Anyone that knows me is aware of my Diana Prince obsession. So it should be of no surprise that as soon as I saw a bulletin saying “Wonder Woman Pin-up” I tripped over myself to get a look. Not to mention anything done by my friend James "Bukshot" Bukauskas is automatically going to be hot, the boy knows his shit!

As expected, the artwork is amazing and of course I wanted it right away, but once I read the details of the auction I knew I had to share it with you guys.

This gorgeous piece is up for auction at WONDER WOMAN DAY II on Sunday, October 28, 2007 as a part of national Domestic Violence Awareness Month. It is held at Excalibur Comics in Portland, Oregon and includes art from many talented artists as well as signings from Phil Jimenez, Anne Timmons and my personal favorite, Gail Simone. The proceeds go to benefit domestic violence shelters in that area.

Even if you can’t make it to Portland, you can bid online. Check out Wonder WomanWomanMuseum.com for more information.

Visit Bukshot online at his myspace profile

I urge you all to go and check it out, help a great cause and then send me all the Wonder Woman booty you get. (mmmm booty!)

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Just found out I am going thanks to Barry. I am dressing up as Bettie Page, corset and all. SO excited!! Y'all check it out

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(From the BOOM! Studios website:)

Salem #0 (0 of 4)
Written by Chris Morgan and Kevin Walsh
Drawn by Mike Hawthorne

Colonial America. Salem. For mankind's greatest sin against God, they were born - the Coven of Thirteen. Thirteen witches granted elemental powers, each one derived from an aspect of Christ's crucifixion. One man stands against them: Elias Hooke. A new hero in the tradition of Robert E. Howard's Solomon Kane or Clint Eastwood's The Man with No Name from the screenwriter of Celluar and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift!

Ok now when you read this, it seems pretty clear that witches=bad and Elias Hook=hero right? I mean that is what I infer from it. And being a Wiccan myself I have to say that I took a bit of offense to it.

Not that it's anything new... all over the media tales of witchcraft abound with it all perpetuating the misconceptions about the religion and the practice. For once, I just dismissed it as something I would never read and left it at that.

Other Pagans, however, took enough offense to write BOOM Studios directly and express their displeasure over the upcoming title.

Which prompted BOOM Studios to release this today:

(The following is from our latest blog posting here: http://www.boom-studios.com/node/1372)

Since announcing SALEM, a five-issue series written by Chris Morgan and Kevin Walsh shipping this November, we here at BOOM! Studios have been inundated with a tremendous positive response for the most part.

Unfortunately, we have also received a number of alarmed reactions from the Pagan community. To address their concerns, Chris and Kevin have written the following letter:

To All Concerned Parties, We agree that a comic book that asserts Pagans are evil and destructive might well be considered insensitive, offensive and even slanderous.

However, SALEM: QUEEN OF THORNS is not that book.

We appreciate your criticisms, but feel they are based on a mistaken understanding of the true content of our story.

In SALEM, the religious authorities are an evil force that persecutes innocents in the witch trials. They aren't celebrated in any way and are, in fact, major villains.

Our protagonist, Elias Hooke, is a reformed member of the Church who carries a heavy burden of guilt for the evil he performed for them in ignorance. And his quest to redeem himself is one of his main motivations.

More importantly, one of our chief characters, Hannah Foster, is a healer accused of witchcraft. She is in no way the "demonized" villain of the piece. Rather, she is one of the key heroes on a noble journey to combat evil and save the world.

We welcome your opinions and realize that when all is said and done, you may still disagree with what we feel to be a positive depiction of Pagans and a strong pro-tolerance theme in SALEM. But we respectfully request that you base such judgment on the content of the work itself, rather than incorrect assumptions and incomplete information.

Because you are correct about one thing -- prejudice in all forms is an ugly thing.

Sincerely,

Kevin Walsh and Chris Morgan
Creators, SALEM: QUEEN OF THORNS

---BOOM! Studios

Now let me tell you, I have a certain affinity for BOOM since they made Mark Waid EIC. For I have total respect for the man not only as a creator but also for having the balls and compassion to offer help to those trying to take the infamous Rick Olney to court over the money he owes numerous creators. (Myself included)

But upon reading this letter from SALEM creators I had to agree wholeheartedly to the last line. Prejudice in all forms is an ugly thing. And perhaps we had jumped the gun a bit. But personally, I think it was more due to the short synopsis on their site and how it was written.

