I have a new series of posts coming up

So I've started a new set of posts about something which is very difficult for me to write about.  I think it's important for me to write about, for me, and for others in the same situation as me.  But oh my gosh hitting the publish button is going to be terrifying.  These posts will probably go up later today.  Unless I get the fear.  I know I need to publish them, but. well, you'll see, and the you'll probably understand.  If you don't understand you have no empathy and I'm not interested in talking to you.

Photo-an-hour day

Every so often on twitter I see photographic challenges.  I suspect these are designed around the idea of getting nice shots, showing off your photographer, and I suppose improving your photography.  However I just like taking pictures of things, and recording my life, and jumping on bandwagons so when I decided to do it the pictures were obviously pretty bad, but since I did decide to do it I'm going to do a blog about them.  Lucky you!

I did this last Saturday.  I think I was spurred on by the idea that I'd be in all day and so would have my camera to hand.  I got up late, about 11am, and realised this meant I'd have less hours to forget to take the photos, which seemed like a good idea.

So. My first photo. Breakfast at 11.40am:

Or rather half a breakfast. I have no idea what was on the plate.  Possibly a cookie.  More likely toast with jam.  In the bowl is thick porridge with sultanas.  Getting up late means I'm much hungrier than when I get up at 7 or 8am for work, which is why I had the porridge and unidentifiable but eaten plate of stuff.  Usually I just have porridge.  The pills are a combination of vitamin pills and an antihistamine for a shitty dust mite allergy I developed about 8 years ago.

Second photo.  Our fully stocked fridge, 12.40pm:

We do 90% of our weekly food shop at the market and we get our vegetables from the organic veg stall.  It's more expensive than non organic stuff, but it's better for you.  I like shopping from the same people each week and I like now knowing what you can get.  We just buy whatever they've got and then I think about what to make with it.  This sometimes means we have a mix of assorted veg which don't really go, but we usually manage to use it all up.
The brussell sprouts got turned into bubble and squeak (brussells, cabbage, garlic, onion, butter to fry, bacon and potatoes, it was delicious).
The mushrooms eventually got used in a vegetarian bean chili.
The fennel, cucumber and celery get turned into a salad for my lunch (add balsamic vinegar and pepper, have with cheese and crackers or add to brown rice).
The red peppers can get put into a tomato and pepper sauce for pasta (always add sun dried tomatoes) or can go into the chili mentioned above.

Third photo.  Tea, 1.54 pm:

I had to work on Saturday and I think this tea was me reconciling myself to it and gearing up to make it happen.  My mug is wonderful.  You could almost say super.  Boom tish.  Sorry.

Fourth photo.  The en-warmening. 14.42pm:

I'm not very good at remembering to take photos on the hour. Oops.
OK, so this photo is all about the stuff that makes me warm.  I loathe winter.  I hate the cold and I'm too tight to turn our house into a sauna, so I wrap up from October to March.  In this picture is:

• My amazing fire coloured fleece/knitted jumper
• My ombre/dark fire fleece/knitted mittens, which are perfect for winter and keep me going.
• My slippers, a couple of years old now but warm and fluffy.
• The blanket we bought in Derbyshire over Christmas which quite often goes across my legs.

Fifth photo. Leisure activities, 15.58pm:

I'd been working for a couple of hours by this point but my boyfriend was having a much better Saturday.  He was making marmalade - that orange mess in the pan - and watching the birds.  You can probably just see the bird feeder through the windows.  1 minute before I took this photo the feeder was covered in blue tits, great tits, blackbirds and long tailed tits.
The blackbirds have worked out how to sit on the seed holder and get the food out, and they can eat 70% of the food in a day.

Sixth photo.  The work station.  16.48pm:

The book isn't part of the work.  That's the boyfriend's.  It's a collection of Edgar Allen Poe stories, non fiction and poetry and is apparently quite dire.  I appear to have switched mugs by this point, to a British Sea Power (a band) bee gone mug.  The pepper mill was there since my mid afternoon lunch, which started off as heinz chicken noodle soup.  I soon realised that was pretty rank, threw it out, and had noodles, frozen beans and cheese instead.  With pepper.

Seventh photo. Computing data, 17.31pm:

Twitter is what I would have liked to have been doing.  Looking up synonyms for combat is what I was actually doing.  For work.  Yes, I was still working at 5.30pm on Saturday.  It's a good thing I quite like my job.

Eighth photo.  Casual cosplay, 18.23pm:

I'd by this point finished work (hooray!) and had changed to go out for dinner. The blue top is a dress that I added the blue lantern patch to a few years ago for a Blue Lantern outfit for LSCC.  I put the green light cardigan because a) it's winter and the dress is sleeveless and I get chilly, and b) blue needs to be combined with green for hope to work.  Only DC Lantern fans are going to get that.

Ninth photo.  Starter.  7.30pm ish:

From now on times are approximate because I was too busy with dinner to tweet the photos at the time I took them.

We went to an vegetarian Indian restaurant called Namaste, which I hadn't been to for a couple of years,  It's really good.  This started is called Special Chat and it's a mixture of puri bread, potato, chick peas, bombay mix, onions, yogurt, tamarind sauce, pomegranetes and chat masala (I don't know what that is).  It's served at room temperature, which in February in England means cold.  It's nice, but I found it a bit much towards the end of the bowl.  I suspect it would be better when the weather is hot.

