Elin's Journal

The House GOP's Plan to Re-Define Rape.

This is very upsetting. I don't think abortions should be handed out like cupcakes, but to seek to deny them to victims of rape or incest is just horrible and wrong. The quote that upset me the most: "‎Other types of rapes that would no longer be covered by the exemption include rapes in which the woman was drugged or given excessive amounts of alcohol, rapes of women with limited mental capacity, and many date rapes."

Sooooo, like most rapes that occur on college campuses then? Girls that were given roofies should be forced to have those babies? And mentally retarded women should be forced to have babies, when they were coerced into having sex? I don't even want to get into the incest part of it, because most victims of incest are not violently forced to have sex with their abusers. I'm guessing the drunken girls should be forced to have the babies, because it's punishment for getting drunk and partying. Even though it shouldn't be her fault if some frat dudes decide that they should pork her while she's passed out (which hey, is rape, because there's NO CONSENT. Also? Having sex with someone who is asleep? Also rape!). GRRR, ANGRY.

Of course, if the incest/rape victim is wealthy, the unwanted baby won't be a problem, since they can just pay any amount to get it removed and it won't matter if insurance won't cover it. But screw you middle class, working class, poor, or indigent women who get raped or abused by family members- you'd better have those rape babies! What kind of life would the child who is the product of rape or incest even have? I can't imagine it would go well for them.

This is infuriating and horrible.

I'm so sad to hear that legendary comic artist Al Williamson has died. When I was just starting in comics and first going to conventions at the tender age of 23, I met Al and the late Julie Schwartz at a Dallas Fantasy Fair. That is to say, I met Julie and he insisted I had to come meet his friend Al, and dragged me all the way across the convention center. They both flirted with me shamelessly and adorably, and then Al stated I had "the best legs" he'd ever seen in the industry! (I wore a lot of miniskirts back then...) After that, I'd always make a point of going to say hello to them and to pay my respects at San Diego Comic Con. Julie Schwartz sometimes hovered on the line between appropriate and inappropriate (come on, making me kiss your cheek in front of my boyfriend...? a little weird...), but seeing Al was always like seeing your favorite uncle, the one who always encourages you and who tells you how pretty you look that day.

Chummy con stories aside, the man was also an amazing artist with a fantastic career. 79 seems far too young to pass away.

Preparing for A-Kon, which means I am answering some email, and in my email box, I discover Diamond Distribution has finally decided to standardize what they want for bar codes. To whit, ONLY UPC bar codes will be allowed on floppy comic books (periodicals). ISBN or EAN bar codes will not be accepted on any floppy comics. (Previously, when they started the "you must have a bar code" rule in 2007, they accepted other types of bar codes; as long as it scanned, they did not care.)

Well, fortunately, this doesn't really affect us at Radio any more. We've always just used the ISBNs we'd already purchased- and yes, we were using them on our floppy comics. But, we no longer make floppy comics- everything is perfect bound and graphic novel/doujinshi style now. To be more precise, we don't make floppy comics that are meant for Diamond or the Direct Market. (We still publish Genus: Male as a floppy, but did not even bother to solicit via Diamond. We knew it would not generate enough orders through comic shops to make it over their new minimum order cutoff. It's been selling just fine through Haven, specialty furry outlets and through direct sales on our website. But I digress...) So, even though we are using ISBNs on our books, we should be fine. They're book format, after all, which is what Diamond wants from us.

What worries me about this is that UPC bar codes cost considerably more than ISBN or EAN bar codes. We're talking a *LOT* more. This bodes very poorly for anyone new starting out in comics, if they want to make your standard 24-to-32-page comic book. Your average small press publisher is usually doing comics as a labor of love- they are pouring their sweat, tears, hard work and likely all of their disposable income into just getting the comic *printed*- having to invest anywhere up to $2500 on top of printing costs into getting a UPC bar code for a comic that Diamond might not even carry.... well, that's going to be a huge barrier for most people. (If they even know they need such a thing... and that $2500 fee is a possible annual membership fee for UPC membership- it ranges from $158 to $2500 annually, depending. The codes are another charge, and when I last looked them up, the smallest "pack" was a hundred or so.)

There have always been barriers to traditional publishing; they just got higher.

So, I guess work on those webcomics and publish nothing but graphic novel collections, kids! It's the only way to go anymore! Well, if you want to use an ISBN on your book and have it get into comic stores!

