Homesick Hounddogs on the Rodent Hour

Last night was Election Night. Fortunately, my radio show is on Tuesdays and it gave me something a lot more pleasant to think about. Politics hurt my stomach. It's too much like listening to your parents fight: people holding your fate in their hands that don't even have enough on the ball to hold a civilized conversation, let alone guide a civilization.

There, I was topical. Now, the music!

ROCK-pical. And next week's guest is Rock Pickle. Weird.

Homesick Hounddogs are a Brooklyn-based Americana/bluegrass band. Two thirds of them came into the studio last night and played a great set for the Rodent Hour. They're actually the second vaguely folk-ish alterna-rock band that's been on the show this season, the first being The Tres Amigos, who were so good they made me want to be a better person. I'll give them another plug. Here's a slideshow of their appearance set to their song "Fiddleheads."

I had to put this up because we haven't made the video for Homesick Hounddogs yet. As soon as that one is up, I'll post it here. I also wanted to mention The Tres Amigos in this post about Homesick Hounddogs because I see them both as part of a movement taking place in music right now. I think it may have started with "O Brother, Where Art Thou," which came out in 2000 and seemed to revive interest in folksy Americana, especially among my generation.

I see it as part of the same fashion and cultural movement that's appropriated the aesthetic of the pre-war years. For brevity's sake I'll use the term "hipster," though I hate to pull out that word unless I'm referencing Allen Ginsberg's "Howl." Hipsters dress in outdated clothing, adopt the hairstyles of their grandparents, and fetishize the objects and technologies of a bygone era, like typewriters, fixed gear bikes, and Mason jar drinking glasses in order to project an image of authenticity (which is kind of an oxymoron, but I think they know that). The appropriation of this folksy aesthetic among the young and educated urbanite could be behind the resurgence of bluegrass/folk/roots inspired music.

And I am loving it!

That's right, you sit on the floor and jam with your mandolins and your harmonicas, you angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night.

This fall season, we've had three bands who fall into this old Americana sub-category of music: The Tres Amigos, lushTongue (they do Indigenous-inspired a capella, not vaguely folkish alterna-rock, which is why I didn't mention them earlier), and Homesick Hounddogs. Not coincidentally, they're all my new favorite bands. I would actually go out to see any of them play live, and if you read this blog, you know I literally have to get paid to go out and see live music in this town. I've set up my life quite nicely so that the live music comes directly to me. But The Tres Amigos are playing a gig at Columbia University on November 30th, so the BF should be prepared to get his ass dragged to a social event, because I want in on that sweet, toe-tappin' all-American action.

It's easy to be down on hipsters because they're mostly young, which means they're somewhat powerless (no one claiming the hipster label got elected last night) and therefore a safe target to mock. And I won't lie, they are so eminently mockable.

Wonder Woman sneers at your mainstream fashion sense.

But I think there's real value in attempting to preserve and perpetuate our own cultural history. Using a typewriter or knowing how to can your own vegetables serves as a tactical bridge to the past, to say nothing of the heritage explored and experienced when musicians mine America's past for inspiration. Is it fashionable? Of the moment? Yes, but it's also of the past, and therefore timeless.

And for my money, it makes for a way better evening than a political rally.

Chelsea is looking at the election results as of 9PM last night. Don't be sad, Chels, Obama wins in the end!

Are you a fan of my radio show? The Rodent Hour is on Tuesdays from 8 to 10PM EST, on Pratt Institute's online radio station, radio.pratt.edu. The links to our various social media sites are below. Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and Tumblr, and listen to past guests on YouTube and Soundcloud. All free, all awesome, and all for one and one for all! (Wait, I think I got off topic...)

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The Storm

I stuffed plastic bags and duct tape into the cracks of my window frames, turned the fridge down as cold as it would go, packed my little blue suitcase, and left my apartment on Sunday afternoon at the same time as my upstairs neighbor S and her cat. It all felt very familiar. Didn't we just evacuate for a hurricane last year? S said that she was taking her cat to her sister's place in Brooklyn Heights, but that she might come back herself and weather the storm in our building because Irene hadn't been that bad. On the one hand, that is specious reasoning and I did not agree with her with her logic--on the other hand, I left my laptop computer and all my jewelry in my own apartment, so I guess the specious was going around. 

