JanerBlog

I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Start here:
When Writers Fail To Understand How Words Work

and then go here:
Because writing a book for fun and profit is totally just like what happened at Bataan

and then here:
Patalim

and finally end up here:
Your Broken Project is Not a War Crime

I've had a post about this -- not this situation specifically, but others like it -- brewing for a long time. I've used the word "deathmarch" before, in flippant context. After reading these essays, though, I'm going to stop doing so, for the reasons that Bill (whump) outlines in his post. It trivializes other peoples' pain, it erases and disregards history, and most of all, trying to defend the use of such a word in such a context makes you look like a jackass.

The argument I have always seen against dropping the use of such words always boils down to "But I'm a word nerd, and I think I should be able to use any word I want. Not using that word cuts a hole in my lexicon, and demonizes it, besides. Also, I like that word."

That's not word-nerdery. That's laziness. That's favoring metaphor over precision, generality over specificity. A real word-nerd would keep searching until they came up with a more correct, more fitting descriptor. If the situation you're involved in actually resembles a death-march? Then by all means, go ahead and use that word. If not? Head back to the well and drop the bucket. Surely you can come up with something better than that.

The other thing I don't get is how people can say something like that, and when called on it (with politeness, gentleness and sincerity, I might add), to issue a half-assed "Sorry you found it offensive" and then keep using the term. This is not someone else being too sensitive. This is you being too insensitive, especially after someone stuck their neck out to point out your mistake -- to educate you.

Case in point: When a kid with Downs hears someone use the r-word in casual conversation and says "I know that when you use that word you're talking about me," with hurt in his voice, what kind of person says "Hey, I'm sorry you were offended. But r--ed is just such a satisfying word to use!" Full disclosure: I actually used that defense once, on that same word. And then my friend told me how her brother -- yes, that kid -- felt. And then I stopped using it, because I was ashamed of myself for privileging my own word-nerdery over someone else's feelings. I found a different word. It wasn't hard, it was beneficial: looking for better words makes me a better writer.

If there's one good thing that came out of the horrible A:TLA Racebending debacle, it's that it led me to discover that I'm an absolute sucker for specificity, in both visual detail and in language. I don't want generalities. I want specifics. I want to be a more rigorous writer, one who more closely examines my word-choices, my settings, my historical details -- and if I make a mistake, and get called on it, (which I will, of course) I hope to God I can listen and learn and grow from it, rather than alienating -- and further hurting -- someone who took time and courage out of their day to be polite to me and educate me when I was off-base.

That education is a gift -- a token of esteem towards you, the writer, for the hurting party feels you've got the capacity to learn, despite the fact that you just hurt them -- and it comes free of charge to you, but not to them. Speaking up takes bravery, costs energy, and frequently earns an unwanted backlash.

So thank you, miir, littlebutfierce, whump, ephemere, ktempest and megwrites. I'm sorry that all of you had to write what you did, but thank you for taking the effort and time to do so.

Prop 8 struck down!

Booyah!

Boo.

Beautiful.

Guess What I Have

Seriously, the whole package is so gorgeous, from the hand-stamped wax-sealed stacks pass to the bookplates to the Spinoza patch to the adorable Luther sketch (Dylan, how is your hand still capable of gripping a pen so soon after your release party?!) to the gorgeous original watercolor of Ariana which is so getting framed and going up on my studio wall next to the last page of Speed's Finder:Talisman. I am thrilled. Best hundred bucks I've spent in a long time.

Congratulations, Dylan, for giving flight to your fancy, and in such stellar style. May there be many more.

OMG YAY

Nickelodeon announces a new ANIMATED Last Airbender series!

ETA: More info in this interview!

**KERMIT ARMS**

A voice for Neli

The next time somebody has the audacity to claim that we're "post-racial" now as a society, point them to this heartbreaking story about a young black man with autism who was arrested for sitting on the grass, and imprisoned and roughed up for eleven days.

