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more boys vs. girls at san diego comic-con

So I’m no good at doing peppy little wrap-up posts, but I’ve gotta record for posterity my favourite overheard moment of last weekend. It was in the women’s bathrooms by the Small Press area, and I was leaving out the door so I have no idea what the women looked like or anything. All I [...]

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Kids Comics Roundtable: it’s all good

Kids’ comics were a giant part of my childhood, and I don’t mean respectable European ones like Moomin or Asterix or Tintin. No, it was pure American corporate-owned, tie-in-toy, sugar-cereal shilling garbage like Mad Balls, Ewoks, Masters of the Universe, Planet Terry, Top Dog, Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake, (there were three of us girls, but [...]

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fandom confession: piers anthony

I can easily think of things from my youth that I don’t like now as much as I once did, and that other people would consider silly or unworthy: soapy mystery novels (Julie Smith and Martha Grimes were my favourites), Strangers in Paradise (as I’ve discussed before), Wolff and Byrd: Counselors of the Macabre (that’s [...]

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defining mary

We’ve just begun our Mary Sue roundtable (Noah here, Tom here) but it’s already clear in the posts and comments that we’re working from several overlapping definitions. I surf around the fringes of the sci-fi and fanfic internets, so I’d been hearing the term for several years, as well as where it originally came from [...]

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MR3 Part Too Late: the devil wears lancome

Firstly, as a non-manga-reader undergoing continuing education in these blog series, I want to agree with Tom that the Okazaki’s artwork shocked and thrilled me at first glance. Her art looks more gestural than any other manga I’ve seen, and the thickish lines and largish facial features were much more relatable, for me, than the [...]

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FCR 4ish: do men with unisex names write better women?

Strangers in Paradise, Locas, and soap operas

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YKK Part 4: desire is suffering

Like with a lot of manga, YKK had the effect of reminding me how much cultural understanding I’m missing when I come at Japanese work for Japanese audiences. Like she’s a robot: ok, but what’s robotty about her? Not much, except she gets slightly different burn treatment, and, as Noah mentioned, fairly mild food allergies. [...]

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