any other title.

As for subgroups:
The Justice League books had the most number of female characters (20).
The Green Lantern books had the least number of female characters (5).

As for which books has female characters drawn sexually and/or as a love interest.. here is the list:
Subgroup       Title                                   Sexual?     Love interest?
Batman             Batman: The Dark Knight    Yes Yes
Batman       Birds of Prey                      Yes           Yes
Batman             Catwoman                          Yes           Yes
Batman             Nightwing                           Yes           Yes
Batman             Red Hood Yes           Yes
Green Lantern   Green Lantern Corps    Yes    Yes
Green Lantern   GL: New Guardians            Yes           Yes
Green Lantern   Red Lanterns                      Yes Yes
Justice League   Aquaman                           No            Yes
Justice League   DCU Presents                Yes           Yes
Justice league    Green Arrow                   Yes            Yes
Justice League   JLI    No           Yes
Justice League   Mr Terrific                  No             Yes
Justice League   The Flash                          Yes            Yes
Justice League   Wonder Woman                Yes      Yes
Superman          Superboy                          Yes            Yes
Superman          Supergirl                           Yes           No
The Dark           Animal Man                   No              Yes
The Dark           Frankenstein    Yes            Yes
The Dark Justice League Dark         Yes            Yes
The Dark           Resurrection Man              Yes            Yes
The Dark    I, Vampire Yes    Yes
The Edge           All Star Western                 Yes            Yes
The Edge           Blackhawks                       No                 Yes
The Edge           Stormwatch                       Yes                Yes
The Edge           Suicide Squad                Yes                Yes
The Edge           Voodoo                             Yes                 Yes
Young Justice    Blue Beetle                          Yes                 Yes
Young Justice    Legion Lost                 Yes                 Yes
Young Justice    Legion of Superheroes         Yes                 Yes
Young Justice    Teen Titans                          No                   Yes

Titles with no female characters drawn sexually or as a love interest:
Subgroup          Titles
Batman               Batgirl, Batman, Batwing, Batwoman
Green Lantern     Green Lantern
Justice League    Captain Atom, The Fury of Firestorm, The Savage
                          Hawkman
Superman          Action Comics, Superman
The Dark Demon Knights, Swamp Thing,
The Edge           Deathstroke, Grifter, OMAC, Stormwatch
Young Justice    Hawk and Dove, Static Shock

Next post will feature my thoughts and musings on what this all means. Or as otherwise known, the conclusions.

A note: This may well make you lose faith in the entire thing, but I figure I should confess - my maths isn't very good. I've gone over and over the figures (done using excel - it's a godsend) and I think that mathematically speaking, they make sense. But now my brain is a bit fried so if you notice a glaring error in the results please tell me! Then I will redo them.

I can send the findings as put into an excel chart to anyone who wants them.

Analysing the role of women in the new DC Universe - part 1

2011-11-07T22:15:00.004Z

All the furore about the treatment of Starfire and Catwoman in the DC relaunch got me to thinking about about how female characters were presented in the new DC Universe. If you only read the reviews of Red Hood and Catwoman you’d think that the DC books were a hotbed of misogyny. I started pondering if this really was the case – certainly the books I read seemed to treat their female characters fine.

Then the thoughts expanded and expanded and lo and behold, I came up with an idea of doing a bit of research onto how women were introduced in the new DC 52.

NB: I couldn’t have put this together without the help of Eyz, theyallfalldown and JimmyMcG. Major major thanks to these guys who re-read a lot of comics for me and answered my questions about the women in the books.

So, onto the work. I summarised the research project thus:

“Basically, what I am interested in finding is how the major female characters are portrayed in their first pages of the new comics (the number 1s), mostly centring around whether they are presented sexually or not”

I asked my co researchers to report on the following:

A description of how the major female characters are introduced in every new DC book.

I am looking for things like -

State of dress

Style of art (tits and ass aka Starfire vs normal proportions aka Power Girl or Wonder Woman)

How they are described by other characters (If applicable)

How they describe themselves (if applicable)

If they are introduced as being in relationship, flirting or something else romantic/sexual.

I wanted to know if the characters were drawn overtly sexual as I feel that could indicate a sexist treatment. I also wanted to know if they were introduced with a reference to their physical looks, or as the partner of another character, because if they all were introduced like this, it would indicate that women in the new DCU exist to be primarily sexual beings and linked romantically with men (or women, I’d be interested in seeing if any women were introduced as lesbians too). I term this phenomenon, the 'love interest'.

I requested that the reporters look at only how the character is presented on the first page they appear, not in the rest of the book – I believe this is important because the first impression we get of them generates an image of the character that is difficult to shake off in later times. Considering that this takes place in a relaunch, it is entirely reasonable to suspect that DC wanted the readers’ first view of a character to be the thing that hooks you in, that scene that tells you all about them and who they are. I think the way the character is represented in their first scene is indicative of how DC views them and their role in the new status quo.

I specified major characters and I explained that major should be taken to mean:
Female superheroes and supervillains
The women who have historically been partners of a hero/villain (e.g. Iris West)
Any notable female sidekicks (whether new characters or old)
Plus those women we know from the old DC who may only have cameo (like Power Girl in Mr T). Basically this equates to every female character excluding those existing in the background with a non speaking role, such as being a face in the crowd.

I gave examples of the following:

Selina Kyle was introduced by her breasts on the first page of her comic (very sexual)

In Teen Titans, Cassandra Sandsmark was introduced by Tim describing her as gorgeous (not sexual, but definitely introduced with an emphasis on her looks).

In Mr Terrific, Power Girl was drawn normally, but wearing just a t-shirt in Mr Terrific's apartment, implying she's been intimate with him (i.e. introduced as being in relationship/fling)

In Wonder Woman, we first saw Diana in bed, naked (but I don't think this was done in a sexually ogle-y manner).

After some queries I sent all reporters the following:

As a reminder about what I want - I am not so much interested in the value judgement we put on the images, e.g. whether or not they are sexist, more about what they show, as I mentioned below.

Your reports don't have to be really long - a few lines will do, but if you want to explain your reasoning that's also fine. Basically I am looking to discover what the DCU says about women, not assume I know what it says and then try to prove my hypothesis. So, we need to look at the books with an open mind.

What I want to do is look at how the women are presented and then extrapolate about what this means for representations of women in the new DCU. i.e. are they introduced as sexual/romantic beings, is the emphasis on their looks and/or their sexual relationship to them men around them. I intend to make generalised commentary and possibly do some statistical work too.

I realise that the methodology isn’t completely robust, there’s a lot of human bias coming into play in everyone's reports. This skews the results so without a really strict marking scheme and formal framework in which to work in, the reports from each person aren’t completely comparable. However, if someone would like to take the findings and build on them to do a better study, please do! Just let me know what you find OK?

The reason for asking other people to help was because I a) couldn’t afford each new DC title and b) didn’t have the time to report on all of them.

The type of reports submitted varied in style, some reports gave me a bullet point list, others gave me prose talking specifically about how the women were presented, others gave me mini reviews of each comic. I tried to extract the relevant information from each report and put it all into an excel table where I then did some nifty sorting according to group of titles and the results of each question.

N.B: Stating that the introduction of women has a sexual or romantic overtone, does not mean they are misogynistic or sexist. It is perfectly possible to portray a female character in a relationship with someone else and not have it be sexist, and it is perfectly possible to portray a woman in sexual manner without it being misogynistic. Determining whether or not the introduction of women was sexist or not wasn’t the point of this study. What I wanted to discover was if there was an overarching similarity in the way the women were introduced in order to find out what the cultural discourse surrounding women new DCU is (and see if there is a set discourse).

So, onto the findings! Or, see next post. Conclusions coming up in a third post. :)

Dead Man's Run

2011-11-03T12:00:00.011Z

I got sent a signed copy of Dead Man's Run #0, by Greg Pak, for review (Ah, the power of twitter, it's fab!). So, here comes the review.