SCHAAAAAAAAAAAADENFREUDE

Rotten Tomatoes on the Avatar: The Last Airbender movie. Paul would like to point out that Marmaduke is currently scored twice as high, at a still-abysmal 10% fresh.

Also, These other articles are worth reading.

I've got the Blues!

Carol Burrell's got SPQR Blues going again! YAAAAY! Seriously, if you haven't already been reading this wonderful webcomic, go do so now. You've got a little time to catch up before the new strips start.

Right now, if you head on over to her website, you can see the pinup I did for her last spring. it was a whole lot of fun to do, and it let me do all sorts of fun research into Herculaneum and the surrounding area.

Here it is, just for extra coverage:

Here're the locations I used for the triptych's backgrounds:

• Mus: House of the Genius in Herculaneum


• Felix: House of Mars and Venus in Pompeii


• Spendusa, with her and Felix's daughter: Woman with a shield Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale

Now it can be told

So I've been sitting on some really amazing Sizer Design news for a while, and now I can finally share it with you! Hooray!

From Paul's Blog:

It's here! Thomas Dolby's first new studio music in [nearly] 20 years, the "Amerikana" EP is released today, and I can finally divulge the news that I will be working with Thomas Dolby on ALL of the design work leading up to and including his new album, "A Map Of The Floating City" later this year. It's a dream come true for a huge Dolby geek/fan, but I've had a great time collaborating with Thomas so far, and there's some really cool stuff coming up in the near future!

Huge congratulations on this beautiful design, baby. You done good, and now the whole world can finally know how good you done.

Compare and contrast

This post

with

This one.

I'm posting these because I've said similar things to those that trochai expressed in his essay, even as recently as this last weekend at WisCon. I needed a good reality check on processing, and who to process around. Processing needs to happen, yes. But processing needs to happen in appropriate places, and around appropriate people, and one really needs to take a good hard look at the processing as it's happening, because even as it's coming out of your mouth you're realizing why it's going wrong, and why you need to process more. Most of the reason for my lack of posting this past year is because I've been processing a lot. Some conversations at WisCon I participated in this year made me realize I've still got a lot of processing left to go -- I'm finding that I learn a hell of a lot from people's silences -- but also that I'm making progress. So yeah. Processing my processing.

Uniques Tales #4!

Paul and I are featured in the newest issue of The Uniques Tales by fellow Michigan self-publishers Adam Withers and Comfort Love. Go check them out! My pinup is of The Ambassador, and is colored by Frank Rapoza, who did a really great job.

Thanks to Adam and Comfort for this wonderful opportunity to play in their sandbox. I had a lot of fun doing research and sketches for The Ambassador, and I think she's a heck of a character -- what if Wonder Woman were a progressive Iranian Muslimah, and spent the majority of her time working for diplomacy rather than punching people in the face? Now that's my kind of superhero!

White Privilege in the sustainable food movement

This is Good reading, especially for somebody who's as dedicated to the Farmer's Market/Food Co-Op/Community Garden plan as I am. I'm realizing more and more how much I need to challenge my assumptions about race and class in regards to food accessibility, and this is a good starting place.

EDIT: I forwarded this to the head of our Food Co-op and he said he's passing it on to the board.

h/t to Delux-Vivens for posting about this earlier.

Community gardening!

So this last Saturday, I spent all day volunteering at two separate community gardens. The first is down at the end of my street in the Vine Neighborhood, and I was really thrilled to see all the folks who stopped by to help. I got to meet neighbors I've lived near for literal years and never met. I'm really looking forward to getting the majority of the plants in the ground over the next few weeks -- it seems like a really dedicated enthusiastic bunch, and I'm sure I'll have plenty of new friends afterwards. The Vine Neighborhood really needs more stuff like this to get us all out of our houses and interacting -- it's way too easy for us to just go to work and come home and never talk to one another. (On a side note, Paul and I have really been enjoying how many folks we've been meeting lately as we all use the park across the street to exercise our dogs. It's good times!)

