I'm Back! - A General Announcement of Bloggity Blogness

I find it very appropriate that I'm coming back to you all just as school is really kicking back in to high gear. It feels right. You know? I'd take credit for the intentionality, but, honestly I had nothing to do with it. 

Nope. I'm just back now because after a few hectic weeks of closing out my life in Seattle and moving cross country and then settling into my life here in Boston, I'm finally at a point where I can think coherent thoughts again. At least, coherent thoughts that aren't just "I wonder if I have enough packing tape" and "Why doesn't the US Postal Service let you ship comic books via Media Mail?" and "How the frickety frack do you park at Mass General?!"

I'm back and it's time to start thinking deep and meaningful thoughts about culture again. So, before we actually do any of that, I thought it made sense to talk through the basic structure of this blog going forward.

Fun, right?

First off, let's talk about the weekly schedule. Up until now, due to the overwhelming busyness of my life in Seattle, I didn't feel like I could commit to more than a vague hand-wave of a schedule each week.* Now at least my commitments are more intermittent and I get to schedule them myself, so I'm taking this opportunity to start some cool stuff I've been wanting to do for ages, such as...

Masculinity Mondays: We talk a hell of a lot about femininity and female characters here at Kiss My Wonder Woman, but we've never been quite as good at talking about issues of masculinity and the representation of male characters. Well, all that is going to change. A little. Probably not a lot. But at any rate, now guys are going to get their own special column each week where we talk about issues of masculinity, both healthy and toxic portrayals, and how the media can be better about giving men and boys positive representations to look up to.

Since I am not male, my perspective is a little bit untrustworthy here. That means that this column is going to be very open to guest writers and columnists, both men and women, who want to talk about masculinity and male characters in the media. If you want to pitch and article, email me here!

Think of the Children! Tuesdays: Admittedly the big announcement here is just that TOTC Tuesdays is going to keep going. At times I've felt like I was running out of steam with the subject matter, but really there's so much left to cover. I mean, we've barely touched on Magical Girl Animes, the sheer terror of Watership Down and its imitators, and the joyful glee of shows like Adventure Time and Gravity Falls. So, more of this. Ideally more diverse, complex, and interesting this. I'll also be making more of an effort to vary my subject matter and talk about more than just animated kids' movies. Though we will still talk about those too.

Strong Female Character Fridays: These are always popular and don't worry, I have no intention of doing away with this column. I do, however, want to start talking about female characters who aren't just on television. I have a natural bias for SFCs on TV because I happen to really really like that media form, but I've been feeling for a while that I ought to really diversify the women we cover. 

So expect more talk on awesome badass ladies from all sorts of media formats, from webcomics to books to independent films to youtube (to also those other conventional media forms we also still enjoy)!

Recaps: First off, I do intend to finish recapping Outlander and Kyla Furey has every intention of finishing off her excellent Hannibal recaps. It got away from me a little bit what with the move and the ridiculousness of my personal life these past few months, but that's still in the works. After that, though, I plan to finish recapping Strange Empire and I'm considering a recap series on Fargo. But other than that, I'm up for suggestions. Reasonable suggestions, that is. I love you all, but I'm not recapping all seven seasons of The West Wing, okay?

There is also some possibility, but it's more of a slight possibility at this point, that I might add in quick little comic book recaps. You know, for those of you who want more recapping and analysis in their comic book lives! I figure it will work well for those of us on a budget who can't afford all the rad comics we want, and the analysis is just always a fun thing to do. So possibly that. But I'm still mulling it over.

Okay, now that we've talked about the columns, here's what's up with the weekly schedule: Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays have their regulars columns. Wednesdays and Thursdays will be the days devoted to more complex and analytical thought pieces on just whatever I happen to feel like talking about. And recaps and reviews will be sprinkled throughout the week. Good? Good.

Second matter of business is mostly a heads up. Hey! Heads up! We're going to be doing The Undies again this spring (though slightly earlier in the year). It was a ton of fun this past year and I think it's worth repeating. For those of you who missed it, The Undies is an incredibly subjective kind of silly way of honoring the best underappreciated films of the previous year. 

Last year we saw awesome movies like Mockingjay Part 1 and Top Five and Snowpiercer and Under the Skin going head to head in a voting contest to see which one was the best underappreciated film of the year. "Best" and "underappreciated" being incredibly subjective terms, of course.

Obviously it's too early in the year to talk about voting or ballots, but I'm letting you all know this is happening because I want you to keep your eyes open for potential nominees. We're going to have a comment party at the end of the year to decide who should be on the ballot. So, heads up!

Third, third? I lost track. Anyway, I would like to announce that I will not be doing Pilot Season this year (you know, that thing where I watch all the new television pilots). Because I don't want to. End of speech.

And, finally, our last order of business is heart stuff. I just want to thank all of you for your support and patience this past month. I have been blown away by the kind messages I've received and I'm so happy to know that all of you lovely people are out there and are thinking of us. Thank you. We really really really appreciate it.

Okay, that's it! Break's over and it's time to get back to work.

*I was working thirty hours as a nanny, teaching Creative Writing, doing the occasional freelance editing, volunteering with my church's youth group, and also pretending to have friends sometimes? Also doing this blog. Which is kind of full time in and of itself. I was tired a lot.