PS I thought about copying and pasting the information from the email into this post, but wasn't sure if that would be kosher. As much as this worries and upsets me in regards to the future of independent comics in the Direct Market, I am not a Diamond hater. They're our business partners and we value what they do for us. I understand that they are only doing what they feel they must in order to survive- the economy is bad all over for everyone. Business is business.

OH! And Edit to Add: Diamond owns Alliance Distribution, the big gaming distributor that we use at the store I work at for the Day Job. I have noticed that while Diamond insists on bar codes on *everything* (seriously, everything has one), we get things through Alliance constantly that don't have bar codes on them. Or ISBNs. Or EANs. Or any kind of thing that can be scanned at all. It's frustrating on the retail end, but always makes me go "WTF?!" as a publisher. Why don't gaming items need to conform to the same standards comics have to conform to?

George R. R. Martin's post about health care reform. I agree pretty much with his points.

I am cautiously optimistic about the Health Care Reform. I have issues with some of it (mostly, women's health care issues), and I'm worried about the yearly fine for not having health care. But as a woman of child-bearing age with an asthmatic husband, I have researched buying private health insurance after said husband lost his job. The monthly premiums would have been almost as much as my monthly paycheck, which would make paying rent and bills difficult. The health insurance offered at my job is painfully expensive (that whole child-bearing female thing again, who knew being female would count as a "pre-existing condition") and would cut my check in half, again making the bills hard to pay. Thus, husband has had no insurance for a year, and I have not had any for thirteen years (during my self-employment). In working my other part-time jobs, I have had the football of health insurance pulled away from me because I didn't work enough hours.

Something had to change, when two people who work hard are unable to afford even basic health care. If one of us had a serious illness (god forbid) or were in an accident (god forbid), we would be ruined financially for decades, and would have to file bankruptcy. We're not lazy or shiftless or anything like that, we both work as much as we can. We just don't work in high-yield careers. Most of my friends are in the same boat.

I'm not going to gloat. I'm also not going to argue. Other countries do quite well with single-payer or socialized health care. Japan, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, Sweden, etc. This is America. We are supposed to be a world-leading country. This thing can be done, and done well.

I rarely post political things on this blog, but I read this this morning and was *very* upset.

Quoted:
"During the course of the case, the CDCR, other related defendants, and the Assistant Attorneys General who represents them have argued before the court that Pagans are not deserving of equal civil rights as are provided adherents of the preferred faiths. In one of their first arguments to the court, the defendants said that certain "traditional" faiths are first tier faiths and that those faiths were meant to have equal rights and protections under the United States Constitution, but that all of the other faiths, for example, Hindus, Pagans, Buddhists, Sikhs, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Jains, are second tier faiths deserving of lesser rights, and therefore are not meant to have the same equal rights and protections under the United States Constitution as the first tier faiths. (From here. Yes, it is a Pagan oriented news site, but if other people can quote Christian oriented news sites, I can quote from Pagan ones.)

"Second tier religions"? Not "meant" to have the same rights and protections in the Constitution? Excuse me?! In the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA?! Oh hellllllll no!

Here's the deal: this country was founded on the ideal of religious freedom (hello, Puritans?), and the separation of church and state. Once a governing body decides that some religions are "real" and some are "fake" or "lesser", persecution isn't far behind. And after that how long will it be before they start deciding which flavors of Christianity are "correct" and which aren't? And what happens to atheists and agnostics?

The government has absolutely no business interfering in peoples' personal religious choices. None whatsoever.

Twitter and Facebook are nice and fun and all, and good for momentary observations, but I've decided I need to update my journal for real more often. This will take a while to get back into the swing of things! Until then, bits of news I found interesting this morning:

Phthalates may cause hormonal changes in fetuses. Of course it's written a bit scare-tactics-y, sort of an "oh noes, yur babby will be gay!!11!" to use the internet jargon, but it is a weird bit of science. I knew phthalates were bad, but I didn't know they could cause hormone changes. Very strange! (And apologies to my pregnant friends out there, I don't mean to freak you guys out.)

A doctor in China was so into his computer game, he ignored a baby patient to death! I made the D: face when I read that. That's just awful! Online games are actually a horrible social problem in China, from what I've read- people will play them literally until they die. Which is horrible! I just am happy it wasn't Warcraft!