The second place I worked was at Peace House -- and just like this awesome workday last year about a hundred local volunteers showed up from various churches, colleges and high schools. All the neighborhood kids volunteered too -- and just like last year, most of them worked harder than the high schoolers, who seemed to prefer leaning on their shovels rather than using them. We built four enormous new raised beds and shoveled a dumptruck's worth of compost into them, and added a huge sandbox to the playground. Peace House also just got some really good news -- they received a grant to put in a fruit orchard of 18 dwarf trees! Soon they'll have apples, pears, peaches and cherries to compliment their strawberries, blueberries and raspberries. I'm trying to convince them to put a grape arbor in, too.

Yay for community!

You know how I can't shut up about how awesome our Farmer's Market is?

Well, it's for good reason. The People's Food Co-op really deserves a massive shout-out for all their hard work on this issue, especially Chris Dilley and Elizabeth Forest. Unlike most other crunchy-granola organizations, they're not about the food suppliments and high-end specialty items that only the well-to-do can purchase regularly -- they're about bringing healthy, affordable, local food to the community -- and in Kalamazoo, making that food available with WIC/EBT/Bridge programs is essential. When the Coop had their first big outlay of seedlings this spring, I was delighted to see signs up next to them saying you could buy them with your Bridge card -- so if you wanted to start a little window-box of lettuces and have fresh, cheap salad all summer long, you could lay out the $3 and be all set. How awesome is that? If you local folks have neighbors who might not know about this, spread the word, so that everybody can take advantage of this great resource

Rock on, Food Coop, and Farmer's Market. You make this city such a good place to live.

Daisy May Erlewine

Been listening to "Daisy" May Erlewine's song "We Are" from her album Mother Moon on loud repeat today because it's something I really need to hear, over and over and over again.

Oh my liar, don't you be so sad
Know you've got the power of healing in your hands
And oh my sweet boy don't you dare give up
Know that you are more than good enough

The way you are, you are, just the way you are,
The way you are you are, just the way you are

And oh my brother don't give up on the world
Know you cant seek shelter outside of yourself
And oh my sister don't you get so low
Build a home within ya, take it with you when you go

Wherever you go there you are, you are, you are, you are
Wherever you go there you are, you are, you are, you are

And oh my people don't you judge a face,
Know that god is with us no matter his name
And oh witness please forgive us for everything we've done
For all the shame inside us is hurting everyone

Everywhere we are, we are, we are, we are, we are
Everywhere we are, we are, we are, we are, we are

And oh my friend don't you get all bent
You have got the mixture for your medicine
And oh my lover don't you dare get scared
For if there's a love within us then love is everywhere

Everywhere we are we are we are we are
Everywhere we are we are we are we are

She's got a brand new record out on Earthworks music, starring a bunch of great local musicians (like everyone's favorite drummer, Mike Shimmin) -- and it's also mixed by our next-door neighbor, the incredibly talented Ian Gorman. You can pick May's stuff up from Fox on a Hill Records. Her music is just plain wonderful, whether she's recording with Seth Bernard or solo. Do yourself a favor and go check her out post-haste.

Pam commands, so mote it be.

Pam Noles commands that you listen to this BBC Radio play about The Fisk Jubilee Singers, which means you should, because Pam is awesome.

The first time she ever pointed me at this story, the first thing I could think of was what a great comic it'd make. Now, whoooo do we know who already has an encyclopedic knowledge of the story, a mighty love for comics, and is known to be a good (and published!) writer in her own right? *whistles innocently, stares pointedly in the direction of LA*

Like

Jane Irwin just deleted all of her Facebook Wall Posts.

Seriously, the privacy thing was just getting to me. I should never have allowed myself to become so dependent on it in the first place: It's a time-sink, it's yet another false substitute for actual contact with friends, and it's taken me away from supporting this blog.