Tenth photo.  The main course, 8pm ish:

  

I'd been determined to get this since we'd decided on the restaurant.  It's called a dosa.  It's a massive pancake stuffed with spicy potatoes and peas, served with a runny dahl soup and a coconut chutney and it's delicious.
The thing in the background that looks like a pizza is an uttapam.  It has chillis and onions on it so really wasn't the sort of thing I liked.  It also had a dahl with it.
My boyfriend got the pav bhaji which is a vegetable curry served with rotis and was also delicious.
This restaurant is so damn good,

Eleventh photo.  The remnants of dessert.  9.30pm ish:

I forgot to take a picture of it before I ate it so here's a photo of the dessert's empty bowl.  It was ice cream with a gulab jamun (little doughnut in cardamom syrup).  I preferred the ice cream and syrup to the doughnut but it was all pretty good, and small, so you weren't overpowered by it.  There were also some nuts in it, I think.  My friend got the dish named Vegan Paradise, which is chopped up banana, cashew nuts, almonds and mango pulp.  That looked amazing.

Bonus photo: picture of the artwork on the walls.

One of the reasons this restaurant is so good is because they don't serve alcohol.  They allow you to bring your own wine and beer but you have to pay a corkage charge, which means people don't turn up and get wrecked.  The emphasis is on the food and creating dishes which suit the vegetables.

Twelfth photo.  Bedtime.  10.30pm ish:

I've been reading this book for a few weeks and it's not bad.  Some stories are fun and surprising, others are more dull.  I like reading fantasy anthologies, I find them a great way to get to know new writers.  So much of fantasy is turgid by the numbers crap I am dissuaded from just picking up a new title.  But this one is alright.

So that was my day.  I told you the photos would be terrible quality!  Did you notice what was missing from this day?  Comics, that's what.  Because I was working I didn't get to the shop.  I intended to go in today, but had to work late, so I determined to go in tomorrow.  I think I've got 2 or 3 weeks worth of stuff to pick up.

DC's new publishing direction

I thought it was about time I wrote up something on DC's new direction.

In case you don't know, come June, DC are ditching the New 52 brand and launching "a bold new direction for the DCU that is even more inclusive and accessible to a wider group of readers as the publishers continues to evolve comic storytelling for it's next generation of fans."  I've seen talk about them wanting to make their series more diverse too.  This doesn't necessarily mean in term s of characters race, disability, sexual orientation age or gender though.  Instead there's an emphasis on telling a variety of types of stories, using different types of art and on emphasising story quality over continuity.  The series will still run in the New 52 universe.

25 of the current titles will continue, 24 new ones will be added.

I think this is great.  For me the New 52 fails because most of the books have the same tone, in art and type of story.  They feel grim, serious.  They feel like teenagers trying to be grown up.  they feel that excessive violence makes them mature.  There hasn't been much sophistication in the stories themselves.  So yeah, I really like that they are going in this new direction.

However, I find it mightily strange that they are ditching the New 52 brand so soon, not even 4 years since it was launched.  Assuming this new era is meant to be permanent and isn't just planned for 1 or 2 years, that's a massive U turn on what they've invested a lot of time and money into.  If this really is the end of the New 52 then I imagine someone is in deep shit for having come up with a rebrand that is so unsuccessful it's being abandoned so soon.

I suppose it's possible that one person isn't being held responsible, and that the whole company is still desperately trying to make a profit.  Are there profit and loss accounts published for DC and Marvel comics?  Where would I find them if they were?

I'm pretty sure that I've written before on how I thought the New 52 was DC's last ditch attempt to save the company.  I thought that Warner was putting pressure on it to improve and if it failed it would be stripped down and just the big names would continue to be published.  If I haven't written about this I've certainly thought it.  Clearly this wasn't the case.  If it was, this rebrand wouldn't have happened.  I'd love to see DC written up as a brand and marketing case study one day.  I'd love to know what was happening internally in the company, both in 2010, last year and now.  I've found two articles about them here and here, which I shall read later.

I noticed last year that lesser known writers were getting gigs at DC, for example Landry Walker is doing the last few issues of Red Lanterns before Convergence, which is what takes place before this new brand starts.  This happened before the New 52 was launched too.  Smaller names got a few months worth of comics to write and draw, then were ditched in favour of the streamlining of the new brand.  I'm kicking myself I didn't see this coming beforehand.

I wonder what role, if any, the relocation of the offices from the East coast to the West coast is playing in all this.

I wonder how these new books will tie into telly and film universes.

So, in terms of the books to be published from June.  I shall continue to get the occasional Aquaman, Batgirl, possibly Action Comics, Batman/Superman, the occasional Harley Quinn and Justice League United.   Of the new books I shall get Black Canary (finally a Canary solo ongoing!), I shall try Harley/Power Girl, investigate Justice League of America, try Starfire, consider Robin; Son of Batman and We Are Robin.

I'll also be getting all of Convergence, because I'm a sucker.

Of these new books, there are several minis.  If I recall correctly, these are Bizarro, Harley/Power Girl and Prez.  I can't find a link at the moment to confirm this though.  Of the current titles that are dropped, one of Supergirl which I am naturally very pissed off about.  However given that some new titles are minis, I'm anticipating that more titles will be added later.  Meanwhile I hope Kara remains in JLU.  Fingers crossed they don't decide to reboot her again...
Edit - news on Supergirl Comic Box Commentary says that DC have plans for Kara from June.

