The ayes have it

Well, technically Amanda Connor has it, but 'The AC's have it' sounds terribly wrong.

I'm talking about my Supergirl artist poll, of course.  18 of you voted (Thanks all!) and the overriding winner was Amanda Connor with 12 votes, woo hoo!

Amy Reeder got 3
Ed McGuinness,Ale Garza, Nicoal Scott and Francis Manapul got 2
There was one vote for Other

It appears none of my readers were interested in Eric Jones (for shame!), Ben Caldwell (probably not right for Sterling Gates stories), Patrick Gleason (I'm only interested in him with a new colourist) or Guillem March (Probably not right unless you want a cheesecake Kara).

Other suggestions put forward were:
Renato Guedes

Can't quite believe I forgot him.  I love Guedes for giving Kara knees, but I think sometimes his work suffers for being coloured to lightly - he (and Kara) needs strong bold, colours.  the above picture is bold, but a lot of his work wasn't.

Other suggestions put forward were for:

Cliff Chiang (yeah he could work)
Ian Churchill (Dear gods please no anything but him again)
David Finch (I'm not too familiar with him)
Ivan Reis (A GL artist. I'm unconvinced)
Ethan Van Sciver (I didn't like the colours on his Flash Rebirth book, so change the colourist and I could be more convinced)
Marcus To (He certainly does a lovely Robin)
Tony Daniel (He's ok)
Shane Davis (I don't know his stuff)
Gary Frank (His Christopher Reeve Superman scares me)
Ed benes  (Nooooooooooooooooo!)
Philip Tan (Another GL artist, maybe he could work)
Brian Bollard (As for Shane Davis)
Alex Gardner (Who?)
Matt Camp  (He's responsible for those awesome Supergirl covers a while back)

Out of all suggestions, I want Amy Reeder or Matt Camp on board.

Thanks to all who voted and commented, on here or on twitter, and thanks to those who promoted the poll!

New poll - Artists for Supergirl

So y'all may have heard the rumours that Jamal Igle might possibly be leaving the Supergirl book and going to Birds of Prey.  I have no idea if it's true, I sincerely hope it's not, and the only good thing about it will be that it means I'll pick up BoP. 
Apparently it is true.  (19.09.2010 - change of news again.  Igle was never offically attached to BoP.)
I am very sad.  I shall be adding BoP to my pull list tho.
Anyway, whether it's true or not it got me to thinking about who else could do Supergirl well, as written by Sterling Gates. I think it's important to specify who the writer will be because the art must match the dialogue and feel of the story.

So, there's a poll over there on the right, with several artists that I particularly like.  Go ahead and vote.  But before you do, let's recap on each one's work...

EDITED TO ADD Eric Jones and Amy Reeder.  Doh, how could I forget them?  I've now changed the poll.

Landry Q Walker reminded me of Eric Jones, who did Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade and did a bloody marvellous Kara.  I think she may be a little young for regular continuity but I'd be interested to see how he draws a more adult Kara:

Amy Reeder.  Simply delightful.  I have a lot of time for her Supergirl, so thank god we have her on covers now:

Ed McGuinness

As you can see he's already drawn a ton of Supergirls in Superman/Batman.  He's got good expressions whilst maintaining a cartoony appearance.

Amanda Connor, you all know her from Wednesday comics:

Ale Garza - I think his Kara is adorable, here's the cover he's done for Superman/Batman 77.

Nicola Scott
Probably one of my favourite artists at the moment.  Her female characters have a lot of strength and poise, something which I think would go well with Gates' writing of Kara.

Ben Caldwell
Another Wednesday comics nominee.  I think a Supergirl story drawn by him would be very mysterious and wouldn't work if it was rooted in everyday life, like Gates has been writing Kara.  If however she decided to rejoin the Amazons, Caldwell would do lovely.

Patrick Gleason
Gleason is probably best known for his work on Green Lantern.  I like his pencils but not the way they tend to get coloured.

Guillem March

He's recently did Gotham City Sirens.  Now I like his art in that book, but I think it may be too sexy for Supergirl.  I think she needs to be portrayed as a teenager and March would make her look like jailbait, or make her look adult.

