sailing the fingers of the dragon

zulu asked me to suggest comics with interesting art that would be suitable for junior high-age students, and though it wasn't technically part of my December meme thing (request more topics!), I thought I'd share. :P

A lot of the stuff I find most interesting currently is creator-owned work that I'm not sure would be age-appropriate, but I did come up with two comics that I think would be really interesting in terms of pushing the comics art envelope.

The first is Batwoman - but please note that I cannot countenance recommending anything in the current DC universe, so I specifically mean the pre-reboot Batwoman by Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams III, collected in Batwoman: Elegy.

J.H.'s art is... magical. What I love most about his work on Batwoman, though, is his incredibly creative work with panels and page layouts. A lot of traditional comics thinking relies on a certain number of panels and/or flow, but J.H. subverts that and creates incredibly intricate, organic, beautiful full pages, double pages, and panels. For example:
Batman and Batwoman – speech not needed to convey the tension or the progression
Batwoman in a fight – this is post-reboot, but such a great example of not needing defined panels to move the action
Batwoman drugged – even in pencils and not coloured, the confusion of the drugging comes through
Batwoman and Alice - parallels! panel structure! gorgeousness!
J.H. also switches between art styles and creates new panel styles for each of them. Highly recommended, and not just for Zulu's class. :P

The other comic that sprang to mind was the current run of Hawkeye, by Matt Fraction and David Aja – particularly issue #11, which is told entirely from the POV of Hawkeye's dog. I'm actually way behind on this comic, but I know that the issue also retells events from a previous issue, only from different angles and without the use of human speech. The way that the narrative progresses mostly without speech bubbles and the ability to see the same events told by the same writer and artist from two very different perspectives might be quite neat.
Pizza Dog perspective | Two
Pizza Dog solves murders

(Actually his name is Lucky, not Pizza Dog)

Those are my thoughts – if anyone else wants to chime in for the edification of Zulu's classes, I'm sure your thoughts would also be welcome. :P

Tell me you want to play and I'll pick up to three of your fandoms. Then update your journal and answer the following questions:

such_heights gave me Sanctuary, DCU, and Stargate.

Sanctuary

What got you into this fandom in the first place?
Tumblr gifspams of Amanda Tapping kissing girls. No, shut up, really. Because sophia_gratia had been pushing it on me for a while, and I tried to watch the pilot and found it really boring, so I gave up. And then last November my Tumblr dash exploded with "Helen makes out with another woman in canon omg!!1!" posts, and I thought, hm, maybe I should watch this episode. So I did, and not only was there ladykissing, there was genre smartness and interesting gender politics and a badass heroine, and there we go.

Do you think you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?
I am a total fandom butterfly and there is a possibility that the series won't be renewed for a fifth season, so while there are a lot of stories I'd like to tell I can't imagine I'll always be as invested in the fandom as I am currently. I can't see myself getting to a point where I don't like it any longer (unless I write too much on it academically), though.

Favorite episodes/books/movies, etc?
Ack! Well, the first one I watched, obviously, "Monsoon." Also "Haunted," (because John!), "The Five" (because Nikola!), "Pax Romana" (because Ranna!), "Fugue" (because singing!), and, last but not at all least, "Out of the Blue" (because AU Crazy McPaintsALot Cat Lady Magnus OH MY GOD!).

Do you participate in this fandom (fanfiction, graphics, discussions)?
Just a wee bit. :P I am particularly looking forward to participating in Sanctuary Bingo starting on Sunday!

Do you think more people should get into this fandom?
YES. I would particularly like some more vidders (yes I'm looking at you, you know who you are *cough*). Also, I just think more people should watch shows where the lady rescues herself. Plus it's quite smart about its genre-ness and self-aware and meta; it's not perfect, but if you can get past the dodgy CGI in places it's better than it seems.

***

DCU

What got you into this fandom in the first place?
Hahahahaha. I don't know if I can answer that. You know, in the Serenity tie-in graphic novel, Nathan Fillion writes about going down to Whyte Avenue and poking through the longboxes in the Wee Book Inn and that's how he started reading comics, and... yeah. I don't actually remember when I started doing that. Age seven, eight, nine? The first DC Comic I remember buying new off the shelf was Wonder Woman vol.2 #72, when I was nine, but I'd been reading back-issues for a while before then.

