superheroes

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I should stress, that except for yesterday’s Buffy (and of course launching this series of posts with Bonnie and Lola) these ladies are not in any particular order. I made a list of characters I love and then went hunting for some of the best art I could find (sometimes it was easier than others…sometimes I ended up with WAY too much cool shit). You know who has more fan art (and pro art!) out there than EVER?

BLACK WIDOW!

Here we go!

Black Widow by Applepie-Monster

By Applepie-Monster via Applepie Monster Tumblr.

By Meredith McClaren

I don’t know if you guys are familiar with Meredith McClaren’s “itties” but they are just about the greatest damn things ever. I have a whole bunch. And she did a series of Bonnie and Lola for the Kickstarter, which is extra awesome. You can find McClaren at Iniquitous Fish.

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Sorry for the lateness on this one kids, but as you know, the Kickstarter blew the hell up today with awesomeness (we fully funded in under 30 hours!) and are now cruising wonderfully past that. And there are still locked artists rewards to reveal and everything. It’s just awesome.

And a huge thanks to so many of you that donated, supported, and spread the word. You guys are almost as badass as Lola šŸ˜‰

So, I thought a lot about which amazing and inspirational superheroine should start this off, and after much thought I went with Buffy (of Buffy The Vampire Slayer ‘natch)…she was of course MY biggest superheroine influence and is in large part responsible for Bonnie, Lola, and The Girl Who Would Be King in general.

So, thanks Buffy (and Joss!)…here’s to you!

Buffy by Phil Noto

By Phil Noto via Your Nice New Outfit

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Hey, kids! It’s Tuesday, that means another installment of THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE KING.

You can download The Girl Who Would Be King Chapters 5&6 here.

You can download The Girl Who Would Be King Chapters 1 – 6.

Or if you want to read on the blog you can read 5 & 6 below, or hit THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE KING tab at the top of the page to read the entire piece on the blog.

And you’ve all checked out the Kickstarter – RIGHT?!Ā  :)

While visions of powerful superheroes dance around behind my eyes, and my imagination flies out of the room and around the whole world, yelling in the backyard interrupts my thoughts.

At first it sounds only like teenagers chatting but it ramps up suddenly and something about the tone sends a chill down my spine.Ā  I roll off my bunk and lean against the open window nearby.Ā  The only staff is far away, out of hearing distance, and a small cluster of girls are near the house, shouting.Ā  At first their cluster is so tight I canā€™t tell who is who, or whatā€™s happening, but then a dark haired girl named Jenny comes flying backwards out of the circle and lands on her back roughly.Ā  The group gets eerily quiet and two girls go to her aid, but she brushes them off and stands up on her own.Ā  Her defiance ignites a spark of admiration and respect in me.Ā  She walks back to the group, and two of her other friends are still standing there, mouths open, stunned.

I think briefly of going down, but am intrigued and even impressed by Jennyā€™s backbone.Ā  Sharon looks to be the one that pushed her.Ā  Sheā€™s new and has been making trouble since day one, but Iā€™m glad to see someoneā€™s over it and not afraid to stand up to her.Ā  Unfortunately Jenny is rewarded for her bravery with a slap.

The slap shocks even me.

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Welcome back to THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE KING!

If it’s your first time here – the short of is that I’m giving away “Part 1” of my novel THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE KING for free on my blog for the duration of my Kickstarter (which begins on Monday June 25th). New chapters go up every Tuesday and Thursday for the next five weeks. You can read a bit more about the project here and here if you’re so inclined.

For those of you returning – thanks for all the support – you’ve been wonderful and I’m so glad that so many of you are enjoying the book so far.Ā  Today you’re getting Chapters 3 & 4.

You can download TGWWBK Chapters 3 & 4.

And if you’d like to download the entire story thus far – TGWWBK Chapters 1-4

You can also read below.

Enjoy!

I run.

I run anytime the world will let me.Ā  If I had my choice Iā€™d just run through everything I suppose.

