“Do you think the comic book industry, and its principal players, should be subject to the sort of public scrutiny and (at times) gossip that others in the entertainment field are subject to?”

I haven’t been among the respondents, because I am not important, and no one cares what I think.

But I’m going to tell you anyway.

I think it’s a slanted question, because it takes for granted that “the sort of public scrutiny and (at times) gossip that others in the entertainment industry are subject to” is appropriate.

I don’t.

Let me make something clear: I’m not supporting cloak-and-dagger secrecy here. I believe in accountability—public accountability where circumstances warrant. In fact, I agree, in principle, with most of the commentators, who discussed the importance of accountability and transparency in matters like creative responsibility, professional decorum, and business relations. In fact, I think most of those issues—and particularly those that involve exploitation and abuse, financial or otherwise—should probably get more coverage.

But that wasn’t the question. The question was,

“Do you think the comic book industry, and its principal players, should be subject to the sort of public scrutiny and (at times) gossip that others in the entertainment field are subject to?”

And to that, my answer is,

Absolutely not.

As far as I’m concerned, the parts of comics professionals lives that the public—and the industry at large—have any right to know about begin and end with the comics industry.

But that’s not as simple as it sounds, because comic people tend to socialize with, well, other comics people. We talk together. We drink together. We date each other. We embarrass ourselves in front of each other. And the lines between our personal and professional lives blur—which makes the answer to Val’s original question a hell of a lot more complicated. We can draw lines, sure—whom you date, for example, should be nobody’s business but your own—but there will always be exceptions: what about the editor who awards a competitive gig to the artist he’s involved with, or the couple whose divorce also means the dissolution of a creative team?

And so, to me, it comes down to a question of integrity and judgment.

If I thought any comics bloggers or journalists read this column, I would offer them the following challenge:

When you are deciding whether to report on a rumor or news item centering around a person or people (not, say, the release of a book, even if there are creator names attached to it), ask yourselves two questions:

What guides this decision shouldn’t be blog hits, or sensationalism, or laziness. It should be journalistic ethics, because when you are writing in your official capacity—even if it’s just at a personal blog—you are writing in the role of a journalist, and the weight you give the answers to those questions defines what is gossip, and what is news. And only one of those has a place in the public eye.

Discuss this column here.

But I’m going to make up for lost time, and you’re going to help–and with luck, so will your friends.

Here’s the deal: I’m going to do two National Coming Out Day posts (after this one). The first is going to be a round-up of coming-out scenes in comics; if you’re interested in contributing one of your favorites, you can do so here. I’ll be posting them at Inside Out on Thursday, October 9.

The second is going to be more personal: it’s going to be about coming out around comics and the comics community. If you have a personal coming-out story in which comics or the comics community play a role; have created a comic about your coming out story; came out via a comic or in context of your involvement in the comics community; or are an openly queer comics fan or professional, and you would be interested in sharing your story, you can do so here. I’ll be posting those stories on Inside Out on National Coming Out Day (Saturday, October 11). If you’d like to share a story on the forum but don’t want me to post it in Inside Out, just let me know in your post or in a PM; likewise, if you’d like to share a story anonymously, you can PM me on the Girl-Wonder forum or email me at rachel(at)girl-wonder(dot)org.

In the meantime, here are some links to check out for inspiration–creative or personal:

Prism Comics
A nonprofit organization that supports lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) comics, creators, and readers. They’re one of the coolest advocacy organizations in comics.

The Gay League
An online community for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, Transexual, and just plain friendly comic fans, collectors and creators worldwide. The purpose of the Gay League is to have a safe, hate-free, fun environment to read about, discuss, review, discover, trade, buy, sell, and learn information about comics – and make some friends online along the way. For some historical perspective, check out their LGBT Comics Timeline.

Coming Out in the Comic Strips
David Applegate writes about queer characters in newspaper comic strips.

The Cartoon Closet
Another article on queer characters in comic strips.

Creators Speak Out
PopImage’s Q&A with 16 queer comics creators.

Queer Comics Make Impact
A brief roundup of GLBT comics-related news from July of this year.

Why It Still Matters
In which I talk about queer comics characters and paper mirrors.

Talk Back:
Tell me about your favorite coming-out stories in comics here.
Tell your own coming-out story here.
Discuss this column and share more GLBT comics and resources here.

I’d like to be able to say that I’m back and rarin’ to go, but honestly, I’m still pretty run down. It’s been a hell of a month. Months. Year. And what I’d like to do more than anything else is call in to work and curl up under a big, fluffy blanket with a mug of hot cocoa and peppermint schnapps and watch Miyazaki movies for the next week or so.

But here I am.

I’ve been deliberating lately over whether I should continue to write Inside Out, and, if so, what (if any) kind of schedule I can commit to. I was very, very close to either scrapping the column altogether or putting it on indefinite hiatus. I may still be – I’m honestly not sure.