Do you think you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?
Comics are my forever fandom. It's true! I mean, seriously, they've been part of my life for a good twenty years now. I read stuff that's not DCU, sometimes, but I can't be arsed to catch up on the X-Men stuff now and the DCU, even the crazy post-52 DCnU, is where my heart is. (Even if I am a bit broken by Wonder Woman. Thank god I still have Batwoman and Batgirl right now.)

Favorite episodes/books/movies, etc?
I am just going to talk about favourite runs, because otherwise we could have a problem. Ask if you want more detail.
Wonder Woman - the Perez run, at least through issue 30 or so, still defines the character for me; Rucka's run is just goddamn amazing; Simone's run does some delightfully subversive things.
Gotham Central - possibly my favourite thing in comics in the last... fifteen years? Because RENEE.
Batwoman - my second-favourite thing? Because KATE, and a canonically queer woman wearing the bat-symbol!
Secret Six - because they are SO WRONG it's amazing.
Teen Titans - totally oldschool, but Wolfman's run back in the 80s on TT and NTT still define Starfire and Raven for me.

Do you participate in this fandom (fanfiction, graphics, discussions)?
Off and on. I do a bit more on tumblr and on twitter and in person. I write fic sometimes, when the need (or the ficathon) strikes. I hang out with the occasional author and write academic papers. You know, like usual.

Do you think more people should get into this fandom?
This is hard for me to answer, because the DCU is so vast and so many people might like only one aspect of it. I think more people should read Gotham Central and Batwoman, because they are amazing stories and beautifully written. I think everyone should read Secret Six, because it is so twisted. I hesitate to recommend Wonder Woman to anyone right now, because it's wonderfully written and gorgeously illustrated and doing horrible horrible things that hurt me deeply. But I do think that comics as a medium are underappreciated and more people should give them a try, and that there is likely to be something in the new DCU for almost anyone if they can find it.

***

Stargate

What got you into this fandom in the first place?
Um. I ran out of Amanda Tapping in Sanctuary and sophia_gratia told me how awesome Sam Carter was. What, I'm totally shallow, I can't help it. I like to say that I'm not really a fan of Stargate so much as Stargate is my Amanda Tapping delivery vehicle.

Do you think you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?
Well, there's a lot of Stargates still to watch, so I'm definitely around for a while. And all the Stargates have some Sam Carter, so I'll stick them out. How fannish I stay about it will probably depend on how many stories I see that exist offscreen, because let's be fair: it's a pretty bad show and I'm really just watching it so I can have deep thoughts about Sam. Well, and because I think there's a paper or two in there somewhere.

Favorite episodes/books/movies, etc?
I am only on the early part of the third season of SG-1, so I am relatively early on, but: "Hathor" (because it's hilariously awful and Janet says 'libidinous' and the ladies save the day), "A Matter of Time" (because Sam! being sciencey!), "Singularity" (because Cassie! and Sam having emotions!). I have not yet watched any of the episodes that feature multiple alternate-timeline Sams, but I foresee them being high on my list also, because of reasons.

Do you participate in this fandom (fanfiction, graphics, discussions)?
I write some fic. I hope to write more fic. I spend a lot of time reblogging pictures and having a lot of feelings in email. :P

Do you think more people should get into this fandom?
Again, tough one! It would be nice if more people were a little more active in it, but it is a rather old fandom. I might settle for getting pointers to all the hidden early-2000s fic archives that must be out there... ;)

Aww, I am on the femslash11 pinch-hit list. As I probably deserve, since I, um, forgot to post a Dear Writer letter - so if you've just grabbed my pinch hit, thaaaank you, and a brief commentary on Stuff I Like ( here )

Guys what is UP with Batwoman continually getting delayed. I AM NOT OKAY WITH THIS.



Yeah, Diana. I need a bear hug today too.

(It is all comics, all the time in my brain lately. I blame Tumblr.)

My very dear Yuletide Writer! Let me blather on at you about what I like!

I like awesome women being awesome. You may pick up on this based on my requests. *g* The canons I'm interested in here have done such amazing jobs giving us strong, flawed, interesting, multi-faceted women that I just want more of all of them.

