Category Archives: comics

Asian Comic Book Fan Watches Thor: The Dark World Expecting Racial Representation, Deals with Crushing Disappointment by Writing Blog Post

Posted on November 15, 2013 by | 10 comments

I like a lot of things, guys and girls. I like comic books, as the title of this post attests to, but I also like Marvel, and movies, and mythology. Taking all of that into consideration there is absolutely no reason why I shouldn’t have liked the sequel to 2011’s Thor. I mean, that film took The Warriors Three, consisting of Hogun the Grim, Fandral the Dashing, and Volstagg the Voluminous [i.e. fat], and cast the Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano as the former.

I should hope that you know my feelings about racially diverse casting by now, but really the expressions below sum them up pretty nicely.

From left to right: Hogun, Fandral, and Volstagg.

Continue reading →

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Posted in comics, film, race

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The Importance of Ms. Marvel as Immigrant Literature

Posted on November 8, 2013 by | 5 comments

I can think of no better way to introduce this subject than with Stephen Colbert’s reaction to the news:

<this is where I would embed the video, if Comedy Central, Yahoo Video, and WordPress would just get along already>

Before I continue I want to point out that the original Captain Marvel was a Kree alien who actually went by the name “Mar-Vell”, and when taking that into account Darlene Rodriguez’s pronunciation actually has a fair amount of validity.

With that out of the way, let’s take a more in-depth look at the young Kamala Khan.

Easily one of the most fascinating aspects about this new character, at least from a writer’s perspective, is how she came into existence. It all began when Marvel editor Sana Amanat, who grew up as a Muslim, began recounting stories of her childhood with fellow editor Steve Wacker. The two moved forward from there, “[noting] the dearth of female superhero series and, even more so, of comics with cultural specificity.” Continue reading →

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Posted in comics, Islam, race, religion, writing

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Fame Day: Sir Patrick Stewart

Posted on November 7, 2013 by | 4 comments

There are just so many reasons to love Sir Patrick Stewart.

He gets into the Halloween spirit, for one.

Continue reading →

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Posted in comics, Fame Day, film, games, internet, television, video games

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Fame Day: 봉천동 귀신 [Bongcheon-Dong Ghost]

Posted on October 31, 2013 by | 6 comments

If you live anywhere in North America [and judging by the site stats that is more than likely] you are probably very, very aware that today is All Hallows’ Eve, which is what I prefer to call what is more popularly known as Halloween. To be very, very clear, I’m not a huge fan of the holiday. In fact, if yesterday’s post was any indication, easily my favourite part of the occasion is saying that things are “spoo-oo-ooky”; it’s a lot of fun, you should definitely try it out.

For real, though. I do not enjoy being scared, nor do I really get kick out of scaring others. I have seen maybe two horror movies in their entirety, and didn’t particularly like either of them. I mean, I appreciate that Paranormal Activity terrified me, but I’ve been informed by many that it is not scary in the least, which might lead you to believe that I am by no means a good judge of the genre.

Which brings me to Bongcheon-Dong Ghost. Continue reading →

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Posted in Asia, comics, internet

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Shame Day: Bob Kane

Posted on October 22, 2013 by | 3 comments

Let’s start things off with a question. Who here likes Batman? Oh, yes, Commissioner Gordon?

Thank you for that very thorough answer, James. But you know what else is important, and begs asking when we all like something? Where that something comes from. Y’know, who made it, that sort of thing. So, who made Batman?

Go ahead and pick up that Batman graphic novel lying next to you, don’t pretend you can’t see it. Tell me what it says inside there, somewhere between the front cover and the beginning of the actual comic. You can read it aloud, that’s fine.

“Batman created by Bob Kane” Continue reading →

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Posted in art, comics, Shame Day, writing

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Why Writing Strong Female Characters Is[n’t] Hard

Posted on October 4, 2013 by | 4 comments
For the past several months I’ve been compiling what different people on the internet have been saying in regards to creating strong female characters, while also observing how others feel about those three words in general.
While not a topic you’d think would necessitate a lot of discussion, the truth is that there’s a lot more to this discussion than “Yes, I like them they’re great and we need to see more of them.”
As a disclaimer I would like state that I let the research in this post come to me. I did not do Google searches for “female writers’ opinions on strong female characters.” All of the quotes and articles below I found organically, if we can use that word to describe my internet browsing habits. Continue reading →

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Posted in comics, feminism, film, television, writing

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