BELCH

Last week was student-led conferences at Girl's middle school. What this means, for us, anyway, is going to see Girl's third-period teacher so she can tell us how much Girl sucks.

We're really supposed to see Girl's advisory teacher, who would usually also be her third-period teacher, but Girl's sked was shuffled. Her advisory teacher is the same, but they still sent her report card to the third-period teacher, her Math Teacher, who is shit with special-needs kids. (I had to complain to the school to get MT to stop giving me advice from Dr. Phil and Nanny 911. I SHIT. YOU. NOT>)

I was towing along Boy as well as Girl, since King was working. We did get to see Girl's art, and I met the art teacher, who was a pretty cool guy. Boy was pretty good right then. We went on to Girl's third-period teacher's class.

We got there while Math Teacher was talking to another mom and kid. I overheard mom explaining that kid was diagnosed ADHD but didn't want meds. MT says to boy, "Well, you can give me you planner at the end of class and I'll be glad to write down for your mommy that you were good or bad."

Yes, for those reading who've read the Harry Potter books, I think "Umbridge" too.

When the mom left, I stepped out to talk to her. Boy was behaving well, and Girl was watching him. I talked to the mom quickly outside, and found out she had no idea what an ARD was, what an IEP was, that her son COULD be accommodated. Yet another parent of a middle-school kid diagnosed in elementary who got meds and fuck-all help from the school. Help like TELLING THEM THEY WERE ELIGIBLE FOR SERVICES.
I told her to tell the school to assess her right, as that is her LEGAL RIGHT. I also said MT was not good with special-needs kids.
I felt like I might get in trouble for doing this, but what can they do? Nothing. It's her right to know, mine to tell her.

I stepped back toward the classroom, and was met straight-on by MT who had a look on her face that I took to mean she'd overheard. It was an unhappy, offended look. I slipped past her and sat down.

"I'm glad you're back," Girl hissed. "Boy has been burping REALLY LOUD the whole time you were gone."

Ah, that was what the look was about.

THAT'S MY BOY!

The rest of it was nothing. MT told me Girl had done absolutely nothing for the "past two days." I told MT I had a problem with the detention she'd written for girl and was taking it up with the principal, not her.

Next one of these damn meetings are going like so:
"Every time I make the time to come to these meetings, I never hear anything but about what Girl is doing wrong. I know where she's doing poorly, I see the detention slips and report cards. So, this time, you will share with me what she is doing RIGHT or WELL, since I haven't heard that YET. You get to be the first."

HURT COMICS: San Diego Rantifesto

RITUAL DISCLAIMER: Understand, my male friends, acquaintances, and peers, I am pleased for you. Proceed with that understanding.

You're shittin' me? You invited men making comics about women, but not a single woman making comics? You're shittin' me.

Got my pro reg pack for Comic Con International today. It is already binned, as I haven't changed my plans to not go this year. But there'd be another reason; it's repellent. It makes me ill to look at it, as it does many years. It's depressing to look at it and think things like, "What? Fucking Harry Knowles was a better guest than a woman?"
There is not ONE FEMALE SPECIAL GUEST this year. NOT ONE. Not even the token female they usually have. What? Rosario Dawson was busy? Gail Simone's not done enough yet? Someone's first webcomic trumps five years of Marvel and DC work? You're shittin' me.
And sure, I'll include myself: my career speaks for itself.* I'll put my contributions to the comics art form and business against anyone's career than spans the same period. Harry Knowles' boil on the ass of the web trumps me or even the 100 least productive women making comics? YOU'RE SHITTIN' ME.

I'd be really impressed if the featued men commented on this from their position as guests. "I'm pleased to be invited, I sure wish the convention felt my female colleagues, many of whom are as accomplished as any of us male guest, merited the same acclaim." I double-dog dare you. Impress me. Impress your female colleagues.

One of them, Brian Fries, is a guest on the strength of his first work, Mom's Cancer. I'm not missing the irony that a man making a comic about the near-death of inarguably the most important woman in his life is invited, and there's not a single woman making comics who is. It's not lost on me, either, that three of the male guests, Brian Fries, James Kolchaka, and Roger Langridge, make webcomics, which previously could not even be invited to draw a dogfight.
It's good to know webcomics now have the San Diego Testosterony Seal o' Approval.

One might think, from San Diego's (and many other cons) guest lists that comics were, as arcana_j published on snow and printed with piss ink. Because that's certainly how it looks: that the gender who can write largest with their genitals is the one worthy of recognition. Even though women making comics have figured out how to do it backwards and in high heels, making comics in a squat, without even looking.

The first year I went to CCI, it was still called San Diego Comic-Con, and I could count the other female pros attending on one hand. The next year, on slightly less than two. Looking at this year's guest list, there are, apparently, NO women working in comics twenty years on. I wouldn't have to expend myself to raise a single dainty digit (for example, the middle one) to count them.
WHAT does it SAY when one of the most visible public faces of comics ignores its women? For shame, CCI. FOR SHAME.

How could I possibly support this, even in my 1 person in 100,000 or one pro of hundreds or one female pro of HUNDREDS way? It's not much, but it's all mine.

HURT COMICS. BECAUSE COMICS NEED HURTING.







* In case you're late to the party: twenty years and within that I was a pioneer in the manga and anime business in this country, pioneered OEL and $10. price points for GNs with Cathedral Child, Clockwork Angels, and Rumble Girls. (Yes, that would be me and Jim Valentino, not TP.) I am a webcomics pioneer, which meant creating (with Joey Manley) and hiring creators for GirlAMAtic.com: MANY contributors to the FLIGHT anthologies BEFORE those anthologies, Svetlana Chmakova, who has made the best OEL so far from TokyoPop, and Raina Telgemeier, who did the art for the gn adaptation of the insanely popular BABYSITTER'S CLUB.
Before that, I was an original contributor to Modern Tales, the first successful webcomics subscription site. I walked away from Image Comics and made Rumble Girls a print-to-web comic, before GIRL GENIUS or FINDER.

Then I had the ovaries to tell the mainstream to go fuck itself. Yeah, I'd say I'm all that.

HURT POLITICS

Tell Stephen Colbert thank you for being the man with the biggest 'nads in politcal media:

http://thankyoustephencolbert.org/

Link via arcana_j via _eric_m_.

And a big BOO HISS to our "mainstream" media for covering Bush's performance with his double and ignoring that Colbert kicked over rocks. It's about what I expect from the media that helped visually demonstrate the difference between "looters" and "finders." (Hint: "finders" are not black.)