‘Halo’ was not the first “Expo eXclusive” print on sale this year. That honour goes to a John Higgins cover, also marketed as for “the discerning adult”. And there’s also the fact there wasn’t a single female on the guest list this morning.

What these things tell you, right there on the very first page of the site, is that women in comics are fictional. They exist to be consumed, objectified. To titilate and provide fan service. Women in comics don’t produce. They don’t create. They aren’t active. We aren’t expected to have a voice, to have opinions. it’s in the language the organisers use, the promotional actions they are taking and the programme decisions they have made. The entire culture of BCExpo2013 is reactionary, sexist and puerile.

Let’s look at some of that language – because someone made decisions about those words. Someone thought “this is the best way to attract the audience we want”.

“Expo eXclusive”

Look! “eXclusive” has got a capital X in it because it’s X-rated! Hammer did this in the 1950s, making a selling point of their X-rating. Hence the film being The Quatemass Xperiment. And “exclusive” also connotes “tasteful gentlemens clubs” etc. So this phrase tells us the organisers know the material is unsuitable for children, and a marketing it on that basis. Bearing in mind this is on the first page you land on, if you google Bristol Comics Expo. And it’s on several pages, so it’s not a typo.

“for the discerning adult”

This is well-established code for people wanting pornography. As a teen, I frequented a couple of seedy bookshops that were fronts for porn shops. One of these was in Soho. The ‘innocent’ fronts happened to sell lots of old Doctor Who books. “Discerning adults” is a phrase designed to suggest tastefulness whilst simultaneously making it clear this is porn. The bookshop owners, by the way, always kept me out of the adult section. It wasn’t visible as soon as you walked in.

“We have a special, very limited run of Halo in all her ‘glory’!”

I’m actually slightly amused by the scare quotes around glory. Like the writer is a bit scared of gurl bits. None the less, it’s code for female body parts.

I don’t have a problem with fan service. I have a stash of Professionals fanfic which would make the writers of the BCExpo2013 site blush. I do have a problem when all the fan service is centered around objectifying female characters though. Combine that with a dearth of female guests and the upfront sniggery tone and I’m not getting prudish. I’m getting angry.

And you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.

I get angry because my daughter loves comics. I get angry because I like taking her to comic conventions. Yes, we have to do a certain amount of distraction work so she just sees furries as people who like to dress up. And let’s not go into her fear of Darth Vader. I’ve taken her to two BCExpos. Three if you count the year she was a bump being jostled by blokes with backpacks who couldn’t see my Baby on Board badge.

But we’re raising our daughter to be smart. To ask questions and voice opinions. To be creative. And the culture this row has exposed shows the BCExpo2013 doesn’t want girls to be like that.

So we’re out.

Oh, and to just turn the screw that little bit more, the charity the “eXclusive” prints are fundraising for is Marie Curie Cancer Care. That’s right, a charity named after a woman who went into a male world and achieved extraordinary things. A woman who thought, and fought, and had a voice. And a charity that seeks to ensure people are treated as people, with dignity and respect, not just as bodies.

The irony is infuriating.

“..and he built his house from concrete and bricks, with a lovely big fireplace-”
“Where is the girl pig?” GJ asked.

I was, I admit, stunned into silence. Then I praised her for her question, and restarted the story with

“…and she built her house from concrete and bricks, with a lovely big fireplace-”

Given in my version, the first two pigs are eaten (“OMPH!”), this meant only the girl pig survived the horrors.

Sometimes, like with Red Riding Hood, it’s easy to gender-switch a story. You might question whether I should, but I see fairy stories as folk stories. They were designed to be spoken from memory, adjusted by the teller to suit circumstances or audiences. The underlying narrative remains the same. I’ve heard versions of the three little pigs in which:

• all the pigs live
• the wolf is turned into wolf soup

So my version, where the first two pigs are eaten and the wolf escapes with a burnt tail, is just another variation. There’s also endless plays on it, such as the gorgeous Wolf Won’t Bite by Emily Gravett.

I admit having a pig say “no, by the hairs on my chinny chin chin!” when the pig is female threw up another moment of uncertainty. The rhyme is ingrained in the story and gives a great rhythm to it. Pigs do have hairy chins, even the female ones. But hairy chins are not considered acceptable in female humans. Luckily, Laurie Pink suggested a solution on twitter, for the day my mini-Dworkin asks me why the girl pig has a hairy chin.

@magslhalliday And why not. Kudos to her for being comfortable growing them out. I imagine pigs have less facial hair bias

laurie pink’s solution

@lauriepink or she’s too busy building her modernist concrete and brick house to get the tweezers out…

my response

@magslhalliday Good point. You never saw Frank Lloyd Wright pause for depilating, did you?

January 26, 2013

So there we are, a timebomb of a conversation about women and hair that we’ll be having in a few years time. However I am so stupidly proud that, at 2½ years, my girl is challenging gender bias. From now on, my question to myself when writing, or thinking a story is failing the Bechdel test, will be “where is the girl pig?”