It's Saturday and I have no comics

It's my fault - I got up at 11.30 and didn't go into town because I have work to do.  So now I'm lamenting my comicless self while finishing up a funding bid.  Comics would be so much better than this.

I have lots of thoughts on DC's June relaunch but that will have to wait until I've finished my work.  Onwards...

I have some Imbolc decorations up

I have made a concession to it being Imbolc today and I have decorated our corn dolly with the seasonal colours:

I am also eating sheep's cheese with dinner tonight. This is progress. My mood may have dipped the last few weeks but my willingness to mark this festival clearly shows I am feeling a *bit* more positive. I guess it's good to find joy in some things.

Sexist, lazy bullshit music reporting on BBC 6 music

So right now there's a programme on the radio about Sleater Kinney.  It started 3 minutes ago and I'm already furious.

The presenter described Sleater Kinney as a band who have transcended gender.
Edit - it's bloody Gideon Coe who is presenting!

*Rage flail*  No.  Just no. Sleater Kinney have not transcended their gender.  What you mean is you, a male journalist, have deigned to overlook the fact that they are women and decided to pay attention to them.  You have decided to grace them with your esteemed musical criticism.  Sleater Kinney have just written, played and recorded music.  You are the dick that has trouble seeing past their gender.

*You* have transcended their gender, not them.  When was the last time the music press described a male band as transcending their gender?  I'll bet never, that's when.  Because male bands are seen as the default starting block and women bands are seen as a bloody aberration that have to prove they are good despite there femaleness.

Female bands don't hide, or move beyond their gender, It's the male music industry that has to do that.  Except that they don't because it seems that 99.9% of articles about female bands talk about their gender and want to talk about what it's like being a female musician .  The music industry is bloody obsessed with gender, there's no transcending it.

Sleater Kinney have never tried to move beyond their gender, or ignore it. They are feminists, They are female.  This is an important part of their work.

Gods save me from male journalists who think they are granting us a favour by saying that female bands have transcended their gender.

Visit Sleater Kinney's website here.

Rogan josh recipe

I've decided that I want to make lots of Indian food, however I only have the time and space to do this on the weekend, so I think that for a little while Saturdays and Sundays will be reserved for Indian food.  Given that, I'm going to blog the rogan josh recipe I did last Saturday.

Beef rogan josh, from a Madhur Jaffery book, adapted by me.  Serves 2.

Ingredients
2 inch piece of root ginger
7 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon olive/groundnut/rapeseed oil (we use rapeseed oil)
10 cardamom pods
2 bay leaves (or more if your bay leaves are really old as they'll have lost their flavour)
1 inch piece of cinnamon stick.
Half a pound of stewing beef
2 or 3 onions, depending on how much you like onions
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground coriander (or use about a tablespoon of whole coriander seeds, but crush them in a pestle and mortar)
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1.5 tablespoons paprika - NOT the smoked variety, because that is rank
2 teaspoons of tomato puree (or a good dollop squeezed from the tube)
300ml water
The recipe also calls for a bit of salt for seasoning, but I never add salt to my meals.  You may want to.

If you don't like your food too spicy reduce the amount of cayenne pepper and paprika.

Method and commentary on how I cook it.
1. The recipe directs you to bland the garlic and ginger in a food processor, with 4 tablespoons of water, to get a smooth paste.  I can never be arsed doing this as it seems like a hassle to get out the blender and then it's another thing for my boyfriend to wash up.  So I just chop the ginger and garlic up into small pieces.  You could also crush the garlic, but if you do that, don't do it just yet.  If your ginger is all woody, throw it out and use some better, fresher ginger.
2. Put the oil into a non stick pan and turn the heat up medium high.  The recipe says you need 6 tablespoons of oil to create a proper sauce, and recommends spooning the excess of the top of the sauce once cooked.  I refuse to use that much oil so I use just one tablespoon to start and would add more if needed once I got to the meaty bit.
3. When the oil is hot put in the cardamom pods, bay leaves and cinnamon stick.  If you've cinnamon piece came from a longer stick and you've broken it off and it's now in lots of pieces, that's fine, don;t worry about it.
4. Put in the meat.  If you've got a decent sized pan it should all go in in one layer.  If you are using a small pan put the meat in one layer at a time.  On a medium heat, brown the meat on all sides and remove onto a plate to sit until later on in the recipe.  If you have more meat to cook do the same with the rest of it.
5. Add the onions to the oil left in the pan.  Fry over a medium heat until the onions have softened.  Stir occasionally while this happens to stop it sticking.
6. Add the chopped ginger and garlic and stir for 30 seconds.
7. Add the cumin, coriander, cayenne and paprika. Stir so it doesn't all dry up and add the tomato puree.
8. Add the meat along with any oil and spices on the plate with it, and the water.  Add salt if you hate your heart.  Stir everything.
9. Bring this to the boil, then turn the heat down, put the lid on and simmer it for one and a half hours, or two, if you think the meat needs to be more tender.

I eat this with vegetable pilau rice and dahl and it's lovely.  This turned out hotter than I remembered so we also had yogurt with it.  Be careful of all the whole spices in it though, especially the flakes of cinnamon stick.

