Not-Quite-Dead From Comic-Con!

Some late-night, plane-trip, walking-all-over-Christendom-and-back, -related creeping crud has gotten me. In the interest of fandom and comics, however, I press on.

This year's Con has been about the little things.

Seeing old friends, meeting artists I didn't realize would be here, meeting celebrities of varying strata, all of whom have been gracious and kind.

Oh, and the not-so-little event of watching my boyfriend win an Eisner.

It's been a good Con so far.

I confess, I was apprehensive about attending today, given the show was sold out. The crowds, however, seemed to stay in Hall H and Ballroom 20, packing in for The Next Big Panel all day long. The floor was crowded, but manageable.

I'm here in San Diego until Monday, and I hate that it's already gone by so fast. I still haven't been to the Zoo, and I'd like to hit In-N-Out burger, before heading back East.

But I am having a great time.

I'd like to pause the joy for a moment, however, to remember Leah Adezio, who I didn't realize had passed away until the "In Memoriam" portion of the Eisners.

Back ten years ago, when I started going to conventions (Big Apple Con in New York, to be precise, back then known as "Church Con"), Ms. Adezio had a table each show without fail. And each show, without fail, she had a kind word and a hello for a wide-eyed fourteen year old, learning her way around the con.

When her face came up on the screen last night, I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach. Leah Adezio was one of the few women I regularly saw at Church Con, but she was always the kindest, warmest, most welcoming presence there.

I will miss her, and always remember her fondly.

Sad tidings aside, I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekends, Staplers and Staplerettes!

Remember, if you're here, I've got pink hair and my Red Stapler tote bag! Please stop and say hi!

Of Endings And Beginning

In this post, my friend Racheline strikes many nerves.

This is an essay I've been pondering for over a month now, but her words helped it all coalesce.

In this season of life and growth, the death of three pop culture phenomena occur:

On June 7th, the final issue of Strangers in Paradise came out.

On June 10th, the final episode of The Sopranos aired.

And this Saturday, July 21st, the final Harry Potter novel will be released.

The ripple effects of these three series have been felt around the world. While The Sopranos doesn't hold the emotional impact for me that the other two do, its ending informed me how it can be done well.

Much like the rest of the world at 11pm that evening, I voiced a loud and frustrated noise and proceeded to call everyone I knew. (My parents received about four phone calls in a ten minute period.)

I was outraged. I did not yet know true fannish outrage.

You see, I procrastinated on buying Strangers in Paradise #90. I wasn't quite ready for it to end. I attended the CBLDF wrap party, and that was quite emotionally difficult.

The CBLDF hired a band to play the songs Terry Moore wrote for the series over the years. The most poignant of these, I Dream of You, is the title of the second collected edition. Ten years ago, I photocopied the sheet music from the back of the book. I sat at the piano in my parents' house with it and taught myself to play the song. I recorded myself. I put it on a mix tape for a boy.

As Racheline stated so eloquently, it was a mile-marker of my life. And when the band played that song, I cried. I felt all ten years flood past me. I remembered each moment of the emotional journeys, both of the book, and the situations I attached them to. It was a rough three minutes, I'll tell you.

So you can imagine my fierce exasperation when I finally purchased Strangers in Paradise #90 and the ending was totally lame. Don MacPherson put it best in his review:

"My biggest gripe about the story is how Moore, after so many years, continues to beat around the bush about the connection between Katchoo and Francine. It’s clear here that they’re a couple, deeply in love and committed to one another. The problem is that Moore limits the physicality of that love to hugging. They talk about marriage. They have pet names for one another. I’m not saying I need to see them in bed naked together, but how about a kiss? In the midst of such joy, delayed after so long, I just don’t buy the restraint we see here. There’s no need to show us panting, humping or fornicating, but I don’t see why Moore avoids a certain level of physical intimacy between the two characters."

Ten years (fourteen for the whole series), and we never get so much as a damn kiss.

Katchoo's passion is reiterated over and over, and in the end, we never get to see it fully directed at the object of her desire since the age of fifteen. This makes no sense.

Having seen the neat little Bowdlerized package that was the last hurrah of Strangers in Paradise, I finally understood the end of the Sopranos. It ended that way, because it had to end that way. Anything else would have been too clean. We needed the messiness of ambiguity. The closure we got was that no matter what happened, it was what Tony "deserved"-- be that death, or having to deal with AJ's manipulativeness, or having to witness Meadow emotionally struggle with the law and the money that paid for her degree. Ambiguity was nothing new to The Sopranos, it was just pushed to the extreme in its last moments.

Which brings us, finally, to Harry Potter.

