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Kapow ignores women again
Tickets for the 2012 Kapow! comic book convention went on sale today, with the first version of the guest-list announced. After the controversy from last year over the lack of representation of women guests at the convention I expected it would lead off with a better showing on its subsequent line-up. How wrong I was. There are twenty-three ‘star guests’ listed so far, all of them men. If you dig into the programming you’ll find there are a few actresses mentioned, but in the ‘hot’ film writers/directors section there are no women listed either. Not surprisingly, I tweeted about this as soon as I noticed and several people retweeted it…
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women in comics at Thought Bubble
At Thought Bubble in Leeds last weekend there was a Women in Comics panel, which has been a regular feature of the event since the festival started five years ago. It was one of the panels I was very much looking forward to seeing, and guessing it would be a popular event I decided to get on line early. By the time the doors opened there was a huge queue making its way back almost to the door of the hall itself. While I didn’t attend every panel at Thought Bubble it was the longest line for a panel I saw that weekend. The line-up, from left to right is,…
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gothic galway
Evening arrives early these days, and I was knocking around the NUIG campus at dusk because I was attending the ComicsWest event. While the accompanying photograph might look like the spooky outline of a local Gothic castle, it’s actually the contours of the University’s Quadrangle, the oldest structure on the grounds. Later on in a much more modern part of the university – alas – the question and answer session went splendidly, with me, Michael Carroll, Paddy Brown and Andrew Luke discussing our various approaches to writing/drawing comics to the members of NUIG’s Comic Book Society. It was lovely being back at my old alma mater, and seeing such a…
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terminator games
I took this picture at the arcade in Brighton Pier last month when I was attending the British FantasyCon. All those robotic red eyes daring you to chance your money and skill against their programmed reflexes. How can you resist?
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2% is not equality
The comic book blogosphere has been obsessed by one topic of conversation lately: the reboot of the DC Comics Universe that’s coming in September. All the forthcoming 52 titles will be reset to number 1, which (theoretically) will leave the creative teams free to forge new identities for the characters. Information has been released to the fans about the forthcoming changes in a slow-drip fashion. It’s a cunning PR strategy to inflame interest and discussion about the direction DC is taking. They’ll also be offering digital downloads of the comics on the same day as the print release, which is a big indicator of where they think the market is…
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Kapow! – with added women
The Kapow! Comic Book convention is going on this weekend, and it’s good to see that in the face of criticism over its initial all-male line-up the event has adjusted its guest list. I was not the only one who pointed out the lack of women, and I’m not claiming this result is due to my input alone. Honestly, this is a positive response, and I hope it means more women featured at the event (if they hold it again) when they have time to include women in the planning from the very beginning. Millar is even talking up the female angle now, mentioned a 30% female readership in this…
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zap!
I thought this image might catch your attention. I snapped it in Dublin last weekend. This is the window of MAC cosmetics in the large department store Brown Thomas on Grafton Street. Last weekend MAC launched its limited edition Wonder Woman line of cosmetics. To celebrate they had colourful window displays (see below) and body-painted a fit young man to look like a walking piece of comic book art. It was interesting that this event was going on the same weekend as P-Con, with just the length of Exchequer Street between them. Yet, they might as well have been on different worlds (Earth and Themyscira I suppose). When I inquired…
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British women in comics
After blogging about the absence of women in the line-up of the Kapow! comic book convention I had a number of lively discussions about it. I also discovered that Mark Millar twittered about this issue back on the 7th of December 2010, when someone else pointed out there were no female guests. His response, over two tweets: You realise this is being put together by 5 women, don’t you? The reason the comic guests are mostly male is because the biggest names in UK comics are male. Who is the big british female pro they’re missing here? I’m amused by ‘the comic guests are mostly male’ bit, when the guests…
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the snow convention
We had more snow in the early hours of the morning, but it made getting around Wexford somehow easier today. Last night the short walk back to our guest house was a little tricky due to all the ice. Today a few brave souls dared the snow to join our coterie of sf/fantasy fans, although most had to head back in the afternoon before it froze again. The picture above is from the official opening of the new sf/fantasy/horror book store Alien8 in Wexford by the town’s native son, novelist Eoin Colfer. Over 200 people turned up on the day despite the snow (I couldn’t even squeeze in!). Alien8 also…
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snowy WexWorlds
The drive down to Wexford yesterday was good, if somewhat tiring, and on a couple of occasions made frustrating by a lack of signage – an old problem on roads in Ireland. We went to the opening of WexWorlds – the Mayor of Wexford showed up – met friends, and had food. This morning we were greeted by a winter wonderland. Unfortunately, it’s meant that some of the guests of the convention have not been able to get to Wexford. My two panels thus far have been very enjoyable, even though the numbers were smaller as a result of the weather. So far everyone seems to be having a great…
