Saturday, October 25, 2008

It's Wonder Woman Weekend! Yay!

(The first three images are all from the Wonder Woman Day 3 site. There's more stuff there that's just as good, so check it out.)

No Companion for Wonder Woman



Illustration by Mauricio Dias.

While trying to get more information on this Wonder Woman Companion book that Johanna mentioned, I checked the author's webpage and learned that it's been cancelled with no further information. Which is really, really disappointing, because it sounded great from Johanna's post.

Wonder Woman movie Dos and Don'ts



Illustration by Guy Davis.

SciFi Scanner has a list of things they'd like to see and not see in a potential Wonder Woman movie. I disagree with every single one of them.

Wonder Woman's origin story is a mess, but that's exactly why it would be cool to define it for the screen version.

I agree that the current comics are great and that it couldn't hurt to draw inspiration from them, but adapting them directly? I'd rather see something new. No complaints from me if they want to throw in some talking gorilla knights though.

And why all the hatred for the invisible jet? It's not just SciFi Scanner; I see this a lot. The invisible jet is cool. Way cooler than just having her fly around by herself like every other superhero.

The worst though is the suggestion to give her pants (or leggings?!). Just take the red underwear off the outside of Superman's costume while you're at it. And that cape of his is so impractical.

Wonder Woman Delineated



Illustration by Mark Bloodworth.

Here's an article that's infinitely more useful. The Fractal Hall Journal admits to not knowing everything there is to know about Wonder Woman, but they're incredibly insightful about her anyway. After scratching their heads over how best to capitalize on her fantasy connections, they offer some wonderful suggestions about what a good Wonder Woman story (movie, comic, or otherwise) should focus on.
A) Truth. Truth truth truth truth truth.
B) The hunt.
C) Magical gadgets
D) Super-strong, super-fast.

Factor A is more subtext than explicit, but I think it’s fair to say that any Wonder Woman story has to have a theme of honesty or a counter-theme of dishonesty to it. I say this is because a lot of her stories can be a bit unfocused; she needs something to define her. It’s unfortunately easier with the others in the ‘Trinity’ thanks to their admirably efficient origins (baby in a rocket, super-rich orphan). I’d argue that B is absolutely essential, although we don’t seem to see much of it in Wonder Woman stories. Yet it’s right there in her name: the goddess of the hunt. It’s what superheroes do, and Wonder Woman should embody it. Hunting crooks- uncovering the truth of their deeds- make A and B her method of putting her antagonists into context. C and D become her method of interacting with them.
That bit about the hunt is frickin genius. There's so much more to the article than that, but you should click through and read the rest. As much as I disagree with SciFi Scanner above, this one is dead on.

This just makes me sad.



Fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg has created a line of Wonder Woman-inspired clothes and accessories, but that's not the sad part. The sad part is the comic that goes along with the line and shows how Wonder Woman can inspire women to get major-label record deals after a night of karaoke and win cooking contests by hiring babysitters. Go, Women!

3 comments:

Christian Zamora said...

Wow! I really love Dias' Wonder Woman. I love how he mixed simplicity with attitude. Real nice.

By the way, I wonder why I can't get the contents of this blog in my Google Reader-- I only get the title tag--

Michael May said...

I just changed my Feed settings in Blogger. Hopefully that'll fix the problem.

Yeah, that Dias piece is fantastic.

Christian Zamora said...

Cool and thanks!

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