Comic-Con: Her Universe panel examines what women want in their sci-fi

Her Universe hosted its second annual panel at Comic-Con last Thursday, with Ashley Eckstein moderating a panel entitled “What Women Want in their Female Sci-Fi Heroes.” The six announced panelists were Dave Filoni of The Clone Wars, Betsy Mitchell (Editor in Chief of Del Rey), Gail Simone (comics writer, including Birds of Prey, Secret Six, and the upcoming Batgirl), Chris Sanagustin (Senior VP Development & Current Programming for Universal Cable Productions), Bryan Q. Miller (Exec. Story Editor for Smallville, comic writer Batgirl), and Melinda Hsu Taylor (writer/producer- Lost & Medium and Supervising Producer on Touch) . They were joined by unannounced panelist Alison Scagliotti (Claudia on Warehouse 13).

Eckstein started the panel by giving each panelist a question regarding developing female roles in their particular media, especially with the female audience in mind. Watch portions of the panel:

  • Introduction of Panelists by Ashley Eckstein
  • Chris Sanagustin on making characters accessible to the audience, including a bit about Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome
  • Bryan Q. Miller on character vulnerabilities and breaking down the notion that a butt-kicking heroine has to be either a robot or a sexbot
  • Betsy Mitchell comparing now to 30 years ago for women sci-fi readers and women writers and editors, and the rise of female-oriented urban paranormal fiction.
  • Gail Simone on progress in the portrayal of women in comics, moving past the Women in Refrigerators trope, and the industry’s gradual awareness of growing female readership, and developing female characters.
  • Ashley Eckstein commenting on the progress in recognizing that there is a female fan base in science fiction.
  • Finishing up with Gail Simone and then Melinda Hsu Taylor on being inspired by sci-fi growing up in Maine, and some of her favorite female characters from science fiction and fantasy.
  • Dave Filoni on the process of developing a female Jedi character like Ahsoka Tano and also reading Éowyn as a child.
  • Allison Scagliotti on playing her character Claudia Donovan, the women characters of Warehouse 13 and the issues of being a female actor – and being a role model of the cool smart girl.

In the Q&A, Simone, Filoni, and Scagliotti fielded most of the questions, with Filoni and Simone clarifying how their approaches to writing female characters were similar. Even though the panel went over time, the audience remained and the panelists stayed on stage to answer questions about incorporating female biology into developing and portraying female characters, the differences in creating female villains from male villains, predicting the future of the importance (or nonimportance) of being critical of gender for characters (and for creators), and finally ended with a young fan thanking the panelists for making it cool to be a young female fan.

Bujold Guest Blogs – New Vorkosigan Confirmed Again

Bibliophile and (former?) Stargate Atlantis producer Joe Mallozzi recently convinced Lois McMaster Bujold to come answer questions on his blog after her book Cordelia’s Honor was selected as one of his Books of the Month. (A large percentage of CJers are rather insane for this woman’s writing.)

Interesting insights into the Vorkosigan and Chalion sagas. And she confirmed, again, that she’s working on another Vorkosigan book for 2010. Yays!

While we were drinking…

Here’s some of what’s been going on in the outside world.

Revenge of the Sith won two DVD awards. Also on the official site, November 2006 Comics.

Speaking of comics, don’t bother looking for Legacy #3 in stores. It was supposed to come out today (the schedule even said so until this morning) but it’s… not. Word on the boards is that last week’s books didn’t ship either. (I don’t know: I only buy Legacy.) Dark Horse isn’t the only one: Something is rotten in the comics industry.

“May the force be with you” tops online quote poll. And I don’t think TFN linked the poll, which means it might actually have won fair and square. Cool.

Some new Star Wars miniatures debuted at GenCon. The set includes a “Mystral” Shadow Guard, but unless they came with booze and/or naked men, I don’t think any of us noticed. Also, it seems they’re restarting the RPG.

Colleen Doran witnesses The Fan From Hell. I think we’ve found one that beats the Woodtick, folks.

Those damn Harry Potter plagiarists made it all the way up the fannish blog chain to John Scalzi. Twice.

Other stuff I would have blogged:
NASA has misplaced the original moon landing tapes. Our tax dollars at work!
Daniel Radcliffe is down with Harry Potter dying.
Crazy mofo has “temporary” Wolverine piercing. My hand hurts just looking at it.
Hayden Christensen making some movie.
Things writers have no control over. (Add to the list: Killing Chewbacca.)
The Top 8 Shows For SF Myth Busters.
11 Things in Fantasy/That I Don’t Promise Not to Use (or Keep Using) in My Writing and 6 More Things I Could do Without in Fantastic Literature & I don’t plan to use except to make fun of.