I stood at the bus stop and watched the restaurant put tarps and sandbags down over their cellar doors. Two bulldozers were parked on top of the giant pile of salt across the street. The East River is right on the other side of that pile. Clearly the dock workers thought that shit was about to get real.

Won't the salt just dissolve in a flood?

A guy with a thick beard and horn-rimmed glasses came up next to me evacuating with nothing except a Scrabble box under his arm. He didn't even bother to pack a change of underoos. Hipsters and hurricanes, I thought. He's either the smartest or the dumbest person at this bus stop right now, but there's no way to tell until the storm actually hits. The bus pulled up and away we all went, leaving Flood Zone A and heading for the hills.

In hurricane preparedness, you learn that the most important aspect of surviving a hurricane (after you get to high ground, of course) is to keep yourself occupied. Panic is your biggest enemy. So for all of Sunday and Monday, while the BF and I were crammed into his little uptown studio, I read my books, did yoga, took baths, and groomed like a nervous cat until I'd shed my long hair in every corner of the apartment. And then it was time for a walk.

This was before the storm had made landfall. No one really knew what was coming, so attitudes ranged from the blase to the barely-sane. Vans full of police officers cruised the streets, looking very official and prepared. A crowd of them (what do you call a group of police officers? A pod? A pack? A pride?) came into a pizza place and the BF looked at me with his I-didn't-do-nuttin' face, but they were just getting their lunches. As if they'd be coming for him. They're coming for me if they're coming for anybody. I come from interesting stock. Parents have been warning their children not to play with my family for generations.

After lunch, we went to a grocery store thinking we might pick up a sack of clementines, but the lines were crazy-long and the shelves were almost cleaned out. Almost. Apparently when the end is nigh and civilization totters to the brink, people look at turnips, pineapples and cranberries and say, "Fuck that noise, leave it for the looters."

We got our first hint that this whole storm thing was serious business when the crane blew over backwards in midtown and the BF's family had to evacuate their building.

Witchcraft!

That was Monday afternoon. On Monday night, the tide came in, the hurricane hit, and our troubles began. We didn't know it at the time, though. The BF closed the curtains, turned on the white noise machine, and we had a quiet evening at home ignoring each other while we read our respective books. The lights flickered once or twice and he filled up the bathtub just in case, but we woke the next morning to heat, power, and Internet as if nothing had happened. Our biggest concern was if we'd get the day off or not.

Then we turned on the television.

Breezy Point, Queens. Anyone who makes a Call of Duty or a Mad Max joke is going to hell.

And checked the New York Times online.

Subway station in the Financial District.

 And Googled images of my area of Brooklyn.

Red Hook, the neighborhood just south of my own.

I tried to adhere to my Girl Scout training. We turned off the news and read our books some more. We watched Golden Girls and a re-run of Beetlejuice on television. We even went outside for a walk. Damage was minimal on the Upper West Side, a few downed trees and a lot of untidy leaves in the gutters. But the air pressure was still all weird from the storm and it felt like someone was jamming chopsticks into my eardrums. We went back inside and tried to stay busy, but I was starting to worry about what had happened to my building.

I live in a funny little neighborhood that no one really knows about. Google searches for my street just kept pulling up images of flooded Red Hook, the neighborhood immediately south of my own, and with all public transit shut down and all the bridges and tunnels closed, there was no way for me to get home and check my apartment. Important lessons were learned that day about getting my neighbor's phone numbers and not being so anti-social.

Wednesday was worse. My office was open, but there was no way I could get off the island of Manhattan. The BF got to go back to his normal life because he can walk to his school, but I was stuck in his apartment watching re-runs of X-Files and another round of Beetlejuice when I wasn't watching the news. It was Halloween and I had my costume with me, but I knew there was no way I was going to celebrate. My heart wasn't in it. I couldn't read, do yoga, or even groom. I just sat on the bed and wailed to no one in particular that I wanted to go home.

