Girl Genius in strife after publisher closes

Phil Foglio author of one of the best female fronted action comic series ever made "Girl Genius" is at risk of losing his income and the rights to his own works.

He posted on Facebook and the Girl Genius site:

"So– Got a call from our agent, telling me that Night Shade Books, the American publisher of the Girl Genius novels, is folding. This made me sad. I became markedly less sad when my agent assured me that our sales were sufficiently good that any number of other publishers should be interested in picking us up, so– Hurrah! Well…maybe hurrah.

You see, there's the whole tedious business of disengaging ourselves from Night Shade, which has decided to sell our contract to another publisher in order to cover their debts. This other publisher, Skyhorse, is perfectly willing to buy Night Shade's assets (our contracts). However, they will rewrite them and everybody now gets paid a flat 10% of net sales. Let me put this another way; If I was a monkey, I'd be throwing this.

However it gets even better. A certain percentage of Night Shade authors have to agree to this hose job before the deal goes through. Yay! We're safe! You'd have to be an idiot to sign onto this! True– So let's bring out a stick and threaten you! If they don't get enough authors willing to eat this crap, then Night Shade has no choice but to declare Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

Then all the books in question go into a legal limbo. No one has the rights until the bankruptcy is resolved, which might take years- or possibly, NEVER! This has happened before to way better authors than us. This means that once said books go out of print, the authors can't resell them. Can't reprint them. Can't sell any adaptation rights. Can't write any sequels. And so, because a couple of wankers took two semesters of 'Creative Writing' instead one or two in 'Business Administration' before they started their little publishing house, a whole bunch of authors have the choice of deciding if they want to give their work away for free (scum who actually took Business Administration classes collapse in orgasmic joy when some fool agrees to get paid a percentage of 'net'. Seriously, that's insulting 'amateur night in Dixie' stuff) (Yes, I've been a freelancer for 30+ years, thanks for asking), or losing control of it, possibly for years, maybe forever.

So what's going to happen? Don't know. unlike many authors, I actually have an entertainment lawyer look over our contracts before we sign them, so I'm hoping we're covered, but this is by no means a given. Even if we are, it still leaves a lot of other authors in a bad spot.

Does this seem like a Bad Situation to you? Then you should say something. Mr. Jeremy Lassen, Night Shade Books, and even Skyhorse Publishing are on Facebook. I'm sure they'd love to hear your opinions."

Comic nerds, science nerds, creative nerds and just about everyone in between should be ashamed of the potential loss here. Think that this is terrible? Reach out to the publishers involved, support Mr Foglio directly or rally for a Kickstarter!

Facebook bans cosplay profiles

Cosplay Angel as Hatsune Miku

Cosplay is one of the spheres in which geek girls have been welcomed and indeed celebrated with huge success and so it is a shame to hear this news.

Facebook are taking the same approach to 'legitimacy' of user profiles that caused all the ruckus with Google+ 'real names' policy and removing duplicate and fake profiles from their site. The main cause appears to be to to protect those posing as others and to reduce the number of fake celebrity profiles on the site.

Unfortunately in a mass data clean up they have targeted and removed the profiles of many cosplayers and deleted all accounts with the surname "cosplay" in an effort to reduce duplicate accounts created by fans for their cosplay efforts. The Examiner even claims that gamers with profiles for their characters could be targeted next.

The Cosplay community is understandably upset. Some have separate 'personas' they keep for conventions and competitions, others say they'd prefer not to share an unusual hobby (and possibly risque outfits) with their family and colleagues. Many have lost years of photo albums and online social networking.

"Professional" cosplayers such as Cosplay Angel have been protected by using Facebook pages rather than profiles, but for the lay man this didn't seem like a requirement and the deletion of accounts was without warning. Some blame adult content such as the infamous Venom Cosplay that was banned, others feel persecuted in a medium that has traditionally been very geek friendly.

For Cosplayers and supporters alike Change.org have created an online petition against the deletion of Cosplay accounts. What about you Nerd Girls? Have you had an account deleted? What do you think about the move towards social media profiles being used as an internet proxy for forms of ID?

Disney XD gets geek friendly

Disney has really upped its game with programming on the XD channel and we're starting to see a lot of new geek friendly material popping up in the news. 

The Tron: Uprising series mixes 2D and 3D animation and starts where the Tron: Legacy movie leaves off. It features some heavy weight voice talent as well including Bruce Boxleitner reappearing as Tron, Elijah Wood voicing the main character and Lance Henriksen stepping in as the bad guy. 

On top of this they're playing plenty of super hero cartoons like Ultimate Spiderman and The Avengers. Sadly they seem to have cancelled showing the Stitch! Anime series but never fear you can order it from Amazon.

It's like Christmas for geeks: Free Comic Book day

This Saturday the 7th of May is Free Comic Book Day!

It's the best day to be a geek, local comic book stores hold events and attract custom supporting your local small business. It's a great day to dress up, hang out around other geeks, visit your comic book shop and catch u p on your favourite graphic novels.

There'll be free promotional items to be given out, sometimes you get special editions and one of a kind items on the day, or if you're lucky there might be an artist or writer at your local store.

To top things off in Sydney there's the added bonus of all paid comics being an additional 20% off at Kinokuniya including manga and special editions and Kings Comics will be having its annual sale to coincide.

Why not make it a day out and meet up with some of your nerdier mates after you've shopped your heart out for a drink and to compare purchases and freebies, it's one of my favourite days of the year!

Makeover for Wonder Woman

Who doesn't like Wonder Woman...but when you think of Wonder Woman, what image does you mind conjure?