It takes a long time, but it's simple and well worth the effort.  It's a good one to make if you are having a bad day, as it's not delicate or fiddly and it can be left if you need to have a sit down and a cry.

I want to try making samosas this weekend, which I think I'll serve with this dahl, sag aloo and probably some spiced up rice.

Recent comics purchases

I keep thinking about reviewing the comics I've got recently, but as soon as I start thinking about it my enthusiasm wanes.  I tend to go to the shop every few weeks now and pick up a bit pile that way.

These two lots I bought at some point over the Christmas period:

Of these, I remember Bitch Planet as being spectacular and Batgirl as being not spectacular, mostly for the poor treatment of ASL and Deaf people, as I blogged about here,  Ody-C is memorable for being utterly dull (to my mind).

Of this lot, X-men was fun, Ody-C was dull.  I think I may have put Sex Criminals away without reading it.  Either that or I've lost it...  Justice League United was pretty good and I think has further confirmed that I am a real Legion of Superheroes fan now.. oh dear!

This week I also got my first Elsyia reward through:

It contains the first volume of the comic, a tote bag, stickers, t-shirt, bookmarks and a feather or two.   the art is by Jennie Gyllblad so I know it's going to be a good read.

This week I bought this lot:

I've read Sensation Comics, which was a pleasure as always.  If you prefer the pre 52 Wonder Woman you really should give this title a chance, it's lovely.  The style of art on the cover is pretty horrible but I like the choice of characters in it.  I see Cassandra Sandsmark, a warrior child and other women in WW style outfits.  I like it.

I'm feeling a bit under the weather today, so although my brain is telling me to write a review of Tiny Titans for New readers... I think I'm just going to catch up on comics and prose fiction tonight.  Hope you're all feeling a bit better than I am.

Playing around with designs for a Captain Marvel themed skirt

So I think I'm close to making a Cap'n Marvel (Carol Danvers) themed skirt a reality.  This is the design I've come up with:

Colour shades aren't correct.

It's based on this costume:

I want it to have a dropped waist so it flares out from my hips, not my waist, and so hopefully won't drown me.  I want it to be above the knee. The vertical pencil lines are to show that I want it to be a bit gathered at the waist and so will drop in, well not pleats, but will hang in sort of lines.  Not quite how I've drawn it.  Does this make sense?  I don't want it hanging down completely flat.  I only like flat hanging skirts if they are also tight (hello 3 lycra minis of mine).  I want something loose around my legs for the summer, but tight at the waist so I still have a shape.

I think the star logo needs to be on the side and needs to be in the lower half of the skirt.  I've inverted the colour order so it's blue-yellow-red from the top, rather than red-yellow-blue, on the basis that I wear quite long tops and you wouldn't otherwise see the the red.  I'm wondering how to incorporate the yellow buttons from her gloves, but I can't think of a way to do this and make it look like a sensible part of the design.

What do you all reckon?

Smallville reading order and pull list

Do you remember last week-ish I was asking about the reading order of the Smallville comics?
I tweeted Bryan Q Miller about it and he confirmed this is the reading order:
Guardian Detective Effigy Haunted Argo Valkyrie Olympus Hollow Titans Alien Harbinger Lantern Chaos Continuity

So now you know. Looks like I got Titans and Alien mixed up, and Effigy and Haunted mixed up.

In terms of my pull list I've put all the Convergence titles on there...because I miss the pre 52 books, so fuck it, why not..

There are 40 tie ins and 9 issues of the Convergence series. A twitter friend said he thought the tie ins were all double shots which makes this 89 issues,.... 'eck!

I'll just sell on the ones I don't like ;)

Linky time

Look, here's a great post of the vast majority of skirt, bag, dress, shoe etc styles:
http://fullofwhoa.tumblr.com/post/107079509098/dixiejos-right-here-is-it-everything-you-ever
There's a few styles missing, but the vast majority are there.  It looks useful for when I want to start making clothes.

Alternate universe Harry Potter where Aunt Petunia takes him in and loves him:
http://katzenfabrik.tumblr.com/post/106896187643/ink-splotch-what-if-when-petunia-dursley-found
It's beautiful and gut wrenching and well worth reading.

A North Korean defector's view on The Interview:
http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/23066/1/i-watched-the-interview-with-a-north-korean-defector
Really interesting.

A really, really good dahl recipe:
http://georginahayden.com/my-go-to-south-indian-dal-recipe/
Seriously good.  Seriously seriously good.  The recipes on this woman's site are great - always tasty and simply to do (at least I've chosen the simple to do ones - I leave the complicated ones!)

Derbyshire

What I Did On My Holidays.

I'm such a twerp.  What follows are a few interesting things I did on my trip to Derbyshire this Christmas!

It snowed!!!  On Boxing Day evening we got about 4 inches.  It was lovely.  Well it started and I complained and bitched and moaned because I hate the cold and the wet and the ice and the associated risk of falling over.  The Canadian with us thought I was a killjoy.  She is right.  However when we went out to the pub, all wrapped up, on a journey that took us over a few fields and I discovered that my shoes were waterproof and my toes remained dry and warm I was quite happy.

The next day we went out in the snow again. Of course.  Here is proof:

Pretty!

