The nicest thing anyone has ever said to me!

“I have known a lot of dorky girls, but you are the geekiest girl I have ever met,” Ralph Mazza, co-creator of Universalis.

Congratulations to Luke Crane and Mouseguard!!!

Mouseguard won best new RPG at Origins, beating out D&D 4e.

Congratulations, Luke!

Go Play NW!!!!

Quick update.  So far this year I’ve met Jason Morningstar, Ralph Mazza, and Matt Wilson of PTA fame.

I’ve played an awesome game of PTA, Beasthunters, Spectre of the Beast, and then ran the Keep.

I took the morning off to get some sleep, but I’ll be back there later today, and we’ll be going out to dinner with Ryan Macklin of Master Plan.

Geek Girls Rule! #89 – Miscellaneous crap and symptoms of the mid-30s hormone rush…

I know it’s been awhile.  I kind of blew my wad with the Joe Quesada drinking game et al., and I’ve been blogging on geeky topics over at the California NOW blog.  Topics include the LA Times’ “Girls’ Guide to Comicon” (the resulting aneurysm wiped out 3rd grade), the Today show segment on the fact that Gosh, Golly and Don’t You Just Know It!,* girls play videogames!!!  And how they managed to interview the founder of the Frag Dolls without once mentioning what Frag means and what game they’re most famous for playing (HALO) I’ll never fucking know.  The most recent blog post there is about why my hobbies courting “normal” girls pisses me off so damn much. 

That’s not all I’ve been up to.  Tonight is the kickoff for Go Play NW!  The Geek Husband What Rules and I will be at the kickoff feast, and then gaming.  I have no idea what I’ll be playing.  I never sign up for anything ahead of time.  Instead I usually see who needs a player, or barring that, see who else is leftover and we’ll form a game in a lobby or something.  I’m so moody about my gaming, as in I need to be in the mood for something to really dig on it, that signing up ahead of time really doesn’t work out that well for me. 

Now, as relates to hormones…  As much as I adore Nightcrawler of the X-men (eXcalibur, etc…), is it wrong that every time they come up with a “bad” or, let’s just say, less moral version of him in another timeline (gotta love the multiverse), that I develop a mad crush on that version as well.  Maybe a fiercer crush…  A friend just gave me a copy of the orignal miniseries with Ilyana Rasputin, where she’s taken by Belasco and… Nightcrawler in a loincloth… sigh… 

Yeah, I’m a walking mass of libido, which to be honest has not changed since adolescence.  It’s one of the many reasons the Mister married me. 

The Geek Husband What Rules will be at DragonFlight this year, I might be there for a day.  My partner in crime over at Geek Sisterhood, Sophie, will also be up for Dragonflight!! 

I’ve also got a podcast I’m editing for here.  An interview with my friend Karnythia about her new publishing house, Verb Noire. 

*Why yes, I am originally from the Midwest.  How’d you guess?

Women with Ray Guns

I love how the women are portrayed on these old science fiction magazine covers.

Geek Girls Rule! Podcast #12 – The Whiskey and Cigarettes Podcast

Yes, once again, I podcast with a hashed voice.  Sigh. Gotta happen once a year.

Podcast 12

In this one, I talk about the passing of Wash, Rhythm Heaven, Why Guy Ritchie is the absolute worst person to make a Sherlock Holmes film, Why Francis Ford Coppola still owes me $8 for Dracula, Go Play NW, D&D 4e doesn’t suck, and some other stuff.

Oh, and the Geek Girls! Rule Zazzle Store.

Can’t blog, eating pizza!

Happy 70th Birthday, Batman!

Batman. The Caped Crusader. The Dark Knight. Whatever name he’s known by, this month marks the 70th anniversary of his first appearance in Detective Comics #27, cover dated May 1939. It was standard practice at the time for an issue to be released up to two months prior to the cover date, so the issue could have been on newsstands as early as March 1939. I simply couldn’t find a definitive date for when it actually hit newsstands no matter how hard I looked.

Batman was the second major superhero published by Detective Comics, Inc. after Superman’s successful debut the previous year quickly led to new characters being created to capitalize on the sudden popularity of costumed crimefighters. Batman was created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger, although only Kane received official credit for contractual reasons, which still seems unfair considering Finger’s contributions.

In “The Case of the Criminal Syndicate” from Detective Comics #27, the reader is first introduced to disinterested playboy Bruce Wayne and then to the mysterious vigilante Bat-Man, discovering only at the end that they’re one and the same. As written by Finger and drawn by Kane, the early stories lacked the sheer dynamism Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster brought to the early Superman stories, but there was something archetypal in the Jungian sense about the Bat-Man that transcended his simple beginnings. Batman was influenced as much by pulp fiction characters like the Shadow and Doc Savage as by the Man of Steel.

The story of a young Bruce Wayne witnessing the brutal murders of his parents, providing the psychological catalyst for becoming an avenging crimefighter, is well known today, but it wasn’t introduced in the comics until Detective Comics #33, cover dated Nov 1939, in a story written by Gardner Fox. Although little known to many comic fans today, Fox was a major creative force in comics as co-creator of the Sandman (who debuted two months after Batman in Adventure Comics #40), the Golden Age Flash, the Golden Age Hawkman, Doctor Fate, Starman, the Justice Society of America, the Silver Age Hawkman, the Justice League of America, the Silver Age Atom, Adam Strange, and Zatanna, among others.

Detective Comics #38, cover dated April 1940 and written by Finger, introduced Robin the Boy Wonder, whose origin paralleled Batman’s, beginning the popular trend of adult superheroes having children or teenagers as sidekicks. Batman finally got his own title in Spring 1940. Batman #1 was notable for introducing the Joker and Catwoman to the Batman mythos in stories written by Finger.

In terms of their impact, key contributors to the mythos over the years included writer Dennis O’Neil and artist Neal Adams, who returned the character to his more serious roots as a detective in the early 1970s, and writer/artist Frank Miller, whose classic The Dark Knight Returns in 1986 was a far darker interpretation of the character.

The strength of Batman as a concept has been demonstrated by seven decades of continuous publication and numerous interpretations in various media, from outright campy to lighthearted to serious to darker than the shadows Batman lurks in. The character has appeared in a live action television series, numerous animated television series, a radio show, two movie serials, and seven motion pictures, just to name some of his appearances in other media. The most recent film, The Dark Knight, may be the best superhero film ever made, and certainly the darkest.

Although the original Batman is presumed dead in the current comics, no one ever is truly dead in the comics, and his return will no doubt happen sooner rather than later and in seventy years someone will be writing about his 140th anniversary.

So, dear readers, which creators and eras in the comics and/or which actors and films do you consider truly iconic?

For me, I’d add to the creators listed above writer Steve Englehart and artist Marshall Rogers in the late 1970s, writer Jim Starlin and artist Jim Aparo in the 1980s, and writer Grant Morrison more recently. I used to consider director Tim Burton’s films starring Michael Keaton iconic until director Christopher Nolan and star Christian Bale far surpassed them. The DC Animated Universe shows produced by Bruce Timm have to be mentioned, too.