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It is no secret that I love the character Harley Quinn originally from Batman: the Animated Series. (I’m seriously considering cosplaying as her at my next convention). It’s also no secret that I’m not always happy with the direction DC has taken with her since incorporating her into the comics continuity.

I was floored by this latest controversy involving the character. Read it for yourself.

DC talent contest asks for drawings of naked Harley Quinn committing suicide.

However rather than me going into another lengthy rant, I thought I’d give Harley the floor for a rebuttal.

Thanks, Harls, that about sums it up.

Actually no it doesn’t, there is a lot more that is wrong and offensive about this mess. I’m just not optimistic enough that any intelligent argument against this nonsense will get through to the DC brass, who somehow thought this was a good idea in the first place, to waste the energy.

This isn’t particularly timely, but I thought of it last night and it made me giggle, so I whipped this up.

I’m not trying to besmirch Liza Minelli in any way, she seems perfectly nice, if a bit eccentric.  I just can’t think of an instance in a sci fi film or tv show where a female character with extremely short black hair was benevolent, can you?

Okay, when DC made the big announcement that they were rebooting and revamping their hero books, I really didn’t have an opinion. It’s been awhile since I’ve read any of them regularly, and a good story is a good story. The news did not rock my world.
I felt some trepidation when I heard that Babara Gordon would no longer be Oracle or in a wheelchair, but my mind was put at ease when I found out Gail Simone would be writing her series. If anyone can return her to batgirl and erase all the awesome character development over the years since she became Oracle, but still keep her smart, kickass, resourceful, and compelling it’s Gail Simone.
So like I said, I had no strong feelings about the the reboot until I saw this!

That, if you can’t tell (and OMG how could you?) is supposed to be Harley Quinn!
My reaction was something like the title of this post but less articulate.
I love Harley Quinn! Love her! This isn’t her!
I don’t object to the idea of character redesigns. In fact I’ve liked quite a few of the ones I’ve seen for the new DC so far. But this is to put it mildly an abomination!

The redesigns were supposed to update the look, but stick to the essence of the character. What about this is Harley?
As a refresher this is what Harley has more or less looked like for about two decades.

Isn’t she cute? She’s spunky, kooky, violent, and yes sexy. She is dressed very much like the clown archetype that inspired her name.

She isn’t a skank! She doesn’t look like she is about to eat your liver. She might, but she wouldn’t telegraph it like that. She isn’t in danger of contracting a venerial disease anytime she sits down.
I wouldn’t have cared if DC introduced this thing as a new character. I probably wouldn’t have bought the book she appears in, but to each their own. If they want to publish this character then fine, just don’t call her Harley Quinn! Call her Lady Wetdream vonTrollop derGonerrhea and be done with it. And leave my Harley alone, you bastards!!!!!!!

Okay this post was inspired by an interview with Karen Berger, in which she mentioned that Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon are Brazilian and identical twins, and my brain went straight to “I must find a picture of them!”  And I did, and they are very cute.  And it occurred to me that it would be fun to make a post of the most sexy comics creators.  I decided to limit it to males, just because I find objectifying men far more amusing and novel, than doing the same to women.  Especially when it comes to the comics industry.  So keeping in mind that “sexy” is very subjective, I thought I would list the ones I think are the most physically attractive, and then open the floor to you guys to list your own.

Disclaimer: All of these guys are infinitely talented, and are worthy of admiration regardless of their appearance.  And frankly comics creator is a title that is just sort of inherently sexy to me.  But I’m being superficial today, so this post’s deepness level is skin.

First up the aforementioned twins Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon.

Look at them!  They are such cute little hipster boys!  This could be an indie label album cover.  Oh and their credits include doing the writing and art for Umbrella Academy, and Daytrippers, among others.

Keeping with the theme of up and coming brother teams, Jonathan and Joshua Luna.

How hot are they?  Points for being able to work the camera.  They are responsible for the Sword, Girls, and Ultra.

How about David Mack?

I’ve met him twice at conventions, and was utterly charmed by him both times.  He totally recognized me the second time, even though two years had passed, and our first encounter had to be pretty similar to hundreds he had had with fans at conventions.  (I’m not implying anything here.  I just mean that I walked up to his table.  Told him his art was cool, and that I liked it.)  During that first meeting, I had not read any Kabuki though I had heard of it, and had really liked his Daredevil work.  He was incredibly gracious, and gave me the first trade and the, at that time, most recent hardcover collection for half price, and just flat out gave both me and my sister all the uncollected issues for free, as well as two limited prints of his Kabuki work, also for free.  And he signed it all!  It was just such a classy move, that of course the next time we saw him at a convention we bought every new item he had for sale, and we had already bought all the intervening Kabuki volumes.  (By the way Kabuki is amazing!)  Anyway that might have bought him a place on this list, but it was unnecessary because he is undeniably cute.

And this is the only other person on this list that I have spoken to, Neil Gaiman.

The conversation went like this:

Neil: Hello.

Me: Hi.  (blushes and hands over books)

Neil:  What is your name?

Me:  Susan (he writes personalized signature in my books, while I stammer incoherently)

Me: Thank you! (he smiles pleasantly, before turning to the next blushing, stammering person in line.)

Imagine how many times that has happened to him.  He probably has the highest ratio of  swooning to nonswooning fans in comicdom.  It could be because he is a super-genius-writer-guy, or that he is quite nice to look at, but I blame the voice.  He has the best story reading voice ever.  Just listen to one of his self narrated audiobooks for the proof.

Next we have Read Comics favorite Brian K. Vaughan.

Got to like a guy who can work a shaved head, raised eyebrow combo.  He is the writer behind Y: the Last Man, Runaways, and Ex Machina.

As I was compiling this list I was lamenting the fact that none of these guys had any calendar worthy beefcake photos that I could put up.  You would think they didn’t take their sex symbol status seriously.  (That was a whole lot of unplanned alliteration, sorry.)

But thank god for Grant Morrison!  Always planning ahead.  Here is a young Grant (almost demurely compared to later shots) showing off his bum in tight white pants.

Warning next pic may be NOT SAFE for WORK!  For real, I am not kidding.  Don’t let your boss catch you looking.  In fact I’m going to hide it under the jump.

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Writing reviews is hard.  It requires I read the comic, formulate an opinion everyone can disagree with, write it out in a coherent plot summary/commentary, find a cover image, link it, proof read it…ugh.  So instead, since I’ve got time to waste while waiting for the dryer to finish so I can go to bed, I thought I’d just bitch a bit.  Hope you don’t mind.  So, I present to you…

THE TOP 20 THINGS (off the top of my head in no particular order) WRONG WITH COMICS TODAY

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