Holmes and the Indelicate Widow, will be published in The Encounters of Sherlock Holmes, edited by George Mann and published by Titan Books in February 2013. Other authors in the collection include Paul Magrs, James Lovegrove, Mark Hodder and Kelly Hale.

 
I’ve always been a fan of Sherlockian fiction. I find it delightful that there is so much of it, and that it is a whole world where people – fans – play with the tropes of Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories. Sherlock is the most extreme example, with dizzingly fast nods to the canon that swirl around as fast as Dave Arnold’s eastern-European inspired score. And within the web of references, any genre, style and viewpoint is permitted. I’ve read books of the stuff – there’s some reviews on here.

So when George Mann asked me if I had any ideas for a Sherlock short story the main issue was not just blurting out a dozen pitches in a big excited mess. Instead I pitched three, and Holmes and the Indelicate Widow was the one I was asked to write. Holmes investigates strange goings-on with the Necropolis Railway, bringing both him and Watson face-to-face with the Victorian way of death.

I used to go past the Brookwood Cemetery when I used the Waterloo line into south London. I’d walk past the remaining facade of the Necropolis Railway’s buildings hard by Waterloo station. The idea – that bodies would be transported to their final resting places by train – is so wonderfully Victorian. It combines that period’s ability to apply industrial concepts to human needs, along with the fetishised middle-class ideas about respectability and conspicuous displays of status.

I read several books for research, especially ones around how London dealt – or didn’t deal – with its dead. I suspect I get quick service in a Pizza Express near the British Museum now due to sitting there reading such grim material when staying in London for work. I also read a proper railway history book, of the kind that my father would be proud to see me going through. There were three classes of funeral service available, matching the three classes of railway travel.

For some reason, the Necropolis Railway never flourished, never made the returns it had promised the London and South West Railway it would make and, when its London station was bombed in World World 2, it never ran again. All that is left is the facade on the street and its faded promise of a discrete service.

To find out what Holmes – the rational scientist – and Watson – the emotive doctor – make of the Necropolis, you can buy The Encounters of Sherlock Holmes from all sorts of places.

The editors set themselves the challenging task of finding female fans to write an essay on every season. And then juggling the logistics of who would do what and editing it all.  But look at all the women they got!

In Chicks Unravel Time, Deborah Stanish (Whedonistas) and L.M. Myles bring together a host of award-winning female writers, media professionals and scientists to examine each season of new and classic Doctor Who from their unique perspectives.

Diana Gabaldon discusses how Jamie McCrimmon inspired her best-selling Outlander series, and Barbara Hambly (Benjamin January Mysteries) examines the delicate balance of rebooting a TV show. Seanan McGuire (Toby Daye series) reveals the power and pain of waiting in Series 5, and Una McCormack (The King’s Dragon) argues that Sylvester McCoy’s final year of Doctor Who is the show’s best season ever.

I’ve written about season 7, which might come as a surprise to people who know my opinion of Pertwee. It will surprise those of you all the more to know I pitched for that season.  I wanted to critically examine a period I’m not fond of: would my ingrained views hold up when I rewatched it. My essay is called ‘Seven to Doomsday: the Non-Domestication of Doctor Who’.

The hardest bit was finding the time to watch 25 episodes. I couldn’t do it with GJ running about as she’d distract me.  Or scrawl over my notes. So I’d get through a couple of episodes per nap at weekends, or one whilst Mark was on bedtime duties. 

One of the ironies of it is I couldn’t have written the essay – which touches on the politics of the time, including gender politics – without Mark’s DVD stash and Jim Smith for bouncing ideas around with and production note nerdism. These guys know their stuff. 

While I was editing the essay Caroline John, the actor who played Liz Shaw, died. Miss Shaw had been the reason I asked for season 7 over, say, season 11. Like Barbara Wright and Tegan Jovanka, she is a woman rather than a girl. And she’s a career woman too: like Babs, Liz works because she loves it. She’s not in a dead-end job, like Rose or Donna. And she’s not floating about with mysterious independent means like Polly, Nyssa or Romana. Or a schoolgirl. 

I think this matters. This essay on The Jetsons puts forward the idea that the visions of the future we absorb as children has an impact on the world we accept/build as adults. Doctor Who needs to show futures, even nominal futures as season 7 was, where women have independent lives. Where intelligence and drive are lauded, and being a woman with a career is accepted. 

To read how well that opinion fits with season 7, you’ll need to buy the book. ;)

*might be my only chance to write that

• a non-fiction Doctor Who collection
• a Victoriana short story collection

My work on them is now done, pending last minute notes from the editors, but my name hasn’t been announced for either yet. When it is, you can be sure I’ll be providing some background and pimping here.

What I did discover, with the fiction piece, was the Pomodoro technique. My word count per day isn’t the best. I’m not entirely convinced word counts per day are the best indicator of progress anyway, given half of them might be dreadful. Or all of them. But…faced with a 5000 word story and a week off the day job to write it in, I needed to work fast. The husband finds the pomodoro works for him* so I gave it a go.

Wowser.

My typical nightly word count on History 101 and Warring States was 700-800 words, dripped out over several hours. On this short story, I was producing 500 words in each 25 minute session. I did between 1 and 3 sessions a day, so got the first draft down in that week. A couple more sessions dealt with revisions.