First off, credits:
Writer: Greg Pak
Illustrations: Tony Parker
Colours: Peter Steigerwald
Letters: Josh Reed
Publisher: Aspen Comics. After googling this company I see it was founded by Michael Turner, which explains all the Michael Turner linked ads in the comic. Some of these ads feature art of truly Escher Girls propotions, but thankfully, Dead Man's Run doesn't. Well, the boobs on the cover are a bit odd. the lady in question isn't the lead role int hsi issue, although it looks like she will be a major player later on in the series.

As for the comic itself, well, I quite enjoyed it. I knew I'd read some of Greg Pak's work before, but couldn't recall what. A quick search on New readers... shows that I reviewed Magneto: Testament which is just brilliant. With that in mind it's not surprising that I enjoyed this comic.

It starts off witha big beefy type of chap buying goods in an American grocery store, he's obviously not that rich as he ahs to be careful about what he buys. The interaction between him and the store assistant on just this first page gives us a lot of information about the characters, the job of the protagonist and the world this comic is set in. For example, there's a big explosion outside and neither beefy chappie nor store assistant look particularly worried or surprised. I know it's a really simple thing to do, use all available space to feed us details about the world and it's background, but I marvel every time I see a writer/artist do this. It makes the reading experience so much more pleasurable.

As the comic runs on we learn that beefy chap works for a prison and he's got a a dark past. We don't know what yet, but he seems like a decent sort now. He's not scared to criticise authority and he's doing something heroic now, as he describes his job as 'to defend the surface'. There are lower levels to the prison called the City of Corruption, and actually, the lower levels turn out to be hell itself. Literally. Our hero descends, with his team of other prison guards, and one thing leads to another and he dies. Now he's trapped in Hell and presumably he's going to want to get out.

There the comic ends. I liked it. Plot wise, it's very fast moving, a lot of ground is covered but it doesn't feel rushed. It dealt with in a simple manner, not simplistic, but controlled and carefully. The colours are bright and shiny - very Michael Turner in style (yes I know Turner pencilled, not coloured, but a lot of his work is coloured in a very similar fashion).

At the end is a page of prose from Greg Pak talking about the comic. He describes it as 'jailbreak from hell'. Pak talks about his research for the project and says that he believes hell is a place of injustice, where the innocent burn. Religious imagery and settings is a thing I'm very interested in, so I'm very tempted to add this to my pull list. I think it could be a good contender for a New readers... review, once the trade is out.

Thanks for Mr Pak for sending me this review copy, I certainly enjoyed it and would definitely recommend it to people. It's got a lot going for it and shows a lot of promise. Click here to buy Dead Man's Run.

Wonder Woman Wednesday

2011-11-02T12:00:00.000Z

Green Arrow sheds a tear

2011-11-01T12:00:00.004Z

Nicked from my New readers... colleague Eyz' site, who in turn got it form DC's super dictionary.
Poor Ollie!

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T12:00:00.000Z

Today is all hallows eve, halloween, samhaim, the death of the old year and the start of the new. Today the dead come out to roam the streets and folk everywhere have a party. Well some do.

By the time this goes live I'll have carved a pumpkin, hopefully it will actually look ok. It will be the second pumpkin I've ever carved. A book I have on Pagan feast days says that at halloween, pumpkins become a holy item Ihence why we carve them) and recommends that you place pumpkins and other root vegetables, such as turnips and swedes on your altar. Well, I'm fuusy, and what will be going on my display will be my decorated cloth, my pumpkin and my orange and black candles.

I've been thinking for a few weeks about what to put in this post. It is the end of the year so it seems apt to look back on the past year. This last year has been pretty crappy. Last autumn/winter was very stressful for me, and although I got a permanent reasonably well paying job, it's not what I hoped for and leaves much to be desired. However, it does provide a regular wage and it does allow me to pay for my BSL training, which will get me permanent work using a language I love. Having finally started my BSL level 3 I find myself knackered and extroadinarily busy, but that's ok. I expected that and I love the course.

This past year has seen a lot of people I know get seriously ill. Like life threateningly ill. The good news is they all recovered. The other good news is my sister is now pregnant so I'm gonna be an aunty!

Then of course there's all the government cuts. I think that I heard about Norfolk County Council's proposed cuts on about the 2nd November last year. This seemed like a pretty bad omen for the year ahead. On the plus side, the final cuts weren't as bad as foretold. On the bad side, the whole country is facing severe cuts and those most vulnerable are getting screwed over again and again and again. It feels like this has been a year of protests.

It also feels like it's been a year of disasters - the Japanese earthquake, the recent Turkish earthquake, and well there's probably lots more that I can't quite recall.

And a year or uprisings - well hello Arab Spring! The Arab states have been amazing to watch this year. I feel far more aware of international affairs than I did a year ago.

Writing this, despite listing all this shit that's happened, I do feel more optimistic that I did a few weeks ago. Certain aspects of this last year have been hard, really hard, but they could have been worse and I've got to focus on the good things. Here's to a more enjoyable, more relaxing 2011/2012!
(and keep protesting folks!)

Guest post number 2! - The Big Project

2011-10-30T12:00:00.003Z

This is the second of our guests post from Will aka Rob, of Reynard City. In today's post he talks about his project, Reynard City, what it means to him and why it's important to do something you love.

I have made a number of mistakes in my life. Letting my brother cut my hair in the style of David Beckham. My brief attempt at being a postal worker, despite being not that quick on a bike, a poor sense of direction and a fear of dogs (Yes even your cute little dog that has never bitten anyone and the saints sing their praises for being so wonderfully doggy)

But one thing I can’t regret is working on Reynard City. It’s taken a number of years, format changes and general figuring things out but we seem to be getting there. And it is down to a collaborative effort with a number of different people.

One thing I realise now is that the whole “Success has a thousand fathers but failure is an orphan” thing need not necessarily be negative. It is often trundled out as a cynical response to someone succeeding and people jumping on the bandwagon.

However in this instance it is more that working together with people gets results, while trying to do things on your own is a heck of a lot harder. The range of contributors over the years has included writers, artists, costume designers, musicians and film makers, all of whom have added their creative spark to the collective fire.

While I love talking about the comic and the characters I’ve practically grown up with, it is also awesome to see people from all over coming together to work on something. The good news is that if people have an idea then there are people out there that can help.

The problem is that sometimes you may think “What if someone steals my idea?” While this can happen and there is always a danger of that, sadly risk is a part of life. I think it’s better to be inclusive and try to bring people into it as much as possible.

Inevitably sometimes it’ll go wrong, you’ll annoy people and so on. But I have found if a concept is strong enough then it won’t go away, regardless of time, money or lack of sleep. In short, if you love a project, find some people and share it.

Rob Turner (aka Will Turner) is the writer/producer for Polycomical Studios, a group dedicated to young and emerging artists. Their webcomic Reynard City (www.reynardcity.com) is currently being made into a cartoon pilot and a video game.

A guest post! 'In defence of Superman'

2011-10-29T17:24:00.000+01:00

Today I have the first of two guest posts written by a friend, Will aka Rob. The first one is, I am pleased to say, a look at Superman and what he means. Take it away Rob:

I know it sounds strange to defend someone whose image on his chest is one of the most recognisable symbols on Earth. Whenever anyone is asked to name a superhero inevitably his name comes up (it helps he has “Super” in his name I guess).

However when it was recently asked on Twitter who they would rather be more people chose Batman. In some respects this is down to the way our culture has changed. The internet means less people identify with a character that is said to be synonymous with “Truth, justice and the American way.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not having a go at Batman. His character has echoes of some of my favourite American literature, combining the gothic visuals of Edgar Allen Poe with the stolen childhood of Citizen Kane and the self myth making of The Great Gatsby.

Superman by contrast seems to belong to a more innocent age. His story reflects that of his creators, two Jewish immigrants who seemed to suggest that a person could transcend where they are from to be the symbol of their adopted homeland.

