The Smash Survey

The Smash Survey is an upcoming pop-culture podcast that looks critically at media - meaning everything from video games to soap operas - highlighting the good and cringing at the bad. We play games, interview cool people, and chat about the future of the medium. Find us on twitter @smashsurvey.

[shrimpea-deactivated20180220]

drew usagi in some outfits  :>

[askaqueerchick]

How to Have a Boyfriend, "Advanced Dating," and Girls With Short Hair

My girlfriend of over a year recently came out to me as a trans man. I’ve never been in a relationship with a man before: not because I’m unattracted to men - I am sometimes! - but because I’ve always preferred the company of women, and I love the queer community. I love my partner and support him and I want to stay with him, but I never thought I’d have a boyfriend, and I need some advice on how to proceed. My boyfriend has told me that he still sees himself as queer, and that we’re still a queer couple, and he intends…

Umfriends, boyfriends, and bi invisibility in this month’s Ask A Queer Chick!

[jasonttodd]

WOCTOBERFEST

↳ Tamara Devoux / Captain Universe

[audreyredpth-blog]

These are the two projects (one joint project, really) I really want to start working on. Resource packs, available online, with ebooks/pdfs/mp3s full of interviews and advice from writers and artists and sample scripts you can learn from, all beautiful and simple to read.

They’re what I wished existed when I started writing comics a couple of years ago, and what I could still really benefit from today. The Script Archive, an insanely useful tool for starting writers, has no scripts written by women. I run Queer Comics on twitter, and I know that resources for LGBT Creators are slim pickings too. They really shouldn’t be; the fact that so many webcomics are made by queer creators, and queer women really proves that. 

You want to know people like you are out there doing what you dream of, and there is something special (I think) about feeling connected to them, their process, their journey, and their work. I thought the project up hoping to help give that feeling of connection and potential to anyone who’d benefit from it.

I’ve started putting together and requesting interviews and searching out people willing to donate script pdfs, but I don’t know yet if I can even afford to devote the time they deserve to get done — or if there are people out there who need this kind of thing the way I imagined. If you’re interested in the project, have any advice or insight to share, or are a comic writer interested in talking to me about your work, please signal boost and let me know! Is this something people want?

[tear-it-apart]

[kittyit]

we have to consume media critically, because consuming non-oppressive media only isn’t an option. i want to discuss, explain, & refute the harmful messages instead of pretending they aren’t there or that there’s a way to avoid them altogether

[smashsurvey-blog]

False Start After False Start

Dealing with personal family issues and with threats (targeted toward smash and QC) that had to be looked into and responded to privately has put this feed on another pause. But we're not abandoning the project. Coverage on some newsier topics to follow shortly (especially #Gamergate), and we'll be back on your dash on the regular. 

[lecinematheque]

Pumzi - dir. Wanuri Kahiu // Kenya

In a dystopian future 35 years after an ecological WWIII  has torn the world apart, East African survivors of the devastation remain locked away in contained communities, but a young woman in possession of a germinating seed struggles against the governing council to bring the plant to Earth’s ruined surface.

[lostthehat]

The complete short film is on youtube and it’s really good and the end kind of took my breath away. 

[melteddali]

This just in, women can’t criticize sexist things while having the audacity of exposing her bare shoulders. Thank you gamer bro for showing me the light.

[zenamiarts]

Commissions are Open!

Hey guys,

Due to an unexpected financial emergency, I have to open commissions again. Please consider getting some art from me! It helps me pay the bills, which have taken an unexpected and foolhardy jump this month.

I really appreciate your help. Even if you can’t buy anything this time, please consider a signal boost. and tell your friends. Thank you. <3

[glassgears]

[queercomicsblog]

The cast of The Pride are (namely): FabMan, Wolf, Muscle Mary, Frost, Twink, Bear, Angel, and White Trash. 

It’s a loving take about our own labels and concepts of identity, and how they’re looked at from the outside. He’s not a stereotype — he’s a person. Or, well, a Superhero. 

He’s just awesome. Plus, it’s kind of a superhero thing to be based on a concept or stereotype? It’s a fixture of the genre.

[noitemsfoxonlyfinaldestination]

lmao so you admit to him being based off of a harmful stereotype 

and wow, twink and bear??? get the fuck out of here, is this some kind of joke to you?

like you are literally making a mockery of the gay community with this??

[smashsurvey-blog]

Excuse me? I'm beginning to think your issue here is that you have some sort of innate disrespect towards people who use these labels and act this way. Just because you think queer men who like pink and use the word 'honey' aren't up to your standards of gay behavior, doesn't mean that they don't exist and don't deserve genuine representation. A stereotype is only 'harmful' when it's used and abused by people who want to reduce an entire community to one aspect of themselves and dehumanize them through it. 