Then on the next day we went out to Ambergate and had a walk through the Shining Cliff Woods.  There's a lot of fun to be had in these woods, particularly when you discover Oakhurst House, which is technically off limits but there's not much actual fence to keep you out so we went in anyway.  This is the house:

Now that is not the sort of house you'd expect to see in the middle of Derbyshire!  It's long since abandoned and the second floors and roof has fallen in.  It's fascinating to look at and work out which rooms were used for what.  We had the additional pleasure of a robin following us around as we wandered around the building.  He was probably trying to chase us off, they are territorial little buggers.

We reckon this room was the kitchen:

This must have been a main door as you can just see the boot scraper at the bottom right of the entrance:

There is also some interesting graffiti:

We had fun searching out an old yew tree called Betty Kenny's yew, where a family supposedly built their house around this massive tree and raised 8 kids in the branches.  See the full story here.  Then there was all the ice to mess about with.  Some of the puddles had a couple of centimetres of ice frozen on top.

For better pictures of our trips out go to James Sharpe's instagram.  Because he's got talent and I'm a photographic fool.

Another day we went out to Fresh Basil in Belper for breakfast:

Between us we got 2 full Englishes and 2 vegetarians.  On my vegetarian one I swapped out the egg for black pudding.  They were good.  Very good.  Not too much.  The black pudding was well worth it and the Fill Englishes got 3 rashers of bacon instead of the usual two.  Although I am informed it wasn't smoked bacon.  The halloumi on the vegetarian plate was properly cooked which you'd think would be a given, but I got battered halloumi in a Kent pub recently and the halloumi wasn't cooked.  Bah.  The same place gave my boyfriend food poisoning so I am Not Impressed by it.

Fresh Basil has lots of signs up about the importance of shopping local and how much money goes into the local economy when you shop local as opposed to supermarkets.  I appreciate that.

Later that day we went to Kedleston Hall who do a very nice cream tea and the cake of the day is always gluten free.  Surprisingly for a National Trust place winter admission prices were just £1 per adult.  We had a good walk around the grounds and I had a massive rant about the parasite aristocracy and class injustices in England and the boyfriend told me to shut up and be quiet.  Fair enough.

One thing I didn't like about the hall was the godawful taxidermy they had in the corridor on the way to the shop.

Decorating dead animal heads is not on!  It's gross and inappropriate.  The stuffed bird scenes (you can see the cases at the bottom of the picture) were particularly disturbing.  I understand why the National Trust still has this stuff up - it's part of the history of the hall and that's what people want to see when they visit.  The owners still live in the Hall and I expect there are lots of complicated agreements about what the Trust can and can't do with the bit they run.  I just don't like taxidermy.

Apart from that shock the rest of the trip was petty good :)

Pull list suggestions

So, from Sunday's request for new comics to read I got a lot of suggestions. Here they are with my decisions based on looking them up on the internet:

The Wicked and the Divine (Image)
From the blurb: Every ninety years, twelve gods incarnate as humans. They are loved. They are hated. In two years, they are dead. The team behind critically thermonuclear floor-fillers Young Avengers and PHONOGRAM reunite to start a new ongoing superhero fantasy. Welcome to THE WICKED + THE DIVINE, where gods are the ultimate pop stars. But remember: just because you’re immortal, doesn’t mean you’re going to live forever.
Creators: Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Matt Wilson

Hmm. I like the idea, a bit, but from their twitter feeds I get the impression that Gillen and McKelvie think they are both too clever by half, which puts me off reading their work.  It depends on how myffic it gets.  I could check this out on comixology.

Little Nemo (IDW publishing)
The blurb: An all-new, all-ages series full of magic and whimsy from award-winning creators Eric Shanower (Adventures in Oz) and Gabriel Rodriguez (Locke & Key)! Spinning out of Winsor McKay's brilliant early 20th century strip, Little Nemo in Slumberland sees King Morpheus' daughter, in the Royal Palace of Slumberland, select her next-playmate: Nemo! Only Nemo has no interest in being anyone's playmate, dream or no dream!
Now that sounds interesting.  I shall check it out comixology.

Grindhouse (Dark Horse)
The blurb: Grindhouse is back from the dead, and it’s meaner, badder, and dirtier than ever! In the first of four new exploitation opuses, Scalped’s R. M. Guéra joins series writer Alex de Campi for “Slay Ride,” a brutal holiday tale of revenge and supernatural terror in the driven snow!
Er probably also not for me.  I'm not interested in exploitation stories or brutal or violent stories.

Corto Maltese (IDW)

Long before the term “graphic novel” entered the popular lexicon, the Italian cartoonist Hugo Pratt pioneered the long-form “drawn literature” story in 1967 when he introduced Corto Maltese in the epic adventure “The Ballad of the Salty Sea.”

Pratt set the standard for all adult adventure comics in Europe, and by the mid-1970s Corto was the continent’s most popular series and Pratt the world’s leading graphic novelist. “He is one of the true masters of comic art,” says Frank Miller.

Pratt’s books remain best sellers in Europe and are published in a dozen languages yet until now, Corto Maltese has been poorly represented in English.

This is probably a great story and really well told and really worthy to be in the comics hall of fame, but I'm not interested in 1960s adventure stories where the lead is a bloke.

Rare Bit Friends
I found this info: http://www.rickveitch.com/2010/09/13/new-rare-bit-fiends-5.  It doesn't appeal to me.