I run as close to the fence at the home as I can.Ā  Over the years Iā€™ve worn a pretty impressive path into the yard.Ā  Until two months ago Iā€™d actually taken pride in it, my running path.Ā  I never realized there was anything weird about running by a fence, the same path, the same way, day in and day out.

But then we took a trip to the zoo.

The tigers had this beautiful enclosure, there was even a little lake, and I was thinking it looked pretty nice, considering, until I noticed one tiger in the enclosure, just walking very fast back and forth through the space.Ā  After watching him for a minute I realized he wasnā€™t just walking, but pacing the exact same route over and over again.

Heā€™d worn a similar path into his cage that Iā€™ve worn into mine, and suddenly I was a bit sad for both of us, but I also knew I wasnā€™t going to do anything about it.Ā  Thereā€™s something about following rules thatā€™s very important to me.Ā  I canā€™t really understand it yet, but I hope I will someday.

Even though I know in some way my running is like that tiger and his pacing, itā€™s still good.Ā  It makes me feel calm.Ā  And it keeps the loneliness away.Ā  Maybe itā€™s the same for that tiger.Ā  I mean, itā€™s lonely to run. Itā€™s a singular activity, but itā€™s supposed to be that way I think.Ā  And I donā€™t know, the way I see it, thereā€™s nothing wrong with feeling lonely when youā€™re supposed to be alone.Ā  Itā€™s when youā€™re standing in a crowded room and feel lonely that itā€™s really sad I think.Ā  Sometimes feeling like that makes me want to tear off all my skin.

So yeah.Ā  I run as much as I can.Ā  And running neurotically by a fence all the time hasnā€™t made me so popular with the other girls, but it was kind of a lost cause with them anyway.Ā  Theyā€™re never mean to me, rather they just donā€™t seem to understand me, and they just seem to kind of wish Iā€™d stay away from them, so I do.Ā  It doesnā€™t help that I donā€™t speak.Ā  The not speaking thing really seems to bother them.Ā  I canā€™t blame them.Ā  It would probably bother me too.Ā  Iā€™ve tried to find things to say sometimes, but nothing comes.Ā  Itā€™s just empty inside.Ā  Hollow where the words should be. Ā Itā€™s felt like that every day since the accident.

Thatā€™s really how it all started.Ā  I just didnā€™t want to say anything for a while after the crash, and then I couldnā€™t think of anything to say, and then I just forgot that I was supposed to be thinking of something to say.Ā  And so I was quiet all the time.Ā  But thatā€™s yet another reason for running I guess.Ā  Nobody ever expects you to speak when youā€™re running.

A big splashy drop of rain hits me on my wrist and I look up at the sky.Ā  Itā€™s crazy cloudy out of nowhere.Ā  The sky looks ready to let loose on me.Ā  More cold drops hit my skull and seep into my hair.Ā  Running in the rain is even better than regular running, but I know Iā€™ll be called in immediately.Ā  Sure enough, before I can even finish the thought I look up and see Alice motioning me in from the front door.Ā  Itā€™s good that itā€™s Alice though, because she likes me more than most, and she almost always lets me get another lap in.Ā  I hold up my pointer finger as if to indicate ā€˜just one more lapā€™.Ā  Even from this distance I can see her roll her eyes, but she smiles too.Ā  She yells out across the quad. ā€œOkay, but hurry up!ā€ before going back inside.Ā  I smile up at the sky and stretch out my legs, really laying into my long strides.Ā  I go faster, but never too fast.Ā  Never faster than Iā€™ve ever seen anybody else run. Some of those runners in the Olympics Iā€™ve seen on TV run really fast.

I can run much faster than any of them.

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Bonnie & Lola.Ā  Illustration by Stephanie Hans

Here we go!

Next Monday, June 25th I will be launching a Kickstarter for my book THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE KING (which I talk about a little bit more here). Part of the Kickstarter will be giving away “Part I: break away” in full online by releasing pages here on 1979 Semi-Finalist every Tuesday and Thursday for the duration of the Kickstarter.