Yup I bet it's the good old classic star spangled pants with the red corset...and those iconic red boots...just do a google image search and that is what you will get.

Who could forget Lynda Carter making nerd girls around the world beg their parents for gold cardboard to make some bullet-reflecting gauntlets? Or blue undies to stitch felt stars on? Practising boomarang throws with that Princess tiara? Or twirl around in the yard to the point of falling over or being sick?

Besides all the awesome stuff such as a role-model teaching young girls to stick up for themselves and not needing a guy to save them, or that a strong, powerful woman could be good, (as compared with other super hero television - women were either villains or oooh I sprained my ankle)...intelligent and good looking at the same time.

Wonder Woman has had many outfit updates...the pants went from shorts to grannie pants to high cut bikini. The iconic red corset with the golden eagle has had many modifications.
Even Wonder Woman, or Diana Prince has had her hair keep you with the trends...from her original tight curls to the bullet-reflecting-hair-spray-helmet to that 80's perm to 90's layers...if there was ever great documentation for hair style fashion through the decades it is Wonder Woman comics.

But DC decided for Wonder Woman's 69th birthday she needed a make over....and a tv series...

Oh yessssss....yes they did....

Manga & Anime 101

We all know manga and anime as those "Japanese comics and cartoons".
Some of us are avid fans and try to consume as much as we can...sometimes with horrific results.

Like most Westerners my first real introduction was Astro Boy...I thought Astro was cute and blowing rockets from his butt was the apex of toilet humour. Please remember I was seven at time.
Then came G-Force or Battle of the Planets which I later discovered was a butchered American adaptation of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman. I say butchered because to edit out most of the violence from the original, the Americans created 7-Zark-7. This little robot who loved oil showers was basically was a C-3PO in a shape of the love child of R2-D2 and a football. He would explain what was going in the guise of worrying.

My family could not understand me and my obsession. My school mates just thought I was werid. I could not articulate how I was waiting for the show's only female character Princess to die...horriblely. In a vain hope that 7-Zark-7 would call me and ask me to take Princess' position as kick-arse-ninja-girl. But I was going to insist on an outfit similar to the show's villian Zoltar.

Things change and so did public programming so I got into ponies instead. My family relieved that I was becoming a normal girl and a result of lots of school friends due to my uncanny ability to draw horses for them.

Then Jap-animation came to town.

As someone who was blown away by Akira when it first hit our shores, I went anime and manga crazy...and I sat through some dreay flicks and read some crappy things but when I found a gem I feverently grabbed it. Anime movie festivals were rare and usually only featured three movies at a time. Most of the time new things were seen via video tape swaping...or going to Chinatown and grabbing the chinese translation and try to figure out what was going on by looking at the pictures...these were the days before DVDs and Madman Entertainment. And they were not that long ago.

So I'm just going to give you a basic low down on the types and genres of manga and anime, for those of you who already know this I apoligise for the re-hash. For those who don't, well this is for you if you are trying to find direction in locating something you like.

Girls Read Comics Too!

It might seem obvious to some of us here at Nerd Girl Army but often it seems like the industry forgets that girls read comics too!

Girls Read Comics is a Wordpress blog by women for women that read comics; it features reviews, interviews and recommendations and also features a great geek girl blog roll. You can also find Girls Read Comics on Facebook and Twitter (@GirlsReadComics).

They've recently been nominated for an Eagle Award for their effort in bringing great comic book content to the web and here at Nerd Girl Army we salute them for their familiar mission of reminding the world that women like geek culture just as much as the boys

Young Justice

I'm a big fan of most of the DCAU (DC Animated Universe) franchises so when I heard about a new series I was pretty excited. Justice League Unlimited was my favourite by a long shot so when I learned that the newest series would be Young Justice I was even more thrilled.

If you're a fan of the Young Justice comic series the changes will probably infuriate you, happily for me I only have a passing acquaintance with the original series so the name changes and trade-outs don't bother me but here are a few of them so you're forewarned.

Aqualad is an original character created for the series then introduced into the comics, it's Kid Flash, not Impulse, and is also Wally West and producers have said that the Robin is Dick Grayson (but this hasn't been said in the series, in fact Batman has told Robin not to reveal his face or name to the others).

The series is cute, and funny. I love Robin's creepy stealth laugh, Wally being the miniature version of the JLU version of the character and Superboy needs a hug and a hot pocket (and a few years of therapy to deal with his Daddy issues). Really, the only thing that missed the mark for me is Miss Martian.

If you've seen the series, I'll just say Helloooo, Megan! and if you haven't, well then you'll understand soon enough as the only girl in the first few episodes bakes cookies, makes moon eyes at boys and sprouts the most annoying catchprase since Excuuuuuuuuuuse me, Princess! Why, writers, producers and directors? Why would all the other characters have cute schticks or personality quirks (Robin hates Prefixes) and you give the often awesome Miss Martian a valley girl headsmack and cringe inducing catchphrase?

I'm whelmed, guys, but hopefully the later season introduction of Wonder Girl (held up due to legal issues) will give me some kickass girly goodness aside from Ditzy and Bitchy over there.

X-Men: First Class Trailer

It's a Summer that's already full of deliciously nerdy comic book movies - Captain America, Thor, Green Lantern are all due for release. Is there really room for another super hero movie? After seeing this trailer I say yes!

While it's a little sad that there's no room for our Aussie hunk Wolverine played by Hugh Jackman, there is a young Professor X as played by Scottish spunk James McAvoy (made Hollywood famous by another graphic novel adaption Wanted). In my head it's his face and Patrick Stewart's voice and it is *all* *good*.