media info
Welcome to the online Media Kit for Girl-Wonder.org. This resource is designed to aid those interested in writing about the site for publications such as college newspapers, and also to provide background information and contact details to those wishing to know more about the project.
Background
Girl-Wonder.org was created by comic book fans in response to a rising level of frustration at the treatment of female characters, creators and fans inside and outside the comics industry.
Website founder Mary Borsellino assembled a team of contributors who shared a common belief that comics could do better. Together, they created Girl-Wonder.org.
Girl-Wonder.org is a collection of sites established by a diverse talent pool of commentators and fans, all of whom are dedicated to the goals of fostering an attentive, empowered audience community and encouraging respect and high-quality character depiction within the industry.
The mascot for the site is Stephanie Brown, Batman’s murdered female Robin, a recent example of this genre’s shameful mistreatment of women characters. Her fate is symbolic of much larger problems facing the superhero genre. Project Girl Wonder, is a letter campaign protesting Stephanie’s depiction.
As of April 8, 2008, the Project Girl Wonder Campaign is no longer being actively pursued by Girl-Wonder.org. This site now serves instead as an archive of Mary Borsellino’s remarkable work. The Girl-Wonder.org board would like to thank all those who participated in the initial campaign, and encourages anyone who feels moved to contact DC Comics regarding the return of Spoiler.
Super. Girl. is a website detailing the history and cultural impact of the Maid of Might.
Girl-Wonder.org is proud to host webcomics which we feel contribute to the advancement of women in comics. Planet Karen is the diary-style comic of British goth-girl Karen Ellis, while Goodbye Chains, by A. Hunt and Tracey Williams, is a heart-warming Wild West story about scurrilous bastards, lovable communists, and several hundred pounds of dynamite. Rounding out our showcase is The Tower, a wordless comic by Saki Miyamoto and Brendon Bennets.
Girl-Wonder.org also hosts many opinion columns, several academic papers, a general links blog (GWOG) and the active feminist-friendly forums.
Review Copies
Girl-Wonder.org hosts several bloggers and staff members who are happy to accept review copies of creative and critical works.Due to volume and time constraints, we cannot guarantee that any one blogger or staffer will review what he or she receives. Bloggers are much more likely to review items that in some way engage with the topics of their individual blogs. For mailing information, please e-mail Hannah Dame.
Advertising
Advertising space is available on Girl-Wonder.org. Pop-up and flash ads are not permitted.Girl-Wonder.org’s goals are to foster an attentive, empowered comics fan community; encourage respectful, high-quality character depiction; promote scholarship by and about women in comics; and assist the professional development of women working in the field of comics. Advertisements for products or organisations that may be at odds with these goals are unlikely to be accepted. We reserve the right to see proposed advertisements before they are accepted.
Please e-mail business@girl-wonder.org for a price scale.
All profits recouped from advertising on Girl-Wonder.org directly support the organization.
Representatives
Girl-Wonder.org and its sub-sites are managed and maintained by a large, international volunteer team, and features the contributions of hundreds. There cannot be said to be any single viewpoint or opinion which all participants have in common beyond the site’s core goal of fairer treatment for women and girls in mainstream comics.
Due to international timezone considerations, the best and easiest way to make initial contact with any of Girl-Wonder.org’s spokespeople is through the email addresses detailed below. Arrangements can then be made for phone or in-person interactions.
Press Coordinator: Hannah Dame
Based: USA East/South
Email: hannahdame@girl-wonder.org
Hannah spends large chunks of her free time consuming superhero media while she works on a degree in English at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. She has written for The Vital Voice of St. Louis, MO, produced content for the Tuscaloosa News of Tuscaloosa, AL, and one day hopes to professionally inflict her fannish inclinations on the masses. Barring that, Hannah will settle for occasionally writing overlong essays and inflicting them on Google users. She is available around the clock for press contact, and her phone number can be provided upon request.
Hannah is a host and producer of Four Color Heroines, Girl-Wonder’s podcast. In March 2008 she presented a paper entitled “She-Rambos in Lipstick: Authorial and Artistic Depictions of Androgyny and Femininity in Comics” at ImageSext.
While fairly new to the comics world, having entered via manga and the public library, Hannah has a connoisseur’s tongue for odd comics. Her prize and joy is currently the Alf Christmas Special, and she still seeks the most elusive prey of Superman/Thundercats. If a comic has giant robots, martial arts, or costumes with hoods and/or neck scarves she is almost guaranteed to read it.
Spokesperson: Karen Healey
Based: South/East Australia.
Email: aliaskaren@girl-wonder.org.
Karen Healey writes the Girl-Wonder.org column Girls Read Comics (And They’re Pissed). She is a New Zealander studying American superhero comics in Australia, which occasionally confuses people.
Her doctoral dissertation has the working title “Power and Responsibility: Fan Creators, Fan Consumers, and the Modern Superhero Comic”, but she secretly calls it “Superhero Comics Are Really Fanfiction And That’s Quite Interesting”. Her master’s thesis is entitled “”Empowering Erotica?”: Objectification and Subjectivity in the Journals of the SuicideGirls” and examines the union of pornography and women’s life-writing as presented on alternative pin-up site SuicideGirls.com.