The Itty Bitty books (Dark Horse) and Tiny Titans (DC)
These books are good at what they do but I'm happy reading them for reviewing purposes and then to pass onto my friend's kids but I'm not interested in reading them for my entertainment.  I do like Art Baltazar's Superman Family Adventures a lot though.

Bulletproof Coffin (Image comics)
The blurb:
Relive the Golden Age of comics! The Legendary Kane and Hine return to their greatest creations! SEE! Coffin Fly Vs. Zombie Nam Vets! The Shield of Justice walks the Dead Beat! The Unforgiving Eye sees all, forgives nothing! Red Wraith: He's red! He's dead! Ramona: Buxom, Beautiful and Bound! Big 2 Publishing, eat your heart out!

Nothing about this interests me.  I don't care for the Golden Age of comics.  Mention of a zombie makes me think they are trying too hard be funny or cool.  I have no interest in crime stories.  The Unforgiving Eye and Red Wraith just sound dull.  Ramona sounds like a postmodern crap ironic take on female empowerment.

New 52 Secret Six (DC)
Now I loved the pre 52 Secret Six but this new version has different characters, they've been New 52-ified and I don't like that so this is a miss for me.

Red Sonja (DC)
I *might* pick this up.  I like some of Simone's stuff but she can be hit and miss, and I'm not sure if I have anything invested in the Sonja character.

Ms Marvel (Marvel)
I already pick this up sporadically.

Silver Surfer (Marvel)
I have no interest in Marvel's space stuff and I'm thinking of getting a Marvel Unlimited subscription so I wll be able to read stuff online 6 months after it comes out, which makes better financial sense for me.

Revival (Image)
I tried this till about issue 18 but got bored.

Morning Glories (Image)
Got the first trade of this, loved the storytelling, hated the art.

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (Marvel)
I'm sorry, I can't bring myself to read comedy mammal based characters.  I hate G'Nort and I wasn't impressed by Ch'P the Green Lantern. 

Loki: Agent of Asgard (Marvel)
I'll probably check this out when I get my Marvel Unlimited subscription.

All new Hawkeye by Lemire (Marvel)
I like Fraction and Aja's Hawkeye a lot, but I don't care about the character beyond that series.  If Lemire keeps explore Clint's new Deafness, and if he does it right, I might well buy it.

Ant-Man (Marvel)
I'll probably check this out with the Marvel Unlimited subscription.

Gotham Academy (DC)
I tried this.  It doesn't have enough superheroes in it for me.  Maybe I'll come back to it in a few months.  I like Gotham books, far more than I like Batman books, but I need to have superheroes or the cops dealing with villainous stunts in the foreground.  Issue 1 didn't do it for me.

Astro City
Now this I am tempted by.  I also want to read Top 10 again.

Captain Marvel (Marvel)
I really liked the first trade but ultimately I don't like Carol enough to continue with it.

Legendary Star-Lord (Marvel)
Now this I will check out via Marvel Unlimited.  This is because of the GotG film you understand.

Lazarus (Image)
Ooh it's by Greg Rucka.  That is worth checking out.

Velvet (Image)
Oh gods it's a spy thriller.  So not for me.

I also want to read Future's End (yes I know, I'm nuts), Injustice and I have a whole host of comics on my comixology account that I want to catch up on, most of which I reviewed (briefly) on my other blog New readers... start here! last September.  And Sex Criminals needs to go back on there. And Bitch Planet needs to be made a regular too.

If you've got any more ideas send them my way!

Smallville comics reading order - help a lady out

I am finally catching up on the Smallville comics Chaos and Continuity - these are the final story arcs and I have failed to read them until now.

Halfway through Chaos I got distracted and wanted to understand the reading order of the different issues.  I get my copies from Comixology and they arrange the issues alphabetically then numerically, which is annoying as I'd rather they were listed by date of publication.

Here is a page giving the reading order of the Smallville comics.  I'm still a bit confused, some are listed as parallel stories, some are main, and I can't recall exactly when each arc came out.
Note - the chapters in the first table on that page refer to the digital issue numbers.  There are 63 of these which are then collected into 19 print issues.

That web page summarised the story arcs as follows.  I'm pretty much copying it because it helps me understand if I write things out:

Main arcs with focus characters:
Guardian (Hank Henshaw)
Detective (Batman and Nightwing)
Haunted (Impulse)
Argo (Supergirl, Booster Gold and the Legion of Superheroes)
Olympus (Wonder Woman) - All these are released on comixology under the Season 11 title.
Alien (Rocket Red Brigade and the Monitor)
Lantern (John Stewart, Parallax and the Green Lantern Corps)
Chaos (Eclipso, Darkseid, Booster, the multiverse and the bleed)
Continuity (Justice League, everyone else)

Parallel stories:
Effigy (Martian Manhunter and Batman)
Valkyrie (Lois Lane and Lana Lang)
Hollow (Tess Mercer and Lex Luthor) - These top 3 are released on Comixology under the Season 11 title.
Titans (Jay Garrick and the Teen Titans)
Harbinger (Zatanna and John Constantine)

Now, as to how to read them, if you wanted to read the whole lot in one go, I think you would follow the publishing order and do so as follows:
Guardian
Detective
Haunted, Effigy (parallel)
Argo, Valkyrie (parallel)
Olympus, Hollow (parallel)
Alien, Titans (parallel)
Lantern, Harbinger (parallel)
Chaos
Continuity

What do other fans think?  I can't recall if the parallel stories take place alongside the main story arcs, or if they take place alongside some of the TV episodes.  I want to establish where the arcs sit within the timeline of the Smallville universe.