Fortunately, that was when R called me. "Are you coming over?" Fuck and yes, I was coming over. She lives across the park from the BF, and buses were running again, so I peeled myself off the mattress and hit the road. Traffic was Independence Day gridlock. I hopped a crosstown to the east side, but around Frederick Douglass Blvd my patience ran out and I just decided to walk. I got as far as 96th and 5th Ave. before my patience for walking ran out and I decided to get back on a bus. And it was the exact same bus I'd gotten off of half an hour before. (I recognized the driver and the Halloween costumes.)

When R heard my wailing about not knowing what was happening at my building, she stuffed me full of cookies and tea and we played Scrabble for a few hours. I think that hipster at the bus stop was on to something, because I felt a lot better afterwards. The BF joined us, we ordered take-out, and watched Spirited Away with her neighbor's cats, which is almost like Halloween.

He's dressed as Charlie Chaplin!

Thursday. My fourth day of evacuation. I was determined to make it my last. The night before I'd called the restaurant in my building and asked them what had happened on my street, and the hostess said they were dry, powered, and open for business. That was as much information as I was going to get without being there in person, and public transit was slowly coming back to life, so I put my books and teddy bear back in my little blue suitcase, kissed my BF good-bye, and started off across Manhattan.

I figured I could take the subway south, take a cross-town bus east, another bus south again, and catch one of the shuttle buses that was taking people between Brooklyn and the blacked-out parts of Manhattan. Even in daylight, it was eerie to go below 34th Street and see block after block of dark traffic lights and shuttered stores. It felt like a movie set before the director yells "Action!"

A city divided.

The bus spit me out at Jay Street and I began my walk home because I have never been able to find the start of my bus route in Downtown Brooklyn and the aftermath of a hurricane was a bad time to fight that battle again. Atlantic Avenue looked all right, streets clear, no windows broken or awnings down. I decided to be optimistic and stopped at the grocery store, and then I got pessimistic and stopped at the liquor store.

The bulldozers were still parked on the giant pile of salt, just where I'd left them on Sunday. The bookstore and the restaurant were both open for business, and the super of my building had put away the sandbags. The front door pushed away drifts of leaves when I opened it, but I didn't smell any sewage or mold and there was no mud on the floor. Apparently--impossibly, miraculously--my neighborhood hadn't flooded at all.

My own apartment was toasty as a hippie at Burning Man and everything in my fridge was frozen solid. The bonsai had shed some leaves but was otherwise fine. Every light turned on and the Internet fired right up when I plugged my router back in. I can't be certain, but I think that the heat and power and water was on the whole time I was gone. Would you believe I had more clean-up to do after Irene than I did after Sandy? I had nothing worse to deal with on Thursday than a carton of half-and-half that froze while I was gone and got all grainy when it thawed.

Considering the devastation in other parts of the city--and the lack of power, water, and heat to tens of thousands of people across the state--and the billions of dollars of damage we'll need to repair the damage--and considering that I live a block away from the East River and less than a mile away from a neighborhood that was under 6 feet of water on Monday night--I am one absurdly lucky Big Island Rachel. 

I made my triumphant return to work on Friday and immediately got in a fight with a customer over the phone. It felt good to be back to normal.

Regular Service postponed

This is it, folks. It's the end of everything! The storm cometh, leaving a wide swath of destruction through the middle Atlantic states. Hurricane Sandy brings the wrath of God upon the hapless citizens of the coastline! Rain! Snow! Waves! Floods!

Birds! (Probably!)

Regular service on Big Island Rachel's media empire is postponed until we are no longer doomed.

Another Hurricane

Oh, now this is just getting ridiculous:

Hurricane Sandy may reach the northeast early next week, making this the second hurricane I've endured since moving to New York.

Excuse me, is this where you keep your fragile constructs of misguided human superiority?

