Tlönista

On Nintendo, comics, bigotry and love.

Further to a conversation with Ben about stuff that’s been rolling around in my head recently, and the ongoing turmoil in geekdom in general. Too lazy to link SRY.

I’ve developed a real appreciation for the genius of Nintendo. It’s not that an unusual number of people have a DS – it’s that the DS doesn’t “belong” to any particular demographic. Your average basement-dwelling geek has a DS, but that balding City businessman also has a DS, and so does the middle-aged mom killing time on the bus to Catford, and the grey-haired lady who wants to train her brain, and you get my drift. And not only does Nintendo cater to all demographics, they back it up with innovation. My co-workers, none of whom are the least bit nerdy, are crazy for Wii Sports, because let’s face it, the Wiimote is just plain cool. Boxing! Tennis! In your living room!

Western comics fans will occasionally quit ogling their collector’s-edition Mary Jane statuettes long enough to wring their hands and wondering what it is with the kids and that manga stuff nowadays. For the uninitiate, this is because Japanese (and, to a lesser extent, Korean) comics are kicking Western comics’ ass all over the place. Whatever could be the reason?

Well, as we’ve learned from Nintendo, in the long run – hell, in the short run – making new cool shit that appeals to everyone is going to pay off better than milking your existing fanbase. You can try to wow the jaded Penny Arcade crowd, or you can adopt the philosophy that videogames are for everyone and set about putting that into practice.

The thing about manga is that it’s for everyone. If you’re a high schooler who wants fluffy romance stories, or a pervy twentysomething who likes to read about cute boys making out, or a boy obsessed with giant robots, or a horror fan, or a Buddhist philosopher, or a passionate foodie, there’s entire industries churning out series just for you. There are many long-running series that you can’t just jump into, but with the sheer volume of stuff coming out of Japan, there’s always new series starting up or ones that work as standalones or…on and on.

Superhero comics, on the other hand, are relatively inaccessible. I’m not a fan and never will be, simply because a) they’re too hard to get into and b) superhero stories don’t really appeal to me. Why do you need to know decades’ worth of continuity to really “get” every single issue on the shelves? Why can’t they have a goddamn standalone series? Why, for the love of God, is everyone dressed in fucking technicolor Spandex? Just gimme my Dragon Head and let me read about Japanese schoolchildren running away from a fifty foot tidal wave.

(Oh yeah, and c) the format’s a bitch, too. Issues suck. Trades and tankobon rock. Enough said.)

When fans call the superhero comics industry on its misogyny, homophobia, racism, and general asshattery, snotty-nosed geekboys will commonly leap to its defence with excuses like “But it’s a business decision! That stuff sells!” Sure, kids, and guess what? Feminism, queer-positivity, and tolerance sell too. Catering to diverse demographics sells. Alienating your potential fanbase — that’s the bad business decision.

Are comics for you and your straight white male buddies? Or are comics for everybody? Do you love your boys’ club with the NO GURLZ ALLOWED GO READ MANGA sign? Or do you love comics?

In the end, it comes down to what you love.

So tell me, where is an ardent feminist to turn when she’s tired of sticking it to the Man and liveblogging her leg hair, but prefers her online time-wasters without a hearty dollop of woman-hating on the side? Are Fark and The Superficial as good as it gets? Where, pray, do feminists go after hours?

Here’s a list of my personal favourite non-misogynist blogs not about feminism:

Jezebel.
Xine and I discovered this fluffy Gawker Media gossip site at about the same time and were at once devoted/addicted. Come for the trashy Amy Winehouse photos, stay for the whip-smart, sharp-tongued commenters. My favourite feature is “Crap Email From a Dude”, a gallery of delightfully douchey break-up emails.

Language Log.
Timely analysis from a gaggle of word-wonks. They tear down Strunk & White, eviscerate Dan Brown, and investigate whether George W. Bush really is linguistically inept. Whenever some sensational study makes newspaper headlines, Language Log digs up the cold, hard facts.

Making Light.
ML is easily one of the best sites on the web. It’s a group blog headed by Tor editors Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden and regularly covers such diverse topics as publishing scams, emergency medicine, science fiction, the war in Iraq, and knitting, to name a few. The community is first-class — the most articulate, intelligent set you’ll ever find in a comments section.

James Nicoll’s LJ.
This venerable SF reviewer from Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo (local boy) writes short, sweet and snarky posts about astronomy, SF community drama, and For Better Or For Worse.

Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.
Their slogan says it all: “All of the romance, none of the bullshit.” Like Making Light, SBTB attracts a community that’s not just avid readers, but also professionals and industry insiders. Totally fun, even if (like me) you aren’t a big romance fan (though if I hadn’t found SBTB, I wouldn’t have read any romance novels in the first place). At least stop by every Monday, when bloggers Sarah and Candy mock godawful romance novel covers.

Bonus offline feature:

The Guardian.
I’ve developed a kind of wincing reflex whenever I read newspaper articles that touch on women’s issues, though I’m rarely conscious of it. This evening I sat down with a cup of tea and a pile of newspaper and opened the Reviews section and there were an entire two pages to do with books that touched upon women or sex or feminist issues and I was flinching prematurely the whole way through. To my astonishment, none of the reviews treated women’s rights as a quaint outdated fad or implied that rape victims were asking for it or dismissed self-identifying feminists as uppity man-haters. It was almost as if…stay with me here…the journalists themselves were feminist! Crazy, but true.

I’m spending a hell of a lot less time on the Internet nowadays, and generally just pick a few feeds out of the reader and mark the rest read. I read all the blogs written by people I know in real life (see the blogroll in the sidebar, plus Chris’s blog), then the most interesting personal blogs (e. g., As the Tumor Turns, by Liz, formerly of Granny Gets a Vibrator), then the best soapbox blogs…and then skip the rest, and idly read a few pages of Jezebel or Cute Overload or whatever. Too busy to follow what convoluted discussions are going on in the comics or feminist or POC blogospheres, much less the news from back home. Friends! Blog more!

Also, Jennie is doing a far better job of blogging Britain than I am. And as a field archaeologist, she tells cooler work stories.