Sidetracks - May 19, 2016

[helloladies]

Sidetracks is a collaborative project featuring various essays, videos, reviews, or other Internet content that we want to share with each other. All past and current links for the Sidetracks project can be found in our Sidetracks tag.

Clare

➝ Next time you feel like writing fic is difficult, remember this fan in the summer of 1975 who had to edit her fanzine on a typewriter.

➝ This is a fantastic profile of Myrtle R. Douglas, the woman who invented cosplay.

➝ The next X-men film will be set in the nineties, because sometimes we can have nice things.

➝ Marvel’s Black Panther may have landed Lupita Nyong’o and Michael B. Jordan, which would just be fantastic.

➝ ABC has officially cancelled Agent Carter.

➝ The current Darth Vader comic will be ending its run at issue #25.

Ira

➝ The Daily Dot is reporting on sexual harassment in the comics industry, and the picture is bleak. Sexual harassment and discrimination are huge problems in the comics industry, and this article highlights just how many men are not only getting away with it, but getting promoted again and again despite their horrific behaviour.

➝ This set of beautiful portraits by artist Lente Scura is just straight up gorgeous. I'm glad Dribble of Ink featured them.

➝ The science side of tumblr came out in full force to analyze whether this malachite stalactite could make a viable dildo (NSFW I guess?) and I won't spoil the punchline for you. Just read the brilliant thread to find out.

KJ

➝ I will be attending WisCon for the first time this year! So exciting. I would love to meet Lady Business readers if any of you will be there. Just drop me a PM if you'd like to get together (I suppose it's too late to organize any kind of official meet-up). My schedule is currently wide open. Later this summer, I'll also be attending WesterCon, in Portland, OR (July 1-4th). If you'll be there, too, let me know!

➝ Over on FiveThirtyEight, Walt Hickey did data analysis on user ratings of TV shows on IMDb and found that men's ratings tend to bring down the overall scores of shows aimed at women. I would not be surprised if this is true across all reviews of all media.

➝ Not Your Asian Ninja: Arthur Chu weighs in on the disappointing depiction of Asian American characters in Daredevil, especially season two. Includes spoilers.

➝ The Hollywood Reporter ran two showrunner roundtables, one for drama writers and one for comedy writers. The full articles will be in next month's print issue, but this collection of exerpts is still fascinating. Lots of real talk on race and gender in Hollywood. I might have to pick up the print issue for more.

Renay

➝ A fan asks Arden Cho if she could be anyone for a day, who would she be and why. The answer is excellent.

➝ I really need this Iron Man messenger bag. I know I already have an expensive messenger bag, but look at it! IT TAKES BATTERIES and has a laptop sleeve, which my current messenger bag doesn't have. I need it.

➝ Clare mentioned the sad cancellation of Agent Carter. But there's a petition to save her show and it's doing really well.

➝ The other day kaytaylorrea wrote an essay about coverage of women when discussing science fiction, The Continued Erasure of Women from Science Fiction (It's Not My Job to Educate You). It's got good thoughts!

➝ I enjoyed this piece, Move over Shakespeare, teen girls are the real language disruptors. Via jennygadget.

➝ I absolutely loved the first season of Sleepy Hollow. Season Two disappointed me, though, sidelining characters I loved and making bemusing decisions. I eventually quit watching after Orlando Jones was shoved to the side in favor of a boring white dude, because I saw the writing on the wall. I'm sad that my predictions weren't even close, though. What actually happened was worse. A recent essay I read summed up a lot of my thoughts, but there are spoilers for the most recent season: Post Mortem on Sleepy Hollow. And even after all of this the show was still renewed. Is this the backlash to women (especially WOC) finding success on television and streaming services? Hmm.

➝ Did Civil War really "sink" Steve/Bucky? is a great piece of meta by one of my favorite MCU critics/reviewers and examines some of the decisions made in the recent film. Spoilers, obviously, for Captain America: Civil War.

➝ If you loved T'Challa in Cap3 and want more, A reader's guide to Black Panther comics is definitely for you.

Susan

➝ This performance of Flightning by Too Many Zooz is pretty great. It sounds like an anime opening, and I for one would watch the shit out of whatever this opened.

➝ How to Destroy Special Collections With Social Media by Sarah Werner – There is a lot here about the accessibility and usefulness of digitising and using social media to promote, discuss and investigate the details of special collections, and this is catnip to me.

➝ Kirkus' post on Unmaking the White Default is really cool! It's explaining their decision to identify characters in kid's book by their race/identity in all of their reviews! I think they address it really well, because they point out that this has got pushback from reviewers and readers, but it's really useful for everyone! (As someone who has done the "scouring reviews for clues as to the character's racial/gender/sexual identity", I get this, and respect to them for doing it.)