Asher Elbein

Yeah what are Gina Torres and Jewel Staite up to these days

Last night, I noticed Pan the African Fat-Tailed Gecko's face poking out of her hide. I put my hand down in front of her, and she -- very slowly, and after much consideration -- crept out and up onto my palm. Anyway she's perfect and I would die for her

The answer is probably not! Tyrannosaur arms are *proportionally* small but their *actual* size is about that of a human arm, and they're incredibly muscled. (One reason we know they were doing something with them.)

From the first trailer of "Kindred Spirits", the new animated feature film by Tomm Moore & Cartoon Saloon (Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea, Wolfwalkers) + Folivari. Coming in 2028.
Full video >> www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQn9...

Justice Department publishes documents with sexual assault allegations against Trump The department shared FBI documents outlining allegations involving Trump.

the president, who is a known, literal, legally adjudicated rapist, has been accused of raping a child

At a 2015 party during San Diego Comic Con, a visibly intoxicated Allie sexually assaulted novelist and comics writer Joe Harris, grabbing his crotch and biting him on the ear. Writing about the incident in Graphic Policy, Janelle Assellin—a journalist and former editor at DC Comics who had helped spearhead a multi-staffer HR complaint against Berganza in 2010—gathered accounts from multiple sources at the company noting that he’d behaved that way for years, garnering the nickname “Bitey the Clown”; staffers attempting to go through internal channels invariably received cheerful assurances that the problem was being dealt with. (Dark Horse themselves famously ran a 2006 interview with him—since apparently deleted but archived here—that included the joke “Watch out, he bites.”) Allie issued an apology and remained part of the official masthead until 2017, when he became a freelance editor. Nonetheless, he maintained close ties at Dark Horse, continuing to edit and write for Mignola’s Hellboy. While his behavior remained a topic of open discussion on the comics internet for years, Allie likewise continued to be a fixture at conventions and—sources speaking on background to The Daily Beast confirm—a mover and shaker in comics social circles. His behavior was often explained in those circles as substance abuse: since he was now sober, the standard line went, the issue had gone away.

It had not. On June 24, former Dark Horse editor Shawna Gore, now senior editor at Oni Press, publicly accused Allie of sexual assault. Over the course of 14 years, Gore wrote in a horrific account, Allie engaged in a pattern of “chronic, escalating, unchecked abuse that was not related to his alcohol use.” On one occasion in 1999, in the backseat of a minivan filled with their colleagues, Allie put his hands in Gore’s underwear. “For the next 10-15 minutes I had to quietly, physically wrestle against Scott to prevent him from forcibly penetrating me with his fingers,” Gore wrote. She alleges he repeatedly told her to relax as he groped her.

In both Allie and Berganza’s cases, higher-ups at both Dark Horse and DC Comics had ample evidence of severe misconduct, and did as little as possible to deal with it. “We did not, and cannot, perform a public flogging, as some might wish,” Dark Horse founder Mike Richardson proclaimed in a response to Asselin’s 2015 piece. “I am extremely sensitive on this subject, being the father of three daughters and having experienced first hand the effects of sexual harassment and gender discrimination…[Asselin’s] assumption that my longevity somehow ‘embeds’ within me an attitude of inappropriate permissiveness is not only wrong, it is insulting.” After Gore’s statement, however, Richardson struck a more conciliatory (though still martyred) tone. “I tend to think I can fix the behavior of people,” he wrote. “I thought this with Scott, that I could in some way fix him and change his behavior. A horrible mistake on my part that caused harm that can never be undone.” The set of reforms he proposed going forward—which included adopting an official No Tolerance policy for harassment and promises that there would be no retaliation for reporting abuse—were met with blanket scorn. As Graphic Policy incredulously noted, several of them may already have been legal requirements.

Dark Horse Comics founder Mark Richardson has been fired from the company after 40 years. The news has occasioned a lot of tributes. Feels important not to forget, however, that for years he enabled — if not actively protected — Scott Allie, a really hideous sexual harrasser.

I've been horrified about it since reading about it several years ago, so...you're welcome!

Summer Glau is partly Asian, and supposedly the original plan was to cast a few other role as Asian (the one that imediately jumps to mind is Kaylee) but obviously they didn't actually do it, so it's hard to extend much credit

Yeah but I don't think the show knows that

Hasn't been formally announced, but they seem to be pretty teasing it pretty hard

You can't even say that it's because the show got canceled and they were working up to it, because they've spoken at, frankly, unwise length about what they *were* working up to

I have no issue with the concept of courtesans being highly socially respected roles in a story, and I don't even necessarily think it's a bad idea to have your main character be culturally opposed to it. But as so often with Firefly, we never get even a hint of *why*

I mean, it's worse than that: what if sex work was woke and empowering but also the lead character thought (or presented himself as thinking, if you wanted to be very generous) it was awful and degrading

Had Whedon read somewhat more broadly -- say, the history of Mexico, with its strong, ongoing conflicts between federalizing and decentrilizing forces -- he could maybe have told a similar story without the vague Lost Cause propoganda. But that wouldn't have let him be a lil' stinker

Which really underscores the Lost Cause of it all: why did the South have to rebel? "Oh, you know. Reasons!"

yeah, man. What is it, precisely, that the Alliance wouldn't let you do? What, specifically, is bad about them such that you had to rebel, beyond secret evil skunkworks you didn't actually know about? We're never really told!

