Things We Saw Today: A Comparison of Notable Women in Scifi vs. Mainstream Television

In before somebody says this isn’t a comprehensive look, that it doesn’t acknowledge of the sexualization of female characters on either side of the picture, and that their favorite character isn’t represented/isn’t representative of that archetype. Think of it as a discussion starter. (Reddit via Blastr)

• Anne Hathaway dished about her favorite of Catwoman comics she’s read to brush up on the character, and it turns out she’s actually been digging pretty deep in some hard to find stuff. Comics Alliance has the review, but you might also want to look at the same comic’s place in Dr. Von Fangirl’s extensively researched Catwoman origin story roundup.

What worked about [the pairing of Uhura and Spock], in fact, was that Abrams and Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci did something that movies rarely do, but that is, in fact, totally natural: showed two characters in a relationship using sexual contact as a means of expressing tenderness rather than desire. The fact that Spock needed comfort in the wake of extreme trauma was specific to the plot, but there was no reason the person he got comfort from also needed to illuminate the Romulan threat. The same could easily, and comfortably, be true of a gay character. Someone should tell Abrams that it’s not a victory over tokenism to keep gay people invisible, especially when that invisibility is increasingly obviously at odds with the Star Trek vision of a progressive future. — Alyssa Rosenberg, making a very valid point that deserves mentioning.

• Becky Cloonan has some very important words about the life of a freelance comic maker. (via Newsarama.)

Heeeey, somebody who remembered that Bruce Wayne had two parents! (Sorry, I’ve seen a little bit too much of that portrait where Martha’s face is obscured to highlight that we’re supposed to be thinking about Thomas UNT ONLY THOMAS and then there’s Batman Begins!Martha who has no lines. No, I have not been reading Flashpoint. Yes I am aware.) (Yasmin Liang)

• GeekSugar’s got a list of banned science fiction and fantasy that you should go out and use as a suggested reading list.

Jill Thompson, artist behind The Little Endless, draws Supergirl, Batgirl, and Wonder Girl like the darndest. (Bleeding Cool.)