NFCC recap and podcaster invasion.

Skin Crawling Comics creators interviews and robot sex.

Ok, I know, I know. You’re wanting a HeroesCon update. It has been two weeks and nothing. Well sorry but we came back from Heroes to Tropical Storm Debby then the next day we had to evacuate from flooding. Everything is fine! Don’t fret! But we’ve been out of internet pretty much since. I’ll give an update…..eventually. 

Until then you can enjoy these fliers I posted for my upcoming events. Come and see some of the Womanthology ladies and me this Saturday at Acme Comics in Orlando! I’m also doing a speaking event for teens and tweens at one of the Jacksonville Libraries on the 28th! Come see us, buy some Womantholgies and/or Aspires, and read. READ DAMMIT! 

Don’t like reading? Fine ya jerk, then go to the Greatest Movie Ever Podcast and listen to me, Daryl of Anime World Order, and Paul “The Gooberzilla” Chapman be Nic Cage apologists via Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. Look here, I’ll even give you the link: http://gmepodcast.com/

The other day I was on a podcast, The Greatest Movie Ever, and we covered the movie Prometheus. In fact, I posted the link to it here on tumblr. If you listened to it I hope you enjoyed the podcast! I had fun recording it with Paul and Ian. This morning the comments started to flow in. Paul got slammed for hating on it. I got called a hipster. Whatever. Not a big deal. But then the following was posted:

but co-host Rachel, in about a 5 minute stretch, felt it necessary to let us know that she ate vegan pizza and not pizza, that she is an Athiest who has Christian friends from the South, and is irritated because she apparently doesn’t have the instinct to “breed and have tiny humans”. People don’t point out those kinds of things unless they expressly desire to relay their own A) believed superiority over what is practiced by the majority or B) need to be perceived as different from the norm. So let me check off my “Look at me, I’m Rachel” list here…eating meat is wrong, religious people (from the South, no less) are silly sheep, and the ‘Idiocracy’-ish “instinct to breed” is, well…Mission Condecension, accomplished!

In the meantime, you thoughtfully relayed your opinions on Prometheus, without letting us all know how you feel about eating animals, believing in a god or having children. And in all the time I’ve listened to your podcast (years), I have never heard all of your other guest hosts collectively spend as much time unloading their personals on your listenership as Rachel did in those few minutes. After listening to nearly all of your shows, I still am unsure where you stand politically, religiously or disgestively. I can’t say the same for Rachel.

For those that haven’t listened to the podcast, I never said any of those things. Anything I did say was within the context of my opinion of the movie or a response to a question that was asked. The host of the podcast responded with this brilliant nugget:

you assume too much.

There is nothing wrong with Rachel expressing her personal religious convictions, especially when they are relevant to how they inform her viewing experience of a film with overtly religious themes. There is nothing wrong with her expressing her desire not to have children, any more than it would be wrong for someone else to brag about their kids. Again her views inform her experience, and they are pertinent to the subject at hand. And her veganism stems primarily from her inability to properly digest animal proteins, although I’m sure she has personal convictions about how animals are treated, since I know she volunteers her time at a rescue farm operation. None of these details, which she was kind enough to share with me and the listening audience, is a personal slight againstANYONE, and if you took offense to them, you need to take a deep breath, turn your focus inward, and question why you felt someone else expressing their views leaves you feeling insulted.

You objection essentially translates to “how dare this person have opinions”.

Hooray for the moderator! You’d think this would put an end to it. But that is assuming the troll (yes, at this point this person is a troll) can just move on. Nope! They proceed:

Compare her explanation of how religion is explored in the movie and then yours. There’s no comparison. Yours is thoughfully expressed. Hers is basically “If there is a God, he doesn’t give a shit”. Whoa…that’s profound. Thanks for that.

And saying she’s never had the “instinct to breed and have tiny humans” is a funny way of stating you’ve never had a desire to have children. Please, spare me. I found it hard to believe that this great Woman of Science would be crying about being infertile after just discovering her creator, too. I have kids and with the same revelation presented to me, I’d have told them to go outside and play for a few years.

There is absolutely no way that someone with religious beliefs can enjoy movies or podcasts and hope to escape the condesencion and veiled “stupid Christian” stereotypes so prevalent everywhere. Sometimes enough is enough. Why is she, “The Athiest”, so desperate to point out that she has Christian friends who wonder how she can be so nice and still be an Athiest? Then she mentions they are from the South. What the Hell does that mean!?! You’re going to tell me it isn’t because the stereotypical Christian from the South isn’t constantly painted as a buck-toothed, mouth-breather clinging to their guns and religion? They all think Athiests can’t be nice? Was she trying to paint herself as a victim of intolerant Christians? Give me a break. It was a dumb statement now matter how many small-brained, opposable thumbed-challenged farm animals she’s nobly saved from the dinner table.

Um…… WHAT THE HELL????? That stereotype of Christians in the south? Really? I never said that nor do I think that because I know better! Wow. So I’m being attacked because: I don’t want kids, my religious views, and my diet. He has not said a word about my views of the movie and is taking all of my quotes out of context or flat out putting words in my mouth.

I did respond, in the nicest fashion possible:

Hi everyone! Rachel here!

First off I want to say thank you to everyone that listened. We had a lot a fun talking about this movie and it was good to do a bit of analyzing of this film that I really enjoyed because of, as I said on the podcast, SPACE MONSTERS RAWR!

There seems to be some anger thrown at me in a couple of the comments. Paul has done a wonderful job explaining but I would like to make a few points.