Fabman is a queer character with a superheroic identity that's pride-based. The comic is called The Pride. That's why he has a rainbow flag for a cape, because it's an internationally recognized symbol of our community. Queer culture isn't a monolith. Being queer doesn't immediately align you with any personality traits or inclinations. But we're allowed our subcultures, we're allowed our labels like twink and bear and muscle mary. And damn, we're allowed to joke about it. (For god's sake, Bear is a literal bear.) 

The Pride is diverse, hilarious and exceptional, and it's going to keep on truckin' (I hope, glassgears!) even without your approval. 

Jeesh. 

[glassgears]

It can be really frustrating working on the comics sometimes.

There’s a large, vocal audience declaring how much they want to see more diversity in comics and more LGBTQ characters. I was one of them, even. And it’s why I made The Pride.

However, when an indie project comes out with just that, a lot of this audience don’t actually buy the product they’d been calling out for: because it’s not from Marvel or DC.

Fact is though, if an audience doesn’t prove a desire and market for such a product, they won’t be willing to take a risk on creating one of their own. 

Obviously, I’m small press. I self-publish. I pay to get the comics made out of my own pocket. At the moment, there’s still around £5000 to pay artists for work and get the rest of the series printed when it comes to it. This isn’t even taking into account the cost of postage etc…it’s hard work, and takes up a lot of my time and money.

But it’s a labor of love, so I keep working at it. I wouldn’t change that for the world. But I do wish that I was able to pay the artists faster and could afford printing easier.

The Pride has 841 Likes on Facebook. If all of them bought just one copy of The Pride digital issues (at just £1.50), any issue, that would raise a massive chunk needed towards paying off the remaining artists! It would literally fund itself. I wouldn’t make any money myself, but I don’t care about that. This project is as much about building my profile and name as a writer than it is about getting rich…I will never get rich off The Pride, but I love doing it.

Likes are all well and good, honestly they are great and a massive help in their own right, but it doesn’t help me actually make the comics. And it’s frustrating to see this market, this audience, saying they want a product and then just…not.

Just felt like sharing that is all. In case anyone is considering making comics of their own. Obviously, I don’t want to scare anyone off: you wanna make comics, make comics. But be prepared for hard times and struggles, but if you work hard it could well all be worth it in the end.

And of course, if you do want to buy The Pride, you can do so here.

[gailsimone]

I really do recommend this book, it’s absolutely a pleasure to read and a clear labor of love.

[dduane]

Seriously, people: walk the walk. Don’t just shout for more representation. Buy the damn comics.

[queercomicsblog]

We’ve talked a bit with Joe Glass (glassgears) in the past through Smash Survey, and he’s a really fantastic person. We’ve loved every issue of The Pride so far (and we’re looking forward to reviewing them), and they’re more than worth your time and money. Queer comics made by queer people and allies are sort of the goal here, and it’s hard to find something printed and self published of The Pride’s caliber that is also humorous and pokes fun at our community in a comfortable voice. The Pride feels like a true queer comic. It’s for all of us, about us, and carries both the weight and comedy of our experiences. Not to say it isn’t great and relatable for the casual straight reader, it is. But it’s a lot more than that, too.

Read The Pride

[smashsurvey-blog]

We're putting the finishing touches on our 2013 and 2014 examination of female protagonists in video games. Is there anything else we should talk about, friends and foes?

[agentmaya-blog]

Women are described in animal terms as pets, cows, sows, foxes, chicks, serpents, bitches, beavers, old bats, old hens, mother hens, pussycats, cats, cheetahs, bird-brains, and hare-brains…‘Mother Nature’ is raped, mastered, conquered, mined; her secrets are ‘penetrated,’ her ‘womb’ is to be put into the service of the ‘man of science.’ Virgin timber is felled, cut down; fertile soil is tilled, and land that lies ‘fallow’ is ‘barren,’ useless. The exploitation of nature and animals is justified by feminizing them; the exploitation of women is justified by naturalizing them.

Karen J. Warren Ecological Feminism (via agentmaya)

[washingtonpost]

Women hear it all the time from men. “You’re overreacting,” we tell them. “Don’t worry about it so much, you’re over-thinking it.” “Don’t be so sensitive.” “Don’t be crazy.” It’s a form of gaslighting — telling women that their feelings are just wrong, that they don’t have the right to feel the way that they do. Minimizing somebody else’s feelings is a way of controlling them. If they no longer trust their own feelings and instincts, they come to rely on someone else to tell them how they’re supposed to feel.

Men really need to stop calling women crazy. (via washingtonpost)

[smashsurvey-blog]

The #queerlikeme talk is getting all flavors of awesome over at @queercomics (with a big thanks to gailsimone). Join the conversation, and show everyone that queer readers are present and accounted for and very, very cool. Learn how you can win free comics through chatting with us over here.

[sourcedumal]

Forever repping for story lines that are POC centric and without the white gaze