What comics should I be reading?

Right guys, I need ideas for stuff to put on my pull list. I think I'm missing out on some good comics.  So far I have:

DC:

Adventures of Superman

Batgirl

Batman/Superman

Justice League United

Multiversity

Sensation Comics featuring Wonder Woman

Supergirl

Marvel:

Hawkeye (although I think that's going to end soon..)

Image:

Ody-C

Action Lab:

Princeless: Pirate Princess

I will be adding Red Lanterns from when Landry Walker takes over, and Danger Club. I get Ms Marvel digitally (and sporadically) and I'm likely to try out the new Wonder Woman creative team digitally as well.  I want to catch up on the new 52's Green Arrow and Birds of Prey.

Is there anything else I should be reading?  I'm not that interested in Chew or Saga at the moment.  I dropped the lady X-Men team about 7 or 8 months ago and I don't want to try it out again.  I would like something like Fearless Defenders to exist.. does it?

I'm happy to add more Marvel and independent comics but if there is particularly good DC stuff I'm missing out on please tell me!  I've been totally out of the loop over the last year as I hadn't expected to be able to still afford comics now.

Thanks guys!

Batgirl 37 - did y'all miss the appropriation of ASL?

I finally read Batgirl 37, and yes I agree with the rest of the liberal internet community, that issue relied on tired old tropes and cliches for trans people and was all in all clumsily and hurtfully done.

Why have I not seen anything about the use of ASL in the issue?  For those that don't know, ASL is American Sign Language, used by the Deaf community in the States and is a different language to all the other sign languages in the world.  Like English is different to all the other spoken languages in the world.  Even other English speaking countries have sign languages that are different to ASL.  E.g. Australia has AusLan, the UK has British Sign Language (BSL) and the languages are not interchangeable.  Got that? Good.

Back to the comics.  My ire is particularly directed at this page:

Some background - Babsgirl goes to an art show and it's full of floor to ceiling photographic images of someone dressed as Batgirl, pulling all sorts of stupid poses.  Babs is obviously horrified as everyone thinks it's the actual Batgirl in the pictures.

When the show has ended Babs does some investigations and looks up an ASL dictionary.  A quick google search brings up a variety of different images for ASL dictionary, none of which look like the book Babs is holding.  Harrumph.
After looking in the book Babs concludes that the stupid poses were actually ASL signs, a code to her, saying 'Below Burn Side Bridge 10pm'.

Arrggghh!  OK, before we get into how the signs work, let's just look at how this secret message would work.

The plot assumes that no one else at the show, or who would be consuming the images at a later date, understands ASL.  Like it's some ultra secret hidden thing, that you only get to learn once you're in the club.  Not so.  This article gave the number of ASL users in 1974 at half a million, at a very conservative estimate.  For crying out loud, America has a University for the Deaf where everyone uses ASL!  That's not even counting those for whom ASL is a fluent second language, or those who have studied ASL and use it in their jobs or for fun when out with friends, for example.

So, I do not hold that Babs will be the only person ever seeing those images who can work out that it's ASL.

Next, the signs.
Full disclosure here:  I don't know ASL, I know BSL.  I have no idea about ASL vocabulary, but I do understand the grammar of sign languages and the ways in which they can be represented.

The photographs in this comic are 2d representations of a 3d language.  It can be hard to accurately draw vocabulary from sign languages because you need to show movement, speed and relation of the sign to other parts of the sentence.  But it can be done.  Off the top of my head The That Deaf Guy comic strip does it well, as did some of David Mack's Echo/Daredevil comics.  Peter David's Deaf Supergirl and Young Justice issues also did OK.

These Babsgirl panels do not do this.  Yes, you can see that the handshapes are correct - so some tell me, others say they aren't so I guess there's some regional variation in the signs there.  If you look at the image for burn, I'll bet you anything that the ASL for burn is not static and is similar in construction to the BSL sign for burn or fire, e.g. the sign includes movement and without the movement the handshape is meaningless.  Here are some clips of the BSL sign for burn and fire.

Oh look, I've remembered I'm online and have just looked up the ASL sign for burn.  What it ain't is someone clutching their chest and looking wistfully/sexily at the sky.  Facial expressions, shoulder position, head position all count in ASL.

Here are the other signs in that panel:
Below
Burn
Side
Bridge
10
Pm or any other indication of time isn't even in there, as far as I can see.

Taking handshapes from just one part of the sign is akin to writing down 'cial' from facial and expecting everyone to know you mean facial.  On twitter I said that movement wouldn't have worked in the context of the comic.  I take that back.  They could have shown movement, they could have done lots of superimposed images of the fake Batgirl's hands moving through space.  Bet they still could have made it sexy if they wanted.

Finally, I'd expect Burnside, as a trendy area of Gotham, to have it's own sign and not be an amalgamation of Burn and Side.  It might not be in the dictionary, but I bet you, within the fictional DCU Deaf folk have their own sign for it.