I'm still keeping the account for several reasons: it does give people a chance to get a hold of me that mightn't otherwise; both sides of my family use it heavily for communication and pictures; I need it for work development; and if I ever do make another comics series, I'll need it for promotional purposes. The reality is that Facebook keeps a copy of every keystroke, every photo or link you post, even a trail of every page you visit. That info is theirs whether you delete your account entirely or not, so from now on I'll just be using it as another broadcast point for stuff I write here.

So hey, if you've noticed that I deleted some stuff you posted to my wall, never fear. I still love you in real life -- I just don't love Facebook.

Another entry in the My Husband is the Awesomest series:

Hey, remember me saying a while back that Paul had a bunch of stuff in the pipe that was awesome, but I couldn't talk about it yet?

Well, here's just one of them: Armchair Revolutionary. More here and here and here.

Congrats, Paul. You're the awesomest.

Why I won't be watching either Avatar movie

There are currently two movies with the word "Avatar" in the title: The first just won three Oscars and ranks as the highest grossing film of all time, and the second is on the way. The current blockbuster can best be summed up as "Dances with Smurfs," and I don't really have much more to say about it because I haven't seen it and probably never will, but the upcoming movie strikes very close to my heart.

Avatar: The Last Airbender is the single best animated series I've ever seen. It was created for kids aged 6-11, but it reduced both Paul and I to tears on multiple occasions, and we watched several discs straight through, nonstop, because we were utterly captivated by the story. The writing is that good. The characters are that good. The setting is that good.

And the setting is what makes the series so truly unique. It's set in a mythical land, but not the usual Celtoid McEurope we're used to seeing in thousands of other fantasies. The land, its peoples, and its history are all based on different Asian countries, along with Greenland Inuit culture. It's a rare and beautiful demonstration of "appropriate cultural appropriation" -- where two white guys created an outstanding work of storytelling art that's set entirely in non-European cultures, and told it with research, empathy, and effort.

So. You'd think I'd be thrilled about the movie, right? Wrong.

The movie producers have gone out of their way to strip out the definitively Asian influences, starting with the cast. In a stunning display of modern yellowface, the movie team cast white kids as the three heroes, and Dev Patel, the former star of Slumdog Millionaire as Prince Zuko, who serves as the villain for the first two-thirds of the series. They also stripped out the authentic Chinese script that serves as the written language for all four nations, replacing it instead with fake mystical writing. The costumes, the backgrounds, the nations' very identities, all the details that make the series a tribute to Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Tibetan and Inuit cultures are gone in favor of hollow, generic Hollywood artifice.

The movie action figures -- which are, of course, white to reflect the new cast -- only compound the problem. Sure, I can finally get a Katara now, but she looks absolutely nothing whatsoever like the strong, annoying, motherly, fierce, Inuit character I fell so much in love with. (This is actually the one place where the original Nickelodeon series really falls down hard: you can buy a zillion Aang action figures, a whole bunch of Zukos, a good-sized handful of Sokkas, and even get multiple figures of minor characters like King Bumi, Admiral Zhao, and even that loser Jet. But how about the girls? You know, fifty percent of the original team? Nothing. Zero. Oh wait, I take that back. Since I started writing this post, you can now get a plush Katara dollie. 'Cause girls love dollies, right? Seriously, I would kill for a Toph action figure for my cube, to put next to Nausicaa and Steelheart and Gran'ma Ben in my Hall of Kickass Cartoon Women.)

It's a huge betrayal, and A:TLA fans haven't been taking it lying down. Ever since the first casting call went out, sites like Racebending.com and Aang Ain't White have been leading the protests. Even Roger Ebert weighed in against the casting choice.