Francis Manapul
He's doing the Flash comics right now and he has done Superboy in Adventure Comics before.  He has a very dreamlike style.

Other - leave a comment somewhere and tell me who you want to draw Kara.


I haven't included Jamal Igle because I think it's fair to say that given the choice we'd never let him leave the book.  I've also only included artists who currently work.

Go vote!

Poll results!

Well that was interesting.  For my poll on space travel 2 of you said you wouldn't want to go.
The question was:

Space travel - do you think in the next 70 yrs we'll have:

The full results were:
Cheap travel but I don't want to use it - 0
Cheap travel and I'll be first in line - 4
No cheap travel and I wouldn't want to go anyway - 2
No cheap travel but I'd go if I could - 4
Bugger cheap travel, I'm going with the Russians - 1

Wow, someone's rich!  Would you like to take me with you?

Those of you who wouldn't want to go, would you care to leave your reasons why? You can do so anonymously if you wish.

Thanks for participating everyone!

Living with Cannibals and other women's adventures

Let us usher in the new year with some excitement shall we?  2009 has been pretty dire so lets hope that 2010 is better.  Onwards..

As I write this I am sitting in my living room on Boxing Day, filled with overwhelming yearning for the day when people will make regular space flights, a day when space travel is open to all, in a similar way to bus transport is now open to all.*

Why do I feel like this?  Well, I've just his afternoon read Living with Cannibals (an unfortunate title).  It's a collection of 16 short pieces on women travellers experiences, lives and achievements since 1797.  The particular piece that so interested me was the retrospective on Shannon Lucid's career.  She went to space for 188 days in 1996.

I cannot ever decide if the idea of space travels exhilirates or terrifies me.  I would love to experience zero gravity conditions but sometimes when I look up at the stars I'm crushed and awed by the, well, bigness, of it all.  That's crushed and awed in an 'I'm terrified' sort of way.  But, the sci-fi fan in me thrills at the thought os space travel.  Who wouldn't?

Will we get regular cheap tourist flights in my lifetime?  I'm 29 and imagine being an old lady, ina rocking chair, on the porch (it's a very American image, British houses don't have porches in the same way), looking at  the sky and seeing the shuttles lift off, taking travellers to far flung destinations.

It's a very romantic image.  I'd be too old to travel, of course.  With all this in mind, I put up a poll on 28th December.  If you haven't already voted, go do so.

*Open to all those who don't live in the rural English countryside and expect more than 2 buses a day that is.  I am well aware of this country's public transport problems.

Christmas time and meme time

This Christmas, I have: cooked three heavy dinners, cleared the kitchen three times, received a lot of woollen clothes, read one and a half books since boxing day (Ben Goldacre's Bad Science is highly recommended), watched the Incredibles, worked my way through more of Evil Inc. and been tagged in an end of the decade meme.  The meme goes thusly:

Created by Ami Angelwings the idea is to: "come up with 3 categories and who you think wins that category! Be creative!"
Categories can be anything, serious like political event of the decade or ridiciulous like worst hair of a world leader, weirdest food trend... etc etc)

And then you tag 3-5 other ppl, who then come up with 3 categories.. and so on.  The main part is to be creative!

Here goes my thoughts:
Tea of the decade:  Rooibosh, or redbush.  Best. Tea. Ever.  If I run out I go into withdrawal.  Sooo goood.

Useful appliance of the decade:  Tweezers.  Without them I'd be going stir crazy.  It turns out that women aren't as naturally hair free as you'd imagine.

Personal discovery of the decade: Learning how varied work can be, and that gosh darn heck, I can actually be good at it.  The thought of the work place when I was 19 was terrifying - the few temp jobs I'd had back then didn't go great and I reckon it's just in the last few years that I've found my feet, my confidence and have realised that I'm capable.


Well, that was an uncreative and me-centric list.  I tag and challenge the following people to come up with more creative stuff:

James Ashelford
wiec?
Cerebus660
SallyP
Red

And I've put up a new poll, inspired by a book I read on Boxing Day, more info will be posted in a few days.  Meanwhile you've got till the 7th January to cast your vote.

Poll results!

