That's All Folks

Hey all,

I've decided after much reflection to not renew ShotgunReviews.com.  It had a great run for several years and was critical for me on a lot of levels.  The underlying blogspot (themightyshotgunreviews.blogspot.com) will still be accessible, but I haven't been able to devote time and energy toward Shotgun in a long time.  The brief resurgence for the advent of Sparkshooter was great, but it's time for me to move along.

As most of you know, I'm doing Solo Acoustic (with Ben Olson) and Sparkshooter (with Sarah Vaughn) at www.sparkshooter.com.  I hope you all check that out.  I'm also continuing to write a lot for Zenescope and should have more things elsewhere, some with Matt Brady and some with other surprise people.  I just wrote a new run of trading cards too that has to be quiet for a while.

I think, going with the blogspot, that I'll leave the ShotgunReviews FB page up and continue to post the odd funny thing there like I do now.

Thank you all.  I can't really overstate how much fun it was.  Hope you had a good time.  I know I did.

Thanks,

Talk to you all soon,

Troy

Geekier Than Thou

When I was younger, I really liked punk music, and I wanted to know more about the punk scene.  I didn’t have a chance to learn much in my small, quiet Midwestern town, but when I went to college, suddenly there was a much broader world open to me.  I made a couple friends who were punks, and they invited me to some shows.  I went to those shows, and then I never went back.  I kept listening to the music, but the mean looks and rude treatment from scenesters who thought I was beneath them because I didn’t dress a certain way and couldn’t answer questions about zillions of obscure punk bands alienated me permanently.  I didn’t go to another truly punk show for a very long time.  I wasn’t (and still am not) interested in pretending to be something I’m not just to fit in with an elitist group of people who think that only if you conform to their standards of the scene can you be one of them. 

This is why the idea of excoriating “fake” geeks makes me so angry.  The desire for everyone in your scene to like exactly the things you like and to present themselves ONLY in exactly the ways you prefer is exclusionary and, frankly, ridiculous.  The comics industry needs as much new blood as possible, and if you don’t like what those other people create or read, then you don’t have to look at it or hang out with them.  Without new blood, the industry will die.  This is not me being alarmist.   The traditional comic geek is growing old and will eventually be gone.  That doesn’t mean those people aren’t worth keeping.  But it does mean that the comic industry as a whole needs to encourage demographic diversity.  Women, children, people of color, and LGBT folks are all groups that need to be better served by the comic industry as a whole - and welcoming those groups with open arms can do nothing but good things for the industry.  Excluding them, however, means that our industry continues to dwindle.  People will only stick around for so long when they are being made to feel unwelcome and less than everyone else in a scene.  Diversity doesn’t make your interest less YOURS and it doesn’t make you unwelcome.  It just brings in new people for you to talk to about your interests and learn about their interests and makes you a more well-rounded person.

That’s how I feel about cosplayers.  Cosplaying is not really my thing.  I usually dress as something nerdy for Halloween, in a way that at a con would be considered cosplaying, I suppose.  I’ve been Black Canary, Catwoman, and Silk Spectre I.  Those costumes may be revealing, but I wore every single one of them because I was interested in the character (Black Canary in particular was my favorite because she’s my favorite DC heroine). But when it comes to dressing up for cons, I’d rather not.  I was in a cosplay group last year where I dressed as a female version of the 9^th Doctor.  Putting together the costume was fun, and meeting a bunch of other women who were also really into Doctor Who was great.  But at the end of the day, I don’t go to cons to cosplay.  I go to cons to work – to meet creators, check out what folks are doing, do meetings, etc. – and being in costume is not really conducive to that, most of the time (because of my own discomfort with being professional in costume, not because I don’t think anyone should do it). 

So it’s not my thing – but I LOVE seeing cosplayers.  Above all, I love seeing people dressed as characters from things I’m working on, whether they’re huge fans or just love the aesthetic.  It doesn’t matter to me if they’ve bought every issue or watched every episode or know the entire history of the character.  It takes enthusiasm to put on a costume, and that enthusiasm is valuable to the comics industry, because that enthusiasm can be broadened.  Someone who digs the aesthetic of a character, whether they know anything about them at all or not, can be encouraged to get to know more about that character by a welcoming industry, NOT by an industry that tells them they are worthless because they don’t already know everything.  And anyone who has talked to cosplayers knows that almost all of them put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into their costumes – and 100% of the time in my experience, it’s because they love the character they’re dressing as.  That is passion we as an industry should be welcoming, regardless of their interests. 

Oh, you like that manga?  Have you seen this amazing comic by so-and-so? It’s super rad.

Oh, you wore that costume cuz it looks cool?  Did you know that character kicked major ass in this miniseries?  It’s awesome. 

What’s so hard about that?  Cosplayers’ passion does nothing to harm the industry at all.   