Unfortunately, however, Hollywood isn't taking the protests lying down, either. First, movie producers ignored and returned over 200 protest letters, then Viacom censored Racebending.com's t-shirts on Zazzle, and the latest insult comes from Facebook, who shut down the Racebending group. I guess they must feel threatened by a bunch of fans peacefully, civilly and articulately protesting an unfair casting choice, as opposed to all the other questionable groups they permit. (ETA: The group's been restored [amidst further protest, of course]).

All this is just another example of the danger of a single story, and if you only click on one link in this post, make it this one. What a sad big-screen debut for such a wonderful series. No matter how awesome the special effects are (and I don't doubt they will be amazing), no amount of fancy CG can make up for the lousy changes the movie producers made to the original, and the spectacle just simply isn't worth the betrayal.

Signal Boost

Via Vito-Excalibur, there's a fellow LiveJournaler named Liz, who also goes by Denelian, who could really use some help right now:

Liz is wonderful. She is funny, creative, a talented writer, and one of the smartest people I know. She has a slightly warped sense of humor, an incredible imagination, and a healthy appreciation of the absurd. She's currently attending OSU and working on a dual degree: a BS in Journalism and a BA Political Science. In the time I have known her, she has been an amazing source of support and sanity-checking.

But now, Liz needs help.

She has some serious medical problems, which I am sure she would not be comfortable having listed publicly in detail. The combination of them, however, has taken a huge toll on her - she basically cannot lift or move one of her legs, and can no longer get dressed, bathe, or go anywhere without help. She is only allowed to walk 50 feet, and that with a cane or walker. She can only sit up for up to 30 minutes before the pain becomes unbearable. Despite several surgeries, her hip is not improving. She is in severe and chronic pain, even with heavy medication - when I asked, she said her usual pain level starts off at about an 8 out of 10 each day, and only goes up from there.

And somehow, she has been managing to pass her college classes. Even to do quite well in most of them. Until the last few quarters, when the lack of accessible classrooms and university facilities has made it literally impossible for her to get to her classes. Her hip problems mean that even if she can get to a class, she cannot sit up through it.

Her health problems have forced her to drop a lot of classes, the last few quarters, because she literally cannot get to the lectures, and cannot remain sitting through them. This has caused her GPA to drop from a 3.5 to a 2.8. But that is not the biggest problem.

See, the financial aid Liz has been getting for school is based on how many units of classes are taken. Not the number completed, but the number scheduled. So if a class is dropped, or a Withdrawal is filed, it still factors into the total units counted for financial aid. Liz has had to drop at least one class per quarter since the beginning of 2008, partly due to unanticipated complications (MSRI) after one of her hip surgeries, which cost her an entire quarter's worth of classes.

[snip]

And that's bad, but there's worse. You see, the only medical insurance Liz has is through her enrollment in the university. So when she is no longer enrolled, in a month or so, she will have no medical coverage. Her university allows students to purchase medical insurance for one quarter after their enrollment ends, so she has the option to buy another three months' insurance.

Go have a look at the whole entry. If you're able and so inclined, you may want to consider bidding on something in her charity auction or just using Paypal to donate a couple bucks her way.

New Pinup!

Over the last couple of months, I've been doing some pinups for folks. I don't want to share them all quite yet because I want the giftees to have the right of first post. Ironically, the last one gifted is the first one to make it out on the intertubes, so I finally get to post it!

Guy Davis is hard at work on the third graphic novel of his creator-owned series The Marquis, so I made him a pinup to celebrate.

(click to embiggen)

I can hardly wait to see what fresh new horrors crawl out of his wonderfully twisted brain. If you're not familiar with Guy's personal work, you may know him from his long run on Mike Mignola's BPRD from Dark Horse. A whole bunch of other folks are doing really gorgeous Marquis pinups, and Guy's collecting them on a special blog. Go have a look!

My Husband is the Awesomest

So Paul is a darn good designer, and recently, he's had a couple of really major coups. Some of them are still in the pipe, but here are a couple I can tell you about.

First, a while back, Thomas Dolby had an open contest on his blog to design the tee-shirt logo for a one-shot concert he was giving in London. Paul won, and you can see the logo being used in the concert here and here and here.

