Megan Purdy

For those who celebrated holidays, I hope it was lovely and cookie-filled. For those who didn’t, I hope your break was lovely and cookie filled. I’ve got lots of links for you today, but first off, did you hear that…

A graphic work has been named as the winner of the biography section in the 2012 Costa book awards – a first for the prestigious literary prize that also reached another significant milestone when women swept the board in the five categories.

How about that, ladies? Double plus good news.

So you all saw the big holiday blockbuster, right? And how awesome was Django Unchained? (Hobbit, you say? What Hobbit?). There’s an upcoming graphic adapation (of course), and judging solely by the cover art, it looks to be slick. Reggie Hudlin was tapped to write the script, and he’s far from a fan favourite, so only time will tell on this one. In the meantime, some Django links to slake your thirst:

• My Inspiration for Django Unchained, Quentin Tarantino (Guardian).
• Django Unchained: “Coded Language, Man-Made Laws”, David Brothers (4th Letter).
• Django Unchained: Is its portrayal of slavery too flippant?, Candace Allen (Guardian).

• Why The “Fake Geek Girl” Meme Needs To Die, Heben Nigatu (BuzzFeed).
• Confessions of a Back Seat Gamer: The Social Possibilities of Single Player, Natalie Zina Walschots.
• Ethnography of Trolling: Workarounds, Discipline-Jumping & Ethical Pitfalls (1 of 3), Whitney Phillips: And so begins the academic study of the troll. Ok, the ethnographical study of the troll. Trolls are actually pretty thoroughly studied, as it is.
• Playthings, Claire Hosking: Claire asks: is the breast size of characters a good way to measure their depth and value (yeah, probably not)? Sometimes smaller ISN’T better.
• Marvel’s Next Big Thing: Fearless Defenders with Cullen Bunn and Will Sliney, Heidi MacDonald (The Beat): My twitter friend Allison Candy has it right: this next big thing (is anything small anymore? or even medium? are there small to middling things in comics anymore?) is awfully heavy on Misty Knight’s endlessly thrusting ass. And while a fine ass it is, I do hope that’s not the major selling point of the book (“All Girl Team! All Girl Ass!” “Super Ass: The Ass Strikes Back.”)
• Analysis: New York Times Bestsellers: Graphic Books: Hardcovers 2012, Torsten Adair (The Beat): Find out what actually sold in 2012. Are your favourite books on the list?
• Review: Rise of the Graphic Novel: everything you need to know about the comics field in 70 pages, Cory Doctorow (Boing Boing): I’m always down for a good history of comics, and this is one I haven’t delved into yet, so cheers to Doctorow for bringing it to my attention. And now I’m passing the link onto you. Pay it forward, kids.
• J-Zone lost his Wikipedia page—and his interest in being a rapper, Nathan Rabin (AV Club): This is a great interview, and a perhaps needed reality check for some of us: sometimes you don’t make it. So what happens next?

See you next week for another roundup of Things We Find Interesting.