{"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

\"stylised<\/a><\/p>\n

Comics: Gingerhaze<\/h2>\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

Novel: Gaie Sebold’s Babylon Steel<\/h2>\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. \"cover<\/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 Hunger Games Trailer<\/h2>\n

The trailer finally came out!\u00a0And it looks just\u00a0as good as we hoped…<\/p>\n