For me (a man who has worn glasses since childhood) Superman and many heroes like him have that concept where you can be more than who you seem to be on the surface. That idea that one day you too could rip off your work suit and reveal the costume underneath.

Maybe that view is childish and naïve but I think it’s too easy to go to the dark side sometimes these days. More people seem to be enamoured with the badass nature of Batman, someone who won’t kill but use all his resources to spread fear amongst the criminal underworld.

Strangely enough it was the director Tim Burton, the one responsible for popularising the Frank Miller superhero noir to the masses (albeit with his typical visual flourishes) who was recently quoting as saying “Maybe it’s time for the cartoon to come back.”

I’m not saying I want to go back to the “Gee shucks” early fifties idea of comics. But while the character of Batman is iconic and helped to create a more complex idea of the superhero, Superman represents a kind of ideal that goes beyond even that of America or superheroes. And I think it would be a shame to lose that.

Rob Turner (aka Will Turner) is the writer/producer for Polycomical Studios, a group dedicated to young and emerging artists. Their webcomic Reynard City is currently being made into a cartoon pilot and a video game.

Wonder Woman Wednesday

2011-10-26T12:00:00.003+01:00

Clang!

(I know I used this in last week's post, but I still like it, so it's getting used again)

Hearing dog awards

2011-10-25T22:49:00.001+01:00

Hearing dogs for deaf people do an annual award ceremony where they recognise particular dogs that are really special to the Ddeaf people they help.

One award is the Life-Cganging Hearing dog of the year award and my friends have just won it!
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!

See Foggy and Simon's story:

See the other finalists here.
See finalists for all awards here.
See winners for all awards here.

YAY! Well done fogs and Simon :D

Definitely not a Wonderful Wonder Woman Wednesday

2011-10-21T12:00:00.002+01:00

Pencils by Mike Deodato. Yeuch.

Wonder Woman Wednesday

2011-10-19T12:00:00.003+01:00

The obvious politics edition:

Because why not eh?

From Wonder Woman 63.

Norfolk County Council recognise comics!

2011-10-16T12:00:00.000+01:00

But thinks we read too many...or thinks we chuck too mnay in the bin...
Honestly, they don't know comics fans very well do they? Like any comics fan would chuck one in the bin or recycle it!

pshaw!

I got a guest post on the F Word!

2011-10-14T12:00:00.000+01:00

Remember how a little while ago I asked ya'll about menstrual cycles? Well, something I saw on The F Word about PMS prompted me to write a comment, which before I knew it had turned into a full post about the myth about 28 day cycles. You can read it here. Although anyone reading this blog probably already knows what i'm gonna say. Anyhoo, I'm quite pleased :D. I feel immortalised on a proper feminist website :D.

Best. thing. ever.

2011-10-13T19:28:00.000+01:00

That, Ladies and Gentlemen, is Captain America aftershave. In a bottle shaped like a fist. Awesome. Sauce. I'm not sure how it smells, probably melon-y, most stuff in the shop did that day.

The badge on the fingers says Diesel.

World Mental Health Day

2011-10-10T13:09:00.000+01:00

Today is world mental health day. As someone who has been officially diagnosed as suffering from depression and stress at various times in my life, and has self diagnosed as having OCD, I thought I would contribute to this day by listing the symptoms I experienced and talking about the diagnosis methods doctors used on me.

Symptoms first:
Tight feeling in my stomach
Often feeling fearful (i.e. at least once a day)
Often crying (again, at least once a day)
Feeling numb, emotionally but also feeling angry and hateful
Self harm
Sleeping for long periods
Lethargy
Difficulty concentrating
Feeling of un-connectedness from other people, my emotions, my body and my thought processes
Paranoia – feeling that the people you are talking to are not who they say are
Little to no concept of time – feeling like what is happening now will last forever and being unable to recall feelings or events from previous days when I felt different (worse or better)
Poor memory
A need to repeat things, either in my head (thoughts or statements) or in physicality (locking doors, counting, checking things)
Smoking (half the time when I smoke it’s because I want to hurt himself, I know it’s bad for me, that’s the point)
Low self esteem
Self hate
Not caring about self
Difficulty moving
Over eating or sometimes under eating (mostly over eating though)
And more, many more symptoms, but I now can’t be arsed to go into them.

As for how I was diagnosed, well the psychiatrist I got took to when I was 15 asked me about some of the above but phrased it in such a way that he asked if my sleep patterns or eating patterns had changed. This was not a helpful way to ask as I could not remember feeling any different. I was not in tune with my body, I was depressed. How was I meant to answer these questions? He then asked me if I ever had moments of lightness, if I ever felt better when feeling low. I could only recall a phone call I’d had a few days ago (see, I told you I had problems with concepts of time) from a friend where for the couple of minutes it took to have the conversation I felt not quite as shit as I did just before. But as soon as the phone call ended I felt shit again. Anyway I answered yes to his question, although in hindsight my reasoning was probably not what he meant. Because of this answer, he decided that my depression wasn’t chemical in nature, so I didn’t need to be prescribed pills.

I was referred to a psychotherapist and saw her for 3 years, I think. It could have been one year, I don’t know. I have difficulties with time. Seeing the therapist wasn’t the most useful thing I have ever done, but I couldn’t say I was unhappy with her as I had low self worth and didn’t value myself.

When I was 20 I went to the University doctor who asked me very similar questions, to which I had the same problems answering, and she diagnosed me with stress. I was referred to the University counselling service, who were by and large, shit.
That’s my experience of the mental ill health profession. It is not overwhelmingly positive, but I am glad to say that I am now much much better. I haven’t self harmed in years and I think I now get more anxious than depressed. Woo, go me.

1 in 4 people will suffer with a mental health problem in their lifetime. Don’t be dismissive, or critical, or think because you are worried about them you have it hard. Be supportive. Ask them how you can help. Be a friend.

Ok, it's kinda scary to post this as I know that real life friends get the link to this.. so please, if you're gonna comment, play nicely.

It's Black History Month in the UK

2011-10-08T17:11:00.000+01:00

I offer you two videos. Both, Nina Simone, one is Strange Fruit and the other is Young, Gifted and Black:

Picture of Russell Crowe as Jor-El

2011-10-07T12:00:00.000+01:00

What do you all think? I like it.

Coming out in comics: Catman

2011-10-05T12:00:00.001+01:00

Gail Simone confirms that Catman is bisexual and in the new DCU he will be witten as bisexual when she next writes him.

She also describes the make up of Secret Six. Who is who do you reckon?

Anyway, aww yeah!!

ASN October e bulletin

2011-10-04T17:32:00.001+01:00

You know how this goes:

Welcome to your ASN eBulletin. Thanks so much to those of you who donated to our recent appeal! Make your past, present or future ASN donation worth 25% more. We hope to see you at our birthday party 26 October – please note the new venue! Women we’ve helped this month. Live in Liverpool and have a spare sofa or room? Are you a poster person for choice? Read on!

• We got what we wanted for our birthday!
• Register for Gift Aid
• Come to our birthday party – please note the new venue and RSVP!
• Women we’ve helped
• Seeking hosts in Liverpool
• Pro Choice photo project

Happy birthday to us!
Last month before we experienced the circumstances that resulted in our emergency appeal, we asked for people to donate in honour of our second birthday party. We never got to send out the official request card (it’s attached) but despite this, your generous response to our call for help put us ahead of our goal, which was to raise £2,222 in honour of our 2nd birthday. Our recent campaign brought in more than £2,300, including almost £100 in Standing Orders - putting us just over 80% of the way to our goal of £1,000 in SOs every month, and in a position to have reached our birthday goal before publicising it! Big thanks to all who donated – including a special shout out to our friends in NYC for their extraordinary support! An individual acknowledgment and thank you is on its way to each of you. If you don't receive one by Monday, don't hesitate to email us to make sure we have your contact details.

If you would still like to make a birthday donation – or better yet a birthday Standing Order – to ASN, you can find out how to do so here: http://www.abortionsupport.org.uk/support-us/donate/.