Hurricane Irene barely scrapped by us last August as a downgraded tropical storm. A quick refresh: Girl Scout badge in Hurricane Preparedness, living in the flood zone, had to evacuate, Daddio told me not to do that thing everyone in our family always does by refusing to get out of the way--it's all a rich tapestry of funny observations and drunken street dancing, you should read it again.

Maybe Sandy will hit us, maybe it won't. I don't know because I'm only psychic with cats and the living dead. But even though Irene spared New York City from anything much worse than snarky Village Voice articles on how to get laid during the storm, parts of Jersey and Vermont were hit pretty hard. So I won't lie, I'm a little nervous.

At least I still have the pint of leftover corn liquor in my cupboard from the last time this happened. It's totally un-drinkable, but I'm set if I need to disinfect any wounds or make Molotovs for the looting that inevitably accompanies the complete breakdown of civilization. 

Catsitting!

Here are a few things I will never talk about on this blog: sports, reality television, New Wave cinema, architecture, entymology, beer brewing, and politics.

Here are a few things that we all I know I talk about ALL the time on this blog: feminism, comic books, regular books, and cats.

Guess which one I'm talking about today!

This is a very important feminist issue.

I wish I had a little kitty of my very own to stroke and cuddle and squeeze 'til it grunts. But I don't have one of those things because my apartment isn't well-suited for a pet, unless you count that nasty little fucker of a squirrel that's storing acorns in my ceiling. I can hear them rattling around up there!

So this week I'm cat-sitting for a co-worker. There are three kitties. None of them are squeezable--one is grumpy and the other two are a bit too old and dignified for that sort of nonsense--but I can stroke them gently and give them little treats from my purse, which pleases me greatly.

*le sigh* No-kitten ennui has set in.

My 3 least favorite things about New York ComicCon 2012

This is going to be my last post about New York ComicCon for this year. A fabulous time was had by all and I wish it could go on and on, but alas, a week has gone by since the con's official end and I've drawn out the denouement as long as I can. It's time to pack away the toys and costumes, store the comic books under the bed, and get back to my real life of being a tattooed writer and college radio personality working at an art school and  living above a famous restaurant Brooklyn.

Good thing I'm awesome, or else this post would be really depressing.

Last week I posted my 7 favorite things about New York ComicCon. This week I'm going to talk about my 3 least favorite things, because the Internet is fueled by pictures of funny cats and the keyboard-smoking rage of nerds who think a little too hard about the logistics of comic book superheroes.

They're just GLASSES! How can NO ONE see that he's Supercat?!

3) The crowds. How I loathe crowds. I'm not talking about New York City crowds either, which tend to move so quickly and efficiently that it's harder to stop than it is to keep going. And as long as I'm outdoors and stay to the edges where I have a clear escape route, I'm okay with crowds that gather in one place and stay there, like a concert or Occupy Wall Street. What I dislike are crowds that are a mixture of these two types, where people have some half-assed notion of where they want to go, but at the same time, they're also kinda already THERE. This sounds a lot more Buddhist and calming that it really is.

Move it, chuckleheads, you're not achieving enlightenment, you're just holding up the line.

I got to the Con late on Friday night, hoping to catch just one panel before the Javits Center closed. It was, in fact, the panel that I was most looking forward to out of the whole Con: The Venture Bros. panel. The best part about the creators of that show is that they almost NEVER talk about the actual show at their Con appearances. They talk about music, pop culture, candy, who has the nicest legs on the creative team, which hand they'd hold a gun in if they were firing out of a moving car--its the freestyle jazz of panel discussions and it's always fun and funny as hell.

But I missed it. Because of the crowds. I just couldn't get to the screening room early enough, so it filled up and there was no room for Rachel. R even saved a seat for me and tried to flag me down, but there were too many people around for me to see or hear her.

I appreciate that so many folks want to come to a comic book convention. I like seeing my pet cultural movement go mainstream, because that leads to more output of product and more diversity of product, which means more of what I love. I accept this means bigger crowds and longer lines. But that doesn't mean I have to enjoy it.

