Weekend Review

Suleiman Bakhit. Photo by Warrick Page for The New York Times
There’s always something buzzing in geek culture news at WWAC. Here are some of the stories that have been going around the internet this past week:

Jordanian comic creator Suleiman Bakhit is taking on extremist narrative and propaganda in the Middle East.

He says he believes that the terrorist narrative is essentially “copying Joseph Campbell’s work,” referring to the American mythologist. In Mr. Campbell’s view, a heroic journey is central to mythmaking. A hero has to be called to action, perhaps hesitate, then leave home and be tested. Among other things, Mr. Campbell’s work inspired the filmmaker George Lucas to create “Star Wars.”

Art by Suleiman Bakhit

The self-taught artist’s comic offers a new kind of hero for young Jordanian children, and over one million copies of his work have been distributed within Jordianian schools.

200px-CuckoosCallingCoverThe Cuckoo’s Calling will become a BBC series. The crime novel written by Robert Galbraith — a.k.a. J.K. Rowling — is the first in her “Cormoran Strike” series.

The Atlantic takes on the strange fear some have of cosplay after the most recent grumpy, anxiety-ridden rant against the supposed convention degrading narcissism of cosplayers.

The backlash to cosplay is in part guys trying to keep girls out of the male clubhouse. But in this context it can also be seen as feminized guys panicking at yet another in a long line of demonstrations that the male clubhouse isn’t all that male to begin with. You could argue that cosplay’s associations with fashion actually make it more highbrow than comics—the New York fashion runway and the New York gallery scene are more kin than either is to low pulp superhero comics. Cosplay is appropriating superheroes for art, much as pop art has done—and some in comics fear the results.

Podcast One Talk is Jericho– On Podcast One’s Talk is Jericho, WWE NXT stars Sami Zayn and Adrian Neville chat about the comics they read as children and are still reading now. Apparently, Canadians love Jughead and laugh at The Beano.

Graham Cracker Comics jokingly credited the writer of the new Bitch Planet as “Mrs. Matt Fraction,” rather than as Kelly Sue DeConnick. After receiving numerous messages concerned about the insensitivity of such a joke within an industry known for marginalizing women, they have since changed their posting and offered an apology.

– Rat Queens fans were uncertain of what would happen next following the statement from Kurtis Wiebe regarding former Rat Queen’s artist Roc Upchurch’s recent domestic assault charges. Here’s the answer:

rat queens

– Rainbow Rowell, best selling author of Attachments, Eleanor & Park, Fangirl, and Landline made an announcement:

DrivethruRPG banned a controversial GamerGate-based card game. Says OneBookShelf CEO Steve Wieck:

“Similarly, no matter how one feels about Gamergate, it is likewise too current, too emotionally frought, and too related to violence to be an appropriate subject for satire. Additionally, we considered that the violent element of the Gamergate issue has a basis in misogyny. For these reasons, we felt that this card game title was not welcome for sale on our site.”

Advertisements
Wendy Browne

Wendy Browne

Publisher, mother, geek, executive assistant sith, gamer, writer, lazy succubus, blogger, bibliophile. Not necessarily in that order.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Close
Menu
WP Twitter Auto Publish Powered By : XYZScripts.com