1) Everything that I said was NOT in a 5min span to push any agenda. These things were mentioned throughout the podcast. This podcast was a little under an hour and that is after the editing.
2) Please don’t put words in my mouth. Criticize me on what I DO say not in what you infer. I never, ever, EVER said that eating meat is wrong. I never ever said that my Christian friends were sheep. I never ever insinuated that people who have kids have an “Idiocracy” mentality. As Paul pointed out I am vegan because it is hard for my gastro-intestinal system to process animal protein. In fact my husband is not a vegan, he isn’t even a vegetarian. You heard the word “vegan” and immediately put a stereotype upon me. When a question about the religion was asked I responded with an example of how I interact with my friends in relation to the movie. I do not see how me not understanding the urge to have children while expressing the same feminist opinion as the the two male hosts have about the female being reduce to her biology makes me bashing on people with kids.
3) Back to the word “vegan”. My mentioning specifically that the pizza is vegan is out of habit. My non-vegan friends are always teasing me if food comes up and if it isn’t salad that “omfg that’s not vegan.” So yes, saying that the pizza was vegan was out of habit and not out of me trying to say I’m better than anyone.

Anything else I would point out Paul has already said. If my lifestyle offends anyone, well, that seems like a personal problem for them. My meat eating, church going, multi-kid having friends aren’t offended so neither should you guys and gals.

Again, thanks to everyone for listening, I hope more of you enjoyed the movie more than who did not because SPACE MONSTERS YAY!

So where might the misogyny be coming from? Well, more than a few people have messaged me saying they think this is him being a dick because I’m a woman. Well….maybe? I’m not going to lie, the possible sexism of the posts was the first thing to pop into my head. In the podcast my two male cohorts and I have similar feminist views on issues within the movie yet this commenter is insisting on singling me out. 

Then I re-read. He’s attacking me being vegan and my Atheism the most. He is trying to paint himself as oppressed because he is Christian. If my existence as an Atheist is so offensive to him then maybe his faith isn’t as strong as he thought. What threat do I pose? Why is it that me consuming veg and not going to church while not wishing to have children so very wrong to the point of him wanting to attack me? 

All of the hate aside, none of this hurts. What DOES hurt is the fact that he put words in my mouth. I would never say the things he assumed I said. I have too much respect for my friends who do live differently than I do. What he did in these comments was lie. He lied about things I said. He lied about how they were said. He projected his bigotry and assumptions of who I am and who he thinks people like me are.  I wouldn’t do that to anyone. Ever.

Would he have done this if I were male? From people backing me, they most certainly think not. Misogynist, maybe. Intolerant and bigoted of views and lifestyles that do not mirror his own? Certainly.

Ok, I know MegaCon was over a week ago. I know that everyone will be talking about Image Comics Expo and all of its awesome-sauceness, but I don’t give a hoot about that! I went to MegaCon so I will be talking about that. I would have posted sooner but I have this thing called a day job still and that takes time and energy too.

Pre-MegaCon:

After dropping the dogs off with the in-laws we zoomed over to Orlando to get the booth in artist alley set up. After check in at the hotel we did not make the set up time (boo!!!) but we did run into my buddy Marsha (hooray!!!) in the hotel lobby. After we got set up in our room we went downstairs to hang out with Marsha and guess who was hanging out? Oh just Darwyn Cooke, Jimmy Palmiotti, and Frank Tieri. Stand up guys those three. If you get a chance to read their stuff, especially their indie/creator owned titles, do it. You won’t be sorry. 

MegaCon Day 1:

This day was my “working as Ashley’s agent so she doesn’t get taken advantage of day”. Ashley and I met up at the con super early to set up our booth. Once everything was set up I explored the convention floor to get a lay out of the place. MegaCon had expanded by about three times since last year. It is a good thing they did too, after the final count over 45,000 people walked through the floor. It was all work for Ashley, she got a commission within the first 30 minutes of the convention doors opening. The rest of the Friday was a blur of working the table. That night my hubs and I went to Gerald of the Anime World Order Podcast’s house. All three of the AWO (Gerald, Daryl and Clarrissa) and Paul Chapman of The Greatest Movie Ever Podcast were there. I think an anime called Cobra was on and I was kinda into it because it was very 80s sci-fi feeling. But you don’t care about that or the fact that I crushed Daryl with my mighty hugging muscles.

Day 2:

Despite the fact that MegaCon was bigger than ever Saturday was still shoulder to shoulder packed! Lots of fantastic cosplay was going on and was pleasantly surprised to see many physically fit men cosplaying. That afternoon was the Womanthology panel. Barbara Kesel monitored the panel and I must say I was a bit too wordy but I have a lot to say dammit! The audience was really well read and had a lot of gender issue questions. After the panel my booth in artist alley got slammed! It was so much fun! I had to even cut Ashley off of her commissions at one point. I’m telling you, in two years the cons will be begging her to be a guest.

Day 3:

Work work work. That’s all we did at the artist alley booth. I made a couple of stick figure signs to put out if one of us went on break or to get food and someone demanded to buy one! So I made $2 for a minute’s worth of work. Hell, I might have to look into that….. :P 

Sorry I don’t have any exciting stories. I was so exhausted from working the convention that every night I went to bed early. It was so wonderful to finally meet some of my fellow FL based Womanthology ladies in person, to meet @Ginger_Curls ( http://www.tarabba.com/ ), to hang out with Paul ( http://gmepodcast.com/ )and the AWO  cats (http://www.awopodcast.com/ ) even if it was ever so briefly, and it’s good to know that I might have a career as a stick figure artist if this whole writing thing does not work out. 

Big thanks going out to Beth at MegaCon for giving Womanthology some panel time. <3