This comic bothers me so much because it reads like cultural appropriation of ASL, it's nominally in there just to move the plot forward and show how awesome Babsgirl is.  It doesn't do anything for Deaf studies, Deaf awareness or ASL.  It's like Gwen Stefani's harajuku girls or white folk dressing up as Native Americans for Halloween.  Or like that godawful French film that was recently released.

I know I'm hearing, and some would say it's not my place to say this, and really it's probably not, you'd be better off reading Deaf bloggers views of the comic, and I'd point you to them but I'm out of the loop on Deaf blogs and I have no idea where to find Deaf comic bloggers (particularly political ones), and particularly fans of the DCU.  If anyone knows any please point me in the right direction!

I'm not trying to say my viewpoint supercedes any Deaf people viewpoint. It doesn't.  But I can't believe that no one else has spoken up about this.  Regular readers know I get my knickers in a twist quite regularly, this is one of those times.  If no one else is going to speak up so that I can comment on the blog and link back to it, I'm going to mouth off.

Many thanks to @matttygurney75, @unikornus and @adreanaline for talking through my ideas with me on twitter.  As @adreanaline said:
"Comics is about capturing 3D motion onto 2D pages.  That is why ASL Deaf artists should be hired.  They know how to do ASL."

Incidentally, she is a Deaf cartoonist and author of How to Write American Sign Language.  So she'll know.

Lateral thinking puzzles and cultural awareness/norms

A friend gave us this lateral thinking puzzle on Boxing Day.  I'd heard it before but it took me half an hour to remember the solution.  The next day we asked my boyfriend's mum and partner it, and we asked another friend.  Some people got it within 20 seconds, others couldn't get it.   The puzzle is this:

A man lives on the 20th floor of an apartment building. Every morning he goes to work, comes back in a limousine, and gets in the lift to his apartment.  Some days he gets off at the 12th floor and walks the remaining 8 flights.  Other times he gets off at the 20th floor and goes straight into his apartment.  Why does he sometimes get out at the 12th floor?

Scroll down for the answer.
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He is a dwarf (or little person - a quick google search says little people may be the correct term, but I feel awfully patronising saying that, however I realise that's my issue and if anyone who this affects is reading this I'm sorry if I'm causing offence) so he is too short to reach the button for the 20th floor.  He can reach as far as the button for the 12th floor though, and if other people are in the lift they press the button for the 20th floor for him.

Before I start waffling on about cultural norms, the pedant in me would like to ask whether lift buttons are always in one long vertical line, or if they are in sets of three or four vertical rows?  Because, this whole lateral thinking puzzle only works if the lift buttons are in one or two long vertical rows.

Right, cultural stuff.  For people who didn't get the puzzle straight away they went through tons and tons of ideas about why the man would get off t the 12th floor, all based around things they'd do.  E.g.  He had a girlfriend or lover on the 12th floor. There is a restaurant there  He liked the exercise.  There is a launderette on the 12th floor.  The lift was broken.  The limousine had a ramp to the 12th floor (that was my idea, no, I don't know why I said that either).  People who didn't get it were very surprised when they heard the answer.  I knew that the numbers of the floors were key, but I thought it was more of a numerical answer, rather than a physical capability answer.

Which led me onto thinking, that if we were all more aware of different abilities and disabilities would we get the puzzle earlier?  The answers that people gave were within their life experience, based on what they'd do, they was a certain amount of putting yourself into someone else's shoes, but not into something too different.  When I was trying to solve it I was thinking of cold hard data.  Logic.  I guess that's me not understanding the puzzle - lateral thinking isn't the same as logic.  The bloke who got it immediately is also quite short - about 5 ft 3, perhaps that helped him think outside the box?

Then I think what is the box? It's just the cultural norms that we operate with.  The way in which we think of certain body types as the default.  Men for instance.  Able bodied people.  White people.  I guess I'm saying that this puzzle really illustrated that for me.  How much does this type of thinking impact on all the other decisions and viewpoints we hold in our life?

I googled the puzzle and found this page which also has these puzzles:

2. Acting on an anonymous phone call, the police raid a house to arrest a suspected murderer. They don't know what he looks like but they know his name is John and that he is inside the house. The police bust in on a carpenter, a lorry driver, a mechanic and a fireman all playing poker. Without hesitation or communication of any kind, they immediately arrest the fireman. How do they know they've got their man?

Answer - the carpenter, lorry driver and mechanic are all women.
(my question - were they all there dressed in their workclothes with their work equipment on show as well?)

6. A man and his son are in a car crash. The father is killed and the child is taken to hospital gravely injured. When he gets there, the surgeon says, 'I can't operate on this boy - for he is my son!!!' How can this possibly be?

Answer - the surgeon is the boy's mother.

I'm ashamed to say that I didn't get either of these before looking at the answers (I only gave myself about 5 seconds but let's be honest here).  That sexist programming is still in full force.

This post is yet another example of me having half formed thoughts and wanting to get them out on the page for no other reason than to clear my head!

Time to myself!!

Me and my boyfriend are at his mum's for Christmas.  It's good here, suitably different but with no pressure.  However we have done something or seen someone every day and it's felt a bit exhausting to me.  I also haven't been sleeping well - really tired during the day then when I go to bed I perk up and can't sleep. Bah.  But today no one else is around for a couple of hours so I am going to be a right proper introvert and spend the day blogging and thinking and listening to my youtube playlists and ignoring everyone.  Hurrah!