The Girls’ Guide to Surviving the Apocalypse is a blogging collective filled with good advice on how to survive the coming apocalypse. Zombies, plague, robot takeover, these girls have got you covered! Mostly tongue in cheek and always great fun to read, there are articles on everything from weapons advice to dating, to what music to listen to when the end of the world comes along. We especially like their Know Your Idols series, with survival tips picked up from brilliant women such as Sarah Connor, Ellen Ripley and Tank Girl.

You know us. We’re the ones who’ll appear out of nowhere in the middle of the apocalypse and shout “Come with us if you want to live,” while looking fabulous.

– Lou Morgan

THAT New Trailer

Mass Effect 3 is coming out in March. My love of the series is no secret, and this new trailer increased my fannish glee to dangerous levels. *glances nervously at the calandar to see how many more days there are until March 6th*

One of the best things about Mass Effect is how much flexibility there is to create the main character, Commander Shepard, any way you want, from her appearence to her choices and actions in the game. Until now Bioware had only used a male version of Shepard in their marketing (affectionately termed ‘BroShep’ by the fans) but in what’s been called the first official story trailer for the new game, Bioware have released their first trailer to ever show Commander Shepard as a woman (now often termed ‘FemShep’).

It’s The New Planking/Owling…

Last month, author and now official BadRep-designated ‘all-round-good-sport’ Jim C Hines attempted, with the help of his wife, to recreate some of the poses of the women on the covers of books written by him and other SFF authors. He was the one striking the poses, and his wife took the pictures.The results were hilarious.

This reminded me of this Spiderman cover showing Mary Jane, um, ‘relaxing’ and drinking coffee, and the ways fans on 4chan and tumblr decided to mock the pose by recreating it themselves.

The Hines post was itself a response to a post by professional martial artist ‘Ils’, who experimented to see whether she could recreate a very common pose which superheroines are drawn in. She couldn’t, and posted the photographic evidence.

Just seriously. People. I understand artist license. I understand exaggeration. I understand suspending disbelief. But if a martial artist who is also a contortionist can’t mimic a pose you use constantly for female fighters, there might be a problem in, you know, your choices on basic anatomy.
– Ils

Are we seeing the start of a new trend? I kind of hope so… personally I think the works of a certain Mr Rob Liefield are past due for some real world parody. Don’t, er, break your back though.

If you decide to try any of this at home, don’t forget to a) send @BadRepUK the photographic evidence and b) make sure you’ve got a good friend nearby who can stop laughing long enough to help you limp to your local physiotherapist.

Have you ever looked at superheroines today and thought “Hmmm… they could be a bit more comfy.” All that spandex and those costumes with holes cut out, don’t they ever get cold? Don’t they ever just want to put their slippers on and relax?

Well, artist Hanie Mohd must have thought the same thing, because she’s got a whole series of prints on Etsy featuring super girls in sweaters, and they’re super cute, too! She’s got Power Girl, Catwoman, Oracle, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Rogue from the X-Men and Stephanie Brown’s Batgirl. I wonder who she’ll draw next?

I’ve bought the Catwoman print, and after all the hullabaloo about how much Catwoman was or wasn’t wearing in the DC52, there’s something that’s quite comforting about seeing Selina in a kitty sweater. Doesn’t she just look so happy to be wearing it?

The SFX Weekender

The SFX Weekender is an annual sci-fi convention run by SFX Magazine; it took place in Rye in the south of England in 2010 and 2011, and this year it’s based in Wales at Prestatyn Sands, from the 2nd to the 5th of February. There are events for those who love comics, gaming, SF movies and books, and unlike what might be thought of as a ‘typical’ sci-fi convention there are always loads of women there enjoying the show.

I’ve been before, and I’m going again, this year they’ve got stellar guests such as Alex Kingston, who plays River Song in Doctor Who, and Eve Myles who plays Gwen in Torchwood. There’s also Hattie Hayridge, the standup comedienne who plays Holly in Red Dwarf and Sophie Aldred, who used to play the Doctor’s companion, Ace, in Doctor Who in the 1980s. There’ll be some great scifi and fantasy authors there too, from fantasy authors Juliet McKenna (who wrote this great post for us on the representation of women in fantasy last year) and Mark Charan Newton, comics authors such as Paul Cornell and Dan Abnett, to sci-fi authors Jaine Fenn, Michael Cobley and China Miéville.

There are always great booths and an equally great programme of panel discussions, writing workshops, quizzes, and cosplay competitions, awards ceremonies such as the SFX Awards and the Kitschies, and a ‘Maskerade’ party on the final night (DJed by Red Dwarf‘s Craig Charles). All best enjoyed with some cold beer and some good geeky friends, of course.

