strangetwn_god

So, it must be that time of year again, when a comics fan magazine marvels at over some new "fangirl invasion." All of it is centered of course on Twilight. Perhaps I'm growing old, but I have to think, didn't we already do this over Harry Potter, then the anxiety over manga sales before that, and then...

I had the good luck over the weekend to spend a day at DragonCon in Atlanta, and it seemed to me that women were very much in attendance. Cosplayers representing fandoms from classic Superman and Wonder Woman forward in time through medievalists, three generations of Trek, at least four different Doctors, anime schoolgirls, classic X-men, vampires, Matrix revolutionaries, Firefly Browncoats, and the just-released video-game Batman: Arkham Asylum. I saw middle-aged authors with a dozen publication credits take questions from old blue-haired ladies and young college students. And then there were the vendors. Selling art, comics, books, games, clothing and weapons with iPhones strapped to their hips. I shook hands with a coalition of regional authors who pressed promotional cards into my hands as they described their books.

It's a convention that has an entire track devoted to the works of Anne McCaffrey, and another track on dark fantasy where Meyer is only one player.

But then again, this is probably the same sort of publication that rediscovers fanfiction and slash every year or so. The real question is why do publications like Newsarama think it's news that there are women as fans and authors of these genres?