And secondly, Paul's a regular visitor to Warren Ellis' Whitechapel Message Board, where each week, Warren posts a new "Remake/Remodel" challenge, where artists and designers take a crack at re-imagining old, forgotten (and usually public-domain) characters. Paul usually does at least one design a week if not more, and his submissions are usually really well received. Fast forward to this week, when Warren gave the following challenge:

You are an artist/designer. You have to put together the cover for a comic called SUPERMAN. It is issue 1 of this book.

You have been told that Superman is a man who dresses predominantly in a shade of blue, and wears a red S symbol. You know nothing else about the character.

The cover must include a logo and the text THE COMPLETE STORY OF THE DARING EXPLOITS OF THE ONE AND ONLY SUPERMAN.

And that's it.

It's up to you what kind of company you're at. What kind of comics you make. How you translate that description of Superman. What era you're in. Who you are, even. Go nuts with it.

You have one week. Go.

The story's received quite a bit of press in the last couple of days, and guess whose image is getting shown far and wide?

Yup. He is my husband. He is full of awesome.

I should have linked to this sooner, but --

-- Kudos to Pam Noles for this post, responding to an interview with Kevin O'Neill. I realize the possible hypocrisy of me criticizing Kevin O'Neill in this instance, given that my last story also contains a racist doll, but at least I don't deny that when the automaton was created it definitely had racist overtones, regardless of how many other ways it was used or how else it contributed to scientific discovery.

It also bears mentioning that in her earlier essays, Pam never said "Don't use the Golliwog." What she did say is this:

As I've said before, writing is research, empathy and effort; anything in the world is on deck as potential source material. But if you're going to take on something as culturally loaded as blackface or minstrelsy, a footnote needs to be included - you've got to have your A-Game on. Like dealing with a select few other extremely thorny topics, this is not something one should go into without awareness. If you are a current day person choosing to toy with this construct, going into it with scant knowledge of or ignoring the big picture, is so unwise. If you choose to work with this trope willfully blind and you screw it up, you deserve whatever level of invective comes your way. You must proceed with awareness.

And this is why I love Pam's big beautiful brain so much.

I know I've linked to it before, but it's worth the redundancy: go read her full series of essays on the Golliwog in the Black Dossier.

Kalamazoo Peace House

Speaking of overdue blogging, here's a report that ran back in December about Kalamazoo's Peace House, a place where I occasionally volunteer (though nowhere near enough; I have to get to work on fixing that...) and whose caregivers are friends of mine. These folks are the absolute real deal, and it's a blessing and a privilege to have them in my life.

Beyond Victoriana

Man, I am so behind on my blogging; the more posts I write tonight, the more posts I remember I've intended to write for a long time. This one is probably the most overdue: The Beyond Victoriana Project.

This series is so incredibly amazing and I am so, so happy that Ay-Leen is writing and sponsoring them. It's a fantastic resource, and shows the vast, beautiful, fantastic possibilities that the steampunk genre can encompass -- but only if we stretch the fandom to allow room for more than just the basic Brit-centric faux-Victoriana, and be welcoming while we do it.

Here's an index. Go read! It'll crack your imagination wide open.

More amazingness from Bossymarmalade

Here's another amazing essay from BossyMarmalade. It's part of the fifth Asian Women's Blog Carnival -- and since I was a big doof and somehow missed the third and fourth installments, I'm going to be checking all three out over the next couple of days.

If you haven't read these before, please, please go and read them. They're powerful, important stuff.

Another Haiti link

Haiti: a survivor's story

From Salon, via Feministe.

