Thanks to thirty years of "Revenge of the Nerds" and "geek chic" headlines, we all "know" that computers, the Internet, and successful sci-fi, fantasy, and comic-book movies have made geeks chic. We all "know" that we should be nice to nerds because someday we'll be working for one. Indeed, we all "know" that *nerd* and *geek* are just meaningless labels because everyone's a geek now, right?
In a recent column, Kate Leth writes about her experience hosting a ladies' night event at Halifax's Strange Adventures. For one evening the store made like Y: The Last Man. The doors were closed to men, and female staff and volunteers organized artist appearances, treats, gift bags, and special deals for the hundred or so women who stopped by. We can learn a lot from this initiative, both about how the comic industry might respond to the challenges they're currently facing and about how nerd culture can become a more inclusive, welcoming space. In fact, I think those two goals are pretty closely are pretty closely related.
I don't remember how I found this article from the Times about two new initiatives to develop best practices in the online content-aggregation biz. I guess that's pretty ironic.
Nonetheless, the wannabe typography nerd in me was rather taken with The Curator's Code, brainchild of Brain Pickings' Maria Popova.
The Cross Assault controversy is drawing attention—once again—to sexism in gaming culture and geek cultures more generally. I want to address what I think is the most elemental form of sexism in nerd culture: the belief that women spoil the fun.
Everyone's talking about Before Watchmen, the seven Watchmen prequel miniseries announced by DC this week. As with pretty much everything in the world of comics, opinions are divided and being fiercely argued where anyone will listen—and even places where they won't.
My colleague and friend, Scott Timcke, recently posed a challenge on twitter to list five "key books" in communication studies. This can't be a "best of" list, though, as the field of communication is too broad and/or balkanized for any five books to be key--or even relevant--to all, most, or many of us. I started out trying to think of "foundational" texts but abandoned that tack when my mind kept turning to books I'd never actually read in their entirety (sorry, George Herbert Mead). So, what follows is an idiosyncratic list of five books that have really influenced how I think about media, communication, and cultural studies.
I just finished Charles Hatfield's new book, Hand of Fire: The Comics Art of Jack Kirby, which is the latest addition to the University Press of Mississippi's "Great Comics Artists" series. I'm not a Kirby expert or acolyte, though I've always appreciated the manic, insane energy of Kirby's work—most especially of his Fourth World comics of the 1970s. But I really enjoyed this opportunity to revisit Kirby's artistic output as guided by a real fan and really insightful critic like Hatfield.