8 votes received and thanks to all who took part!
The question was Which team should Supergirl join? and the results were:
1 for the Teen Titans
1 for the JSA
3 for the Birds of Prey
3 for her to stay solo

I think the Teen Titans are the obvious choice for her, and I would love to see Kara interact with Bombshell and Aquagirl.  Bombshell doesn't take kindly to anyone much, and I think she'd view Kara as a peppy cheerleader type and hate her on sight.  Plus Kara and Cassie are friends so that would probably set them apart before they'd even met.
As for Aquagirl, I just don't think she'd like Kara.  I think she'd view her as immature, inexperienced and a liability for the team.  We all know that Kara has moved on a lot since her stroppy days, but I don't think Aquagirl would acknowledge her newfoudn (semi) maturity, at least not at first.

I don't read the JSA, but I'm guessing that the person voting for this team was going for the mentoring young heroes aspects of it.  If I'm wrong, tell me in the comments.  I'm not convinced this is the right team for Kara, but as I said I don't read the title.  I wonder how Kara gets on with Power Girl now?  I reckon if Kara met Terra Kara would be very surprised by Terra's naeivty and would gently tease her and wind her up.  Peej probably wouldn't approve of this.


As for the BoP choice, well Kara would be ace in the Birds of Prey!  With Babs leading, Dinah as second in command, Helena, Zinda, Misfit, Steph and Kara all working together, we'd be for a fabulous book.  If anyone important at DC is reading this, (which I highly doubt, but if you are, Hi! Stay awhile!), please reform the Birds and put Kara in with them....pretty please.

As for the none choice, you're all spoilsports :p  Seriously, I think Kara would be good on a team.  She'd be fun to write and interact with.

I'm glad no one said JLA (I'm guessing this is partly to do with the new JLA team and the Cry for Justice fiasco), and the Outsiders (bunch of boring D listers).

Kara *could* work well on the Titans - it would reflect her powerhouse status and give her more respect and status than being on the Teen Titans (young people who still have a lot to learn) team.

And compeletly off topic from this, London's Reclaim the Night march happened on Saturday and a female marcher was sexually assaulted whilst on the march.  How full of hate do you have to be to do that?  I went on last year's march and nothing like that happened, but then again it was the first march in a reaally long time.  I guess this time around more foks were prepared for it.

In betetr news, you can view pictures of the march and a short write up here.

Wow! I don't think I've ever OMG'ed so much over one book

It's review time.  Spoilers ahead for Green Lantern Corps #42, Booster Gold #26, Action Comics #883, Titans #19, Red Robin #6 and Green Arrow/Black Canary #26.
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Green Lantern Corps #42
Oh my starry nights.  I did not expect that.  Pretty much like everyone else I was somewhat stunned.  I then decided to re-read the GLC Blackest Night issues and now the whole thing makes a lot more sense.  GLC is not an ideal book to just pick up and dive into.  But back to #42..
All the threads from issues 39 to 41 have now converged with horrific results.  Dead children attacking the Corps!  Indigo Lantern Munk joining the Green Lanterns to fiht off the dead!  I particularly like that the Indigo Corps are not sappy and friendly to everyone.  They may be the colour of compassion but they have a solid core to them and are quite capable of being angry.
The panel with the children demanding 'Feed us' made me chuckle.
Poor Kilowog - he's taken the reappearence of his mentor and the death of his recruits rather badly.
Soranik's hand was stuck in dead Lantern Jade's head - Kyle blasting her out was a veyr nice bit of team work.
Then, the double page spread of the Black Lanterns descending on the Green Power Battery!  Oh my.  Oh that is a powerful image.  The cropping of the scene, with the black blocks across the top and bottom reinforces the cinematic aspect of the story, and criminy, it does work well.
The Black Lanterns form a dark construct to lift and break into the power battery..a red lantern is released and goes apeshit on the black lanterns..and this is where I got a bit lost.  Not knowing Green Lantern lore all that well I don't understand why an alpha lantern has a power battery inside them.
At any rate, this uber power battery is compromised and is set to explode..and then..oh Kyle!

What a heroic death.  My favourite kind of death.  Some wonderful panels showing the event itself - these artists are really very good - and no qualms or questions from Kyle.  He knows what he's got to do and he does it with a little knowing grin on his face.  I know he'll be back - and that doens't diminish the quality of his death.