Nora K. Jemisin tells it like it is

Remember that N.K. Jemisin post I linked to a couple days ago? Livejournaler Delux-Vivens linked to one of Jemisin's later comments that I hadn't seen, and I want to make note of it, because I think it's a really excellent rebuttal to "The Tone Argument":

Yes, I think the "quiet reasoning" would've been missed without the "angry" posts. But I'm putting scare quotes around these for two reasons a) because the "quiet reasoning" posts were angry too; very likely every cogent and persuasive post you saw was written by someone trembling with fury and struggling to be coherent. And b) because I don't recall seeing a single "angry" post that didn't make a reasonable point...

<snip>

As for the danger of alienating people with good intentions -- well, one of the things that I learned from RaceFail (and also from general experience) was that people with good intentions are the ones to fear most. The overt racists are easy to deal with. You can spot them coming a mile away. But the well-intentioned people are scarier. They might not intend harm, but in most cases they haven't thought about all the racist (and other "-ist") messages they've absorbed from society. They haven't done the basic groundwork necessary to purge themselves of that passively-absorbed "-ism". So they say the most incredibly hurtful, self-absorbed, and utterly useless things, then compound the problem by getting upset when they're called on it. I liken these people to sleeper agents -- they seem OK at first, but then they suddenly "activate" and stab you in the back, and then they come out of their fugue and freak because there's blood on their hands and they don't know how it got there and they refuse to accept that they're the ones who put it there, OMG, OMG. Meanwhile, you're on the floor bleeding out, unnoticed because of their histrionics.

I oughtn't quote the whole comment here, but you should really go read the response in its entirety -- and read this similar post as well. It's yet more proof that Ms. Jemisin is a really smart and very talented writer, and gives you all the more reason to go buy her book. Not convinced yet? She has three sample chapters online at her blog.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWESOME

Top Defense Officials Seek to End Don't Ask Don't Tell

A year later

Well, it's been a year since RaceFail started. It's been a rather difficult time for me; I've been uncharacteristically quiet because I've been learning an awful lot about myself (and my own work) that I'm still processing through. This isn't a moment for feeling particularly good about that, for reasons that Avalon's Willow and Deepa point out in their excellent posts -- but there is reason for hope, and I'll let N.K. Jemisin explain why.

On Haiti

As usual, Jay Smooth says it better than I ever could:

There are apparently some concerns over Wyclef Jean's Yele organization (ETA: Jean responds here), but if I had to pick, there is hardly a better charity to donate to at this moment than Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontiéres. I already give to them annually, and will be sending another boost as soon as I'm able.

YAY KALAMAZOO YAY

Proposal 1856 looks like it's going to win!

Help Pam Noles support the Interstitial Arts Foundation

Work's been kicking my butt lately, so I'm a day or two late on posting this, but this needs to get signal boosted:

Pam Noles (who is Black, Geek, and Fine With That), has quilted the most amazing wrap skirt and is donating it to an auction for the Interstitial Arts Foundation:

In addition to being gorgeous and twirly and a genuine hand-sewn work of art, it's also inspired by a short story, "Berry Moon," by Camilla Bruce. Those of you who know me well know how much I dearly love cross-pollination like this. Songs written for poems written for artwork based on photographs. Fabric Arts made for short stories. Dancing about architecture. You know the stuff: It's wonderful, and inspiring, and it makes the world a much better place.

As if all that weren't enough, Pam will custom-size the wrap-skirt's buttonhole for you.

So what're you waiting for? Go forth and Bid! It's for a good cause!

Oh hell yes.

86 year old WW2 vet says of gay marriage: "What do you think I fought for at Omaha Beach?"

Signal Boost: Project POORCRAFT

Hey, everybody: my buddy C. Spike Trotman is starting up a brand-new project and needs your help! It's called Project: POORCRAFT and it's going to be a guide to living frugally in urban and suburban areas, told in comics format. But don't take my word for it; head on over to Kickstarter and hear Spike tell you about it herself.

Mental war for superiority

I met Haddayr Copley-Woods at WisCon this year. She and I hit it off like nobody's business.

Her blogpost today reminded me why, all over again. 100% pure awesomeness.