(And if you need a fabulous designer like the one who did the attached card, please contact Ruth)

Register for Gift Aid!
If you are a UK taxpayer, registering for Gift Aid will make your gift go 25% further. If you have donated to ASN in the past, or plan to do so in the future, please fill out a Gift Aid Form so that we can collect Gift Aid on your donation. You can fill out the form here and post it in, or wait until next month, when we will have a link to an online form that you can fill in. http://www.abortionsupport.org.uk/files/2011/01/ASN_GIFT_AID_FORM.pdf

Party! Party! Party!
We have so much to celebrate – the success of the recent campaign, the fact that we’ve heard from and helped THREE TIMES the number of women this year compared to last, and how much we appreciate you, our wonderful supporters and volunteers. Please come celebrate with us – and special guest speaker Diane Abbott MP!

ASN 2nd Birthday party
Wed 26 October
7.00-10.00 pm
THE ROEBUCK
50 Great Dover Street
London SE1 4YG

Can’t wait to see you there! PLEASE RSVP to mara@abortionsupport.org.uk.

Women we’ve helped
In August, ASN heard from 27 women, including the four urgent cases we emailed you about last week. We are immensely grateful to all of you who enable us to help women, the phone coordinators (Katie, Maddie, Sarah, and Jane) who help these women navigate their way to a safe and legal abortion, to Women on Web for the amazing services they provide, and to the clinics we work with for making it all possible.

In addition to the four women we emailed about last week, women we helped this month included:

A woman who delayed paying rent in order to afford flights to come to England

A woman late in pregnancy who was further delayed in coming to England as she needed a visa to travel.

A woman in a relationship with an abusive man who is against her having an abortion and spends the little money they have on drugs and alcohol.

A young single parent, recently laid off from her job and pregnant as the result of rape. She was so desperate for funds for her procedure that she was considering contacting her rapist for financial assistance. To add to her distress, the counselling service she contacted when she was raped were not supportive of her choosing to have an abortion.

A married couple with several children and financial difficulties. Prior to getting pregnant again they were so determined not to have more children that they asked their doctor about sterilisation, only to be told that she was too young, and that they could not afford it anyway.

A college student who can barely afford rent and groceries, let alone travelling to England to pay privately for an abortion.

ASN thanks these women and men for sharing their stories with us, and for permitting us to share them with you. We also thank the clinics, counsellors and other groups who ensure that these women receive the care they need.

Do you live in Liverpool & have thoughts of becoming an ASN host?
ASN will be in Liverpool on Saturday, October 8 to interview a potential host for the women who travel to the bpas Merseyside clinic. If you live near this clinic and have a spare room, pull out sofa or air mattress and the willingness to participate in this direct action work, please contact us.

Pro Choice Photo Project
We were contacted by a student obtaining her MFA in photography in N Ireland. She is in the process of putting together a photo journalism project about abortion, and has already interviewed a number of ASN volunteers. If you consider yourself to be someone who works, volunteers or campaigns in or around abortion, and are interested in being a part of this project, please email Emma. More about Emma on her website, www.emmacampbell.co.uk.

Thank you thank you thank you!

ASN is funded almost entirely by the generous donations of individual supporters – like you! Without ASN, the many women we help wouldn’t be able to access vital financial and practical support towards covering the costs of their procedures and their journeys. Donations to ASN are vitally important to the lives of women faced with unplanned pregnancies.

We are entirely volunteer-run, and our small overhead costs are covered by a regular donation. This means that any money you donate goes directly towards the cost of a woman’s abortion or transport to England.

Thank you again for all your support. Without you, we wouldn’t have been able to provide accommodation, financial assistance, and confidential, non-judgemental information to the women in difficult circumstances who have contacted us.

With best regards

Abortion Support Network
+44 (0) 7897 611 593
info@abortionsupport.org.uk
http://www.abortionsupport.org.uk/
Charity Number 1142120

Abortion Support Network (ASN) is an all-volunteer charity that provides accommodation, financial assistance and confidential, non-judgemental information to women forced to travel from Ireland and pay privately for abortions in England. The cost ranges between £400 and £2000 depending on circumstance and stage of pregnancy. While other organisations campaign for law reform, ASN is the only group on record providing women travelling for abortions with the thing they need the most: money.

ASN is now a charity! Registered Charity Number 1142120

Abortion Support Network Emergency Fundraising Appeal

2011-09-27T13:24:00.000+01:00

Crossposted from their website:
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Today we were planning to send out information about our upcoming 2nd “birthday”, something cute with a play on the theme on our 2nd anniversary, along with the formal invitation to our party on 26th October (with special guest speaker Diane Abbott MP!!).
Instead, we have to send out an emergency fundraising appeal.
ASN has £175 in the bank and the following four women need our help. Without additional funds, we will only be able to help one of them.
A 30 year old mother of one who was extremely distressed to learn that she was pregnant. She recently lost her job, is facing eviction from her home and her family is currently going through another crisis which means that she has little financial or emotional support.

A young teen whose mother called us on her daughter’s behalf. Struggling to make ends meet on benefits and already behind with the rent, they borrowed what money they could for a procedure. When they arrived in England they found out that the pregnancy was further along than they’d thought. As there was no doctor at the clinic to do the later procedure, they’ve had to return home and do not have the funds for the combined costs of a more expensive abortion procedure + new flights. With nowhere else to turn they called ASN.

A woman in her 30s with a late term pregnancy who has just one week left to access a safe and legal abortion. Having recently broke up from her long-term partner and giving up work to care for a sick family member, she has no way of finding the money she needs. She called ASN after having to put her appointment on hold because suddenly a friend who was going to lend her the money she needed changed their mind “for moral reasons”. Unable to get a loan from a bank or to turn elsewhere for support she desperately needs help to meet the costs of her expensive late-term procedure.
A 29 year old mother of three, who recovering from postnatal depression following her last pregnancy and trying to return to education said “she simply can’t do it again – for me or my children.” With both herself and her partner both out of work they’re trying really hard to scrape and save the money they need for her procedure.
Huge thanks to the phone volunteer on duty this week for having to navigate this very emotive situation.
Can you help? Help can come in the form of a single donation, a standing order, or a direct debit. If you can’t help with a donation, you can help by forwarding this email to your prochoice friends, family and colleagues, tweeting the appeal, and posting it on Facebook.
We are 4 days from turning 2. With your help, we will still be able to say that ASN has never turned down a woman unable to access an abortion without our help.
Thank you for your continued support.
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You can donate by clicking on the 'Donate' button at the bottom of this page.

An article on those Catwoman/Starfire comics

2011-09-24T12:00:00.001+01:00

It's good, and can be read here. Some of the comments are horrible. Seth Vlan has a good point when he says that:

"Which brings me to my second point; nearly EVERY SINGLE MALE in comics drawn with an Olympian physique that's every bit as offensive as the equally exaggerated proportions of female characters. According to these comics, even Reed Richards could beat me at arm-wrestling without resorting to his stretchy powers. If you can't see that, if you can't even try to understand what it's like to constantly be told that you need to have huge muscles and bed lots of women to earn respect, then you're a hypocrite of the highest order, maim."

Apart from the last sentence which is rude, he has a point. Then he continues with:

"As for how you view "sexually liberated women", stop hiding your true feelings. At the end of the day, you just don't like it when women go to bed with TOO MANY men. Probably because no one gives you the opportunity"

Whichmakes Mr Vlan a bit of a dick really. Patriarchy and sexism hurts everyone. To make a generalisation, under the patriarchy women get objectified to look like sexed up vacant dolls, men get objectified to look like strong muscle men. These actions help no one.

Happy Equinox!

2011-09-23T12:52:00.017+01:00

Today is the Autumn equinox, where the day and the night is of equal length. I believe some people also refer to it as Mabon, Harvest or Herfest. This year, I like 'Autumn Equinox' myself.