Sci-Fi Stage Adaptations

Did you know The Ballad of Halo Jones had been adapted into a play? No, neither did I, but the Alan Moore story that’s been named as one of feminist website The F Word’s recommended comics and graphic novels was perfomed by Manchester-based production company Scytheplays in early January.

We heard about this production via this glowing review from Ed Fortune.

Halo and her friends live on the Hoop – a repository for the unemployed in the 50th century, but she won’t be beaten. She dreams of getting out and becomes a legend in the process.

The current run is over now, but maybe they can be persuaded to go on tour? Comics writer Maura McHugh mentions her love of Halo Jones in an interview with BadRep here.

We also found out recently that Cory Doctorow’s revolutionary YA novel Little Brother has been adapted for the stage by The Custom Made Theatre Co., though sadly this theatre happens to be in San Francisco, America, so I don’t think we’ve much chance of seeing that one…

Do you know of any other SF stage adaptations going on at the moment? Share them in the comments or send them to the usual BadRep editors address!

Also filed under ‘Awesome’…

This story on Tumblr, about a little boy who wanted to buy a purple controller and a ‘game for girls’. Dear Customer who stuck up for his little brother…

Awesomewatch: Have YOU seen an awesome thing? Tell our Jenni all about it.

Comics: Gingerhaze

If you’re on tumblr and involved in fandom at all, you might have seen her art around, but if not, Gingerhaze (aka Noelle Stevenson) is a talented young artist based in Maryland, working on her illustration degree and spending her spare time drawing some pretty neat comics on her Wacom tablet.

Covering franchises such as the Avengers, X-Men, Sherlock, Lord of the Rings, Supernatural and The Hunger Games, Noelle’s simply drawn yet instantly recognisable characters, together with her sense of humour, have won her a lot of fans. She says: “I mercilessly make fun of everything I love. It’s my particular way of disguising the sheer magnitude of the feelings that I have.” And the running jokes in her art – the hipster hobbits of the broship of the ring, Marvel Comics’ Loki characterised as Thor’s annoying little brother – could be what keep people coming back.

Here at BadRep Towers, we love her take on the Scooby Doo characters Daphne and Velma: “You hurt my nerd, you’re going down!” There should be a word for bromance between two women, because that is CLEARLY what tattooed, chain-smoking Daphne and hipster glasses-wearing Velma have going on. A ladybromance? We also love how Noelle highlights the marginalisation of Mystique, or at least the limitations of the way the character was written, in the X-Men: First Class movie and fandom in her ongoing GO AWAY MYSTIQUE series (Jesus, Mystique, stop ruining everything, seriously).

Novel: Gaie Sebold’s Babylon Steel

You may or may not know (depending on whether you’ve ever read the Team BadRep bios) that I’m an editor at a science fiction and fantasy publishing imprint. I left Solaris in October to go to another SFF publisher,  so I hope you’ll take that as proof I have no commercial motive when I recommend a badass little fantasy that Solaris publish – Babylon Steel by Gaie Sebold. It’s coming out in January 2012.

Babylon Steel, ex-sword-for-hire, ex… other things, runs the best brothel in Scalentine; city of many portals, two moons, and a wide variety of races, were-creatures, and religions, not to mention the occasional insane warlock. She’s not having a good week.  The Vessels of Purity are protesting against brothels, women in the trade are being attacked, it’s tax time, and there’s not enough money to pay the bill.  So when the mysterious Darask Fain offers her a job finding a missing girl, Babylon decides to take it…

Babylon Steel is not for the kind of feminist who thinks all sex workers are evil or need to be saved from themselves, but I really hope we don’t have any of those here – it’s more for the kind of fantasy fan who’s read Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books and wishes he’d write one about the, er, Seamstress’s Guild (hem hem!). It acknowledges the bad and the good side of the job, featuring a wicked sense of humour, S&M in the basement, a big green troll cooking breakfast in the kitchen, and a great epic fantasy story with a fun cast of characters, too. 

The Hunger Games Trailer

The trailer finally came out! And it looks just as good as we hoped…

A YA dystopian story with a kickass female protagonist, a great cast of characters and set in a gritty, well-realised post apocalyptic world? Sign us up!

Game: Mass Effect

About a hundred years behind the rest of the entire internet, I’m playing Mass Effect 2, and I’m enjoying it so, so much. I want to book a week off work just to complete it, and game all day long.

You play Commander Shepard, who can be a man or woman, and it’s amazingly refreshing to be able to play a female war hero (either way, you’re pretty famous, after saving the galaxy in Mass Effect 1). It’s great to be able to play this female character who inspires so much respect in her colleagues, military and civilian – everywhere she goes, even big scary warlike aliens are afraid of her. My Shepard’s a not-very-physically-intimidating blonde, so it’s kind of fun.

