Felicia Day

Fast Company ran a bunch of GREAT articles today on web series, also featured in their August print edition! This video and the accompanying article were tons of fun to do (although looking glamorous is definitely the edge of my comfort level ). I loved that dress though! (SO FANCY!)

I’ve been terribly busy and really working on the Guild Season 4 script (we are still working out the contract and don’t have shoot dates or release dates yet, but be patient, it’s all in the works!) but I’ve done a few things I’d like to draw your attention to. Or just compile here so I can get it off my check-list, hehe.

Comic Book Resources has the first 6 pages of The Guild #1 Comic posted. Don’t click if you don’t want spoilers! You can pre-order all three issues many places, including TFAW, and if you have a local store, please call before March 4th because that’s the cutoff date to order copies for stores, and some people might not automatically carry it because it’s new. I appreciate it!

I was interviewed on Attack of the Show today about The Guild Season 3 DVD we’re releasing through CreateSpace, always nice to stop by that set. Talked a little about the comic as well, and Mass Effect 2 (getting in characters pants mostly, hehe).

Also Part 2 of “How to Make a Codex Staff” was posted Monday by master craftsman and artist Greg Aranowitz on his blog. And yes, that screaming is for real. I was terrified of the dremel. One more installment is left!

I have some other things that are upcoming, but I’m pretty locked down in writing mode now, so I’ll touch on those later, including book reviews!

Wanted to link this interview I did at Comics Alliance because I talk a lot about the comic and process of writing it, but also talk a little bit about format and how media might be changing in the next few years. A snippet:

I drive down the street in LA, and the Borders closed down, all the newsstands closed down. With all these tablets coming out, it’s such an interesting time, and over the next year or two years we’re going to see a huge shift in people consuming everything on a screen, and there’s going to be no barrier to how people tell a story.

It seems like there is a huge convergence happening in the way we’re going to get our video, games, and books/magazines/comics.  With Consoles moving into cable (see this NYT article about Xbox), and magazines moving to the new Apple/HP/Asus/Etc Brand tablets, I think that we’re going to see some really interesting melding of all types of entertainment in the next several years.

They are also holding a contest for a signed comic as well, links are at the top of the interview!

Well, this has been an interesting day. This morning I got a Tweet giving me the head’s up that the Vanity Fair article I was in had been posted. I was running out the door, but clicked and saw the GORGEOUS image by Michael Halsband: (including@digitalroyalty@AdventureGirl@JuliaRoy@PRSarahEvans@Pop17) and got very excited and posted a link without reading the article. Well, bad idea.

When I was first approached to do the shoot, I was very excited. The photography in the magazine has always been the best in the business, and the fact that they were interested in doing a piece about Twitter and New Media gave me hope that a magazine firmly in the “establishment” was interested in exploring the subject in a new light.  And then during breakfast I saw some weird Twitter comments go by…and then I read the article…and oh, gosh. Really?!

I can’t tell you how many hours I had to resist rage Tweeting about this subject. The use of inane Twitter lingo like “Twilebrity”, “Tweeple” and “Twitformation Superhighway” (Oh God please stop) just signaled that the writer obviously wasn’t well-researched about the service, or the internet in general, really. And her condescending jibes like, “…somehow this fascinates millions of readers.” Well, whatever.  We’re all used to snarkville.

But what really ENRAGED me what the general tone, which artfully made intelligent, articulate women sound vapid and superficial. Check this part:

For tweeple, e-mail messages are sonnets, Facebook is practically Tolstoy. “Facebook is just way too slow,” says Stefanie Michaels…“I can’t deal with that kind of deep engagement.”
….
“Sometimes,” says Julia Roy, a 26-year-old New York social strategist turned twilebrity, scrunching her face, “when you’re Twittering all the time, you even start to think in 140 characters.”

“Scrunching her face?!” Oh gosh, thinking is hard!

Well, despite the overwhelming insinuation, these women ALL of them are self-made, business entrepreneurs. They aren’t skating by on their good looks, they have businesses. In some of their cases, with professional sports teams and major brands, they help steer the online presence of empires. They are a new kind of savvy business person, cutting the middle man out. Carving and creating new professions. Most importantly, in this celebrity culture of “Jersey Shore” fame, they aren’t just “famous” for being “famous” as the article implies. They have influence in an emerging and important arena. I guess that just wasn’t an interesting angle?  I mean, we’re practically naked in trench coats, who needs MORE zing?!

I am especially sad that in the same issue, Vanity Fair featured 7 very young emerging actresses (most of whom are tied to large corporations like Disney and Nickelodeon) and treated them with much more respect than they gave us.  I feel like an opportunity was missed to celebrate a new kind of independent and liberated woman.  Yes, I’m pretty naive, haha.

Luckily, there are many smart women on the internet whose hackles got raised as much or MORE than mine did. In blog entries at CNET,  Geek Week,  Mediaite.com, smaller blogs like Geek Girl Diva, and many many comments through Twitter and Facebook, everyone picked up on the condescending tone of the article.  (Too bad VF doesn’t have comments enabled on the article, I’d love to see that thread!)  Perhaps this will spur more dialogue about old media’s perception of the internet, and the role of women in new media vs. old?  I can only hope.

Thus ends my “glamorous” experience.  For a few hours during the photo shoot it was like a dream come true.  But their business is about to be gutted by the tablet revolution anyway, so I guess I’ll cut them some slack.

UPDATE (1-10): @digitalroyalty, far right in the photo, has a blog entry up on the situation as well, check out her social media perspective.