2) Missed the Dracula panel.

This one was my own fault. R and I had a choice on Saturday to either see the Weighthacking panel (tips for turning your geek lifestyle into a weight loss tool), or to see the Dracula 150 years later panel. I decided to be responsible and go to the Weighthacking panel, because who couldn't use a brush-up on healthy eating habits, she said as she pushed her glasses up and tightened her sensible ponytail. R basically said, Fair fucks to y'all, you do you what like, I'm going to learn about vampires.

Weight lose tip 1: more peasant babies.

She flounced away on her four-inch heels and proceeded to have the time of her life listening to Bram Stoker's great-grandnephew and the screenwriter of "Hook" and "Bram Stoker's Dracula" (the one with Keanu Reeves and Gary Oldman) discuss the history and evolution of one of literature's most famous monsters. I, on the other hand, watched a PowerPoint about responsible weight maintenance, even though I've been at the exact same optimum weight for the last seven years and already live off steamed vegetables and brown rice.

Considering that R was the one who suggested both the archery and the Kill Shakespeare reading, where she won a prize for nailing an obscure Shakespeare question, I really should have known better than to separate myself from her. She was on Con-fire on Saturday.

1) No R on Sunday. She got sick and couldn't join me for the last day of the Con, and it made us both very sad.

Obviously I don't mind going to these things alone. I do it all the time. But I'd much rather share the experience with a good friend, and R, as I said, brought her A-game that weekend. She was winning ComicCon. It was a huge bummer that she couldn't be there.

Although, confession time, I was kinda thrilled to not wear my costume two days in a row and just hang out at the Con in my street clothes. Classy Catwoman may be classy, but she looks pretty stupid without a Classy Poison Ivy at her side, and that corset-bra rubs my armpits raw after eight hours, to say nothing of the punishment my feet take in those heeled dominatrix boots.

So you see, silver linings everywhere! R and I can't wait for New York ComicCon 2013. Only 358 days to go!

See you at the Con.

And you, and you, and you, and you, and...

My 7 favorite things about New York ComicCon 2012

My last post about ComicCon wasn't really about the Con itself, but more of an end-of-the-Con gush of emotion. An emotional oil derrick, if you will. I felt sappy, melancholy, and maybe a little defensive of the vaguely subversive and tawdry things I'd said and done. I think we've all had weekends like that.

I'm looking at you, Hedonismbot.

My sordid personal life aside, I did have a great time, so great that I'm going to count down my top 7 favorite things about my trip to ComicCon 2012.

7) The layout of the Javits Center.

When I went to the Con in 2010, it was the first year that New York ComicCon and New York AnimeFest had a shared event. Regular readers may remember that I went to the AnimeFest in 2009 when it was still it's own separate little convention, tucked away in the basement level of the Javits Center to prevent any high-falutin' ideas in attendees' minds regarding their social acceptability. This tradition continued in 2010, when the AnimeFest show floor and artist displays were crammed into a single hall in the basement while ComicCon got the entire top floor for their show floor and artists, with sunlight and everything. There was some definite stigmatizing of the anime-fans going on that year. And grown-ass adults dressed as cartoon characters shouldn't be casting stones at other grown-ass adults dressed as cartoon characters.

Glass fucking houses, nerds.

Social commentary aside, the arrangement also made for terrible traffic flow in the Javits Center. This year, the organizers wised up and had a fully-integrated Con. There was one show floor on the top level, one Artists Alley on the ground level, and the basement level was only for panels and screenings. Even though over 100,000 people attended this year, traffic flow was kind of okay. I only had one panicky moment where I was afraid I'd be crushed into a fine red paste on the show room floor, and that was my own fault. I should have never tried to get into the most popular part of the Con during peak hours.

6) Archery.

First thing we did on Saturday morning after changing into our costumes. I didn't have my glasses on, so my first two arrows didn't even hit the target. I pulled low and to the left, which is actually the same problem I have when I shoot guns. My third and final arrow I WAY overcompensated and hit the bulls-eye.