I love the team-building aspects of the game, too. You have to persuade people to join you, and keep them happy and loyal throughout the game. You can play as a good guy or a bad guy, and some of the choices the game gives you (allow genocide to continue for the good of the galaxy?) are brilliant to play through. As writer and fellow Garrus fangirl Jennifer Williams said in her review:

Bioware seem to specialise in making the sort of games where you have to put the controller down for a bit and have a really good think about the consequences of your actions.

Several articles have been written on how feminist-friendly the game can be, some on this blog, so I won’t go into too much detail here except to add my name to the many reviewers recommending it. Even if you don’t play many games, you should try this one. I’m running it on my laptop; you can check here whether you can run it on your computer…

Mass Effect 3, out next summer, looks like it’ll be even better. They’re promising to use a female Shepard in the marketing drive, and although there were lesbian options² available for Shepard to romance in Mass Effect 1 and 2, in 3 male Shepard will be able to romance some of the guys, too. I’m not sure why these things weren’t done before, but I feel like Bioware is at least a company that listens to what its fans want. I’ll be checking out their Dragon Age II next (another game highly recommended by geeks and feminists!) while I wait impatiently for ME3…

Comic: Paul Cornell’s Demon Knights #1

I didn’t buy many of the comics that came out of the DC52, but I did have to pick up Paul Cornell’s Demon Knights, because I’ve enjoyed his Doctor Who episodes and his Captain Britain comics before.

As much as many DC52 comics have been a disappointment, (Harley Quinn loses half her costume! Catwoman wants to show you ALL HER BRAS. ALL OF THEM. Amanda Waller becomes skinny! Disabled character Oracle walks, becomes Batgirl! DC comics manage to become even less diverse!) I still have to say, this one looks promising.

Demon Knights is set in the Middle Ages, and Paul cites Dragon Age II and ‘the medieval Magnificent Seven’ as points of inspiration. Much like my old favourite Secret Six, (sadly, sadly, outrageously cancelled for the DC52,) it seems as though it will star protagonists who range from reluctant antiheroes who’d rather be at the pub, to absolute bastards who are just along for the fun of it, saving the day and arguing and falling in and out of bed with each other while they do it. My favourite kind of heroes.

Promisingly for the fans of this blog, it also looks as though not only will four of the seven ‘knights’ be of the female persuasion, but the main baddie, the Questing Queen, is also very much a lady.

Well, I say four ladies… Sir Ystin, a knight who self-introduces as ‘sir’, may turn out to be more nuanced than that. Earlier versions of the character, the Shining Knight, have been both a cissexual man, and a young girl disguised as a man in pursuit of her true love, Sir Gawain, but neither of those seem to fit here. Hints dropped by Paul, and Ystin’s insistence on the title ‘sir’ in this volume, however, despite the other characters’ doubt, makes me wonder whether we’re actually seeing the first gender variant character of the DC52…

It’s hard to judge an entirely new comic on just twenty pages, but this issue made me laugh, and made me want to know a lot more about all seven of the main characters, which is pretty much what I want in a first issue.

It’s also extremely quotable:

We find the source of the problem, and we throw dragons at it.

Blog: The Mary Sue

The Mary Sue is really awesome. It’s like BoingBoing for fangirls. They always have the news first. Trailers, casting decisions, I don’t know how they get there so fast.

Battlestar Galactica‘s Starbuck features on the logo above, but you get a different geeky lady character every time you refresh the site. You can read about their logo design and why they picked those characters here.

I’m enjoying the way they’ve named it after Mary Sues, as well. It feels like a challenge. That word that gets thrown at the woman in a fandom work who’s, y’know, not supposed to be there.

There’s slash references and feminism and science and fun things on Etsy and Hipster Harry Potter fanart and the gender-bent Justice League and lists like 10 Things That Could Happen If You Pretend to Be A God, 10 Couples Who Are Badass Together, and 10 Fictional Universes We’d Like to Live in Based on Food Alone…

It’s a bit addictive.

And finally, under “also awesome”:

My feminist-inclined friend Hannah, who, when recently invited to a ‘Tarts and Vicars’ party, dressed as a Bakewell Tart. Because, well, what is a ‘tart’ anyway?

• AwesomeWatch returns next month. Send Jen your own geeky picks – if she agrees with you, they might get a look-in.

1. Ed: “I may not have been entirely sober when I thought of this, but it’s too late now, we’re GOING WITH IT.”
2. I was going to let my Shepard have a lesbian romance, but, well, the Tank Girl lookalike on my team is straight as a very straight thing, and Space Batman alien Garrus has caught my eye. He was on Shepard’s team in Mass Effect 1, and their dialogue’s adorable in a kind of equals-and-comrades-under-fire kind of way. “There’s no one in the galaxy I respect more than you, Shepard.” Bless.