Either way, now I want to read it and have already asked to be able to review it here when it comes out. I am sure that others now want to read it solely for the controversy and hey, whatever gets the butts in the seats right?

BOOM handled this whole thing very well in my opinion and should stop most of the bitching for now. We will see what happens when the comic gets released.

Check them out at http://www.boom-studios.com/

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I was asked today whatever came about with the refunds FOL was supposedly handing out.

Some friends and myself donated to the cause. We were told we were getting them back even though we did not wish to have them returned.. I even received a notice from PayPal saying the return was imminent. That had to have been 8 weeks ago at least.

No return. I suppose it's our fault. I didn't ask for an ETA on that money. I mean, they did not say they were returning all that money quickly...

I just think if you are going to blame a scapegoat instead of admitting that you want nothing to do with the cause or the work it entails... then you should at least follow through on your "fixing" of it.

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Yes folks, with all the crap going on in my life that has been bringing me down… today I got the most wonderful news ever!!

I am now the new co-host for 96.7 The Buzz’s morning show! That’s right, if you live in south Louisiana you can now hear me grace the airwaves on your way to work.

I have spent the afternoon calling everyone I know and even considered just picking names randomly out of the phone book but thought that MIGHT be pushing it. I start at 6 am tomorrow and am so nervous I doubt I will EVER get to sleep. I will also be working my other job as an office manager for the next two weeks in order not to leave them in a lurch so I will be pulling 12-13 hour days till the end of the month. Oh well, who cares? I’m thrilled; this is a dream of mine.

So now I am off to fill out all this paperwork they gave me and find some newsworthy things to talk about in the morning. I’ll fill you all in on how it goes later.

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Unscrewed! The collection of creators, fans, and retailers which banded together at the beginning of the year to take on an immoral and unethical publisher and conventioneer, held its first successful auction this week.

“It is amazing to see the generosity of these people.” Says media representative Danny Donovan “It proves what a strong community the comic world can be. People who didn’t know one another before more came forward with eerily similar tales of woe, caused so many to leap to the call to action.”

Creators including Kurt Busiek, Marv Wolfman, Jamal Igle and Scott Shaw! were just some of a bevy of professionals that donated one of a kind items for the relief fund.

“We’ve done some incredible things since we began our efforts.” Donovan says. “But I don’t think anyone could have anticipated some of the donations we received, or how much the first auction brought in which the conservative estimate is a little over $1,000 at this time.”

The second week of auctions began on Friday and can be found from this link:

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZzapow21

The auctions continue a trend of top names offering one-of-a-kind items to benefit those who incurred serious financial hardships from their prior bad dealings.

“If you were impressed by the last batch, you won’t believe what’s in store for the second week of auctions.” Donovan expresses. “Original artwork from Colleen Doran, Jim Taylor and the great Gene Colan, and more! And for 'Peanuts' fans, About Comics has donated Charles Schulz's “It’s Only A Game.” Never-before-reprinted strips from the little-known 1957-1957 sports-themed comic strip by "Sparky" Schulz and Jim Sasseville! This is rare non-Peanuts material from one of the greatest and most popular cartoonist in history!”

The Unscrewed! website located at http://www.unscrewedcomic.com will display the totals of the benefits and up to date information on legal victories. Please visit the site for the most recent information.

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I was just informed TODAY that there was some kind of online hoopla concerning me and the FOL Empowerment Fund and, not surprisingly, Friends of Lulu has seemingly thrown me under a bus in order to save face.

First of all I will say that I no longer represent any group or other entity, so there is no holds barred anymore. I don't have to be PC.

With that in mind, I was directed to the current treasurer Leigh Dragoon's livejournal where I read this...