As this posts (at exactly 6 hours 5 minutes after sunrise and before sunset) I shall be preparing to go toa friend's wedding where I am bridesmaid. The wedding is taking place tomorrow, and initially I thought that tomrorow was the quinox, which made me think what a perfect day it would be to get married. It's a day of balance and surely that's what a successful relationship should be about? As it is, the equinox is the day before the wedding, nut no matter. If we have to experience the dark, miserable days of winter I figure it's also pretty good to start the shortening days with a marriage ceremony to solidify the partnership and join you with someone who will supoprt you when it's cold, dank and wet oustide.

I came back from my week long holiday in France to find that the season had changed. It was unmistakably Autumn when I arrived in Kent. The leaves have turned and there was that cold snap in the air. I shall celebrate this turning of the season with a (vegetarian) minestrone soup on the 22nd, a pre wedding meal onteh 23rd, and my friend's wedding on the 24th. I love weddings and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna get really soppy at this one.

Happy equinox everybody!

My eyes! Can I unsee this please?

2011-09-22T12:00:00.000+01:00

Not safe for work.
Contains images of sexy sexy sexy sexy mcsexy from sexytown Catwoman #1.
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It's not really sexy.
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I did not buy Catwoman #1 this week. Or red Hood #1. I am pleased by this. Why you ask? Well first there's the preview pages where she appears to have turned into insectoid woman (shudder) then there's this:

Selina and Bruce, fucking, quite explicitly, on the last page of Catwoman #1. I concede that's in character for them to screw on a rooftop, but the art is horrible. The art makes it objectifying. The art makes it thoroughly for adults, and not because it's mature or complex, but because you wouldn't want a 9 year old reading that. It's crude, it's vulgar and this is not a fecking porn comic or an exploration in fan wank, so this doesn't need to be in a damn superhero comic.

And ugh I can't even be arsed to go into the Red Hood images.

Good Old John.

Norcon 2011

2011-09-21T12:00:00.003+01:00

It was fab! Organised by the Norwich sci-fi club, Norcon is a celebration of all things geeky. The emphasis was on Dr Who and Red Dwarf but there was also comics nerdiness there, including Barry Kitson who pencilled JLA Year One (I didn't get a sketch, he was very busy and I didn't understand the queueing system, meaning that I inadvertently pushed right in to the front and then got very very embarassed).
There was also a writing fella named Simon Furman there who I didn't know, but we got chatting, and it turns out he wrote the 80s Thundercats comics. Now that was the series that got me into comics, so you can imagine my glee at finding this out! Anyway I told him this and also bought some signed transformers issues that he wrote as a gift for the boyfriend.

I of course bought some comics for myself too - Lobo and Black Orchid ones, and a Captain Britain one, on the recc of Anj from Supergirl Comic Box Commentary. Captain Britain was surprisingly good, I haven't read the others yet.

I was at Norcon cos I was helping out on the Reynard City stand - we got lots of people interested in the project and even met a few fans! Some who remembered us from last year and some who met us for the first time. Near enoguh everyone who came to the stand was postive about the comic, I got to chat comics and superheroes (DC, Marvel and webcomics) with so many people, young and older, my colleagues on the stall were brilliant. We even made some links with industry people so the future is looking bright for Reynard City! Professionally, it was a really successful day :D I loved it!
Below the cut is lots of photos of Con wonderfulness.

This is a pic of Will who runs Reynard City:

See the half empty desk? That's cos we sold lots of stuff. :D
Here are other photos of the stand:

Personally, the highlight of the day for me was seeing a Ted Kord Blue Beetle and a Red Robin cosplayer! I think I made their days (well Ted's anyhow, Robin was a bit grumpy) as no one else recognised them. Pictures below:

The costumes were made by Superman, the masks by Batman and Batman was true to character and cranky. He didn't appreciate being told this....

Batman and Spider-Man had a fight and Bats won.. wevs..
Then there were the fan costumes:

I am definitely gonna be going back next year, if Rob will let me help out again I'm do the stall, if not, I'll go as a fan. :D If you're in the East of England or London way, you should come along and say hi!

New Eschergirls tumblr!

2011-09-20T12:00:00.000+01:00

The wonderful Ami Angelwings has started a tumblr, titled Eschergirls, showcasing crap comic art. Actually the tagline is: 'Float like a butterfly, sting like a WTF!? This is a blog for female characters in impossible or ridiculous poses because the artsist need to show teh sexy'

It's highly amusing. Here are some fetaured pictures, but bear in mind that as with most tumblrs the brilliance is in the commentary:

Go check it out!

Bristol's Deaf Community feel under seige

2011-09-19T12:48:00.000+01:00

Cross-posted in it's entirety from this article at The Guardian.

Last week, it was announced that Bristol Deaf Centre, which celebrated 125 years of serving the local deaf community just two years ago, will lose £240,000 worth of funding from Bristol city council. This money paid for their core funding, equipment service and special projects. As a result, the centre is faced with closure, with many staff who have worked there for years served with notices of redundancy.
This comes on the back of the University of Bristol's decision a year ago (despite a campaign that gained international support) to cut a key course at the Centre for Deaf Studies. This year, the student intake for the deaf studies BSc course has stopped and as a consequence, by 2013, the number of deaf studies staff – many of whom are deeply skilled, with years of experience in their field, themselves deaf – is set to be cut by more than 75%. This is a groundbreaking, world-renowned research centre that was the first in the UK to undertake sign language research over 30 years ago.

These two cuts to deaf hubs in the city look like being just the start. In December, the future of Bristol's specialist school for deaf children, Elmfield Deaf School, was placed in doubt after Bristol city council launched an informal consultation about whether its pupils could instead attend units in mainstream schools. Crucially, due to many specialist deaf schools closing across the country, the school also serves many children from far outside the city itself. Elmfield has taken new pupils for this year's intake but its future remains in the balance as staff and pupils await a new council review.

Perhaps just one of these decisions to cut or try and cut, particularly in the current climate, wouldn't seem like the end of the world. But when this all happens in one place, you see how a community can feel under siege, with the very psychological and physical landscape of a city for the deaf people who live there seemingly set to irrevocably change. Jobs are about to be lost, or are in the balance. Deaf and hearing people who currently work together in the deaf community wonder whether it's time to move away, or change careers – if they can. Meanwhile, children wonder whether the environment in which they are educated will completely change, just as older deaf people see a place they have known all their lives, received services from and often contributed to, on the edge of extinction.
We're only just beginning to understand how cuts are affecting deaf services nationwide, most starkly in this online map from the National Deaf Children's Society (NDCS) showing local authority cuts to education services for deaf children. But never before have we seen so many cuts bite in one place, and so quickly.
Bristol's run of cuts and attempted cuts could be an anomaly, a freak series of decisions that happened to land in the same place at the same time. But there's fear now within the deaf world that it may instead be just be the start. Deafness at its heart affects communication. Are cuts to deaf services seen as an easier cut, when they hit people who use sign language or lipread to communicate, and, as a consequence, may be perceived as being less likely to be able to articulate their concerns to the media and the wider world? As we see services, jobs, places and institutions come under threat and disappear, very few deaf people both in Bristol and elsewhere can now hope to escape the impact of the cuts unscathed.

Forgot to say...

2011-09-09T21:03:00.001+01:00

I'm gonna be at Norcon - Norwich's Sci-Fi Convention - on Sunday. I'm helping out on the Reynard City stall and I'm quite excited about it. The cast of Red Dwarf will be there, along with Daleks, Sophie Aldred (Ace from Dr Who), Davros, lots of Dr Who folk and Barry Kitson. Mr Kitson did the pencils for JLA Year One, so I'm pretty darn excited about him being there. Gonna get my trade signed and nerd out a bit. I will possibly get a sketch done too - I think a Black Canary/Black Cat piece would be rather good. Or possibly an Aquaman/Canary piece, to honour Aquaman's new series. I dunno yet.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to it. The fella who runs Reynard City is lovely and quite possibly the most dedicated person I've ever met. It's a fun universe that he's created and of all the creative people I've met, he's the only one who I think will actually go somewhere with his product.

