Why I won't read Aspen's Executive Assistant series

Remember how excited I was about this series? Female-character centric. These were some bad-ass lady characters, with some jaw-droppingly good racial diversity to boot.

Issue #1 of Executive Assistant: Lotus really impressed me. Lotus, a stunning Indian woman, has this great interior monologue talking about how her appearance gives her an advantage. The fact that she's a young, beautiful woman takes people off-guard, and the 'cleavage window' in her armour gives her the element of surprise. Now I dislike these stupidly sexual and impractical costumes, but it was RATIONALISED here. I may not agree with it but I had to respect and appreciate that there was a reason provided.

All that went out the window when I started reading Executive Assistant: Orchid.
1) The son of Orchid's employer sleeps with her. There is no hint of a relationship, attraction or anything else - the book has already established that Orchid "feels nothing."

2) Orchid's employer slaps her across the face for 'letting' his son get into trouble.

No. Just NO. The Executive Assistants are bodyguards, PAs, and what-have-yous, but I promised myself that if prostitution every got hinted at in this story, I was out. Additionally, there is enough violence towards female characters in the comic book industry without further gratuitous, unnecessary shit that weakens these supposedly awesome, badass characters. Sexual exploitation is a serious issue and it was dealt with so badly in this book, I just can't continue with this series.

I'm not the only one who was turned off by this issue:
Mary Staggs of Panels on Pages review
Eric Whitman of the Daily Blam

Also all of the posts calling the dirtbag son "unruly", please look up the meaning of the word, because I don't think it has ever included sexual assault.

Womanthology

I'm feeling so many emotions right now. I'm elated, triumphant, hopeful and awed.

Womanthology is an anthology graphic novel created entirely by women for Charity. The purpose of the book is to showcase the works of female creators of every age and experience levels.

The Graphic Novel will majorly consist of many short stories interpreting our theme for this volume; "Heroic". We'll also have interviews and how-to's with some of the industry's top female pros, as well as talks with young girls who someday want a career in comics. Womanthology is an anthology graphic novel created entirely by women for Charity. The purpose of the book is to showcase the works of female creators of every age and experience levels.

The Graphic Novel will majorly consist of many short stories interpreting our theme for this volume; "Heroic". We'll also have interviews and how-to's with some of the industry's top female pros, as well as talks with young girls who someday want a career in comics.

I can't remember how I stumbled onto this project but I'm SO excited about it. They've gotten on board a bunch of new/indie comic book creators, but they've also had some big names join in. Two that I'm super duper excited about are Gail Simone (famous for a buttload of things but my favourite work of hers is Welcome To Tranquility) and Fiona Staples (who worked on Mystery Society, which I have to review soon because it's a seriously great comic book that ticks nearly all my boxes). I plan to check out the works of the other contributors when I can.  

Not only will this be an amazing book, but it's giving to charity and showcasing the talent of female creators! They've paired some newcomers with the seasoned pros, to give the new ladies some more experience, which will (fingers crossed) lead to more industry opportunities for them.

Their Kickstarter  (a website dedicated to helping fun creative projects) opened yesterday, with the goal of $25,000 for a print run of 1500 books. I logged onto Twitter this morning and a little over 24 hours later... $36,000 has been pledged. This is more than I, and those involved, could ever have hoped for. When I sat down to work out how much I could pledge, I had imagined that in the final days of July, I'd be anxiously watching the numbers crawl up to the final goal.

But it's not over. More money = more books and maybe even a second anthology. Even if you don't care about that, the rewards being offered for pledges are AMAZING and Renee is adding more as more pledges come in. Even if you don't give a shit about women in comic books, the profits are going to charity.

I urge you to check out their website and learn more about this project. If this stirs you, even just a little, go over to the Kickstarter page. Even $5 will help this amazing cause, and if you want a guaranteed copy of the anthology, pledging is the way to do that.

30 day comic book challenge! Days 1-4

I just found this super-awesome challenge and have decided to DO EEEET. Since it's already the 3rd of July for me here, I'm going to condense days 1-4 into this post. I'm also going to talk about webcomics since they're a huge part of my comic reading life. I've included links to all the webcomics I talk about, but please note that NONE of them are safe for work ;)

Day 01 - Your first comic book.

I can blame thank Joss Whedon for a lot of things, and one of them is getting me into comic books.

My first webcomic... gosh. It was either YU+ME: dream or Dar. I'm not quite sure. Both comics are sadly completed, but both creators are working on new webcomics :)


Day 02 - Your favourite character.
My favourite comic book character of the moment is probably Jessie from Changing Ways. I am haaaanging out for volume 2 because it's 10 years into the future and I'm sure Jessie's badass as a grown-up.

My current favourite webcomic character is probably Didi from Menage a 3. She's adorable and funny and I love the way she speaks, half-French and half-English.


Day 03 - A comic that is underrated.
Hmm... probably SugarShock by Joss Whedon (yeah, I know). It's this fantastic little one-shot which I'd love to see expanded upon. The characters were so complex, I want to know backstory, dammit.

Webcomics I'm not too sure about, but I'm in freaking love with Khaos Komix. It's a heartbreakingly beautiful  story about a group of teens navigating the waters of self-identity and sexuality. Really lovely art, and the way that Tabs tells the story is intriguing.

Day 04 - Your guilty pleasure comic or character.
Webcomic is undoubtedly Sore Thumbs. It's completely ridiculous and a little bit everything-ist but it's so over-the-top you cannot help but laugh, even whilst thinking "Why the hell am I still reading this?!"

Comics proper? Oh, geez. This is a hard one! I don't reeeeally have anything I feel 'guilty' about... if anything, I dislike how shallow Deadpool is portrayed in a lot of comics, but he does it in a humorous way, so it's almost making fun of the way in which most comic art treats female characters as eye-candy only. Deadpool: Pulp was a really beautiful story in which there was a female character who equalled Deadpool. And Lady Deadpool is scary and awesome. So I didn't really answer that question, but oh well!

Next post will be days 5-7. I'm going on yet anoooooother work trip, but I'm taking my shiny new laptop with me. Hopefully a few hours by myself in airports and hotel rooms means I'll get some writing done, for the blogs and for my project. Then again, I did just download Hydrophobia: Prophecy, so maybe I won't....