Oh Kyle.  I may not know you very well but I am greatly saddened and shocked by your death.

Booster Gold #26
Bought for the return of (Black Lantern) Ted Kord.  I shall get next issue but this won't be put back on my pull list.  It was good readings, and it was nice to see Ted's funeral and to get an insight into Booster's feelings at the time.  I particularly liked Booster calling out the other heroes for their ill treatment of Ted, even if it was only his head.

Ted is (most) excellent as a Black Lantern.  I feel a little aggrieved that there is no Blue Beetle back up this issue though.  I could have done without the JSA All Stars preview.

I didn;t get a ring this week.  Apparently the rings don't hit the UK till next week.  Does DC think we are the ugly ginger stepchild or something?  I didn't pick up REBELS but i'm really hopeful I'll be given an orange and indigo ring next week.


Action Comics #883
I'm very glad I haven't dropped this.  What an uplifting cover.  Chris and Thara's relationship is lovely to behold.  Chris is so damn proud of Thara, well they are both equally proud of each other.  I'm enjoying seeing the little tricks they are using with their powers - Thara 'kissing' the firey being and putting out his flames with ice breath.  I'm relaly enjoying getting to know Chris an Thara.

Back at the Planet, Jimmy Olsen's sort of girlfriend goes looking for him and admits to Perry that she hasn't seen him for ages and is worried.  Am I correct in thinking that Jimmy is siupposedly dead?

This sleeper agent, Jax-Ur, is an interesting one.  I've no idea if we are supposed to know who he is but he's got my attention.

Captain Atom's backup feature was ok.

Titans #19
Bought because the cover intrigued me.  Not a bad read.  Lian is quite adorable - I'm a fan of parent-child relationships in comics.  I don't understand what happened to Lady Vic's trousers.  One page she's fighting Speedy and is clothed, the next page her trews have magically disspeared and she's wearing a thong.  Next page she's dressed again.  WTF?

The teachers at the school are rather rubbish aren't they?  Thankfully Mia arrives to save the day and pick up Lian.  Roy eventually arrives home and starts painting Lian's bedroom, as he promised at the start of the book.

All in all a nice snapshot into Arrow family life but I won't be buying this regularly.

Red Robin #6
I have a feeling that the Red Robin books will read better collected as a trade.  At the moment each issue is a bit slow going.  I am enjoying them , but I am a big Tim Drake fan.  I don't know what the more casual reader would make of this series.  I am intrigued by this Spider faction and I have a feeling that in the long run this will be an aborsbing and engrossing read.
We get some reference to continuity as we learn that the Batman: Blackest Night events took place between RR issues 5 and 6.

Green Arrow/Black Canary #26
Well, that was an odd setup. The back up section came first and we get about 5 pages of Oliver daydreaming he's meeting himself back on the island he was shipwrecked on, then a prompt stating ' Not the end! Turn the page for what goes down next!'
You know, after just 5 or 6 pages of a book that's clearly at least 22 pages long, I hadn't thought I'd got to the end.
The art in this first section is great, with the parts on the island being the best.  The colours really work well in these panels, and really complement the scratchy feel of the pencils.

Back to the main section and the art has changed, but still works.  This time I see it's Renato Guedes doing the pencils, with Jose Wilson Magalhaes.  That would explain why I like it so much!  Guedes is a great penciller.  His gives his characters builds and faces, you can see their personality in their bodies.  He draws Mia very aquiline.  My only complaint is Dinah's costume is unzipped to below her breasts.  Shame on you Guedes.  You did so well at making Supergirl look like a normal humanoid being, without sexualising her, I cannot see why you are involved with this.  On the plus side, her costume does at least cover her arse.

The story itself is fine.  Everyman is somehow back from the dead and he thinks he's Olliver Queen.  Dinah knew, without needing a test, which one is her real husband, which is as it should be.  I'm sure we'll find out in time how Everyman survived Bat's exhaustive autopsy.

DC's editorial said that there would be a Super addition to the Teen Titans.  As much as I expect it will be Superboy I've used it as an excuse to set up a poll (on the right, below the about me box).  Which team do you reckon Kara should join?

Currently listening to: Patti Smith - Gone Again and Morcheeba - Big Calm