Not around much

2011-09-08T21:00:00.000+01:00

Blogging is likely to come to a complete slowdown over the next few months. I've started my BSL level 3 course in London, with Remark!, I've attended one weekend so far and have a few more to go. It was great, really great, but I've got a lot of work to do inbetween classes. So, I have set up a youtube channel, and I intend to upload videos of myself signing, dunno what about yet, I suspect comics will come into it somewhere. Hopefully this will give me the confidence to sign in front of a camera and also provide me with a way to self evaluate and improve my skills.

Anyway, for the next few months or so I reckon I'll be concentrating on that and New readers... more than on Pai. If you're interested in the channel, or if you know BSL and would like to leave me comments, the channel is here. I think that's the right link - the channel is called sarangabsl.

I've read Justice League #1, and loved it, my review is on New readers.... I have yet to read the other number ones as I haven't picked them up yet. Will do so Friday or Saturday.

What does everyone else think of the new DCnU titles? What are the good ones what are the bad ones? Leave reccs and warnings in the comments please!

Oh, and I'm particularly keen on comixology! I downloaded JL from it before getting my hardcopy and it's easy to use and cheap. Awesomesauce.

You def won;t hear from me over the next week though, as I'll be on holdiay in France :D

@AbortionSupport Network August Bulletin

2011-09-06T17:27:00.000+01:00

It's ASN's August bulletin. As usual, copied and pasted from my email. Unusally, I ahve a efw words to say about them and this bulletin.

In particular they are looking for someone who knows Gift Aid and can help them understand the process, and of course, more donations! At the time of writing they only have £400 in their coffers, which is only enough to help one woman. Please, please PLEASE consider donating to them, a one off payment or a standing order.

If you don’t know why you should support them please read the sections titled ‘Women we’ve helped’ and ‘A woman we couldn’t help’.

I donate to ASN because I believe that every woman should have autonomy over their own body, because I do not believe that foetuses are sentient and because if we reduce the opportunity and availability for legal abortions backstreet abortions will take place. These back street abortions will not be regulated, could be dangerous to the health of the women and could be botched.

Please support ASN.

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Welcome to your ASN eBulletin. We’re counting down to our second anniversary, and hope you all plan to attend our birthday party on Wednesday 26 October. We are currently in desperate need of funds as the more and women contact us for help. What better time than our birthday to make a gift to ASN – or ask your friends to? Read on!

• Happy almost birthday, ASN!
• All we want for our birthday is . . .
• £1000 campaign
• Gift Aid
• Women we’ve helped
• Thank you!

Happy almost birthday, ASN!
ASN is incredibly happy – and proud – to be turning 2. We couldn’t have made it without you, our wonderful supporters. We are busily putting the finishing touches on our second annual report, looking at all of our accomplishments, and planning for the future. We’re on track to TRIPLE the number of women ASN has helped this year compared to last. This growth has come with its share of challenges, but it has been incredibly rewarding to have helped more than 200 women who have contacted ASN since we opened.

We hope to see you all at our 2nd Birthday party, Wed 26 October from 7.00-10.00 pm (at Navya’s, 61 Swinton Street, Kings Cross, London, WC1X 9NT). An official invite will follow later this month.

All ASN wants for our birthday is . . .
Right now, we have just under £400 in our coffers. This is just over the cost of ONE abortion under 14 weeks, and not enough to cover abortions at later gestations. While we are expecting another £300 this month in standing orders, September is generally a very busy time at abortion clinics as some female students make the decision to carry on with their studies (instead of their pregnancies) and women with children facing crisis pregnancies are only able to make the trip to the clinic now that their children are in school in the day.

We’d like to use our birthday to request donations. As it’s our second birthday, we’d like to ask you to do any – or in keeping with the theme, any two – of the following:
- Increase your existing Standing Order by £2 a month
- Double your donation (2 X what you give every month or have given in the past)
- Set up a monthly Standing Order in a multiple of two - £2, £4, £8, etc
- Make a “2” themed donation – £2, £12, £22, £200, £222, £2,000
- Get 2 friends to set up a Standing Order

If you make a Standing Order or Direct Debit, please email ASN to let us know, so that we can track, acknowledge, and claim Gift Aid on your gift.

Other ways to give a birthday gift to ASN are:
- Tell 2 friends about ASN
- Get 2 friends to sign up for our mailing list
- Bring 2 friends to our birthday party!
- Promote ASN through #Fan Friday on Facebook or #Follow Friday on Twitter!

£1000 campaign
Last year, we announced a campaign to raise £1000 a month in regular income (Standing Orders) over the course of the year. We need just over £300 more a month to reach our goal! That’s just 30 people making a commitment of £10 per month to help a woman access a safe and legal abortion, or 60 people making a commitment of £5 per month. Or you can help of course by increasing your existing regular donation! Standing Orders help us to know how many women we can help each month.To set up a Standing Order you can complete this form and pass it on to your bank. Many banks also allow you to set up a Standing Order online if you use internet banking.

GIFT AID
Now that ASN is a charity (woo-hoo!) we are looking into how we can best claim gift aid – which means that if you are a UK tax payer we can claim tax on your donation making it worth an extra 25%. Please help us do this by:

- Filling out the gift aid form, attached and (NOTE: Email ASN if you need a gift aid form)
- Letting us know by email that you have made a donation via Direct Debit or Standing Order. As banks do not provide us with this information, emailing ASN is the only way for us to acknowledge, track, and claim gift aid on your donations! This holds true for donors both future and past -- if you have made a donation in the past but have not received acknowledgement, please let us know.

Do you know Gift Aid?
We are seeking someone with knowledge of the Gift Aid scheme to help ASN get set up. If this is you, and you have a few hours to spare, please get in touch.

The calls keep coming in
In August, ASN heard from 25 women. Last August, we heard from 6. We are immensely grateful for our donors who enable us to help women, the phone coordinators (Katie, Maddie, Sarah, Jane and Mara) who help these women navigate their way to a safe and legal abortion, to Women on Web for the amazing services they provide, and to the clinics we work with for making it all possible.

Women we helped this month included:
A woman who was literally £20 away from being able to have the funds to travel and pay for her abortion. Can you imagine £20 being the difference between an abortion and having to continue an unwanted pregnancy? Of course ASN was able to help!
A young woman who ran away to a friend’s house to escape her partner who was physically and mentally abusive and using drugs. She was desperately afraid that her family would find her and force her to continue with the pregnancy. ASN was able to help her cover the costs of her flights and procedure.

A lone parent with a young daughter. In addition to needing financial assistance, she also needed an expedited procedure as her passport was due to run out in a matter of days.
A young student who lives with her mother. Her mother, who supports the family on benefits, was refused a crisis loan from the bank. With the help of a discount from the clinic, ASN was able to help.

A married, unemployed couple unable to afford any more children.

A mother of four whose partner has just found work after more than a year of unemployment.

A young mother whose partner recently died tragically. She is living on benefits with no credit card, savings or internet access.

A woman who has been living in a hostel paid for by the housing agency since her partner left her and their children. She has no family support or friends who can help her. She was able to get a crisis loan of £90 and raise enough for flights and we were able to help her with the balance of her costs.

A woman who called very distressed about getting the money together. She couldn't tell her two older children who are unemployed anyway and the father "told her where to go" when she told him and changed his phone number. She was unable to receive a loan and tried but failed to borrow from family and friends.

A Woman We Couldn’t Help
At the end of July, we heard from a woman who only discovered that she was pregnant at 20 weeks. After trying to raise money for flights and travel in every way possible, she found out about ASN. A few phone calls and days later, we were able to arrange for a reduction in the cost of the procedure, a grant, and a host for two nights in London. Unfortunately, when she was scanned at the clinic, she was ONE DAY past the legal limit. Our hearts break for this woman – who, if she’d had the financial means to travel and book immediately, would not now have to continue an unwanted pregnancy.

