As if TV didn't take up far too much of my free time already, now I'm getting sucked into comic fandom (and into some quite lively meta discussions) as well. Let me count the ways:

1. As a Buffy fan, I've been meaning to get my hands on the Season 8 comics (once again wishing I did not live in a small town where it's ridiculously difficult to get American comics).


2. I've quite enjoyed the new Spiderman movies (except for Spiderman 3, which I haven't seen yet). Imagine my surprise and outrage when I found out about the recent Mary Jane kerfuffle. Reading all that misogynist bullshit in defense of this piece of crap makes me want to hurl.


3. But wait, don't hand me that bucket just yet! Let me get even more grossed out by the new cover Marvel is planning for Heroes for Hire. I don't even read hentai, and still the first thing going through my head when I saw that was "OMFG, tentacle rape pr0n!" Keep in mind that this comic is marketed to teenagers aged 13+.
   ETA: Bwahaha, awesome fanart response by vonbrigthi can be found here.


4. The discussion about those issues led me to the great site Girl-Wonder, where I've been spending entirely too much time now perusing the forums.
   
   

   Girl-Wonder.org is a collection of sites dedicated to females in mainstream comics. Our goals are to foster an attentive, empowered audience community and to encourage respect and high-quality character depiction within the industry.

I guess it's not so bad that most of my favorite TV shows (House, Heroes, Bones) are having a summer break now. More time for comics (and, hopefully, my BA thesis *cough*).

The new Shortpacked! comic is great, go take a look:

"I have something to say to all of you who have something nasty to say about me or other women who are built like me, women whose names you know, women whose names you don't, women who've been picked on, women whose husbands put them down, women that work or girls in school. I have one thing to say to you:

Kiss my fat ass!"



(found here)

mcmillan has published this wonderful cartoon about Bill Napoli in her livejournal:



Calling Napoli with every choice you have to make sounds like a fun idea! The numbers given in the cartoon are real; the work number is for an antique car museum which he owns.

Again, I'm glad to live in Germany, where it'll be a lot harder for people like Napoli to take away our abortion rights. Not that they aren't trying over here: CSU-politician Johannes Singhammer recently called for tighter regulations concerning late abortions of disabled foetuses. He's the one who wanted to stop all financial aid for abortions because "Children are consumers – first of pampers and later of cars. And we need consumers."

As you've probably heard, South Dakota is trying outlaw abortion. To say it with Carol:

"Let's leave aside for a minute the question of whether we think abortion is a good thing, and proceed solely on the assumption that right now, it's considered a constitutional right and the law of the land."

Now, I'm usually not one to argue that if we have an abortion ban in place, shouldn't we at least discuss possible exceptions? Because to me, there is no way I would accept a state statute like this and be willing to discuss the fine print. But some people are asking these questions, and politicians like South Dakota state legislator Bill Napoli are more than willing to give detailed answers:

"A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life."

Logorhea like this leaves me speechless, but Twisty has it right when she says:

"Note the ease with which he describes this horror as “real-life,” the clarity with which he sees his heroine as a protegée of the Virgin Mary, the relish with which he gratuitously adds the piquant pornographic details. You can practically see his dick swelling with patriarchal pride."

So, what do we do about this man? Let's make sure people around the globe find out what an asshat Bill Napoli really is by Google-bombing him. Go to Candy's page for complete instructions.