Would it work if I was crazy enough to be writing a novel in my spare time? Maybe, but that time is still a long way off. Will I use it if any more short commissions come in that I can’t refuse? Probably. I’ve tried it at work too, but there’s not enough control in my work environs for it to be truly applied.

All the same, my new top tip to anyone wanting to write? Buy a timer.

*our timer is actually a pear, so it’s the Pyrus technique.

You are not the only person working on a Bank Holiday Monday.

We took a trip to That London over the long June Bank Holiday, and spent the Monday drifting around the city. Here is a list of all the people we met that day who were working:

• 3 hotel receptionists
• 3 hotel catering/cleaning staff
• 1 TfL bus driver
• 1 British Museum security guard (I think he was on a ciggie break but he helped us anyway)
• 3 cafe waiters/waitresses
• 3 people in Gosh! comics
• 2 barista in Soho
• 1 Tube driver
• 1 train driver
• 1 train guard (sorry, “customer service person”)
• 1 buffet steward
• 1 supermarket checkout person
• 1 pizza delivery person

That’s 22 people who were all working on the Bank Holiday. More importantly, they are 22 employed people who will have had to have a discussion with their manager over whether they have the day off, or if they come into work. And if the manager is short of staff for a rota, some of them may not have had much choice. And they may not have got extra money or time off in lieu for giving up that Holiday.

You don’t have an automatic right to paid leave on bank and public holidays, though many people receive the day off work. Any right to time off or extra pay for working on a bank holiday depends on the terms of your contract of employment.

DirectGov advice on time off from employment

So if you are self-employed and are going to work the Bank Holiday Monday, either:

• Get on with it, and accept your decision to work,
• Have a word with your boss self about whether you need to be working the day.

You have the power here. You can give yourself the day off. Or you can make yourself work.

But don’t act the martyr if you do decide to work. You are not, in fact, the only person working on a Bank Holiday Monday. Millions of others are. But maybe you’re not aware of them because they’re in the hospitality trade, or retail, or transport, or any of the many other service industry jobs where fannying around on social media is not possible in the workplace?

I am aware you can buy professionally produced cakes in the supermarket but that’s not the point. Until she gets to an age where she is horrified by wonky homemade things, she’s getting a cake made by me. I’m just hoping she asks for something easy to do…

Continuing the “make do and mend” theme of the day, her other big present was a handmade toy. She loves Show Me Show Me on Cbeebies. It’s an unusual show in that it doesn’t have mountains of tatty tie-in merch. So, in the footsteps of my mother’s bold attempt to make me a Bagpuss in the 70s, I made her a Stuffy.

This is partially because she loves him, and partially because even 25 years after my last sewing class I can still make a cube. Tracking down all the fabrics took longer than the actual sewing. She’s already taken to putting things in his back pocket.

Here’s his song on the CBeebies site.

The last part of the day will be a Spider-man iced cake. I baked it last night and haven’t had a chance to ice it yet. I asked her last night what birthdays meant and she has told me it involves hats. So expect a photo she will be embarrassed about tomorrow.

She’s learnt her numbers (although is prone to starting to count at 4) and colours. She can also load the DVD player, with favourites such as Singin’ in the Rain, Kiki’s Delivery Service and Bagpuss. I moved them to a lower shelf after asking her to “put it back on the table” only to find her standing on tiptoe on a chair trying to reach the shelf where they were then kept. Her current bedtime books include The Tiger Who Came to Tea and the Tony Robinson version of Odysseus. She helps water the garden, and weed it.

More tomorrow…I have to go and ice a cake the Marvel way.

This spring I noticed that no only was there grass in some of the cracks, but grass seedlings kept sprouting in one of the beds. This, then, is Project Elton. I let the grass grow. I transplant it into the cracks. I keep the grass trimmed to prevent too much of it running to seed. I don’t fret about stubbed toes.

For example, these triangular gaps were bare earth a month ago:

Here’s the latest compare/contrast:

And as always there’s a slideshow:

The Rampage of Haruhi Suzimiya
Nagaru Tanigawa
(Little Brown, 2011)

The next volume of Haruhi Suzimiya short stories is a mixed bag.

The first story, Endless Eight, made me groan. Anyone who has watched season 2 of the anime will understand the fear at “Summer’s almost over…”. Thankfully, the short story doesn’t have the same structure and was a lot more enjoyable than I expected. The big problem was with my own over-awareness of the plot. Suzimiya wants to have a fun-filled summer holiday, and the rest of the SOS brigade have to make it happen.

The next story, Day of Sagittarius 3, was my least favourite. I struggle to engage with stories that involve descriptions of battles – either actual ones or cyberfights – and this was no different. There’s too little emotional content, and too much dry description.

The final story, Snowy Mountain Syndrome, is exactly what I want in Haruhi. Mirroring their summer expedition to a Remote Island, the Brigade go to a ski lodge and get caught in a blizzard. This story delighted for several reasons, one of which is that it was the only one not yet adapted into anime. It was the most playful, and saucy, and made me remember why I started reading Haruhi to start with.