Black Gods and Scarlet Dreams

... Interesting choice of cover illustration.

Since it's C.L. Moore's birthday, I thought I'd talk a wee bit about Jirel.

A Word on Female Fans, Femininity and Fandom

 Yes, this is an actual cover for an actual upcoming monthly for Conan the Barbarian. My thoughts? It's the most amazing troll I've seen since the Darrow cover. Fantastic job, Dark Horse.

I've been holding off on "80 Years of Conan: The Frost-Giant's Daughter" because I've been wrestling with one of the key issues with the story.  I've been conversing with a number of individuals I believe to be more experienced and authoritative in said issue, because while I really don't want to talk about the deeply unpleasant subject, I also think it's important to acknowledge it. In any case, I'll be providing links to places that do talk about it, even if my take is going to be quite limited. However, there's another reason.

On Red Sonja, Power Girl and good sexy female characters

I don't tend to talk that much about sexuality on the blog, though I have spoken on gender issues in the past. In the recent craziness regarding Starfire's new look, history and personality in the rebooted DC universe, I was thinking about how many Conan fans might have felt marginalized when Red Sonja went from this:

To this:

Man, imagine if this happened nowadays.  Contemplate the outrage roaring across the internet!

Of course, things have changed substantially since the 1970s, and neither Red Sonja nor her mail byrnie were nearly as long-lived or established as Starfire and her character, but I wonder if there are some who saw Barry Smith's Sonja, thought "Wow, a female warrior that wears armour and is treated as Conan's equal, I can't wait to see more of her!" only to be treated to "Day of the Sword," where it's revealed that Sonja only got her powers through divine pity after she was raped by bandits, and she traded in her byrnie for a metal bikini.  Maroto's bikini was considered one of the elements which kick-started Sonja's rise to stardom, with a lot of enthusiasm from the young males crowd, but I can't help but wonder how different history would've been if Thomas decided to just stick to the byrnie.  Would Sonja have become as obscure as other Marvel Conan creations, or would her unique personality and status as a female comics character who wears upper body armour be enough?  Does it really matter what she wears if she still has the same origin story?  Who knows.

Anyway, the furore has resulted in many comics writers commentating on the whole "sex and women in comics" situation...

International Women's Day

You're right; women are great actors. But I cant agree with you in your statement that the great women can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Men have sat at the feet of women down the ages and our civilization, bad or good, we owe to the influence of women.
Let us look at the records of the great women.
- Robert E. Howard, Letter to Harold Preece, December 1928

While I find it somewhat preposterous that we still celebrate 50% of the population on a single day, the disparity between men and women is still shockingly high, and many great women continue to be ignored. In previous decades this was a sad fact of life: nowadays, in our allegedly more enlightened age, there's no such excuse.

So, on this very special International Women's Day, the 100th Anniversary of the holiday, I'm going to tip the glass to some of my favourite females, past and present, along with some choice quotes from Robert E. Howard.