L.E. Turner's Blog, page 12

Nope! Powergirl

Further to my post about the portrayal ofwomen in comics, this is a “Nope” post.

To recap -To stop buying the comics would make me no longer complicit in their portrayals of women, and it would take away the very tiny and insignificant proportion of profit that I give to publishers, but it wouldn’t really change anything. Sometimes, to change something, you need to know it well. It’s very difficult to argue that you disagree with something that you do not partake in. So, here is what I plan to...

In Memoriam: Bustopher Jones

The day I saw you at the animal shelter, I was not convinced.

A while before my dear old boy Rocky had passed away and mum took me to the shelter under the guise of dropping off some donations. She persuaded me to take a look in the cattery, where it turned out she had already been to the shelter and picked you out – we were there to take you home.

Yeah, I was totally not convinced. You were massive, pretty much the biggest domestic cat I had ever seen (its possible you had been surviving on a...

FlashbackFriday: Short Story – The Last Laugh

I wrote this story around 2003 as part of an assignment, it has only ever been read by the class tutor, until now…

Sarah was the first to go.It was shock, but not the kind that really hits you right away. It scared us, it seemed to represent our own deaths, our mortality and that was something none of us were ready to face, perhaps we still had hope. It had already been sixteen days since we last heard from the Controller, since we last had any idea of what was happening, since we had any supp...

Personal: Control over Life

This evening we have an appointment to take my beautiful 18 year old cat to the vets to have him euthanized. He has beenslowly getting poorlyfor a while and a trip to the vets earlier this week revealed poor kidney function, a build up and fuid and bile, and a mass which may possibly be cancer. He is not a well cat. The prognosis was bad and the vet recommended he be put to sleep, because even if they operate he will never really be well again. We would just be prolonging his pain with no rea...

Nope! Supergirl

Further to my post about the portrayal of women in comics, this is my first “Nope” post.

To recap -To stop buying the comics would make me no longer complicit in their portrayals of women, and it would take away the very tiny and insignificant proportion of profit that I give to DC, but it wouldn’t really change anything. Sometimes, to change something, you need to know it well. It’s very difficult to argue that you disagree with something that you do not partake in. So, here is what I plan to...

Women in Comics: Frustrations and what I plan to do about them

There is already so much out there that people have written about the portrayal of female comic characters. In fact, beyond that -the treatment of women in comics and their portrayal as characters. There is so much in fact that it is almost impossible to sift through the blogs, newspaper articles, fan-sites, forums, and academic papers on the subject. So much so, that I’ve wondered about weighing in with my own point of view, because really do I have anything more to add to this deluge?

One th...

FlashBackFriday: Review – Batman Year One

Batman Year One – Trade Paperback, 1987.
Written byFrank Miller, illustrated byDavid Mazzucchelli, colored byRichmond Lewis, and lettered byTodd Klein.

A good number, if not the vast majority, of readers coming to this volume will have been exposed to enough Batman through various media, to have a reasonable idea of the character and his story.And interestingly, this volume seeks to add very little to that.In 1986DC’sEditorialBoard decided that their three biggest players, Batman, Superman and...

Call out to reviewers and bloggers!

Originally posted on :

It is not lost on me that About the Nature of the Creature has been sitting dormant for quite some time. It is something that I have struggled with myself over.

The fact is that when I the novel was first released a marketing launch and campaign was in place. A few copies made it out to reviewers and then things ground to a halt. In fact the marketing train was derailed before it even left the station. This is something that has caused me a lot of sleepless nights.

In the...

Kyniska: Olympic Victrix

The recent winter Olympics in Sochi have been divisive across the globe on a political level. But regardless of your personal views, or whether or not you are even a sport fan, it cannot be denied that the Olympics creates national icons, sporting heroes and cultural role models, often even beyond their identity as an athlete. What better time then to take a look at one of my personal favourite figures from history – the 5th Century BCESpartan princess and Olympic Victrix, Kyniska.

Sparta is a...

Short Story: Golf Clubs

What happens when the world comes to an end, the dead are walking around stinking up the place, and all you’ve known is over? There isn’t much use for your 60 words per minute or your excellent research skills. But, if you happen to be drag queens and burlesque performers, perhaps you do have some skills that won’t go to waste after the apocalypse. After all, everyone needs a bit of entertainment.

Follow the tales of Monkey and her friends as they get on with life in a corpse ridden world. Aft...