(1) WOMEN WITHOUT NOMINATIONS. A fully-illustrated protest, “The International Festival of Comics (Angoulême): Women Banned from Comics”, can be viewed at More Words, Deeper Hole.
With the announcement today of the list of nominations for the Grand Prix d’Angoulême 2015 – an award for which we comics creators are asked to vote – the ax fell:
30 names, 0 women.
The creators of the protest called for a voting boycott.
Subsequently, organizers grudgingly added some female names to the list says Comics Reporter.
FIBD To Add Female Names To Grand Prix Nominees List; Makes Long Statement
Maybe it’s missing something in translation — I read it both ways but my French is pretty bad — but that may be the most obnoxious and angry statement I’ve ever read from an official party in a comics milieu. I won’t be going over it again in detail, I don’t think — life’s too short, and it made me a bit ill. There’s a bunch of stuff in there that’s patently not true, though, including bellowing at made-up accusations at the fringes of what’s being discussed, a standard of working cartoonist applied here that hasn’t been applied to past presidents like Watterson or even their current one. There are also, and this is where my French may fail me, one or two extraneous digs at people. Sheesh.
(2) REY BACK IN PLAY. Entertainment Weekly reports Rey will be added as a game piece to future editions of Monopoly: Star Wars.
In response to fan outcry that the board game doesn’t feature Rey, the lead character played by Daisy Ridley in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the toymaker announced Tuesday that she will be added in an updated version.
“We love the passion fans have for Rey, and are happy to announce that we will be making a running change to include her in the Monopoly: Star Wars game available later this year,” a Hasbro spokesperson said in a statement to EW.
(3) TESTIMONIALS. A post from Mary Robinette Kowal quotes from the requests sent by 83 of the 100 people she and other donors gave supporting memberships in the 2015 Worldcon.
Mark-kitteh says, “I noted that there are several that seem to identify as puppy-sympathetic in some fashion; there are of course others that are anti-slate and many that don’t mention the kerfluffle in any way. (In true clickbait fashion, I will say that You Won’t Believe How Eloquent #5 Is!)”
(4) MORE STAR TREK STAMPS. Trek Today has images of new Star Trek stamps.
The United States isn’t the only country releasing Star Trek stamps.
Two other countries, Palau and Guyana, have released stamps based on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
The stamps from Palau feature Deep Space Nine ships including the Defiant, the space station itself, a runabout, a Cardassian Galor-class ship, and a Bajoran solar sail ship.
(5) TODAY IN HISTORY
- January 6, — Samuel F.B. Morse demonstrates the telegraph.
- January 6, 1973 – Schoolhouse Rock! premiered.
(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY
- Born January 6, 1925 – John DeLorean, creator of the car with the gull-wing doors that traveled Back To The Future.
(7) JEDI STEPS. James Altucher is convinced “The Force Will Awaken in 2016”.
This has been the worst year of my life. So bad I thought I would die, over and over. But then wonderful things happened. Things that will change me forever. And nobody really knew because I practiced my own daily practice throughout. I say this not because I want sympathy. I say it because I’m proud. …
SURRENDER TO THE MOMENT
I am always anxious about the future. Or I regret the past. It’s hard not to regret losing lifetimes worth of money.
It’s hard not to feel anxious about the future for me, my family, my loved ones, my friends, because everything is so frustratingly uncertain.
But recognize when those worries come up, and bring it back to right now. What can I do now to best serve the cards dealt me this moment?
Anxiety will only take away energy (the Force) from the current moment and never solve the problems of the future.
I saw this again and again this past year. What a waste it was to ask “Why?” about moments already gone, instead of trusting my own resources for the next moments.
(8) VATICAN PANS STAR WARS. Speaking of spiritual news – Rolling Stone reports the “Vatican Paper Deems ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Not ‘Evil” Enough”.
But the film’s harshest – and least expected – critic could be the Vatican’s daily newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, which trashed the sequel for its lack of convincing antagonists. “The new director’s setup fails most spectacularly in its representation of evil, meaning the negative characters,” reads the non-bylined review, via Los Angeles Times.
“Darth Vader and above all the Emperor Palpatine were two of the most efficient villains in that genre of American cinema,” the article continues, noting that Abrams failed to craft evildoers on that same grandiose scale. “The counterpart of Darth Vader, Kylo Ren, wears a mask merely to emulate his predecessor, while the character who needs to substitute the Emperor Palpatine as the incarnation of supreme evil represents the most serious defect of the film. Without revealing anything about the character, all we will say is that it is the clumsiest and tackiest result you can obtain from computer graphics.”
(9) COLBERT EXPLAINS. Rolling Stone also covered Stephen Colbert’s facetious attempt to justify the Vatican’s review.
…on Tuesday’s Late Show, Stephen Colbert examined why the Catholic Church responded so harshly to The Force Awakens.
“The Vatican, and this is true, gave a better review to Spotlight, and I’m not joking,” Colbert said of the film that tackled the child sex abuse scandal in Boston churches.
(10) JETS AT SUNSET. James H. Burns’ article about the New York Jets missing the playoffs contains an ObSF reference to Isaac Asimov.
With all the millions commissioner Roger Goodell is spending on expanding the league’s brand to Europe and other international markets, should he not be spending a bit more attention to the boroughs and burgs that are in fact, his neighbors?
(11) ATTEMPTED HUMOR. Honest Trailers is often better at sounding unimpressed than being funny, as in its latest effort, The Martian.
[Thanks to David K.M. Klaus, Will R., Mark-kitteh, John King Tarpinian, and Joe H. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Shambles.]
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I liked FBoFW for years, but as it went on some of the ongoing themes became too obvious to ignore. And Johnston seemed, especially towards the end, to be trying to force the storyline into places it didn’t want to go (and, not that an artist is required to or should even try to consider the audience, but places that made many readers say “oh hell no”/”WTF”). Cf Granthony/Blandthony.
It also became very clear, over time, that Johnston was anti-feminist. (From the “Blandthony” link: Lynn Johnston has never made any secret of the fact that she’s not a feminist and doesn’t look too kindly on working women.) I don’t find it surprising if an increasing number of folks found her work not personally relevant or funny.
Here’s a really interesting (but very lengthy) interview with Lynn Johnston from 1997, back when she was still happy in her marriage. It certainly reveals some insights into her background (and her anti-feminist tendencies).
Whoa, I might almost put a content warning on that, JJ. What a non-stop parade of child abuse and dysfunctional misery. I mean, it might get better later, but I’m still not out of the part about children getting hit at 25-30% of the way through.
Man, I didn’t know any of that stuff.
I just knew that as I read the strip, the slow accretion of the characters’ nastiness and unpleasantness, jealousy and simmering resentment and the all-around contempt and bleakness of the entire world began to grate.
Wow, that’s quite the interview.
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