As today is Tuesday, we’re starting with the first two chapters of the book. Come back every Tuesday and Thursday for a new piece, and click on the THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE KING tab above to go to a dedicated page with the all the updates compiled in one location. The text is both below in blog format for easy reading, or available in a downloadable PDF at the link so you can take it with you on your devices.

Of course if you like what you read, please feel free to sound off in the comments. If you don’t…um…go away? Just kidding, you can let me know if you don’t like it either, but productive comments are preferred and the “comments policy” will be in full effect as usual.

Download the PDF here:Ā  The Girl Who Would Be King – Chapters 1 & 2

Berks County, Pennsylvania

The car hits the tree going at least forty miles an hour and I go through the windshield like Iā€™ve been tossed gently by a hurricane.Ā  I land thirty yards away from the car on some bright green grass, barely missing the tree directly in my path.

Everything is black for a while.

When I open my eyes again all I see are these vivid green leaves floating casually above me, and I wonder for just a moment about their casual ways, trying to understand why certain parts of life just donā€™t care about the other parts.

And then the smell hits me.

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Some of you may know that I have this book called THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE KING that I almost sold to a major publishing house in the summer of 2010.

Since then it has gone on a shelf while I wrote another book, hoping the new book would be “less violent” and “more YA” (which were the ultimate reasons given that THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE KING didn’t sell). I hoped to sell it later…perhaps.

However after seeing Hunger Games in theaters this spring, I realized that THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE KING, awesome as it was, was maybe never going to be “YA enough” or “Un-violent enough” (not a word!) to suit the larger publishing market. So I decided to do a Kickstarter for it and self publish. That got put on hold as well (for a reason I hope to share with you all soon) but in the meantime I had already commissioned the absolutely fantastic Stephanie Hans to do my cover illustration for the book.

If all goes well, you all will be seeing the final cover illustration (and hearing more about the Kickstarter) sometime in June.

Stephanie, in addition to being a brilliant illustrator, actually read the entire book (it’s big) in order to do the cover work, which is above and beyond everything I could have hoped for. Perhaps even more amazing, she loved the book, and I think you can see how much in the quality of her illustrations. Below is a sketch that (though it’s perhaps my favorite of all the sketches she did) was more appropriate for a comic book than a novel and so we didn’t move forward with it. But Stephanie liked it so much that she kept on going…and the results are unbelievably cool.

So world…please welcome Bonnie and Lola into the world…two wonderful badasses that I love – and hope you’ll all get to read more about soon!

This is Stephanie’s first sketch – which blew my mind – from a scene mid-way through the book:

Bonnie & Lola Sketch (Bonnie in the water, Lola above)

This is the work in progress sketch:

Bonnie and Lola, wip

And the final version, which makes me want to do an illustrated edition, or a graphic novel adaptation SO MUCH:

Bonnie & Lola, final

A huge thanks to Stephanie, who went above and beyond, and is generally the best person ever. Buy her work here!

And you can of course see Stephanie and I collaborating on a comic together for Womanthology with “SuperLess Hero”

Follow me on twitter here: @79SemiFinalist

& Stephanie on twitter here: @HansStephanie

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It’s been a while now since I engaged in a full on rant. Stop on by She Has No Head! to see what all of the fuss is about this week.

Here’s a hint:

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A new She Has No Head! is up…a list of 25 Great Superherione Moments.Ā  Inspired by Sue’s new Tumblr – THIS! – I compiled some of my favorite goose bump inducing moments for women in superhero comics. Enjoy!

You know what definitely made the list?Ā  THIS!

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Absolutely love this gorgeous Mark Brooks Rogue cover for X-Men Legacy #262:

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So I posted a big piece today for She Has No Head! called “No, It’s Not Equal”, it’s liable to cause a shitstorm, as these pieces seem to, so if you’re a fan of my position on sexism and objectification in comics then please head on over and show your support in the comments!

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