Feminist Comic Primer

This is what a feminist comic looks like. Pretty cool, huh? 

Howdy folks,  I've decided to post here today entirely to refer you do a different post that I've been enjoying thoroughly.  Over at Comic Book Resources, writer Casey Gilly has compiled fifteen examples of feminist comics and there's a lot of intriguing stuff on this list.  Feminism is increasingly moving into the conversation about video games and other media, and it's not going away any time soon.  I've always loved a good, strong female character, so I welcome it.  

For those of you who get a headache whenever you hear the word 'feminism,'  I think you will be fine with this article.  She doesn't spend time on complex critical breakdown or apply the Bechdel Test to each item on the list.  Instead the writer includes a paragraph or two about the content of each comic book series,  many of which were written by men.   The titles span a range of styles, including coming of age stories, goofy summer camp stories to high fantasy action series and other mixtures and blends.  Gilly pays attention to strong female characters, and rich story content but doesn't hit you over the head with it.  

You can skip right to the list, or you can read Gilly's first page of writing where she summarizes her own relationship to feminism.  She isn't preachy or judgmental, but instead very personal.  She clearly loves comics, but can't ignore that most comics are aimed toward males, adolescent and adult, and a lot of the girl-oriented fare has been lackluster at best.  

I'm happy to say I'm familiar with a few titles from this list, including the Maxx, Death, Locas: The Maggie and Hopey Stories and Hark! A Vagrant.  Of the new (to me) titles, I'm very interested in checking out I Kill Giants, Anyas Ghost, Princeless, Rat Queens and Red Sonja.  And special points to Saga for having an image of a woman breast feeding with one hand and holding a gun in the other.  I've never seen that one before!  

I'll leave you with a few of the more intriguing covers- from which it is easier to judge a book, in the comic world.  

Lumberjanes

-D

Many thanks to Casey Gilly at Comic Resources for this great article.  And for JP Bruneau for referring me to it.    

impressions from gaming coop #4: Miscellaneous

I didn't play every cabinet extensively.  So I'm going to list the remaining games I played without their cabinets you can find further references by going to the Gaming Co-op's Arcade Page.  You can find my other reviews of the Cooperative Gaming Co-op here, here and here.  

• Keep Me Occupied by Anna Anthropy

This game was fun.  I was actually able to play it solo, while controlling two players independently.  I enjoyed the flying controls very much.  An interesting thing about this game is that it was commissioned for the Oakland Occupy movement.  The cabinet was attached to a portable rig with a generator and brought to the protest site.  Check out this article on Wired.  And look at this, an article on PBS as well!

• Don't Blow Up by Allan Francisco 

I really liked this game.  It jumps right to the point.  The game play resembles that of a shooter, but you don't shoot, you just dodge.  The different bullet-patterns from the enemy squares are really interesting, and my adrenaline spiked within two minutes of playing this game.  

• Zepplin Jump Funnily by Gavin Higham and Glen Pham

This game was very silly.  The controls were really loose, but I enjoyed the co-operative elements.  

• Misfit Ninja by Maxim Tiourin

This game is essentially a low-budget super-meat boy.  Pretty fun to play, and the confetti effect during the deaths is definitely enough reason to check it out.  

• A Slower Speed of Light by Spectrip

This game had a really neat concept, unfortunately the execution was pretty much terrible.  The idea is that you collect little orbs which slow down the speed of light, and the visuals change based on the new wavelengths of light vs how fast you travel.  Pretty damned cool, but it controlled like complete shit.  Sliding around everywhere like it was an ice-level on a platformer.  I'd love to play it again if the controls were to be tweaked.



Only one cabinet left:  the Winnitron.  The Winnitron is a really cool concept, dedicated to Arcade game and Indie games.  

Cooperative Gaming Coop

Saturday I hopped a train to San Jose and swung by my pal John's Art installation.  This installation is a combination of an arcade and a game swap.  There were lots of cool games there, and some finely decorated cabinets.  I'll see if I can get a list of the featured games, so that we can look up an play the ones that are available.

Alright, that being covered, go ahead and check out the website for the gaming coop.   John also has his own website called ArtFail.  And a Tumblr. He's always doing video games as art events and stuff. 

There weren't many people, so I didn't get the full effect.  However, for the same reason, I got a lot of one on one time with the curator (John) so I got the scoop on a lot of games.  There's a crazy game that is sort of like real-time chess.  Another that was commissioned by occupy oakland, 2-players where you fly through a maze and hit switches to mark your distance.  Great flying controls.  Another game where you rescue beagle puppies, really fun.  Oh man, there was another called like Super Puzzle Platformer, I think.  That game is solid gold.  Then there was a really sweet fighting game that sort of played like smash bros but had an atari look.  Yeah, too many good games to count.  All totally free and independently made with heart and elbow grease.  

I'll fill in more on this event as I get better information.  I do know that they had one of these: A Winnitron, which they called Winnitron SJ. Winnitron is the product of an indie gaming collective in Winnipeg, Canada, and they license out the Winnitron design to others to make their own arcade cabinets full of indie games.  Click the links above if you want more info.

I want to play some of those games again.  Like the platformer where you just walk and jump, but when you die you go to a parallel world where the ceiling is the floor, and then later you kind of jump between the screens and it's a puzzle platformer and the graphics are nice, remind me of cavestory +.   Oh, and the MIT game where you slow down the speed of light and thus increase the range of the visible spectrum, but it controls like complete shit, which stunts the whole experience.  Neat idea though.

Okay, again, trying to end this post.   I would like to organize it into a series of previews, when I can get some titles for yah.   TTFN.


***Edit:  I just remembered one of the games:  Nidhogg!  This game is stupid amounts of fun.  It's two players, so you absolutely must have a second player to have all the great fun available.  I highly recommend playing it in an arcade cabinet if you can get to one.   

***10/16/2012: another edit:  I got the games list.  You can find it here:  List of games featured at Cooperative Gaming Co-op.  I will be reviewing the games I played and looking for links to play them online.