But no matter how you slice it, sexism harms comics as an industry and us as a community.  I have yet to read any blog post or Facebook tirade about those awful fake geek guys that are ruining comics.  It’s clear that for many of the people who fear fake geeks, that fear is focused on women.  Maybe it’s because some women teased them about their interests when they were younger, and they see attractive women who don’t seem to be “real” geeks as a threat.  I get that we all have our scars.  But judging strangers based on their appearances and your assumptions about what a geek should look like is no better than other people excluding you because they think you look like a geek.  The next time you meet someone who your geekdar is telling you is not a “real” geek – take a second to think about what that says about you and to think about ways you can both converse to enhance your geek experience.  Because the best part of geek culture is that we as a community LOVE to talk about what we love – and we don’t all have to love exactly the same parts of being a geek. 

Yes, There's Been A Hiatus . . .

But hang on.  Janelle's on her way.

HIATUS

While we've never been completely reactivated since the special Sparkshooter week, here's a note that we've been on official hiatus as Troy writes Grimm Fairy Tales Myths & Legends for Zenescope.  We shall return sometime, perhaps . . .

Help Save the DCUC figure line!

http://www.clubs.mattycollector.com/store/mattycol/en_US/pd/productID.251913100

My Thoughts Watching Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Where One Man Has Never Gone Before:

My Thoughts Watching The Entire Star Trek Series For The First Time

Part Two

 Now we get to the good stuff.

This is where the series title becomes a bit of a cheat, since this is a movie I've already seen (twice I think). But today I'm presenting my thoughts and gently teasing jokes while watching Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Three years after enduring the Motion Picture, audiences were rewarded with Wrath of Khan.

Geeks are sexist too.

You guys, I'd like to talk about an image that's been circulating around the geekier parts of the Internet this week: an image portraying several real-but-scantily-clad women as being inappropriate role models for girls by contrasting them with several female science fiction characters who were dressed in what I will refer to as "practical" clothing.  Yeah, you know the one I'm talking about (but if not, look right and ignore everything after "ray-gun").

On the top line, we have Snooki, Bella Swann from Twilight (or depending on how you look at it, Kristin Stewart, who plays Bella), I-can't-be-bothered-to-figure-out-which-Kardashian-it-is, Kat von D, and Lady Gaga.  All of them (with perhaps the exception of the Stewart and Snooki images) are depicted in revealing clothing.  I honestly never thought I would observe that Snooki looked classier than someone, but there you have it.  Because these women are dressed scantily (for larger or smaller values of scantily), the image presumes they have no inherent value.

Never mind that Kristin Stewart herself is outspoken, intelligent, actually HATES Twilight, and calls people out in interviews for using the word bitch.  Never mind that Kat von D is famous not because she occasionally chooses to show off her gorgeous body, but because she is incredibly talented in a field that is traditionally considered to be male-dominated (she is a tattoo artist, best known for her work on the series LA Ink).  While nobody is arguing that Gaga has interesting ideas about fashion, she has been an outspoken supporter of the LGBT community and of condom usage among sexually active people.  You will notice that I have not listed a single thing in this paragraph that makes ANY of the women in this image a bad role model.

I have to grant you that in the cases of Snooki and whichever-Kardashian-that-is, I wouldn't consider either of them a role model.  But you have to give them some credit, since they got famous by doing less work than your average technical support manager and have managed to make rather a lot of money doing so.  Regardless, the image implies that these women are less worthy because they choose to dress in a sexy and/or revealing manner, something I take issue with.

Furthermore, you can look at the very same series as are portrayed in the middle row and come up with some terrible examples of progressive female character portrayal.  Princess Leia, leader of the Rebel movement, queen of an entire planet, and twin of JESUS H. SKYWALKER, is presented here in her iconic slave costume.  Because, you know, even a Queen is still a sex object first. 

Now, I'm not going to bother addressing that bottom row of pictures up there individually, but we can see that in the geek cultural world there is still plenty of encouragement to objectify women.  And that's the point, really, that I've been trying to get at with this entire rant.  This image portrays geek culture as being superior because of the presence of non-scantily-clad female role models, but to me this says that women who choose to perform their gender and appearance in ways that people consider "sexy" are worthless.  This image isn't about geeks being progressive, it's about slut shaming real women just because they choose to be sexy.

I've already ranted plenty of times about the sexualization of women in fiction, particularly comics, so I'll leave that thought be, but there is an important distinction to make as to why it's okay for real women to choose to be sexualized and why it's not okay for men to sexualize and objectify women the way they do in fiction, particularly geek fiction.  The women on the top line of the image at the top of this post are celebrating their sexual agency and expressing themselves freely and not at all inappropriately (seeing as all of the fun parts are covered, and Stewart and Snooki are both wearing clothes I wouldn't be ashamed to wear to work).  The women on the other two lines are depictions of (largely) men's ideas on how women should perform their sexuality.

I would be proud to list Gaga and Kat von D among my role models.  I may not like Bella Swann, but neither does Kristin Stewart.  And if anyone would like to pay me tens of thousands of dollars an episode to binge drink and tan myself leathery, I am so there.  Call me.  In the meantime, I propose that instead we celebrate people for having the confidence and bravery to dress however the fuck they like, even if that means bringing an entire new definition to the phrase "skirt steak."