{"id":7949,"date":"2011-12-12T09:00:28","date_gmt":"2011-12-12T09:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.badreputation.org.uk\/?p=7949"},"modified":"2011-12-12T09:00:28","modified_gmt":"2011-12-12T09:00:28","slug":"awesomewatch-2-seriously-mystique","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/badreputation.org.uk\/2011\/12\/12\/awesomewatch-2-seriously-mystique\/","title":{"rendered":"Awesomewatch 2: Seriously Mystique"},"content":{"rendered":"
Remember the first Awesomewatch<\/a>? Here’s the follow up dose. <\/p>\n
If you’re on tumblr and involved in fandom at all, you might have seen her art around, but if not, Gingerhaze<\/a> (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.<\/p>\n
Covering franchises such as the
Avengers<\/strong><\/a>,
X-Men<\/strong>,
Sherlock<\/strong>,
Lord of the Rings<\/strong>,
Supernatural <\/strong>and
The Hunger Games<\/strong><\/a>, 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\u2019s 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<\/a>, Marvel Comics’ Loki
characterised as Thor’s annoying<\/a>
little<\/a>
brother<\/a>
– could be what keep people coming back.<\/p>\n
Here at BadRep Towers, we love her take on the
Scooby Doo<\/strong> characters Daphne and Velma: “You
hurt my nerd, you’re going down!”<\/a> 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<\/strong> movie and fandom in her
ongoing GO AWAY MYSTIQUE series (Jesus,
Mystique<\/a>, stop
ruining everything, seriously<\/a>).<\/p>\n
You may or may not know (depending on whether
you’ve ever read the Team
BadRep bios<\/a>) that I’m an editor at a
science fiction and fantasy publishing imprint. I left
Solaris in October to go to another SFF
publisher,\u00a0\u00a0so 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<\/strong> by Gaie Sebold. It’s
coming out in January 2012. <\/a><\/p>\n
Babylon Steel, ex-sword-for-hire, ex\u2026 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\u2019s not having a good week.\u00a0 The
Vessels of Purity are protesting against
brothels, women in the trade are being attacked,
it\u2019s tax time, and there\u2019s not enough
money to pay the bill.\u00a0 So when the
mysterious Darask Fain offers her a job finding
a missing girl, Babylon decides to take
it…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Babylon Steel<\/strong> 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<\/strong> books and wishes
he’d write one about the, er, Seamstress’s
Guild<\/a> (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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The trailer finally came out!\u00a0And
it looks just\u00a0as good as we
hoped…<\/p>\n
A YA dystopian story with a kickass
female protagonist, a great cast of
characters\u00a0and\u00a0set in
a\u00a0gritty, well-realised post
apocalyptic world? Sign us
up!<\/p>\n
Novel: Gaie Sebold’s Babylon Steel<\/h2>\n
The Hunger Games Trailer<\/h2>\n