Like a boss.

I won a limited edition Tomb Raider print, which thrilled me a lot less than getting to keep my target. Incidentally, does anyone want a limited edition Tomb Raider print? I don't play Tomb Raider and I try to surround myself with art that doesn't depict fiery doom.

Just screams relaxation. Or maybe just screams.

5) Kill Shakespeare: A Live Stage Reading

Second thing we did on Saturday. "Kill Shakespeare" is a comic written by Anthony Del Col and Conner McCreery, and drawn by Andy B. They projected panels without word bubbles on a screen behind a table of actors, who provided the dialogue. There was also one very busy prop man making all of the sound effects with plastic wrap, spoons, and buckets of water. The story is about a bunch of characters from Shakespeare's plays, some of whom believe Shakespeare to be a god, and some of whom want him dead because of the threat he represents to their power. It was a good story with memorable characters, and it's always fun to see something in one medium make the transition to another.

The best part, though, was that R won a copy of Kill Shakespeare: Volume 1 by answering a Shakespeare trivia question, and it was a doozy. "What Shakespeare character has the most lines in a play not named after that character?" R's hand shot up so fast she almost knocked my mask off. She was in there like swimwear. "Iago!" Iago in "Othello" has the most lines of any Shakespeare character in a play not named after him. Now that is some hard-core nerd knowledge. In my opinion, R definitely won the Con for Saturday.

4) ComicCon Comedy

In 2010, I only saw one stand-up comedian, doing just a single 15-minute set. It was great. This year, there was so much comedy to choose from that I didn't get to see it all. First was the Nerdologues, "a comedy show that explores nerd culture through hilarious sketches and personal stories." Then we saw an hour-long set by Uncle Yo, seen here leering from behind a monocle.

Classy, Yo.

It's pointless to recap a comedy routine, firstly because I don't want to plagiarize the comedians, secondly because I don't want to make you laugh using someone else's material, and thirdly because I don't even think it would be that funny. You just had to BE there, man!

3) Saga panel

"Saga" is a comic written by Brian K. Vaughan and drawn by Fiona Staples, and it's currently the best-selling independent comic after The Walking Dead, in addition to being my favorite comic on the stands right now. I was on the fence about whether or not to go to this panel. Panels with creators are hit-or-miss. Just because you're good at writing or drawing doesn't mean you're a great public speaker, and nothing makes me cringe like seeing some poor creator bomb on stage because s/he can't work the crowd. But Brian K. Vaughan killed it. I laughed almost as much as I did at the actual stand-up comedy. He was charming, friendly, foul-mouthed, cheeky, and just humble enough to be endearing.

Not even trying to hide the bald.

My favorite quote: "I remember asking Fiona not to make Alanna [the heroine] a redhead, because I thought there was a glut of redheads in fiction right now. And she said to me, 'You know, she doesn't have to be white.' And I said, 'Of course, I'm an IDIOT!'"

My other favorite quote: "I had an idea about this guy and his monkey being chased by women with one boob on motorcycles and I thought, Did I just shit myself? Or was that a real idea?"

Fiona was nice enough, but Brian K. Vaughan owned that stage. Cool for him, slightly problematic for her (see number 1 on this list). Plus I got some artwork!

My copy smaller.

2)  Geek Thoughts panel: Top blogs discuss writing about science fiction, fantasy, and fandom

This is the meat-and-potatoes stuff of conventions. Writers from Tor.com, Boing Boing, The Mary Sue, The Beat, and Bleeding Cool talked about what it means to be a fan and what it means to be leaders of fans and fan forums. Honestly, this one is a bit of a blur because it was late in the day and I was really tired, but I remember feeling like I was more informed about the way information is disseminated through my community, and that made me feel smart.

Smart enough to finally make the connection that the guy who ran a website called Bleeding Cool would, of course, be British.

