I'm really enjoying Phonogram, and people who are actually knowledgeable about Britpop would probably enjoy it even more. Or maybe they wouldn't; because of the latest issue I've had "Common People" in my head for three days.

New Astonishing X-Men out this week.

Did anyone else read it? I was thrilled to see my speculation about the Hellfire Club being figments of Emma's imagination was borne out by the story. Though they fooled me with the White Queen persona being hurt by Scott's bullets—I assumed that meant there were two physical versions of Emma running around, and that one was an imposter.

Anyone wondering if the black ops government types have bitten off more than they can chew, what with beaming up not only Danger and an apparently unhinged Emma Frost, but also a malevolent Xavier-level telepath in Nova as well? I cannot believe Shield's Esper Division technology and operatives will be able to cope with the latter if she's free to act. Hell, with Jean Grey dead and Xavier depowered, I'm not sure anyone's left who could, unless you count Stephen Strange .

I picked it up on Friday but haven't read it yet.

Link posted without further comment: [link]

Wow.

You put a bunch of immature men, many of whom were very sick as children or had absent fathers or both, and all of whom escaped into over-muscled power fantasies as a result, in charge of a publishing subgroup with no prestige and little money. Several of them have never worked anywhere else, or if they have, it was at one of the few similar companies in the same industry that behave the same way. They’re still geeks, mentally, with low self-esteem and no success with women, few of whom they actually know in person, but they’re power brokers within their little world, and there are thousands like them who desperately want to be them… and you wonder why it all ends up so twisted?

The scenario she's talking about and the quote she quotes are heinous, but she's talking about real people above, and it tenses me up.

My experience in the comics industry was that there were a lot of geeks-made-good running it. And I don't doubt there's a fair amount of institutional sexism both culturally, and coloring the product.

But reading her blog, she's constructing a narrative about how she's been raped by comics that's kind of whackaloon. And I don't mean her charges of sexual harassment in the industry which I have no basis to judge. The creepy comic book store guys and her broken bloody vagina and her father's steroidal rage taken out on her Wonder Woman poster and the inside scuttlebutt on creating Identity Crisis and the tribute to Ned Halsey all merge together in her narrative as One Ginormous History Of Abuse And Betrayal By Comics. But she's the only real link in that chain.

The geek thing I'd be silly to try and contradict. It's the armchair psychology that goes from

immature men, many of whom were very sick as children or had absent fathers or both

and

low self-esteem and no success with women, few of whom they actually know in person

to

you wonder why it all ends up so twisted

Damning with faint praise, but the rape peril is shorthand that's been used over and over again, not just in comics. It's possible she has some insight into the personal histories of the majority of people working in the industry (but I strongly doubt it). Making there some sort of causal and unsurprising link between being ill, being a geek, and being twisted bothers me.

And this is coming from someone who rarely goes to her comic book store in street clothes, because she garners less attention in her krav stuff.

Okay, I read Astounishing #18 and I think I need to go back and do a re-read.

Also, have you noticed the odd choices that have been made as to which Angel scripts they're doing scriptbooks of?

#1 City Of -- made sense to me -- being the first episode.
#2 A Hole in the World - odd to skip, you know, the entire series to do the second book but still -- a good episode.
#3 Spin the Bottle - ?
#4 - Waiting in the Wings ????
#5 Five by Five & #6 Sanctuary -- good episodes -- but odd choices what with the Buffy crossover stuff.
#7 Smile Time

I don't know how many they are planning on doing -- but am I wrong in thinking that these are eccentric choices?

#s 5 through 7 make sense to me, as the first two are a seminal two-parter with major repercussions for the Faith and Wesley characters, and #7 is a hugely popular comedic stand-alone. But I'd have thought "In the Dark," "Rm w/a Vu," "Somnambulist," "Eternity," "Blind Date," and any number of Season 2 episodes would be better choices than #s2 through 4.