ASN thanks these women and men for sharing their stories with us, and for permitting us to share them with you. We also thank the clinics, counsellors and other groups who ensure that these women receive the care they need.

Thank you!
ASN is funded almost entirely by the generous donations of individual supporters – like you! Without ASN, women would be left with no other financial and practical support towards covering the costs of their procedures and their journeys. Donations to ASN are vitally important to the lives of women faced with unplanned pregnancies.

We are entirely volunteer-run, and our small overhead costs are covered by a regular donation. This means that any money you donate goes directly towards the cost of a woman’s abortion or transport to England.

Due to your support, we have never turned down a woman who could not access an abortion without our financial assistance. (And we’re hoping our 2nd Birthday request will mean that we never have to!)

Thank you again for all your support. Without you, we wouldn’t have been able to provide accommodation, financial assistance, and confidential, non-judgemental information to the women in difficult circumstances who have contacted us.

With best regards

Abortion Support Network
+44 (0) 7897 611 593
info@abortionsupport.org.uk
http://www.abortionsupport.org.uk/
Charity Number 1142120

Abortion Support Network (ASN) is an all-volunteer charity that provides accommodation, financial assistance and confidential, non-judgemental information to women forced to travel from Ireland and pay privately for abortions in England. The cost ranges between £400 and £2000 depending on circumstance and stage of pregnancy. While other organisations campaign for law reform, ASN is the only group on record providing women travelling for abortions with the thing they need the most: money.
ASN is now a charity! Registered Charity Number 1142120

Gross sexism comes to Outline

2011-09-01T23:38:00.001+01:00

Outline is a local, free magazine for my city, Norwich. Cover here:

It gives info on the club nights, the gigs, and up and coming fun events in the city. It’s considered a bit alternative.

It has a jokes page, with stuff that’s a bit of a laugh, right? Anyway August’s jokes were just chock full of misogyny:

Urg.

This is rape culture and this is the stuff that distresses me about modern life. This is why I fill my blog roll and my twitter follows with people I trust who don’t perpetuate this shit or instead call it out, because otherwise the world’s just too damn depressing.

Thank you John Stewart.

EDIT - It looks like they have a facebook page and a twitter account.

Wonder Woman Wednesday

2011-08-31T12:00:00.002+01:00

To celebrate the new DC Universe, launching today. This is Cliff Chiang's cover to Wonder Woman #1. or will it be? Will she have the trousers or not? I hope she has the trousers. She looks fierce here, I'm really looking forward to this title.

A question about menstrual cycles

2011-08-30T22:05:00.002+01:00

(accidentally posted this on new readers.. shit, sorry guys!)

Ok, this is one for the ladies. For women not on the pill, implant or hormone releasing coil, how regular are your menstrual cycles? Like, are they exactly 28 days? (or 26, or 30, or whatever). I have been led to believe that by the time women have had a period for a few years they will be unerringly regular each month.

Now me, my cycle varies between 26, 28, 30 and more days (36 days was the last one). It's not that I'm stressed, or eat badly or anything. I've never ever been regular and I'm now 31 and haven't been on the pill for seven years. Pretty much all my friends are on the pill and have an artificially imposed cycle I can't ask them, hence why I am opening this up to the general Internet.
I guess I'd like to know how normal this irregular cycle is and if I need to worry..
Anonymous comments are welcome, if you want to answer but don't want to identify yourself.

30 days of DC! Day 30

2011-08-30T12:00:00.003+01:00

Day 30: Build your dream team of five characters.
Oooh heck. Ok, this is actually quite simple given my recent Green Arrow readings. It's basically team Arrow - Green Arrow (Ollie), Black Canary, Green Arrow (Connor ), Speedy (Mia) and Arsenal. I love reading about these guys. I shall miss this in the new DC Universe. But hopefully we will get more (but different) goodness coming out of the relaunch.

Read comics in public day!

2011-08-29T14:41:00.000+01:00

It was yesterday, so as I did last year, I toddled off to my local pub's annual beer festival and got a picture of me reading a comic there. At the prompting of alexanderlyons and theyallfalldown on twitter I chose an old Robin issue with Spoiler in it - we decided to all read a Stephanie Brown book seeing as she's not gonna be Batgirl anymore. I am VERY pleased to hear that she is still gonna be in the new DCU as Spoiler though!

Anyway, I proceeded to taste a lot of beers and ended up rather drunk and playing ridiculous drinking games that were altogether (un)successful, depending on your point of view. I then came back and had a drunken twitter discussion with Ragnell about Perez's Wonder Woman. I just started reading that run, and I'm quite frankly rather pissed off about the Amazon's origin story, wherein they are raped, tortured and bound by Heracles and his army. Bah. Then they are charged to wear the bracelets forevermore as a reminder of their incarceration. Bah, I say. Apparently this run was approved by Gloria Steinem? Bah. I nearly stopped reading it after the first two issues, but I'm glad I carried on, because the rest of it is rather good.

Thankfully (as we'll be heading back to the beer festival later today) I'm not too hungover today. I think continuing to read old Robin comics definitely helped. Say, if DC were to put 'good for hangovers' on their books I'm sure they'd sell more..

There are tons of photos of folk reading comics in public on the Flickr stream and of women reading comics on the dedicated tumblr.

30 days of DC! Day 29

2011-08-29T12:00:00.004+01:00

Day 29: Favorite Not-so canonical Romance
Batman and Wonder Woman. Click through to the link. These guys are made for each other. Sod Catwoman, Steve Trevor and all the other pretenders. I want Batwondy!!

Super Silly Sunday

2011-08-28T12:00:00.004+01:00

Ok so this is a very catty entry. But with the new DC Universe looming I wanted to point out how fucking ridiculous a cape with boots, jeans and an ordinary S shield t-shirt is. Clark - get your mum to make you a new costume please. She had some sense of design.

Honestly.

30 days of DC! Day 28

2011-08-27T12:00:00.006+01:00

Day 28: Favorite Canonical Romance
Clark and Lois or Wally and Iris* Linda. I'm looking forward to reading about Clark and Lois rediscovering each other, I'm guttes that Wally and ~~Iris~~* Linda don't seem to exist. At least at the time of writing they don't. Maybe something will change over August. We can hope.

EDIT
* Linda. I mean Linda. Thanks to @mijder fon twitter and Gary in the comments or pointing that out. I think there's something wrong with my brain. I thought Linda and wrote Iris. I'm doing this a lot recently. Missing out words, replacing words with other ones, making worse than usual typos and not noticing them. Bah. Maybe it's just cos I'm busy and tired.

Links!

2011-08-26T13:29:00.001+01:00

There's lots of interesting stuff that I've seen over the last few weeks. As I don't have time to blog properly about the, you all get a list go links instead.

Never before seen levels of political bad-assery Can we follow Iceland please?

Supergirl redesigns Nuff said really. It's a Superfangirl's ideal post.

More Superman in costume pictures Henry Cavill won't be wearing the red underwear. Damn. Then again, the costume looks much better without the pants.

Batgirl and Supergirl team up in a short web comic Lovely

London 2012 Olympics seek performers any BSL signers want to put themselves forward?

Impulse number 1 An imaginary story from the DC Fifty-Too blog. It's Iris, not Bart.

Supergirl/Babsgirl #1 Also from DC Fifty -Too

Wonder Woman #1 Also from DC Fifty-Too!

The UK's best sculpture of women Beautiful.

I hope you're all well. Enjoy the Bank Holiday weekend my UK followers. Enjoy the regular weekend the rest of you. Sorry I haven't been able to respond to comments.

30 days of DC! Day 27

2011-08-26T12:00:00.000+01:00

Day 27: Favorite Origin?
Aquagirl's (Lorena's) origin is pretty good, what with all the Sub Diego thing. I just wish those stories were traded. Plus, I liked reading about her back then. I also liked reading about Dolphin, but she's dead now. :(

30 days of DC! Day 26

2011-08-25T12:00:00.001+01:00

Day 26: Least favorite DC “other media
Any Batman thing, excluding The Dark Knight Returns. I just don't like Batman.

