Welcome back to News & Things. I’m happy to welcome aboard Leslie and Kayleigh, who’ll be packing our weekly news grabbag, and reporting on geek news. I hope you’ll enjoy their random link selection, as much as you have mine.
–Megan Purdy
Kickstarter of the Week
Comics Undressed by the Ladydrawers.
The Chicago local justice in media collective is looking to make a documentary about race, gender, sex and discrimination in the comics industry. With 24 backers, it’s currently at $3,363 of it’s $15,000 goal. The film is already well into production, but the $15k is necessary to cover equipment costs, labour, and fancy stuff like music and graphics.
Read of the Week
The Atlantic interviewed Daria Wilke, whose recently released children’s book, The Jester’s Cap, is about growing up gay in Russia. In the wake of Russia’s anti-gay legislation, it’s a pretty bold move.
Daria says, “I wrote it a year and a half ago, and the publisher was weighing when to release it. But when these strange laws were being released — first the local anti-gay laws in various cities, then the broader one that passed just last month — eventually the publisher realized that if we didn’t release the book now, we might never be able to release it. Because of these laws, in many bookstores, it has an “18+” stamp, even though in my view, I think it’s suitable for 12-year-olds.”
News
Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist, Matt Bors, recently weighed in on the influx of articles disparaging millennials. In the comic, “The Generation We Love to Dump On,” Matt talks about rage-reading multiple articles criticizing the young generation.
Annie Wu is slowly releasing teaser art for her new Batgirl design for DC’s Batman Beyond. The new Batgirl storyline is still in production, and the team, including writer Scott Peterson, will start work in late summer.
We Don’t Need a Female Tony Soprano
Alison Herman argues that female characters don’t need the “Tony Soprano treatment”; that TV already has plenty of female anti-heroes. That we fail to recognize and appreciate them is because the dialogue around heroism and anti-heroism is heavily gendered.
The Last of Us is the Least We Should Ask of Games
The Last Of Us is yet another post-apoc with a paternalistic tenor, but one that reflects on, and consciously addresses that theme. As Leigh Alexander says, “we should at least be able to argue that the female characters stood for something other than sexist caricatures. For once.”
Alamo Drafthouse Releases New Online Magazine Birth.Movies.Death
The Alamo Drafthouse and Badass Digest are putting out a new monthly magazine, themed to the movie theatre’s programming. The first issue is called “Beasts vs. Bots” and sounds perfect.
Rifftrax Releases “Batman Takes Over” on VOD
And finally…
The System explains How To Name Your Pacific Rim Jaeger.
