Another don’t miss interview with Our Jane (Yolen) on her upcoming book! (Via SF Signal.)
Girlz Rawk!
“The march of female empowerment has even hit the Smurf village. Those blue Belgian characters “three apples high”, have long had only one woman in their hundred-strong tribe: Smurfette. But with a new film in the offing, Hendrik Coysman, head of the company that holds the Smurf rights, has said that there will now be “a greater female presence in the Smurf village”.
The times, they are a’changin’… even in Smurfville (or wherever the heck Smurfs live). Who knew? Females in the comics/graphic sphere are a presence growing ever greater, according to The Guardian. This article covers our usual faves at Dark Horse and Minx as well as 
DC, talks up The Plain Janes and sequel (whoo!) and points out some other girl-centric graphic sites, including The Ormes Society, which is named after the legendary pioneering cartoonist of color Jackie Ormes, and is an organization dedicated to supporting black female comic creators and promoting the inclusion of black women in the comics industry as creators, characters and consumers, and the brilliant Girl-Wonder, which is just THE find of the day, has some really cool comics onsite, and probably world’s cutest t-shirts.
Also via the Signal site:
I suppose J. K. Rowling could give me 1.12 billion reasons in favor of it: get your formula just right and you can enjoy worldwide sales, film and television options, vibrating-toy-broom licensing fees, Chinese-language bootlegs of your work, a kind of limited immortality (L. Frank Baum who?) and — finally — genuine grown-up readers. But where’s the artistic satisfaction? Where’s the dignity?
Dave Itzkoff in the NY Times continues to hand out the most backwards of compliments to a very few YA writers as he reviews Un Lun Dun. Will the rest of you other YA writers please find some dignity. Mr. Itzkoff thanks you.
CONTEST ALERT! Via Cynsations, who offers an additionally excellent freebie for YA librarians, Teens Reads Too is giving away “A(Nearly) 30 Books…In (Almost) 30 Days.” Go forth! Get free Books for Valentine’s Day!
Happy Lazy Sunday!
I can’t figure out which part is most annoying, the bit about snaring genuine grown-up readers or the lack of dignity and artistic satisfaction in speculative fiction for young readers.
Personally I think the entire article was just an excuse to compare himself to Bruce Campbell in Evil Dead. 😉
Of course, I do have to question whether there’s any real dignity or artistic satisfaction in that comparison…
Yeah, I think it was just an excuse to even MENTION Evil Dead. He’d be too dignified otherwise to admit it exists.
Long time no hear-from. Good to know you’re still out there!
I have to agree with both of you on that. Poorly-disguised excuse to mention Evil Dead in the New York Times. 🙂
I was interested in the synopsis of the new Neil Gaiman/Michael Reaves book, though–I saw it in the bookstore and came very close to buying it (but I restrained myself, as I already had four books in hand).