I like dark fic and happy fic, sexy fic and gen fic, backstory and future-fic, as long as it is in character and in keeping with the feel of the canon. (I mean, you can do happy fic in Secret Six, but it's a very different kind of happy, you know?)

I have tried to give several varied suggestions of what I might want to see in each fandom; what I don't want is a fic that tried to cram them all together into one by flitting about from scenario to scenario. I would much rather see one idea developed than see someone try to pack everything into a thousand words!

I love stories that flesh out moments in canon, giving us a look at the background we knew was there. I like plot. I like getting to know more about characters who have fascinated me for some reason, and findint out why and how they fascinate other people. But mostly, I like that you're writing a story about one of these texts that I love, and that it's for me!

( Fandoms: Batwoman, Hope Springs, Secret Six, The Good Wife )

Basically, thank you for writing for me! I will most enjoy something that you enjoy writing, so I hope you have fun with my requests. :)

1. I just re-read Gotham Central, 52, Crime Bible, and 'Tec so far.

2. I desperately want to write fic about Kate, or Renee, separately or together.

3. All my ideas are huge and I don't have the concentration.

4. Give me drabble/ficlet prompts? Pairing or timeline or concept or something? I promise nothing, but I really want to play around a bit...

GUYS GUYS OMG GUYS

Every time that I pick up a new issue of "Detective Comics," it is 100% pure awesome, and yet the next issue manages to be even better. I was going to do a post next week when the first Batwoman storyarc came to an end, but I hit supersonic squee mode with this week's issue and so I had to share.

( large image of spoilery spoilingness behind the cut from Tec 856 )

LET ME COUNT THE WAYS THIS IS AWESOME:

1. The art, oh my. I have some issues with the way faces, particularly cheekbones, are being done (unintentionally creepy smiles = bad), and the poses here are unusually stiff, but the layouts through the series so far are just stunning and this is one of my favourites. When Kate is Batwoman the panels are freeform and dynamic, and when she's Kate they're structured and rigid, so the change in this spread from boring to special and back to boring after the dance ends... is pretty amazing visual shorthand. Also, using the insides of the musical notes as pullout panels: love. it. This is far from the most astonishing visual JH Williams III has given us in the three issues so far, but it is so nuanced and so innovative compared to a lot of the 'traditional' nine-panel pages out there.

2. ( cut for identity of Kate's dance partner ) Seriously, I keep turning back to this page and making heart eyes at it. I had no idea I wanted this pairing to exist until canon gave me it, how often do you get to say that? I'm pretty sure they're doing some major retconning (age, for one thing) and I'm not sure I'm totally down with the characterization here, but... I don't think I actually care, because AWESOME. I'm thrilled that the next issue is next week, because I don't want to wait much longer than that to see if this is taken further!

3. In an industry that brings us "Gotham City Sirens" and "Marvel Divas" and Catwoman climbing rooftops in three-inch heels and statues of Mary Jane doing Spidey's laundry and tentacle rape selling covers... how have we possibly gotten so lucky with queer women in comics? Isn't it amazing that I can go out and pick up one of DC's current best mainstream titles, which is regularly selling out all around the world and is written by one of comics' biggest current names, and get a stunning two-page spread of two women in tuxedos dancing together? With a backup story headlined by one of the women's ex (or 'ex,' who knows)?

How awesome is it that 'Tec isn't the only book with kickass dykes in it - that "Secret Six" is all about a team of completely dysfunctional anti-heroes, and yet not only is Scandal's queerness not part of her dysfunction, it's actually more normal than most of the rest of the team? (I know - with Ragdoll and Jeannette and Deadpool on the team, and, previously, Hatter, that's not saying much, but STILL.)

Renee and Kate and Scandal are all strong, flawed, wonderfully rounded, beautifully written, totally different, women of various ethnic origins, with multiple motivations, who happen to be queer and whose queernesses are all treated so well without being too overtly political or apolitical. Seriously? This is possible? Do you have any idea how thrilled these books make me? My inner teenage fangirl is even giddier than my external present-day fangirl, which is an impressive feat. It is an embarrassment of riches and I could not be happier with DC. It's like they're getting it.

Comics are my forever fandom, and right now they are awesome. <3