Here’s the deal: I’m doing a lot of writing these days. In addition to freelance gigs, I’m writing a series (among other content) for Sequential Tart, judging at Project: Rooftop (Joan Rivers, eat your heart out!), doing independent scholarly research, and – and this one’s the clincher – working on my application to a low-residency M.F.A. writing program. Lots of words, and that’s in addition to working full-time and then some, serving as a board member and treasurer of Girl-Wonder.org, moderating a couple fora, building a loft in my studio, getting ready to teach wireworking classes, and developing a top secret super-awesome charity project (I promise I’ll tell you soon!), maintaining personal relationships, and occasionally sleeping – and I’ve got my country’s 500th anniversary to plan, my wedding to arrange, my wife to murder, and Guilder to frame for it; I’m swamped.

So, where does all of that leave Inside Out? As I said, I’m really not sure. To some extent, I think I’m going to leave it up to you.

Here are some options:

-Inside Out could become a more general blog, in which I write about my relationship and reactions to comics but spend less time on the industry and more time on scholarship, reviews, and personal observations.

-I could continue to focus on the industry but make more of my posts more personal and anecdotal.

-I could post long critical and informative columns but do so only sporadically.

-I could make Inside Out primarily a q/a and advice column.

-You tell me.

The column will resume–on its new biweekly schedule–in mid-November. Seeya then!

This past weekend, I joined Girl-Wonder members Livia Penn and Noah Brand at Girl-Wonder’s first-ever convention table, at Stumptown Comics Fest. To say that it rocked would be an understatement–we were totally bowled over by the tremendously positive reactions we got from both fans and professionals, and from the number of both who were familiar with and fond of Girl-Wonder. Next week, I’ll be teaming up with Noah and Livia to take over the world post a detailed con report, complete with photos of our booth and scans of the awesome sketchbook we had there.

If you just can’t get enough of my witty, incisive commentary, you can get a double dose this week by stopping by Project Rooftop, where I’m a guest reviewer on the current feature, Spoiler Warning: A Stephanie Brown Special. The designs are awesome (I WANT KNEE-HIGH RED SPATS SO BAD!), and we have long philosophical discussions about superhero footwear.

And, a bit of mixed news: after next week’s Stumptown Con Report, Inside Out is going to go biweekly. I have way too much on my plate right now, and I’d rather post half as many good, polished columns on time than twice as many rushed, late jumbles. I’ll try to make up for the schedule change with more, better content–and maybe on off-weeks I’ll do some brief linkblogging or post fan art. Who knows? Not I…

What do you think?

Oh, my! I am awash with blushy pride, for the fine folk of The Hathor Legacy have awarded Inside Out a Thinking Blogger Award!

The deal with Thinking Blogger Awards is as follows:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn’t fit your blog).

So, without further ado, and in no particular order, here are five blogs that make me think:

Digital Femme is the blog of Cheryl Lynn, a brilliant comics creator and critic, and founder of The Ormes Society. Her writing is a constant challenge to the complacency of the comics community and feminist blogosphere, particularly regarding women of color in comics.

Polite Dissent is one of the best-kept–and one of the flat-out best–secrets of the comics blogosphere. Its creator, Scott, is a doctor who writes marvelous reviews of the medicine–and psuedo-medicine–in comics, punctuated by fascinating and accessible forays into real-life medicine.

Badgerbag is the blog of the marvelous Liz Henry, who describes it far better than I could: “Badgerbag: messy, surly, full of books is my general interest blog. Its baroque digressions attempt to capture my reality in the tradition of complex personal memoir. I write about everything interesting that comes my way. Books, computing, social media, other blogs, poetry, literary translation, family, parenting, my own memories, relationships, news, and especially my reflections on gender, feminism, race, class, and intercultural politics.” Liz is also Oracle to the Girl-Wonder/WisCon Birds of Prey and is responsible for introducing me to disability activism.

She’s Such a Geek is the companion blog to a book of the same name, and like the book, it’s all about women in traditionally geeky fields: hackers, programmers, comics creators, and other such folk.

PostmodernBarney is a snarky, smart comics blog with a focus on queer and feminist issues and a lot of really damn sharp general criticism.

If you’ve noticed my recent trend of my linking to other blogs rather than, y’know, writing my own, you’re kind of right. I’ve been hit with a slew of positive but time-consuming real-life stuff–visits from family, dear friends moving into the area, etc.–at the same time that work has exploded into (more) chaos (than usual) in anticipation of San Diego Comic Con (Yes, I’ll be there. PM me or post in the SDCC thread if you want to meet up!). So, I’m leaning on links a bit more than usual at the moment. Next week, I’ll have a proper column, I promise–and the week after that, you’ll get a con write-up, along with a marvelous guest column from Katherine Keller of Sequential Tart.

In the meantime, you can discuss this column here. Seeya in San Diego!

Please take the time you’d normally spend reading my column to read this post by Cheryl Lynn, if you haven’t already. Stay off the defensive. Just sit down, shut up, and listen to what she has to say.

And then, it’s time for us to start talking.

Misty Lee’s body has nothing to do with her credibility as a person and a commentator. The color of her eyes does not influence what they perceive. Her weight-height ratio has very little to do with her ability to interpret data. The degree to which she does or does not adhere to our society’s beauty standards does not determine her qualifications to accurately gauge the propriety or quality of a piece of media. And the number of men interested in seeing pictures of her naked has nothing to do with her ability to judge the validity of other people’s reactions to the Heroes for Hire #13 cover.