Again, nobody should be surprised by this. Having said that, I will be buying the Nightwing title, cos although I dislike Batman, I do like his supporting cast.

Wonder Woman Wednesday

2011-08-24T12:00:00.002+01:00

Wonder Woman redesigns from Colleeen Doran:

How beautiful? My favourites are the right hand coloured one and the left and right hand pencilled ones. *Swoon*

30 days of DC! Days 25

2011-08-23T12:00:00.006+01:00

I'm having to slow these down now, or i'll run out of posts and have to think of something new (oh noes...!!)

Day 25: Favorite DC “other media” (movie, cartoon, etc).
SMALLVILLE!!

Really, is anybody remotely surprised by this? I love Smallville. Even the crappy episodes.

30 days of DC! Days 23 and 24

2011-08-22T12:00:00.019+01:00

Day 23: Favorite Costume
Jay Garrick's. Classy, practical, down to earth, no fuss, no frills, just like Jay.

I am part of the way to creating a Jay Garrick costume, I just need to get the motivation to make the hat. Or fond someone else to make me one.

Day 24: Least Favorite Costume
Wonder Woman's fucking stupid shorts and cropped jacket look. How 90s. How horrible. How completely inappropriate for the character. It's the costume on the far right.

I supppose I could also add her Star sapphire costume, except that Nicola Scott made it look ok:

~~This is how everyone else drew Wondy's Star sapphire costume:~~ Actually that's Carol Ferris. Still a fucking awful costume but doesn't really help my point. See the comments for a link to Wondy's actual Star Sapphire costume.

*gag*

Super Silly Sunday

2011-08-21T12:00:00.002+01:00

Adventures of Superman 638 went a little odd and gave us a few spoofs of various other well known comics. Check them out:

The top one is a Frank Miller - Sin City piss take (lethal little Dinah - ha!). The second is Calvin and Hobbes and I don't recognise the third, but I did enjoy it!

30 days of DC! Days 20 to 22

2011-08-20T12:00:00.006+01:00

Day 20: DC Storyline/Book you could read over and over again?
Supergirl - Many Happy Returns. Wonder Woman: Eyes of the Gorgon. Judd Winick's entire Green Arrow run. Supergirl Cosmic Adventures in the 8th grade.

Day 21: Favorite DCU Event?
Blackest Night! Zombie zombie zombie zombie zombie! Flashpoint isn't doing a whole lot for me.

Day 22: Guilty pleasure character?
I don't have guilty pleasures. I either like characters or I dont. I've never understood these guilty pleasures questions. Why be embaressed about something you like and take pleasure from?

30 days of DC! Days 16 to 19

2011-08-19T12:00:00.004+01:00

Day 16: Favorite lantern corps?
Indigo Tribe or the Blue Lantern Corps. But much like the least favourite female character question, I don't really have a favourite Lantern Corps. They work together as a concept, and individual characters I like, but as for the Corps themselves, well, I enjoy them all.

Day 17: Favorite legacy hero (Hero that took on a previous hero’s ID)
Iris Allen. Now can we see more of her please?
(EDIT - I first wrote this months ago, in January 201, writing now (August 2011), I'd like to ask that she exist at all)

Day 18: Best Butt?
Did SallyP write this? What the hey, let's say Guy Gardener.

Day 19: Character you used to hate/dislike, but now you don’t?
Cassandra Cain. She's more interesting than I gave her credit for. Now I'm really very keen on her.

30 days of DC! Days 12 to 15

2011-08-18T12:00:00.010+01:00

Day 12: DC Location You’d Most Like to Visit?
Metropolis. Get me in with thoise Super folks, please!

Day 13: Favorite artist(s)
Amanda Connor, Bernard Chang, Amy Reeder, Renato Guedes, Cliff Chiang, Ben Caldwell, Ale Gara, Nicola Scott, Ed McGuinnes, Eric Jones.

Day 14: Favorite writer(s)
Greg Rucka on his Wonder Woman run. Judd Winick on his Green Arow run. Landry Walker on Supergirl Cosmic Adventures. Those are (today) probably my favourite comics of all time. Land

Day 15: Character that should have their own movie
Wonder Woman. Hell, at least Supergirl got her own movie once, even if it was critically derided.

Wonder Woman Wednesday

2011-08-17T12:00:00.000+01:00

This came out of SDCC and is a drawing by Jill Thompson. Beautiful.

30 days of DC! Days 8 to 11

2011-08-16T12:00:00.006+01:00

Day 8: Least favorite female character
You know, I don't think there's any female characters that I hate or dislike. Some I think are pointless, like Mera's sister Siren, but I expect that's because they've not been written right, or were introduced in a manner I disliked. So, I can't really pick a least favourite. I enjoy reading about all of Dc's women.

Day 9: Least favorite male character
Captain Shinypants. Or captain Atom if you insist. He's shit and he's boring.

Day 10: Most cracktastic moment
I'm the goddamn Batman.

Or that scene in Many Happy Returns where Kara is trying to push the earth away from an oncoming meteorite. I don't have a scan to hand but it makes me laugh every time.

Day 11: Favorite Elseworlds/Multiverse?
Ooh blimey. The gender swapped universe is of course fun. I've enjoyed a lot of the Elseworlds stories but I'm not sure I'd enjoy the actual world. Regular earth 1 is fine with me.

30 days of DC! Days 4 to 7

2011-08-15T12:00:00.002+01:00

Day 4: Character you would bring back from the dead
Kid Devil! Without a doubt. Or Boomerang junior.

Day 5: Favorite rogues gallery
The Flash's rogues. They seem far more human and well rounded than most. They aren't all about the unthingking smashing of their enemies, they have thought and consideration behind them. Plus, they have tight relationship/friendship with each other. It makes for a very interesting read.

Day 6: Power or Ability You’d Like to Steal
Flight. Without a doubt.

Day 7: Favorite Team/Corps/Family
The Super family. That's including Lois, Jimmy, Perry, Cat Grant, Lana, Pete, the dog, the extra Kryptonians. Bring it on.

Super Silly Sunday

2011-08-14T12:00:00.000+01:00

Cheap shot I know. Still, it made me giggle.

30 days of DC! Days 1 to 3

2011-08-13T12:00:00.000+01:00

Yes yes, I know this meme went round last year, but i'm incredibly late to the party. I started writing it in January, left it until August, and now I've decided that what with the DC relaunch it might be nice to post it over August, as a sort of farewell to the old DC. Just don't expect any commmentary, it's mostly short answers. I'll be posting several days in each post, to make sure it's all done by 31st August, before JLA #1 launches the new DC Universe.

Here goes:

Day 1: Favorite Female Character
My favourite icon is Supergirl. My favourite character swings between Dinah Lance, Rose Wilson, Mia Dearden or Wonder Woman. I love reading about Dinah, but I admire Rose and Wondy more. I respect Mia as a character.

Day 2: Favorite Male Character
Oh gods. Ok, Aquaman is definitely up there in the top 3. Superman, well it's Supes, of course he's one of my favourites. Oliver Queen is also in the top 3. Sure he can be a jerk, but I have soft spot for him. Then there's Guy Gardner, who would be top, but he's not brain damaged any more. I liked the anti hero jerk Guy.

Day 3: Favorite Friendship
Oh crap, this is hard. Connor, Bart and Tim I love. Kara and Steph are fun. Steph and Cass are better. The Birds of Prey's friendships are wonderful to read about. I also love Wonder Woman's and Superman's friendship. Or Ted and Booster.

New Oliver Queen

2011-08-12T12:00:00.000+01:00

Urgh. The costume is fine. The change in facial hair, hair colour and the de-aging is not fine. I like Oliver as a cocky, grumpy, fun loving, promiscious dick, committed ot social justice and aged about 40. I'm not entirely sure I want to read about a de-aged trendy Oliver.

I'll buy the first few issues anyway. Hopefully they'll surprise me.