Basically, I spent (and I DO NOT exaggerate) about 6 hours crawling over the internet looking for the refund offer that Ronee had assured the board members that she had posted, way back when. I can't find anything. So, Shannon and I discussed it, and what we've decided to do is give all fund contributors full refunds. We contacted PayPal and, according to the customer service representative we spoke with, these refunds should go through over the next couple of days. If you contributed to the fund, and you do not receive your refund after about a week, please contact either myself (you can post here or grab my email off my Profile page) or the board at: board [AT] friends-lulu [DOT] org. I will be following up with PayPal either way to make sure things are progressing the way they told me things would.

This also leads into something else I wanted to talk about. I feel (only my opinion and I could be wrong) that a lot (though not all) of the rancor leveled against Friends of Lulu is based on the fact that Ronee's name has become inextricably linked to the Empowerment Fund. There is also the bad timing to add into the mix: the board doing it's regular turn-over in the Fall, the fact that Ronee took off and refuses to respond to emails from myself and other board members, the amount of time it took us to prepare and begin making statements, etc). I still think that a lot of it goes back to the piss-poor way Ronee conducted both herself and everything related to this fund.

Ronee has victimized a lot of people, something which is becoming very apparent to me now as I uncover more and more information, and I would like to point out that, at the end of the day, I and the other board members were her victims, too. Ronee misrepresented everything relating to the Empowerment Fund to us from the first step onward, announced the Fund without our permission and, as soon as she had achieved the notoriety she felt she deserved, dumped the whole thing in our laps and took off, leaving us to poke through everything and try to piece together shards of disparate information.

I know that Johanna of ComicsWorthReading mentioned recently that she has contacted Ronee for a statement and is waiting for a response. I hope other reporters follow this trend, and I hope Ronee does say SOMETHING. I think she has a lot to answer for.

This is total and utter bullshit. And I am responding.

First of all, any emails to me from Leigh were responded to and she thanked me for the info I gave her. I did not receive any email or message from anyone “reporting” on this issue. I should also point out that Leigh became a board member right before I left and really had no part in the goings on concerning the fund until later so her opinion on the matter has been formed after the fact.

This fund was thought up by Taki Soma herself and she had told me that she wanted to start one and I offered to see if FOL could do it, I mean we were the organization for women in comics right? So I brought it up to the president at that time, Katie Merritt, then to the board itself. NONE of the moves I made were done without the knowledge of Mrs. Merritt. As for waiting for the whole board to respond, it is not as cut and dry as it seems here people.

The “executive board” is 5 or so people in an email group. You post a message, and wait for answers. This group was notorious for taking days to answer a simple post if you got an answer at all, so I called Katie. The president approved the inception of the fund, and I was the VP… I was told I could go ahead with the announcement, as a matter of fact, Katie proofread the announcement before I sent it out!

As for the funds… it was all in a paypal account created just for this fund. The two people who had access were myself and Mrs. Merritt, and not only did I never take any money away from that fund (I did not even give the money to Taki, that was a check written by the treasurer) but I also donated to the fund myself!

As for Ms. Dragoon saying that I was misrepresenting the fund and “victimizing:” the board? Give me a fucking break! I gave them all the info I had and it WAS approved. Victimizing whom? How did I victimize anyone? I did the fund and accepted the public floggings to help Taki and anyone else in this predicament. Money was given to Taki Soma and her witness for traveling back and forth to Ohio to press charges and make statements, none went to actual court costs as far as I know.

I “took off” to deal with my personal affairs and because Friends of Lulu was not what I thought it was when I signed up initially. And yes, I left FOL and I dumped it in their laps because I was tired of doing EVERYTHING for the organization that was not about the anthology or the awards. That’s all they cared about. I thought Friends Of Lulu stood for more and it took me a while, but it was very apparent that I was wrong.

I shied away from saying anything publicly but now I am being forced to…it was not my “piss poor management” people… I was the public figure because I was the PR person and the only one getting any news out there concerning FOL. I would think it was the organization’s problem as they just wanted to play tea party all day and mingle when a greater good could have been achieved. As for what they are doing now… I have no doubt they are dumping it. Because it would take a lot of work and courage to keep it! Either way, I assure you that my bleeding heart will no longer rule my decisions. Everyone can rot for all I care. FOL and snarky blogging bitches cured me of that.

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