Helena Bonham Carter to play Enid Blyton! This news pleases me, I love historical biopics! And I've been curious about Enid Blyton lately... good on the BBC for realizing I wanted more information. XD

Today is Radio Comix work day; there's lots to do. I've got to write up a couple of press releases for our newest online comics (Trouble Express by Will Allison and Tiger Team Three by Mark Moore), I have to get the mail order ready to go out (and use our brand spanking new postal scale and online postage account- we're in the 21st century finally!), get some auction things scanned and posted, sort more inventory in the garage room; answer email (oh so much email, ow), and finally, do some more editorial work on our next print comics (Genus #92 and Genus: Male #9, which we plan to have done for Further Confusion in January)! Can I cram it all into one day? We shall see!

But hey, the cats are already groomed and coated with their Allerpet-C. It works best when I do it before they get fed, because then they are too busy trying to ingratiate themselves to me, the Keeper of Deliciousness, to fight the grooming process! Ha! Score one for thumbs and a brain bigger than a walnut!

Cartoonist Rusty Haller has passed away today, as reported by his roommate on his FurAffinity journal. Rusty suffered from diabetes for many years, though it was undiagnosed for some time. He was 45 years old. (I have not confirmed this death announcement with any outside sources yet.)

Rusty had a long and varied career in comics, starting in the mid-1980's, with work-for-hire on Deputy Dawg comics. He did a lot of contract work for Marvel on their licensed comics line in the early and mid 1990's, including titles like Alf, Danger Mouse, and Count Duckula. In the last few years, Rusty had been working on his creator owned series, Ace & Queenie, a charming funny animal send-up of Sixties spy films. The series ran in Furrlough on an irregular schedule, starting in issue #146. He also regularly contributed to Hit the Beach and did regular commission work for his fans.

I just talked to Rusty on the phone a few days ago, and we were full of plans to put Ace & Queenie up on the Radio Comix site with an eye towards a future collected print version. We also chatted about some other ideas he'd had kicking around for a few years- comics that could now come to light, with the advent of web publishing. I'm deeply saddened that all those great ideas will come to naught, and that Rusty's dreams can't be realized now.

Rusty was one of the nicest people we've had the pleasure of working with. He was always upbeat and positive, and he was a solid worker when it came to his pages. A consummate professional, he always welcomed honest criticism and constantly strove to improve his work.

He was a great guy, and I will miss him. His sometimes silly, sometimes serious stories always made me smile.

We're very pleased to announce that one of our classic Radio Comix titles, Bureau of Mana Investigation by Smudge Hanson & Ed Garcia is now live and ready for reading online!

BMI is a delightful urban fantasy tale- part police procedural, part high fantasy adventure and part romance! Featuring the expressive art and deft storytelling that Smudge is famous for, it is a fantastic mix of drama, humor and high octane action in the futuristic fantasy setting of Nivarria! Recommended for fans of anime, A Distant Soil or the Shadowrun RPG series.

The first pages are now live on the Radio Comix Online site, and will have regular weekly updates. We hope you'll check it out!

####

Miss Bettie Page has passed away.

Here's the BBC story as well.

I know she and the late Dave Stevens were very close friends, so I can't help thinking that she's died of a broken heart.

Here's a video of her doing one of her "sexy" dance numbers:


Apparently, it's flagged as "adult content" though, which is laughable. It's probably the least naughty thing in the universe.

Suspect arrested in EB Games manager murder. I'm glad they caught the guy, and as we suspected, he was a former EB employee. (Only an employee would have known the schedules of the people working and the morning procedure. Of course, any smart criminal former employee would have also known that there's never much money kept in the safe or the store...) I remember when this happened, we were all horrified because no one found the girl's body until the second shift came into the store. The district and regional managers didn't even show up until after the body was found. (Unlike how the article says...) What a waste, to kill someone over some consoles and $1500. (I'm surprised they had even $1500 in the safe, personally. We never had that much money in the safe in the morning at our EB Games...)

Anyway, sad news. But I'm happy they caught the guy and that he's going to trial. The local news websites have this story as well, and also have pictures of his terrible Venom tattoo. Seems like he was a real winner all ways round.

In other things, I picked up an extra shift on Saturday morning. Thus, I will have to miss checking out San Japan, the local anime con they are trying to put on here. I have Mephit Furmeet at the end of the month though, which means I need to bug thphilster about arrangements.