That definitely would have been the interesting direction to go! Unfortunately, it's been long enough that if that was where Whedon and Minear meant to take it, someone would have said so by now.

"Hey, what if the role played by Indigenous people in Westerns really *were* occupied by ravening savages" is definitely a choice

You could come up with far worse diagnoses of Firefly's issues than "it was unwilling to really commit to its conceits"

I'm making no claims about Whedon's specific intentions (beyond the acknowledged fact that he was inspired by the Confederacy) but when I rewatched it a while back it felt like he thought he was being cute. Like he wanted to do it, but without doing it

I watched Firefly back in the day and my main thought years later is that it needed to be either way more or way less Lost Cause to really hook me

this is true and bears remembering: eg, Pelosi was reported to be publicly chewing out Greg Landsman, the guy who just got Chotinered, on the House floor prior to the vote. it just didn't work.

Salamanders of various species, from plain gray to covered in yellow spots, huddle together in plastic containers.

Spotted Salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum), Smallmouthed Salamanders (A. texanum), Tiger Salamanders (A. tigrinum), and unisexual Ambystoma packed into our local vernal wetlands overnight. Always amazing to see this explosion of life.

(The screencaps are from this 2020 Daily Beast story I wrote about the absolutely endemic sexual harrassment in the comics industry, back when mainstream outlets briefly cared about that sort of thing)

At a 2015 party during San Diego Comic Con, a visibly intoxicated Allie sexually assaulted novelist and comics writer Joe Harris, grabbing his crotch and biting him on the ear. Writing about the incident in Graphic Policy, Janelle Assellin—a journalist and former editor at DC Comics who had helped spearhead a multi-staffer HR complaint against Berganza in 2010—gathered accounts from multiple sources at the company noting that he’d behaved that way for years, garnering the nickname “Bitey the Clown”; staffers attempting to go through internal channels invariably received cheerful assurances that the problem was being dealt with. (Dark Horse themselves famously ran a 2006 interview with him—since apparently deleted but archived here—that included the joke “Watch out, he bites.”) Allie issued an apology and remained part of the official masthead until 2017, when he became a freelance editor. Nonetheless, he maintained close ties at Dark Horse, continuing to edit and write for Mignola’s Hellboy. While his behavior remained a topic of open discussion on the comics internet for years, Allie likewise continued to be a fixture at conventions and—sources speaking on background to The Daily Beast confirm—a mover and shaker in comics social circles. His behavior was often explained in those circles as substance abuse: since he was now sober, the standard line went, the issue had gone away.

It had not. On June 24, former Dark Horse editor Shawna Gore, now senior editor at Oni Press, publicly accused Allie of sexual assault. Over the course of 14 years, Gore wrote in a horrific account, Allie engaged in a pattern of “chronic, escalating, unchecked abuse that was not related to his alcohol use.” On one occasion in 1999, in the backseat of a minivan filled with their colleagues, Allie put his hands in Gore’s underwear. “For the next 10-15 minutes I had to quietly, physically wrestle against Scott to prevent him from forcibly penetrating me with his fingers,” Gore wrote. She alleges he repeatedly told her to relax as he groped her.

In both Allie and Berganza’s cases, higher-ups at both Dark Horse and DC Comics had ample evidence of severe misconduct, and did as little as possible to deal with it. “We did not, and cannot, perform a public flogging, as some might wish,” Dark Horse founder Mike Richardson proclaimed in a response to Asselin’s 2015 piece. “I am extremely sensitive on this subject, being the father of three daughters and having experienced first hand the effects of sexual harassment and gender discrimination…[Asselin’s] assumption that my longevity somehow ‘embeds’ within me an attitude of inappropriate permissiveness is not only wrong, it is insulting.” After Gore’s statement, however, Richardson struck a more conciliatory (though still martyred) tone. “I tend to think I can fix the behavior of people,” he wrote. “I thought this with Scott, that I could in some way fix him and change his behavior. A horrible mistake on my part that caused harm that can never be undone.” The set of reforms he proposed going forward—which included adopting an official No Tolerance policy for harassment and promises that there would be no retaliation for reporting abuse—were met with blanket scorn. As Graphic Policy incredulously noted, several of them may already have been legal requirements.

Dark Horse Comics founder Mark Richardson has been fired from the company after 40 years. The news has occasioned a lot of tributes. Feels important not to forget, however, that for years he enabled — if not actively protected — Scott Allie, a really hideous sexual harrasser.

Yeah, man!!

pollera dancers with swords... is this anything

Kindred Spirits Teaser Trailer YouTube video by Cartoon Saloon

This trailer upcoming film by the WOLFWALKERS and SONG OF THE SEA team, about a Choctaw boxer, a little Irish girl, and her ghost brother looks *great*

"pretty most" is both a mistype and, unfortunately, a Firefly-ass neologism. form and content, I guess

What I think is sort of remarkable about Firefly is the way that pretty most of the theoretical character and narrative engines are pretty good, they are just generally concieved of — and executed in — extremely rancid ways once you get past the cast's basic charm