Misty Lee’s body is no more the issue than were the bodies of the women she insulted on her show, the women who, Lee claimed, objected to the blatant objectification and victimization of female characters in comics because they themselves were “fat and ugly.” Unsurprisingly, many of these women reacted angrily to Lee’s comment; unsurprisingly, several of the reactions involved refutations of her claims, backed with physical descriptions and even photographs.

I think they missed the point: it doesn’t matter how fat and ugly I, or Misty Lee, or any other blogger or critic happens to be. When guys got up in arms about Citizen Steel’s package, the first accusations were not that they must be hung like infants. When men object to the content or subject of comics, it is not assumed that they are doing so to compensate for their own inadequacies, physical (fat, ugly), social (unable to get a date, no sense of humor), or mental (just don’t get it).

But if it’s a woman, appearance trumps. She doesn’t like this drawing of Power Girl? Must be because she’s insecure about her flat chest. Thinks women in comic books are objectified? Obviously, she’s jealous of the reactions they elicit from real-life men. When a male creator does something fans disagree with, they cast aspersions on his capabilities. When a female creator pisses off fans–sometimes just by having the temerity to play in the boys’ league–they immediately attack her appearance. This is social control at its purest, kids: reducing over half the population to little more than fashion plates, whose thoughts are always secondary to their looks; making women creatures to be seen and judged, but never really heard.

In “Just Past the Horizon: On Reflection,” Lisa Fortuner wrote about the importance of finding our reflections in the “paper mirror” of comics, and the hurt and betrayal we feel when we see those reflections warped beyond recognition; when the books we read tell us that those female heroes–and, by extension, the readers who identify with them–exist only to fulfill someone else’s fantasies and dismiss our ardent need for heroes of our own. The same, I suspect, holds true for all of the groups relegated to the mirror’s edges or cut out altogether: people of color, queers, disabled persons, and others who do not fit the narrow mold of “normalcy.”

I am amazed that Misty Lee, of all people, failed to make that connection–to see that there’s more to women’s interest in comics than imagined comparisons with female superheroes.

And I wonder how she would have reacted if one of the women on the Heroes for Hire #13 cover had been Zatanna.

Discuss this column here.

I mean, the MJ and Stephanie and Power Girl discussions, they’re a good start. It’s like school. Graduate from school, and apply all that passion and sense of social justice towards something in our reality. You can still discuss Power Girl. But break it up a little bit. Maybe devote 50% of your bandwith to Stephanie getting her trophy case, and 50% to Afghan women setting themselves on fire because their lives are so damn miserable. Or maybe 75% Stephanie, 25% Russian sex slaves. Or maybe two pages of posts on “Fangirls Attack” on MJ, one page on domestic violence in Canada. Maybe I’ll stop being such a self-absorbed snarky blogger myself. You don’t think I read about the real s**t that goes on in this world and feel like a jackass sometimes for the stupid fangirl s**t I write about?

I don’t think Occasional Supeheroine is dumb, so I have to assume that she knows it’s not as simple as she’s making it look. First of all, anyone who doesn’t live in a box can recognize that there’s a relationship between the portrayal of women in media and the treatment of women in real life. And she is technically correct: Stephanie’s trophy case and MJ’s egregiously awful statue aren’t nearly as important as the lives, rights, and dignity of real women. If I had to choose one and only one to agitate about, the choice would be simple.

But it’s not a matter of either/or. If I canvass for reproductive rights, it doesn’t mean that I am no longer allowed to write to my senator in support of same-sex marriage, or volunteer at a rape crisis center. My Feminist Majority, ACLU, Friends of Lulu, and Apostrophe Protection Society memberships do not cancel each other out.

Maybe I find Occasional Superheroine’s comments so damn offensive because I’ve just finished a month of columns that are all about the intersections between comics and other feminist issues. Maybe it’s because when it comes down to it, Inside Out is all about the intersections between comics and real life. Maybe it’s because I know that many feminist comics bloggers are publicly active in feminism outside of comics, and that Girl-Wonder devotes one of its five main boards to discussion of “real world” feminism and gender issues. Or maybe it’s the hours I spent researching and compiling information for our Sexual Assault Awareness Month resource page. Maybe it’s because I find comparing the validity of activist movements kind of offputting in itself, like comparing types of abuse on a linear scale.

Should feminist comics bloggers and columnists–many of whom write for multiple blogs and sites, on a range of issues–be vilified because of compartmentalization, the choice to have a column or a site specifically devoted to feminism and women in comics rather than more general and pressing “real-world” issues? Occasional Superheroine seems to think so. I don’t.

If you want me, I’ll be in the comic-book shop, dancing with Emma Goldman. You can join our revolution any time.

Come dance with me.

Edited to add:

This is not, not, not an invitation to go flame Occasional Superheroine. While I’m still angry about what she said, I also recognize that there’s some merit to it, and that she also had the right to be pissed. If you feel like you have something useful to add to the conversation, do so. If not, keep your vitriol off the web–there’s already more than enough to go around.