Diversity in DC Comics and John Stewart

Green Lantern John Stewart’s planned death was a few days back, when the news broke that new writer on the Green Lantern Corps creative team, Joshua Hale Fialkov, had walked off from the title because DC editorial was pushing for this direction. The Mary Sue has a pretty good editorial on the whole thing. In keeping with that, I thought I’d do my own write-up on the issue, and lay out why I think this is a totally bad idea. Yes, the planned death has gone back to the drawing board after stiff opposition from the fan community, but the concerns are still there, and that is what I want to address.

Monthly Report – February 2013

Once again, the monthly report has been severely delayed, so I offer my apologies once again. Between a huge review backlog and other endeavours, it’s become rather tough to find time for the report writing. But anyway, here it is.

Overall, I think the month turned out to be decent enough. I’m making steady progress on several fronts, and having a damn good time of it, which is always good in the end! Although, all things considered, I’ve been thinking that I devote too much time to reviewing and should tone it down. Not sure about that! I definitely need to devote more time to my writing, and also tone down on my TV watching. Funny how “entertainment” can impose on life.

So, this is how the writing and reading went down last month, and you can find the January report here.

Publishing & Marketing Column

For the last couple of months I’ve been considering doing a semi-regular column on the publishing industry. Specifically, I’ve been considering the aspect of marketing and getting published. The basis for both is, of course, personal experience in the case of the former and my observations over the last 18 months for the latter.

Here are some thoughts I’ve had about this.

You Guys Rock!

9 days ago I posted my second reading poll, for comics and graphic novels to read next month. The initial response to this was really weak, compared to my February reading poll which took off like a storm and ended with a huge boost in the last 2-3 days. But I’m really excited that the interest in the poll, and the voting as well, really picked up since Wednesday.

What’s really fantastic is that I’ve hit all the four stretch goals I was aiming for when I posted the poll. Thanks to everybody who voted and helped publicise the poll.

Yes, the current tally of votes stands at an even 450, which is really, really great.

Couldn’t have been done without you guys!

I am, of course, leaving the poll open till the 28th, as planned. I want to see how far I can get on this, and if the record for the February poll, 531 votes, can be broken or not.

Keep voting!

2013 – What Now? Some Resolutions Maybe?

So the New Year has come and gone. The end of the second week is almost upon us. And so far, it’s been a somewhat lazy, yet productive month. Also one that has been spectacular in a few ways. It’s also time to make some new resolutions and challenges. So let’s get to it.

Advent Reviews Day 24: Not Really A Review, Something Different

As the title says, I was conflicted about what to post for today’s Advent Reviews. I didn’t want to do any negative reviews, for an obvious reason: today is Christmas Eve after all and it’s time for good cheer, not for me to rain down on someone’s parade! Doing negative reviews before was fine, kind of. I didn’t want to do a positive review either, since I do so damn many of them anyway. I often take a lot of flak for being that positive, especially when it comes to Black Library publications, so I wasn’t really on the mind for any of that either. Just thinking of any possible backlash rains down on my parade, you know? In short, I didn’t want to do a review period. What follows is a stream-of-consciousness post. Apologies for any incoherency.

Advent Reviews Day 10: Earth 2 #0 by James Robinson

I picked up this title, because it said Earth 2 on the front cover. As a fan of the Crisis on Infinite Earths and Infinite Crisis crossovers, alternate settings have been of quite a bit of interest to me. The “old” Elseworlds comics featuring Superman? They were awesome because of the alternate takes on the character, even though a fair bit of the stuff was tacky/campy/cliched. Robinson wowed me with the first four issues of the series, his take on Green Lantern, The Flash and Hawkgirl being really awesome. The #0 prequel issue went back into the timeline to explain what happened to all the Wonders, the first superheroes and especially the big 3 of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, at the start of #1. I got far more than I expected with #0.

The Why of Batgirl and Gail Simone

If you read comics from the Big Two, and are on Twitter and Facebook, then there’s little chance that you will have missed the latest disaster tale coming from DC Comics: Gail Simone, who has been working on Batgirl for DC’s New 52 line-wide relaunch since the first issue, has been let go from the series, apparently without any explanation, and that too, over email, by the new editor to come on board. Several places have already covered the news: DC Women Kicking Ass, Bleeding Cool, Comic Book Resources, Gail Simone’s Tumblr, and others. Various forums around the web have gone into depth about them as well. I am not going to delve into any of that at all. Because I don’t want to go into all that negativity. Instead, I want to talk about something else: why I started reading Batgirl.