The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Phil! Gold:

I've enjoyed Girl Genius for a while (and I believe I first found the link to it from *this* *very* *blog*).

My wife likes to point out, however, that although the storylines are fun, the artwork seems a continuation of the grand tradition of over-bosomed, half-naked women that superhero comics perfected decades ago. Even though the characters are strong women, she's turned off by the (in her opinion) oversexualized drawing style--any potental message about female power is mitigated by their portrayal as sex objects.

I still like the stories, but now I wince a little when, for example, Zeetha gets her clothes stripped off and then runs around for months (our time) with only the barest of coverings for her breasts.

Has anyone else had similar reactions?

Mark Wise:

Business owners on International Drive in Orlando nixed light rail. One of the rumored reasons was that, "... it would allow an undesirable element into the area."

This is, sadly, a common argument used against rail transit (and sometimes even against buses). While there is an argument to be made from the standpoint of crime rates (statistically speaking, there *is* a correlation between rail transit linking "poor" and "rich" areas and an increased crime rate in the rich area), such transit links also bring large increases in commerce, generally more than offsetting the measurable costs associated with crime.

On top of that, especially in cities like my current home, Baltimore, where a large number of city inhabitants are black, it's sometimes had not to see claims about "undesirables" in racial terms. (And I have seen exactly those complaints about proposed new transit service in the region.)

Sorry. Public transit is one of my triggers, since I lived carless for several years in a city (Baltimore) with a barely-useful public transit system.

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