1) ComicCon Women

So I attended two panels, back to back, by and about the women of the nerdly underground. The first was GeekMoms: Raising Young Padawans, held by the women who write Wired's GeekMom blog. I only caught the second half of this one, and it was entirely by accident. I wanted to attend the panel right after GeekMoms, which was being held in the same room, and I was so tired after two days of walking the Javits Center that I decided to just to the room and sit through whatever was there, just to SIT. And it turned out to be a very interesting discussion about how these women were passing their interests along to their children. They talked about what properties were appropriate for kids in terms of gaming, books, comics, and movies, and how much the landscape of childhood has changed since they were nerdy little girls who had to hide their interests from classmates, both because of their gender and the actual interests.

I'll just say I'm into leather. No one will suspect a thing.

I had a moment where I drifted off because they were discussing how to pick the right schools, and suddenly heard one of the panelists mention the Girl Scouts, so I whooped and clapped and completely threw her off track. I don't think she was expecting that much love for the Girl Scouts, but gang, I loves me the Girl Scouts. I loves them a lot.

The second panel was even better, Getting Graphic with Girls: Empowering girls and addressing issues through paneled pictures. This was a younger set of panelists whose moderator cancelled at the last minute, leading to a lot of very funny "Unmoderated!" jokes.

Look how unmoderated they are. Scandal!

Something magical happens when you get some confident women in a room together and ask them to talk about their careers. There was so much confidence radiating from these individuals, and they all had so much respect for each other, it was mesmerizing. Maybe they all knew each other already, maybe they all happened to be great public speakers, but they were far and away the best panel of the Con in terms of flow, diversity of topics, humor, intelligence, and exuberance. They were just so much FUN. One of the presenters even said, "Girls writing comics just have more fun with it. Guys feel the need to be all dark and gritty and serious, but maybe because we're outsiders in the genre, we can just have fun with our comics and not have to worry about that."

She doesn't give a damn if you like her duckies or not.

All of the other panels I'd attended to had just one or two women presenting, and while I wouldn't say they were drowned out by the men, the men spoke a lot more and there was a slight hesitation on the part of the women when it was their turn. It wasn't obvious, and I may even be imagining it in hindsight. I don't think anyone is surprised that a woman who spends her weekends like THIS can mistake fantasy for reality every now and again.

Sh! I'm feeling the curvature of the earth.

But dudes, DUDES, the contrast between the way women spoke on the panels where they were outnumbered and the way the women spoke on the all-women Graphic Girls panel--you can't witness that without feeling both empowered and stripped of power, all at the same time. Empowered, because hearing women talk about their art and passion is awesome; and stripped of power because you don't really get to see that when you add men back to the equation.

And I swear I'm not making this up. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that her colleagues will sometimes just straight up ignore her comments during conferences. "When I will say something -- and I don't think I'm a confused speaker -- and it isn't until somebody else says it that everyone will focus on the point." Women are ignored. My Big Boss commented as I revved myself up for the Con that he always thought the BF was the one who got ME interested in comics. A student worker followed up with a comment about how you don't meet a lot of girls who are interested in comics. And this wasn't about the comics, not really. Cultural and political movements are almost always dominated by men. Democracy: "Oh, women want to vote, too?" Art: "Oh, Virginia Wolfe, you want to write, too? Oh, Frida Kahlo, you want to paint, too?" Girls can be geeks, too?

Do we need to see the evidence again?

If something is important and destined to have impact, women have to scrape and scramble to make certain they're a part of it, and everyone is always surprised to see us there. They shouldn't be. ComicCon is amazingly diverse. There's an even 50-50 gender split, and a huge range of ages, races, and level of mobility represented. Sadly, you wouldn't know it to look at the "Special Guests" list for New York ComicCon: a bunch of middle-aged white dudes with a scattering of Asians and women shuffled in at the bottom. I'm not saying that those people didn't work hard to get where they are or that they aren't talented. I'm just saying that the people who consume the product don't have much of a voice in the group of people who produce the product.

And it's that sort of dense brain-food that makes the ComicCon Women my number 1 favorite thing about New York ComicCon 2012.

Next Sunday, I'll count down the list of my least favorite things about New York ComicCon 2012.