Reading Wednesday

[oyceter]

What I've read: Finished Anuja Chauhan's Those Pricey Thakur Girls! It's by far my favorite of her books, and now I kind of wish there were a version of Battle for Bittora done in rotating 3rd person POV, because I would have LOVED to see Pushpa Pande's sections. Hopefully a longer review to follow soon!

Also finished Chi's Sweet Home volume 2, which is just as cute and full of cat as the first volume. Definitely comfort reading for me, and I laughed especially hard at Chi getting mad at people ignoring her, climbing up on the table, and sitting down on the postcard people were looking at instead of where their attention should rightfully be focused (Chi, obviously).

What I'm reading: I finally started reading comics on my tablet! I say "finally" because that was the original reason I wanted a tablet in the first place. Anyway, I'm in the middle of the Greg Rucka Wonder Woman run (I blame chaila) and generally enjoying it. There are WAY more women than I usually see in superhero comics, though I am super skeeved out by Doctor Psycho and all the rape stuff he jokes about. I mean, you are supposed to be skeeved out, but given that the art is still male-gaze-y, it feels like one of those having your cake and eating it too things.

Also, totally get the appeal of Diana. She reminds me of why I like Captain America, at least in the MCU, and I really like that mostly her idealism and desire to do good and be good are genuine and not made fun of. It's so hard to find depictions of nice and good people who are interesting and have depth; most writers seem to save that for the morally ambiguous characters. And I looooove that she just goes ahead and makes decisions and her staff has to flounder to figure stuff out in her wake, and while she might apologize, she never angsts about it or questions her choices.

The art is mostly okay, given the genre? I think? I've never followed superhero comics closely, so I am not sure. I do love that Diana so far has very consistently been drawn with really broad shoulders and narrow hips; it's a silhouette I don't see very often on women. Still a lot of the twisted torso poses to get T&A in, and I rolled my eyes when one villain stepped out with her face entirely in shadow... but her naked body was of course visible!

It's also always weird getting into a new superhero/team and figuring out who the standard villains and secondary characters are. Various wiki articles help, but because comics is so convoluted, I hit a point when my eyes just glaze over as the details of betrayal! new allegiances! resurrection! secret identity! world resetting! and whatnot go on and on and on.

This is also interesting because it's my first foray into the DCverse that isn't centered around Gotham and its ilk.

What I'm reading next: Probably a lot more Wonder Woman.

Comments

[natlyn]

The Greg Rucka run is awesome. Also read The Hiketeia with Batman!

I paid no attention to who all the secondary characters etc. were. I just rolled with the story. I probably missed some themes and resonances, but I was okay with that.

[sanguinity]

I stalled halfway through the Rucka run, because we hit AWESOME, and then I couldn't make myself put in the work to sort out the Flash-centric stuff immediately after.

And then when I went to pick it up again, I started at the top again, and hit AWESOME, and then AGAIN couldn't make myself sort the Flash stuff, hahaha.

I WILL finish Rucka's run at some point, I swear. I will, I will!

[lilacsigil]

That's my absolute favourite Wonder Woman run! Greg Rucka is usually a safe bet if you want a comic book where women are people.

[chaila]

I blame give credit to chaila

Fixed that for you! :D

I always want to flail about Diana, because DIANA. That she never angsts about her right to make decisions is one of my favorite things about her! Turns out I really like having a super powerful, idealistic, strong female superhero fight evil and protect the world,, and not really question her authority to do that? Like, way more than I expected to like it. But also you are totally right about all of this other stuff too. I'm still perpetually confused by continuity, and mostly just roll with it.

It's constantly frustrating that the comic will do some really great, interesting things, and then mess it up with gratuitous shots and body poses that defy physiology. Though, so you're forewarned, I think there's less of the annoying stuff in Rucka than in most of the other WW comics, except maybe Simone? I personally really, really like the art in Rucka's run, but I think I'm kinda alone there. I like it because she almost always looks broad and strong, and she wears stuff other than her costume a fair bit of the time. But other than stuff like that, there's lots of better stuff out there, art-wise. But then sometimes that'll come with more male gaze, so it's a trade-off. :/

[estara]

I have no idea if it's available in ebook, but if you can get the original George Perez run of Wonder Woman (after the very first rebirth of the DC Universe - Crisis of Infinite Earths, etc.), he did about 50 or 75... not sure... pamphlets and it was the first time that the mythological background made sense, there were coloured Amazones, lesbian Amazons, important women helping Diana to learn about normal life on Earth, and the Greek Gods were the big villains. I LOVE that run still.