Marvel

Girl Comics Issue #1, a collection of comics written, stenciled, and illustrated completely by women, hit stores yesterday. It's one of three anthologies to be released this year by Marvel Comics. It's actually part of a year-long project of "Marvel Women," celebrating female characters and creators alike of one of the top comics publishers. It's also been wracked with controversy since its December announcement.

Welcome back to another episode of Bitch Popaganda! (It's like The View but with less makeup.) Tune in to this episode to hear Andi, Briar, and Kelsey weigh in on Disney's purchase of Marvel Comics, the gender dynamics and d-bags on the new season of Top Chef, and Glamour's newfound appreciation of plus-sized models.

Listen by streaming right here, or download the episode here and listen on the go!



Leave your comments and check out links to our Bitch Faves after the jump!

Hold on to your hats feminizts, because I Can Has Feminizm? is back! I may have let a few LOLz haters get in the way of my providing animal-and-feminism-based laughs these past few weeks, but no more! LOLz are back by popular demand and the first one this weekend comes to us from a Bitch reader and her, well, bitch. Check it out:



How cute! And it's nice to see that the Consumed Issue is a hit with the canine set.

Our next kitteh is responding to the Grrrl on Film post from earlier this week about Disney's purchase of Marvel comics and what that might mean for girls who are hoping for a woman superhero to make it to the big screen one of these days:



We're right there with you, cat friend! Do you think she's got her paws crossed for a silver screen adaptation of Kitty Pryde or what?

And just in case you forgot that gender norms can affect our animal friends as well as us humans:



Srsly, look at that girl forcing her cat to wear a pink apron! It's like The Feminine Mystique was never even published or something.

Have a good weekend everyone, and enjoy the LOLz! Don't forget that you can make your own feminizt LOLz by visiting the I Can Has Cheezburger? LOLbuilder and sending your creations to us here.

The big pop culture news this week – and other than the death of Michael Jackson, likely some of the biggest pop culture news of the year so far – is that the Walt Disney Company has purchased comic book, film, and video game powerhouse Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion.

While I’m personally in no way rattled by the acquisition/merger, I do think that it provides some opportunities to discuss gender, entertainment and marketing.

Marvel has over 70 years of history, and Disney will have access to over 5,000 characters (though the ones that have been mentioned most in the past week are the most profitable: Spider-Man, Iron Man, and the X-Men. Hmmmmm . … what could be missing here?)

The deal has included lots of business speak about "brands," "vertical integration," "long-term growth," "value creation," and my favorite, "synergy," (mostly because it reminds me of 30 Rock’s Jack Donaghy telling Liz Lemon to "never badmouth synergy"). There certainly will be many opportunities for profit, but I’m interested in how y’all respond to the fact that one of Disney’s major motivating factors has been securing a young male demographic.

 

Bad news in the superhero world over the past few months: the downturn in the economy is impacting comic book publishers, and both Marvel and DC Comics are canceling a whole of bunch of their midlist superheroes. Unfortunately, the midlist is where a lot of titles featuring women and superheroes of color live in the comic book world. As a result, comic book diversity seems to be the biggest casuality of all these cancellations.