I was sick yesterday!  I plead the plague!

Here's the intro and #5

Here's #4

And here's #3

Today I wrap up my fabulous five funny ladies of the internet in celebration of International Women's Day!  Without further ado, it's on to #2...

#2:  Kate Beaton

I've mentioned Kate Beaton before in my post on women in videogames but didn't delve much into the background of this wonderfully funny and talented comic artist.

In the words of Interview Magazine, "Kate Beaton is living proof that it is, in fact, possible to do something with an undergraduate history degree".  This alone would be enough to make her a hero in my eyes (yes, I have an undergrad English degree, but I feel like History and English were always kindred spirits).




Beaton started in the humble manner of drawing and writing her comics for The Argosy, her University's newspaper.  After some urging from her friends, Beaton put her work online under the title "Hark!  A Vagrant", and went viral when she ran a comic on Tesla and the Ladies.

From there, Beaton has gone on to to publish two hard/softcover collections, one of which ended up on TIME Magazine's Top 10 Fiction Books of 2011.  She updates her website every now and again, but between her career in Museum administration and her numerous public appearances, it is understandable that she's backed off from it a fair bit.

That being said, Beaton's style is so uniquely, unabashedly Canadian, and her personal views so wonderfully, uncompromisingly feminist, that they deserve a special place in the canon of North American literature.


Beaton, moreso than any other author (let alone webcomic author) I have read, has sharply and accurately captured what it means to be a young Canadian at this time.  Her historical perspective brings a unique and important viewpoint to a country that is severely lacking in a national identity.  She knows where we came from, where we are, and how we're feeling.  Best of all, she knows how to make us laugh about it.

Right now, I think it can be fairly said that we are undergoing a rather fierce battle (yes, I'm going to use the term "battle" here) between a wave of neo-conservativism and western liberal values.  You can see this cropping up especially in the States, where congressmen (and women) are pilloried for making such ludicrous claims as "pregnancy cannot result from rape".  How, you might well ask, do such people get elected in the first place?

Well, the thing is that misogyny is most often an unconscious behaviour.  It's so deeply ingrained in so many aspects of our society that we scarcely are aware of it - in our movies, our tv shows, magazine ads...everywhere.  Beaton is someone who calls attention to this.


She has the ability - and the sheer chutzpah - to call people out on their everyday behaviour that is actually degrading to women.  Perhaps most famously, Beaton called out fanboy "compliments" towards her physical appearance and a desire to "marry her".  She rightly pointed out the inherent sexism in suggesting that she was only useful to her fans in a position of marriage.  The fact is, many of these people who made these comments likely never thought they were being offensive.  That's why Beaton's work is so admirable.

We can only change as a society if we start from the unconscious, let alone worrying about the conscious.  We can all stand to learn, and here's to Kate Beaton teaching us a thing or two.



AAAAAAND FINALLY, HEEEERE'S #1...

#1:  Felicia Day

You knew it was coming.

You had to because the name Felicia Day has become synonymous with "Web Series" in the same way that Joss Whedon is synonymous with "Indie Poster Child".

But it bears reiterating.  Felicia Day is fucking awesome.




She's awesome because she proved through working her ass off that a web-based series can not only succeed, but become hugely popular.

She's awesome because she hosts a video blog that centers around trying new things both in and out of her comfort zone - something we should all aspire to do.

But most of all, she's awesome because she is completely, genuinely nerdy, and when sexist assholes try to troll her by suggesting she is fake, a whore, or just striving for attention, she not only shrugs off the trolling but calls it out and turns it into something positive.

It's bizarre to me that there is even an argument from gamers against trying to be inclusive.  The whole point of gaming culture should be to bring people together, not to force them apart.  Yet time and time again, we have to deal with some particularly execrable douchemongers (damn right, I used it again).

But getting back to Day; that's why I respect the hell out of her.




She has created so many projects and seen them through to the finish, all while enduring criticism from people that rightly have no place and no platform to criticize from.  I struggle to put down 1000 words in a week.  She's...inspiring.  There's no other word for it.

What sets Day's work apart from so many others for me is the way she has been so completely honest with herself and her fans.  With Day, there's no overriding need to appeal to a mass market, no schilling for cheap laughs.  With her programs and writing, you're getting pure, unfiltered...Felicia Day.  It's genuine.  Her writing resonates because she's writing about things she loves.

So when some lowlife bubbles to the surface of an internet forum to try to bring her down, she's ready to tell them what she tells her fans:  be yourself, and the rest will take care of itself.  In her own words, "...it's gonna make us vulnerable and invite people to hate on us, but at the end of the day, we SHARED something, and if you think about it, anyone you've ever admired in history...they didn't stop."

Don't ever stop, Felicia Day.  Don't ever stop.