Tag: lady business

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Want more Star Wars ladies, in action figure form? We’ll have to vote one in

A Leia in Boushh disguise is one of the few women featured in the 6" Black Series line so far.
A Leia in Boushh disguise is one of the few women featured in the 6″ Black Series line so far.

We’ve bemoaned how hard it is to find action figures of Hera, Sabine, and well, pretty much anyone that isn’t Slave Leia. Sure, there’s a 6″ Rebels Ahsoka figure in the pipeline, but what else can be done?

Seems like Hasbro themselves has an answer – well, sort of. They’re doing a Fan’s Choice poll for a 6″ Black Series figure, in collaboration with several Star Wars collecting fan sites, and all characters (except for those from The Force Awakens) are eligible at this point. All you have to do is submit a name – via the comments at Jedi Temple Archives and Rebelscum, or via email to Yakface. (Also: Jedi News, Making Star Wars, ComicBook.com, Sir Steve’s Guide, Topless Robot, FlyGuy, Yodasnews and Galactic Hunter, Jedi Business.) The top choices at the fan sites will be used to create a top 6 that will go up for a vote on StarWars.com next month, with the winner announced at SDCC.

This is a great opportunity to show Hasbro that there is an interest in more female figures – remember, a Fan’s Choice Poll was how we got that last Mara Jade figure, though that hasn’t stopped at least one fan from making a case for a 6″ Mara.

(H/T to The Mary Sue.)

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The Force Awakens will have a makeup line!

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There will be a The Force Awakens makeup line from Cover Girl, and Rebelscum has some leaked images! (There are no actual TFA images here, just looks from Cover Girl themselves, so I’m not really considering any of this spoilers – read into the lingo as you will, but it’s all fairly boilerplate.) Yes, there is nail polish, but the colors we see in the leaks look pretty standard. Still, the last time we saw a hard push on makeup was with Estee Lauder Yves Saint Laurent back in 1999, so this is a buy-in we haven’t seen in quite a while.

And while as a former nail polish junkie Cover Girl may not be my pick, this does pretty much guarantee you’ll see the stuff everywhere.

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Hasbro delays one of their few upcoming Princess Leia figures

UPDATE: Apparently the figure is only being delayed “due to a production issue with Princess Leia’s robe.” She’ll be back on shelves “later this year.”

hasbro-yavin-leiaSo hot on the heels of the last dustup over the lack of female figures, Jedi Temple Archive reports that Hasbro has pulled the Ceremonial Princess Leia figures from Wave 7 and Wave 8 of the Black Series, replacing her with… A stormtrooper and a clone trooper.

Yakface, one of the first to bring this to the attention of the wider fandom, started the #whereisleia and #wewantleia hashtags.

Devin Faraci at Badass Digest wrote about looking for action figures for his niece, the latest in a familiar refrain:

The fact that Hasbro is canceling one of its few Leia figures means that they’re only keeping the status quo. Would more girl toys sell now, as the demographics of fandom shifts dramatically? No one can know when the toys don’t exist. I wanted to go and spend my money on female characters for my goddaughter, but I was not offered the opportunity. Young female fans should be able to walk into Toys ‘R Us and find a toy based on the largest and most popular stories in our pop culture that speaks to them. It’s as simple as that, and when the only option is a sexualized and subservient variant – why would they want to buy that? Why would their parents want to buy that for them?

Sure, there’s that Ahsoka figure coming and it seems like Boushh disguise Leia is still on, but canceling any of the few Leia figures they were hyping just over a month ago isn’t exactly fostering good faith in their intentions.

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Hasbro thinks they’ve released “plenty of female characters” for Star Wars

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“Hasbro feels they have released plenty of female characters in the line.” That’s the money quote, from a Toy Fair Q&A with collector site Jedi Temple Archives. Granted, it doesn’t seem to be an exact quote, but the sentiment is pretty clear in any case. UPDATE: The answer has since been revised, at Hasbro’s request, to namedrop figures released over the past several years – that Mara Jade figure came out in 2013 – but the problem still remains. The Mary Sue has a great response to this:

It’s not that there aren’t any female characters in their line, because of course that would be untrue—it’s that they clearly take a backseat to the male ones which Hasbro thinks will sell better to boys.

Hasbro also said have no more Leia figures planned at the moment. (Though I doubt that includes The Force Awakens, which they are very much not talking about yet. But then again, who knows?) Asajj Ventress is also in the “no current plans” category.

Does our only hope for more than a paltry handful of women figures rest solely in the hands of the new film? We know there are multiple women in the cast, but such is the case with Rebels, and that rollout certainly hasn’t been without issues. (Though the recent issues finding figures – all figures – is likely due to an ongoing labor dispute at west coast seaports.)

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Athena’s Daughters 2 highlights women, diversity in speculative fiction

athenas-daughters-2Today marks the launch of the Kickstarter for Athena’s Daughters 2, a collection of short speculative fiction by diverse women about diverse women. In Athena’s Daughters 2, publisher Silence in the Library set out for the second time to produce an anthology where women were involved in all aspects of the creative process, from the artists to the authors, the editors to the project managers. We hope that you will support this exciting short story collection of science fiction and fantasy by some wonderful writers.

A year ago, Silence in the Library ran a Kickstarter for the first Athena’s Daughters anthology. That successful campaign funded the first anthology, a companion anthology, Apollo’s Daughters (stories about women, but written by men), and the production for Athena’s Daughters 2. For Athena’s Daughters 2, Silence in the Library had an open call for submissions.

I was thrilled and honored to have a story accepted to this amazing anthology. Athena’s Daughters 2 marks my first published fiction since the Star Wars stories I wrote with Club Jade co-founder Chris Cassidy for Tales of the New Republic and Star Wars Gamer.

Athena’s Daughters 2 has many other ties to Club Jade. CJer Elizabeth Bridges also has a story featured in the anthology, her first original fiction story!

athenas-pennyblossomJanine Spendlove, also a CJer, co-edits Athena’s Daughters 2. Janine, an active KC-130 pilot in the United States Marine Corps, is the author of the War of the Seasons trilogy. She co-founded Geek Girls Run with, among others, BrightCopperPenny, another CJer, and maker of Penny Blossoms. If you check out the Kickstarter page, you’ll see the special Penny Blossom that BrightCopperPenny designed just for Athena’s Daughters 2; it’s available both as a $15 add-on and for a $22 pledge!

Silence of the Library has published many CJ alums and friends, including Janine, Bryan Young, Ron Garner, Mike Stackpole, Tim Zahn, and the late Aaron Allston.

I hope you’ll click through to read more about this amazing project and watch the hilarious musical video that accompanies it, complete with filking, chorus line kicks, and Vegas-style showgirls! Athena’s Daughters 2 needs your support.

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Rebels opinion: The problem with pink armor

The problem with pink armor. Tracy Gardner on Rebels, Disney and gender riles. I’m hoping we see Sabine repaint her armor every couple episodes or at least every season (think of the marketing potential!) but I do find somewhat disturbing that she and Hera look like they’ll very easily fall into the ‘love interest’ and ‘mom’ roles in regards to Ezra.