From manatees to cats with the Ukraine in between.

Manatee migration

13 Webcomics that make you smarter.

Growing black holes eating stars

The end to upside down or up USB plugs?

Neither male nor female?  Good news.

Quote of the day: The less people know about where Ukraine is located on a map, the more they want the U.S. to intervene militarily.

Technology's Man Problem.

What is feminism?

Btw, even Carter doesn't think Bush won the 2000 election.

Kitty collapse.

Saturday skittles

Melissa Harris-Perry's apology to the Steubenville rape survivor.


Peru Bans Monsanto and GMOs

The decree banning GMO foods was drafted in 2008. It not only bans GMO crops like Monsanto’s BT-Corn, but also expands on a prior law that required all foods on supermarket shelves that contain GMOs to be labeled. Those GMO containing foods will now be completely banned. After being subjected to public discussion, being amended, and finally passed in the Peruvian congress in April of 2011, the ban is finally going into effect this week. 

A study done in April of 2011 by the Peruvian Association of Consumers and Users (ASPEC) tested 13 products purchased in major supermarkets and shops in Lima, Peru. Unsurprisingly, 10 out of 13 tested positive for containing GMOs.

Pesticide Suspected in Bee Die-Offs Could Also Kill Birds

Controversial pesticides linked to catastrophic honeybee declines in North America and Europe may also kill other creatures, posing ecological threats even graver than feared, say some scientists.

According to a report by the American Bird Conservancy, the dangers of neonicotinoid pesticides to birds, and also to stream- and soil-dwelling insects accidentally exposed to the chemicals, have been underestimated by regulators and downplayed by industry.

First transgender character in comics.

4 Myths About Emergency Contraception Explained

Mapaghimagsik hits the big time!

Crooks and Liars has your comic!

Life without Garfield

Exposes a whole different world:

Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolor disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against lonliness and methamphetamine addiction in a quiet American suburb.

Catch the latest

Comics at Taking Stock:


Click on the pic to take you there. (It worked! Thanks, mapaghimagsik!!)

Women in refrigerators

Reader mapaghimagsik gave me a link to Women In Refrigerators, a view of women in comics. The question is why women superheroes seem to end up tragically horribly brutalized, raped, murdered, crushed. Are they more 'depowered' than male superheroes?

The writer Gail Simone interviewed a clutch of comic book writers and got some very intriguing answers. Most boil down to the statement that bosomy women sell comics to young adolescent boys, and the reason the women get the tar beaten out of them is the fear these young men have towards dominant and strong women. Yet there are some female writers (one that sticks out is Devin Grayson) who add a new perspective to the art of comic book writing.

Having read and collected hundreds of comics in my teens (back when they had very few ads and a lot more pages, a lot more plot!) I wondered about this. Did I just ignore the women being misused and abused? No. I think I recognized plot devices even then. I remember laughing about Spiderman's Aunt May who must have had superhuman strength to endure the multitudes of heart attacks that were thrown in whenever the plot grew stale.

The art has become truly more graphic now, and the sex and the brutality more raw; but is it any different from what people would get from tv or the net? I don't know. All women in comics seem to have very little in the way of clothes and extremely inflated breasts filled with helium. Must be written into the female super hero contract. Is it a put down of women? No, the men are covered with more muscles than can ever be achieved by the gym. They are the iconic male, female figures. Never ugly unless evil, never less than perfect in muscle and curves.
The difficulties must come from the mind or outside of the body.

Does it matter? Yes, the view that women are prey is hard wired into our society and the sooner we recognize it and begin to root it out the better. Can we get rid of it all? No.

But in the end, I think the writing will always be the make or break of the comic. If it is well-written, the reader will put up with much. If it is poorly written, the reader will go elsewhere, even if the art work is stunning.

Update: Slightly OT, but via Unrepentant Hippie, Yes but No but Yes offers the Top 15 Unintentionally Funny Comic Book Panels: