Comic rant incoming -- but I will reward anyone brave enough to read through with hot art links. Promise.

Hey, remember that one time when I got excited about the DC Reboot?

Yeah, me neither. I started out buying Flashpoint and all that good stuff. I mean, I'll probably finish it. Just, my enthusiasm has been dampened, so I haven't gone on buying the other new titles I was initially really excited about. You know how they say there's no such thing as bad publicity? Yeah, I'm not totally convinced.

First, there was the lack of women writers on the New 52. Batgirl spoke up at ComicCon, and she's my hero. Not that the problem is fixed, but DC was at least forced to acknowledge that it exists. And they're rolling out more women-headed projects, which is rad. But, uh, it's gonna take some time to prove intent.

And then there's this week's Starfire and Catwoman debacles. I don't even need to say anything, because it's been said. I particularly liked this response, which is a woman having a conversation with her 7-year-old who was a Starfire fan. (It's been pointed out that this is unlikely to be a real word-for-word conversation, and I agree. It makes the point, though.)

I am all for women characters screwing whomever the hell they like. Obviously. In fact, I like that last panel of Bats and Catwoman. That's not what this is about. Give me repeated close-ups of Bruce Wayne's bulging package while he's giving his lines. Also, take away anything else that makes him badass and make his character description read: "hot and easy". See what happens.

Hilarious/hot examples of such things from awesome artists on my tumblr flist:

Bats and his contorted spine confuses the ladies
Nightwing gets sexy -- oh wait, he's always sexy

(That Nightwing artist, Astro, totally did character portraits for an upcoming project of mine -- I haven't even subbed it to my editor, so I shouldn't talk about it, but OMG the pretty!)

Ahem.Yeah, dude superheroes end up shirtless, but that is so, so not the same as sexualizing a character. Illustration given via twitter by my friend Corinne Duyvis yesterday -- David Kawena's incredible Disney Heroes gallery. That? Sexy. Yeah, I know it's Disney. That's what makes it so head-spinny.

Though seriously, I always had a thing for Prince Eric.

Anyhow, I'm sure this all sounds totally hypocritical coming from me.I write romance novels about superpowered people. Highly sexualized superpowered people. But hey, guess what? That's what I'm supposed to be writing -- and hopefully I'm not sacrificing personality, character development, and/or realism and making the characters into walking genitalia. I also know that I'm playing into a stereotype by making it all about the romance. RIOT BOY is actually a really good example: if I'd written it from Brady's point of view, since he does most of the ass-kicking (being, yanno, the superpowered one), it'd make a badass comic book. But it's from Etienne's point of view, because it's a romance novel.

And ohhhh, of course that's all you want to write, you're a girrrrrrrrrl.

The sexism. It burns us, precious. Let's just ignore the many brilliant men who write romance, first of all. And then, yeah, forgive me for being interested in more than ass-kicking, sometimes. Hell, my first beta is a straight cisgendered white guy, and he doesn't complain. (Well, I do get the odd text bemoaning my wanton use of the word "taint" or ironically thanking me for explaining how to give a killer BJ, but hey.) And apparently girls like to write bloody horror and psychologically damaged fantasy too, since I also do that. Awesome.

Right, done ranting. Thanks!

[ETA: In happy DC news, this preview of Huntress looks friggin goregous.]

Cool stuff coming up:

1. Freebie story. I'm in the final stages with a little EQUILIBRIUM bonus content for y'all. It's a short story called "Jealousy: A Love Story", and it's from Sam's PoV. Just getting a little spit polish right now from The Editrix, to enhance your reading enjoyment. Prepare for adorable smut.
2. RIOT BOY Cover art. Not sure how soon, but not long now. I've seen initial versions and ffffffffuck, man. Guh.
3. RIOT BOY Excerpts. The second line edits are sorted, I'll give a taste of RIOT BOY. It'll be a little different from EQUILIBRIUM, since it's first person, too -- and god knows Etienne and Hansen have zero in common, so yeah. Let's see how this goes!

No, not the kind of blurb from People of Note telling you how awesome it's gonna be -- just the kind that gives you some idea what the book is about. Still, it's something! The RIOT BOY page just had a little update, its first of several in the next -- well, it won't be long before it's released into the wild from the good folk at Loose Id. Within a couple of months, let's say. Barring disaster, explosion, etc.

I'll have excerpts for you in a few weeks, but for now you can get the idea and meet Et and Brady, if you're curious.

So the only bad thing about having two pen names is that, seeing as they're both still me -- as in not manufactured personas that bear no resemblance to one another -- they sometimes overlap. That's usually in the area of queer fictioning, which Katey Hawthorne and KV Taylor both do. A lot. Therefore when I post about queer issues and what have you, I want to do it for both names, but I feel like I'm spamming the internets. So I'm just going to link this year's Celebrate Bisexuality Day post over on my dark fiction authorblog, kvtaylor.com, and if any of y'all queer fiction types are interested, you got it!

The long and short of it: yay for bi folk! We are awesome! *high five*

Thank you so much to everyone who entered the EQUILIBRIUM one month birthday giveaway. As of 11.59 p.m., random.org has spoken. The winners of the two copies are:

Kateyhawthorne.com blog:
**13. Judi (Loveless3173) **

and

Goodreads blog feed:
**3. Nikyta**

Congratulations, and I hope you enjoy Hansen and Sam's dorky (though occasionally also kinda hot, one hopes) adventures. I'll be in touch very shortly to find out your format preferences and all that good stuff.
Didn't win? Don't worry, I'll definitely do another of these when RIOT BOY hits the virtual stands in, oh, I don't know. A month or two, let's say.

And happy birthday, Hansen and Sam.