I started the series right after graduating high school in 2000. I did so because I realized most adults I saw on the subway were reading the books, and I was curious what they knew that I did not. I was hooked.

However, I didn't step my toes into Harry Potter fandom until the summer of 2003, when the fifth book came out. The first of the books, by the way, I had to wait for. That summer I delved into the fan fiction. I started making friends because of it. I cared on new levels.

Harry's been with me for seven years. I care deeply about the story, the characters, and their destinies. So please understand when I say...

I hope JK Rowling is a bigger Sopranos fan than she ever was a Strangers in Paradise fan.

I know my heart will be broken over the next few days. The question that remains is how.

ONE WEEK TO SAN DIEGO

And so, my staplers and staplerettes, we have one week before San Diego Comic Con.

And this year, I have BUSINESS CARDS.

I will have both my pro cards, from my Awesome New Job(TM), and Red Stapler cards.

Keep any eye out. I will have pink hair and this tote bag:


really. how could I not?

See you kids at Nerd Prom!

Well Played, Indeed.

Dame Shirley Bassey covering Pink's "Get This Party Started."

The video is gorgeous and her voice just soars.

Pink, honey? You just got served.

Well, shit.

As of August, Jane magazine struts for the last time.

Dammit.

Now what am I going to read on plane trips? The violent fits Cosmo causes me are generally frowned upon in the air travel community.

Jane was one of the few women-targeted magazines I enjoyed consistently. The articles were (for the most part) intelligent and well-written. The interviews were interesting. The fashions didn't make me feel inadequate or make my eyes bleed.

That, and I kindof admired Jane Pratt for starting it. She may have gotten shit for it (see the Daria episode "The Lost Girls" for what is likely a pot shot at JP herself), but she also produced a worthy publication.

I'm sorry to see it go.

Stapler Takes On...

Tonight, my brother took me to see Knocked Up.

I am glad I saw this with my similarly childless sibling, and not a significant other. I don't know if I could cope with this plotline while sitting next to my boyfriend.

Much Blogosphere hay has been made over this movie. Is it feminist, anti-feminist, pro-choice, pro-life, etc etc.

Having seen it for myself, I can say this:

This is as true to life a movie I think I have ever seen.

[WARNING: SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT]

Each scene had rhythms and cadences I hear from my friends every day. The moments and situations that people found Objectionable (in the forms of the reasons above) didn't seem to come from a place of misogyny or malevolence, but experience and observation. The negative behaviors didn't feel proscriptive, but cautionary.

The mother passive-aggressively calling a baby born out of wedlock not a "real" baby.

The relentless pot smoking.

The attempts to start a website, only to discover an identical one, already well-established.

The affection for someone your more shallow friends deem not worthy of attention. (And the resultant self-examination.)

The arguments in the film (the actual yelled conversations, not the points of view) were well done. They were biting and sharp, and there was no clear winner or loser.

Was Debbie really an overbearing bitch? Was Pete really an ineffective parent and husband?

Like life, the answers were somewhere in the middle.

The movie was incredibly well-done. However, for its excellence, I haven't made up my mind if I actually enjoyed it. It's not easy to enjoy something that hurts to watch because it feels so real.

All of that aside, there was one moment I was actually offended by: Ben's misunderstanding of "Just do it already," leading to his not using a condom. (And giving us the rest of the movie.) While clearly it is this decision that furthers the plot along, it was monumentally stupid, even beyond Ben's inability to function as an adult.

Obviously Allison's pregnancy is the price of this tactical failure, but the other possible consequences are legion.

I sincerely doubt any dramatic significance would have been lost had the condom been used.

The scene already indicated Ben had whiskey dick, so the condom could have slipped off during intercourse. Or it could have been expired. Or even worse, been sitting in his wallet for ages and begun to disintegrate.

All of these scenarios are a) more plausible, and b) less emotionally violating than someone being so boneheaded as to not wear a condom at all.

If I found out I was pregnant because the man I'd fucked simply hadn't put the condom on, I would feel incredibly violated, and would terminate the pregnancy. End of story. Ben not using a condom showed such an extreme lack of consideration for anything, I was appalled.

In the event of a contraceptive failure, however, it would be a different story. Concern, no matter how insignificant or selfish, would have been shown.

In closing, for a movie that raised such ire in the feminist blogosphere, to have only one such moment of "Oh HELL no," I was actually kind of impressed. I don't know if I can tolerate a second viewing of this movie. Not because of its quality--the situations were just entirely too real to be comfortable following them again.

Definitely see this movie and make your own opinion. It's worth seeing and judging for yourself.