RaceFail Meta

For those of you who skipped RaceFail 09 (and all its subsequent iterations, including MammothFail and EllisonFail, amongst others), Transformative Works and Cultures has an online symposium featuring a number of RaceFail participants. It's a meta discussion (a discussion about the discussion), but unlike previous meta, this one is less about the what and who and more about the why and how -- it outlines a lot of the types of reactions and arguments, and explains why they're either successful or stupid and irritating. Or both. As such, it's still a very good read even if you don't know any of the writers or have anything invested in SF or media fandom.

So go. Read. I met (or heard speak) all of the contributors at WisCon this year, and was very impressed by each of them.

Karen Healy, on making the effort to Write The Other correctly

Karen Healy has written a really wonderful essay about how she's working hard to Write The Other well. She gives concrete examples, and makes no claims to having done it right -- she leaves that up to her (future) readers. It's a very good read, and closely mirrors a lot of what I'm (still) going through with Clockwork Game. Kudos, Karen. I hope the book does very well for you.

Asian American Comic Con

This weekend is the Asian American Comic Con, at the Museum of Chinese in America, brought to you by Secret Identities, the first-ever graphic novel anthology of Asian American superhero stories (check out a sneak peek of the book here). It's also going to kick off the first-ever Kiyama Award, named after Henry Yoshitaka Kiyama, the author of The Four Immigrants Manga.

If you're in NYC this weekend, go check it out!

Women of Color and Rape Culture

Delux-Vivens and She Who Has Hope each have really excellent posts talking about how the experiences of Women of Color are all too frequently left out of discussions of rape. Please read both; they're important.

Shoutout for Steve Leiber and Sara Ryan

Steve Leiber has some incredibly good news lately... he and Jeff Parker's long-awaited spelunking comic (yep, a comic about cave exploration and rescue) is here:

It's soliciting in Diamond's July PREVIEWS to ship in September, so head on down to your LCS and pre-order yours today!

His other good news involves a movie based on a graphic novel he illustrated a while back called Whiteout. After several delays, it looks like it may be nearing theatrical release. The book is wonderful -- can't speak for the movie yet because the movie execs yanked the trailer before I could watch it. But you're going to need to read the book before you see the movie, right? right?

See, there's a reason why I'm telling you to buy Steve's books. It's because in addition to his really good news, he also had some stupendous bad news today:

My wife and I were just burgled. They stole our laptops, so we have no computers at home anymore, and we've got several days ahead of us of running around dealing with police, insurance, checking to make sure backups work, etc. This means that all the time at home I'd planned to spend doing promotion is gone, as are the machines I'd planned to it with.

Lots of folks have asked "what can I do to help?" The answer, if you have a comics audience, is blog or tweet something about the book. Send them to the site, or this specific post, or just tell them that Parker and I have a new Image book coming out. Your RTs and message board notes can make a big difference.

This sucks extra bad because Steve and his wife Sara Ryan are two of the nicest, kindest people you could ask to know. Sara's also a writer and has some really wonderful books out. So you should go and buy her books, too.

Hope your luck turns back to all-good soon, Steve and Sara!

I wore green today.

To stand in solidarity with the Iranian election protesters.

Woodrow Hill has two excellent posts here and here about why it's important to blog about the protests.

Andrew Sullivan's blog has frequent updates from insider sources, and Twazzup.com has up-to-the-second tweets from Iranians at the scene as well as people all over the world.

This is history in the making, and for possibly the first time ever, the mainstream media is solidly behind the curve. Bloggers and Twitterers are taking up the slack, giving eyewitness accounts, flashmobbing help to the injured. This is amazing, this is history, this is full-out rebellion against fascism, and the internet is the voice of the revolution.

Take note: The protesters in Tehran are setting an unbelievable example of bravery, and they deserve our support however we can lend it.

Second Asian Women's Blog Carnival...

... is up.. Go read! It's good stuff.