In Action (Figure) News...

I do not often Wax Poetic on the fantasticness that is Mr. Reads, Gentle Reader, but tonight, I am tempted to do so, as My Darling Husband found, for me, variant Barda without helmet.

This is, in and of itself, Wonderful News, but what this means for a relationship in which two people collect action figures?

It means that I Got The Variant.

And he did not.

That, My Friends, is true Geek Love.

Of course, not in the Katherine Dunn sense. More in the "I collect action figures, and so does my husband" sense.

Of course, it also means that Barda with helmet now lives in my office at school, along with a Wonder Woman and a Harley Quinn. Is it any wonder my students believe me a nerd?

Wonder Twin Powers: Activated?

Gentle Reader, anyone headed to San Diego Comic Con?

Anyone want to help This Humble Author fulfill an action figure dream?

Amy Reads the Week (of April 20th, 2008)

Still dissertating, Gentle Reader, so neither reading nor writing anything for pleasure. Mr. Reads, however, is thrilled over the Toy News leaking out of New York's Comic-Con, and I will insist on buying the Wonder Woman and the Artemis figures when they come out. Mr. Reads will, I believe, Buy Them All, so send Kind Thoughts to the Reads Checking Account!

Also, lovely to hear about the General Fantasticness of some of my favorite writers, like Mr. Geoff Johns and Ms. Gail Simone, courtesy of this delightful blogger, found courtesy of the delightful women at When Fangirls Attack!

Gentle Reader, I long to go to a Comic Convention and meet all of my Favorite Writers and watch My Darling Husband swoon over the Latest Toys. Why, o why must they all be So Far Away?

While it has been demanded that I write a full review of Wonder Woman #19, I must beg off just a little longer, Friends (Apologies, Robert!). This Humble, Last (!) Chapter is due by the Not-So-Humble Date of As-Soon-As-Possible (but no later than May 1st), so I promise a double review of Wonder Woman #19 and #20 next month, once the dissertating is done.

Until then, might I direct your attention to the happiest blogging news I've had in a year? That is right, Gentle Reader: Loren at One Diverse Comic Book Nation has returned to the blogging world. Please join me in offering up a Huzzah! and welcome Loren back to a blogging community that Missed Him Terribly.

Amy (really doesn't have the time to) Reads the Week (of April 13th, 2008)

Gentle Reader, I've a chapter to revise by Thursday, yes, Thursday, and a few meetings this upcoming week to make it just that much more Difficult. So I must be Rather Silent this week despite the fact that 1) I've read Gail Simone's Wonder Woman #19 and thought it Absolutely Brilliant (who else but Ms. Simone can make me eat crow regarding Tom Tresser in just one month, and make me laugh *and* cry in just one final panel?), 2) I finished Jim Butcher's Small Favor and thought it Absolutely Brilliant (truly, his best Harry Dresden novel yet), and 3) both The Office and 30 Rock have returned to us (Jim! Pam! Jack! Liz Lemon! That's what she said!). Never mind the fact that Mr. Reads and I have a Large Stack of comics to be read this week, nor the fact that my Trinity Wonder Woman is just lovely and is begging for a Post of Her Own.

Never mind the pop culture. Here comes the Dissertation.

Wish me luck, Friends! It seems I'm Suffering under the Suffragettes at the moment, for the second (!) time this year.

Amy Reads the Week (of April 6th, 2008)

Yesterday was a Rather Productive Day, Gentle Reader, and as happens on most Rather Productive Days, come night, Mr. Reads and I were Rather Bored. We had accomplished everything we set out to accomplish--I wrote 2 pages of my last (!) dissertation chapter and read 20 (!!!) articles, while Mr. Reads enjoyed the rare moment of an instructor's life: nothing to grade. So around 9:00 p.m., we decided to leave the house in search of action figures.

We drove to two of the Large Mega-Marts in town to look for the latest DC Universe action figures, of which Mr. Reads wants all, and I, of course, want Pup Reads's namesake, Ms. Harley Quinn. Alas, none have reached our Small Town yet, but we are hopeful to find them.

This, of course, made me think of my two latest purchasing dilemmas: To Super Lois, or Not to Super Lois?, and, does This Humble Author deserve a graduation present?

The answers are, I believe, Yes, and No.

That is to say, I cannot justify spending $300 on a Wonder Woman statue, when there is the rent to be paid, and the car to be fixed, and the sofa to purchase, or, at least, consider. Not to mention a new computer and printer for This Humble Author, and, considering the dramatic rise in gas prices, the future inevitability of Better Walking Shoes.

But, Gentle Reader, she is so *gorgeous*. She is So Incredibly Beautiful, I almost cannot stand it. Look at her in full 360 degree turnaround. Have you ever, in all of your life, seen a statue this beautiful? This powerful? The axe, I think, is the nicest touch, a testament to the warrior Wonder Woman is.

Of course, I almost must consider a Possible Trip to the Big Apple to see the upcoming exhibit on Fashion and Superheroes, two things that This Humble Author can say, with great certainty, affect her academic life. O! If only money were happier!

I have decided to take a few hours to myself today, and Friends, I am going to sneak the new Jim Butcher novel, Small Favor, away from Mr. Reads. Although he has priority reading because His Birthday is this coming Friday, and lacking an autographed issue of Grant Morrison's We3, I cannot think of a better way to celebrate the anniversary of his birth.