In 2007 she collaborated with Terry D. Johnson to write “Comparative Sex-Specific Body Mass Index in the Marvel Universe and the “Real” World.” In May 2006 she presented a paper entitled “The Secret Origins of Jessica Jones: The Feminist Anti-Superhero in Brian Michael Bendis’s “Alias”” at WisCon 30.
Karen likes good comics, strong liquour and excellent chocolate, and dislikes the patriarchy.
Spokesperson: Lena Williams
Based: Great Britain/Western Europe
Email: lena@girl-wonder.org.
Lena Williams’ first introduction to comics came in the pages of Twinkle and Beano. After a break of several decades, she got sucked into superheroes and has since made a concerted effort to read everything ever published. She has not yet despaired of achieving this goal and can often be found haunting comics shops to track down elusive back issues.
She has an ever-expanding interest in the history of superhero comics, with particular attention paid to how changing attitudes have shaped the characters. She also believes that any comic can be improved by adding monkeys and that sidekicks rock.
Spokesperson: Elizabeth McDonald
Based: Canada.
Email: elizabethm@girl-wonder.org.
Elizabeth McDonald lives in balmy Winnipeg, Manitoba, where she attempts to spread her love of comics to her slow-moving prey. Her first contact with comics came at the age of seven, when she discovered her local library collected hard bound Prince Valiant weeklies. She then moved on to Asterix, thus exhausting her library’s collection.
Elizabeth points to Darwyn Cooke’s New Frontier, when asked to explain her love of spandex-comics. She has a soft spot for improbable anatomy, overly complex doomsday devices, and any story where Batman wears a hat.
Elizabeth has an arts degree that has equiped her to write papers. This has led her to hang out on the internet vigorously sharing her opinions.
Spokesperson: Dr Stephen Dann
Based: North Australia.
Email: stephendann@girl-wonder.org.
Stephen writes the Girl-Wonder.org column Designated Sidekick. He is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Management, Marketing and International Business, College of Business and Economics at the Australian National University. His research interests include the adaptation of marketing to non commercial applications such as social change causes.
Dr Dann holds a PhD and Bachelors degree in Commerce from Griffith University, Australia, and a Bachelor of Arts majoring in government and Law from the University of Queensland.
He has written, researched and published in a diverse range of marketing sub disciplinary areas including Internet marketing, marketing communications and consumer behaviour. In addition, he has co-authored a series of text books, articles and conference papers in marketing.
Spokesperson: Rachel Edidin
Based: North-West USA
Email: racheledidin@girl-wonder.org
Rachel Edidin was going to go to graduate school, but instead decided at the last minute to move to Portland and make comic books. She writes the Girl-Wonder.org column InsideOut.
Rachel has a B.A. in Creative Writing and a B.A. with Honors in English Literature. She has worked as a tutor, a college writing center director, a freelance writer and editor, a potter’s assistant, a cashier, a janitor, a rape crisis advocate, and a massage therapist and is currently an assistant editor at a major comics publisher. On the side, she remains a rogue scholar, writer, and general hell raiser.
Rachel discovered both comics and feminism at the age of two, when she found her parents’ Sylvia collections, and has been hooked on both ever since. In May 2007, she presented a paper titled ” ‘Wait And See What I Become’: Gender and Performativity in James Robinson’s Starman” at WisCon31.
She sews her own superhero pajamas.
Spokesperson: Leslie Caribou
Based: South-West USA
Email: theinvisible23@gmail.com
Leslie was introduced to comics at the age of nine when her father gave her a box full of Silver Age X-Men and Aquaman books. Since then, she has moved on to a far wider range of titles and swears that Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles changed her life.
Leslie has a BA in Art with a focus on Art History, but threw her Baroque background out the window in favor of of a feminist analysis of superhero comics for her senior thesis. “Women in Refrigerators: Female Superheroes as Victims of Violence,” dealt with the problematic imagery of women and violence in comics.
Currently, Leslie works in the interior design industry. Her interest in green design and sustainable solutions for urban planning fit in well with the San Francisco design community, and unlimited access to fabulous fabrics is a DIY revolutionary’s dream.
Leslie also enjoys hand knitting, playing pool, the martial art Krav Maga, and making a fool out of herself on the dance floor.
Spokesperson: Mary Borsellino
Based: South-East Australia
Email: mizmary@girl-wonder.org
Girl-Wonder.org founder Mary Borsellino is a freelance editor and journalist in Melbourne, Australia.
Mary has a BA (Distinction) majoring in Media Studies with a minor in Creative Writing from the Queensland University of Technology, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Creative Arts/Creative Writing from the University of Melbourne. All she can remember learning is which places near campus sold good coffee.
Mary’s essay “Pink and Blue: Gender in The Sandman” was published in The Neil Gaiman Reader, by Wildside Press.
