Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now

I write a lot about the unique experience of being a woman in the comics industry, and I have to say, this is the one the most specifically female experiences I can think of. Working at Comic-Con is always a flurry of exhausting activity, but, jeez, I didn’t know exhaustion until I had a tiny entity living inside of my body and using my precious energy.

The bathroom breaks were frequent. My stubborn resolution to continue wearing wedge heels and skinny jeans as long as I could was possibly foolish. The longing in the looks I gave to shots of ouzo at the SLG Publishing company dinner was palpable. Naps were my blessed friends.

But I got through it, just as I’ve gotten through other female-specific inconveniences at Comic-Con: weird guys asking to take my picture, people asking business-related questions to the man I happen to be standing next to instead of me; that jerk who said, “Yeah, a chick would know,” just because I knew the location of the Little, Brown (publisher of the Twilight books) booth. So this? Easy.

Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now

It’s a day late, but I’m sure my dad wouldn’t have minded. He was very forgiving when it came to his little girl. Yesterday marked the sixth Father’s Day I spent without my dad, and it was as hard as ever. But I take a lot of solace in memories of him, and among them is the important role his influence had on my pop culture education.

My dad and I spent many an afternoon sharing a bowl of Cheez-Its and watching kung fu movies. As always, I was drawn to the glamorous young women in gorgeous costumes — who could hold their own in a rumble with the rival kung fu school! And there will always be something iconic for me about crazy old men in trees and the nefarious sifu who meditated on beds of nails. My dad was a sifu, a kung fu teacher, himself (among my memorbilia of him are two spears and a photograph of him breaking a cinderblock with his fist) but, alas, I never learned much beyond ma from him, to my everlasting regret.

Kung fu fiction is called wuxia in China and includes prose, movies, and comics. I saw a few wuxia graphic novels in Shanghai when I was there three years ago, but I didn’t by them, also to my regret. If anyone knows of good kung fu comics available in the U.S., please recommend them to me here!

Happy (belated) Father’s Day to all the dads out there. Share what you love with your daughters, even if you think they won’t like it because it’s not tea parties and princesses. They love all the attention and time they can get from their dads. I know I did.

Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now

Yes, of course I know now that his name is Sven and he’s not Mexican, but when I was seven, I wouldn’t have questioned anything my cousin Greg told me about Voltron. He was the one who introduced me to it in the first place and was my ambassador to shape-changing robots, evil fish-headed Kings and courageous princesses.

Eventually, my older cousin Marisol claimed the role of Princess Allura, Greg came around to the idea that being daredevil Lance was better than being Sven, and I took the role of Princess Romelle, who didn’t pilot a lion but did lead a rebellion against Prince Lotor — plus, she had horses. So it all worked out.

Those old Voltron cartoons are silly and simple to me now (though still hold a lot of nostalgic appeal), but they inspired my cousins and me, in our make-believe games, to re-enact and invent stories involving teamwork and bravery — and a little melodrama. Voltron has since become a comic published by Devil’s Due, but, honestly, I don’t think anything can compare to the Voltron stories my cousins and I made up in our family rooms and backyards.

And my cousin Greg? He’s the one who became the real pilot. He’s a captain in the Air Force and currently serving in Iraq, where he’s helping to train the Iraqi Army. This Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now is dedicated to him.

Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now 2.1

Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now

Welcome to the new “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now,” re-vamped for Robot 6! After the craziness that was the female superhero discussion last month, I started to think about what shapes our tastes as comics readers. I can’t speak for anyone but myself, so I’m going to use the next few months to explore what the pop culture obsessions I’ve had throughout my life have shaped who I am.

I wrote about my love for Wonder Woman as a little girl in my Publishers Weekly column last month, but and while I addressed what her shortcomings are for me now that I’m an adult, I didn’t write about why I idolized her when I was four.

The reasons are not very complicated and, to be honest, fall pretty squarely in “Things That Make My Husband* Say ‘You’re Such a Girl’”:

1. Wonder Woman has dark hair. (Like me!)
2. Wonder Woman is beautiful and glamorous.
3. Wonder Woman wears a sparkly outfit while she runs around fighting bad guys.

There was one point in the otherwise illogical and ill-argued opinion piece that sparked the discussion that I can agree with: That it is not right to devalue what are generally considered to be feminine traits or tastes. And it seems that I had “typical” little girl tastes for glamor and glitter.

But at the time I was watching Wonder Woman re-runs and re-purposing a jump rope as a golden lasso, there was no shortage of dark-haired, glamorous women in sparkly outfits on television. What made Wonder Woman special is that she was a superheroine. Beauty is fleeting — but a woman who inspires fear and awe in bad guys? She’s something that ignites a little girl’s imagination.

*Brian Belew, also my artist.