Fall Lineup: The Updates

The briefest of brief posts, Gentle Reader, as it is Rather Late for This Humble Author, and tomorrow proves to be as long as--if not longer than!--today. Although tomorrow brings Quite The Treat at the end of the day: Elizabeth: The Golden Age, a film that proves to be as beautiful fashion-wise as it is Cate Blanchett-wise.

But perhaps My Constant Readers are curious as to what has stayed, and what has gone, in the Reads Fall Lineup. Well, sad to say, but We Reads have abandoned The Bionic Woman. If it were This Humble Author's Beloved Starbuck--that is, the delightful Ms. Sackhoff--all the time, then perhaps We Reads would stay loyal. But as interesting as Ms. Sackhoff's character is, so much less is Ms. Ryan's character. Not Ms. Ryan herself, understand, as she is an actress I have admired for a while now. But her character is 1 dimensional, at best, and cliched at worst, and I'm afraid I must Quite Now Whilst Ahead.

Tomorrow also brings Women's Murder Club, which I am curious about, but not expecting much of. This weekend, too, promises to be comic-heavy, as we head to Our Local to pick up Quite the Backlog. But in the interim, Mr. Reads has purchased for This Humble Author the new DC Catwoman, and I have found, on sale, no less!, the Gotham by Gaslight Batman. Quite the week for action figures, anyhow!

In other news, I have finished Mr. Lindsay's new novel, Dexter in the Dark, and have purchased Ms. Pierce's and Mr. Liebe's White Tiger collection, which is next. Huzzah, I say, for new book joy!

Amy Reads the Week (of June 1st, 2007)

It’s been a Rather Exhausting Week, Gentle Reader, as summer has come to The South, and with it, Summer School. Not that I dislike teaching summer school; far from it. It’s just a daily occurrence, with Really Big Novels, in the Heat, and in a very short expanse of time.

Since with Great Novels comes Great (teaching) Responsibility, I’ve been rather neglectful of my pop culture. Television in the Reads Household this week has been of the Food Network persuasion, and honestly, it’s about all I can bring myself to focus on. This is so much the case that when Mr. Reads asked me if I had read the latest issue of Wonder Woman, I had to, quite honestly, tell him no.

But what this week *has* brought is Great Buying Responsibility, in that I placate Mr. Reads’ addiction to the Marvel Legends line, as he placates This Humble Author’s addiction to All Things Amazonian, All The Time. That is to say, while at Wal-Mart today, I found the She-Hulk, Xorn, and Yellowjacket Mr. Reads has been waiting for, and then, at another store just an hour ago, we found Quicksilver and the Marvel Select Cloak and Dagger.

Mr. Reads is a firm believer in the Posing Power of the action figure, while I, I am rather hesitant to say, am quite an In-The-Box kind of girl. There are few, if any, of my Fun Toys out of their original packaging, and those only happen on the rarest of occasions.

But seeing Mr. Reads’ pure delight over finding these hard-to-get items in our rather small college town made me think of the (hard-to-get) Items of My Own: my Hush Catwoman, my Wasp red variant, my Marvel Select Emma Frost. I remembered back to my months-long search for the Red Son Wonder Woman which I found (finally!) on clearance in a mall a state away. Thankfully I hadn’t traveled a state away just to find said action figure. Rather, the find was fortuitous, and gratefully acknowledged.

There are other things, too, lost in the void of distance, age, and time. My Wonder Woman underoos, of course, as well as my Wonder Woman costume, immortalized in scratchy photographs of a slightly chubby, nearsighted child with too much hair and a look of wonder and hope that has gone the way of said costume. My Wonder Woman lunchbox, my Star Wars lunchbox, my Princess Leia Halloween outfit, my Jem and the Holograms dolls, my She-Ra action figures. Once in my possession, now gone, some twenty years since, but still precious for the memories they left behind.

What is it about the physicality of fandom, Gentle Reader? Why does the Reads Household purchase, still, action figures and Barbies and statues (oh my!)? I don’t think it is a reckless clinging to youth, desperate in its grasp, clutching a bit too fervently. Rather, I think, in no small part, that it is insurance for the future, the decision that despite this or that problem, there is still something solid, something there, something small and plastic and fun that Makes Us Happy.

Or, as I asked Mr. Reads once, “what to do if the future children get hold of variant Sentry?”

To which Mr. Reads said, “!!!”

(Do not worry for future Baby Readses, Gentle Reader! Pup Reads has destroyed, so far, Venom, Namor, Maestro’s crown, and Juggernaut’s helmet, and she still receives love, food, and shelter on a daily basis.)

We collect, and collect, and protect against damage, but we cannot guarantee protection. We cannot guarantee anything. Why, then, collect these things? Why, then, display these objects of fandom, these Physical Representatives of our interests, for all the world—or just ourselves—to see? Because of the memory? Because even This Humble Author remembers with fondness, some 25 years after the fact, wearing a Wonder Woman costume under her school uniform, and feeling for all the world like Diana Prince?

So we buy these things to remind ourselves, or to remind others?

It’s rather late, Friends, and I’ve a long day stretched in front of me for tomorrow, so I leave you not with possible answers but instead with questions. What do we make of our fandom collecting? How do we, as fans, comprehend those objects that mark us as such?

And where can one Such As Myself find a decently priced Hush Catwoman action figure anyhow?