When I was 17, Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) hit movie theaters. My two best friends and I went to see it together, and had a sleepover after. We joked about how hot Chris Evans was (and IS, to be fair), the weird look of his face pasted on a scrawny body, Peggy's love loss (little did we know, then, HA!), and notably, how I was the one who convinced them to go see it (me and Chris Evans' bod, again, to be fair). I was already the girl who was "a little too" into superheroes. Iron Man had been 2008, it's sequel a year ago at that point, and even Thor had dazzled us in late Spring of that year. I felt like I was seeing the most clear pattern in the universe, but all my friends laughed when I first said it at 17 years old: "It's a good time to be a nerd!" At the time, they laughed in jest, but I knew their heart wasn't in it. They truly didn't follow, because I's always had that reputation. I was the girl who'd practically grown up in the high school Robotics program (where, fun fact, in maybe 2006 I was first introduced to current DC comics by way of a club-dad and editor at the company). My parents took away books as kids when my sibling and I misbehaved, not any toys. I was, plainly, one of the geeks. As an anecdote, somewhere out there is a picture of my sister and I with our two oldest girl-friends (also sisters), jumping on the beach in an image taken by our respective moms. Our friends posed in their jump, as I now know is expected, but my sister and I just....jumped. Flatly, up and down. Because we were dorks, and that's simply who we'd always been raised to be. In our house, we grew up on PBS Kids; I don't remember ever learning that Vader is the father of Luke and Leia, or that Peter Parker is Spider-Man and Clark Kent Superman. It was knowledge I feel I've always had. Growing up in our house, there was only ever time to be a nerd. It is now 2024, and as a fan, those first steps of the MCU are almost mythological to have experienced as they were happening. The World has changed immeasurably, but there is one thing I am more than certain of, now more than ever, 13 years later: Folks, it is a good damn time to be a nerd. I made it the tagline on this site 5 years ago for a reason. Through political upending, national and international drama, wars across nations, unspeakable moments in history, an actual global pandemic, and more... it is every day. Every day we have these things to look forward to, these silly little stories of people trying their hardest, fighting through personal hardship to still do their best, failing, and continuing to try. Be them superheroes, alien space pilots, mythical beasts, or a 1950's housewife with a past, the stories will always keep coming. And that's why I continued to say it, write it here, and have a little laugh almost every time a new, exciting announcement is made. It's a good time to be a nerd. At this point, I think most of the media and popular culture sees it, too. And people don't laugh anymore, or assume I'm being silly, when I tell them. Even the friends I had at 17 grew to fall into those interests as well, long after we parted ways. It IS a good time to be a nerd. Hobbies that were once mocked, like Dungeons & Dragons, Anime and Manga, even the multitudes of card collecting games have all grown to be pretty much accepted in the public eye, some becoming more of household names than any of us dorks could have ever dreamed a decade or two ago. It wasn't foreign films or arthouse movies that changed the perception of what makes a successful movie theater run, it was these silly superhero stories from comic books, that made literal billions of dollars, raising the bar of what SHOULD be earned to Executive eyes. As complicated as that gets, the effect is undeniable. Geek culture is very openly having it's moment, and the world seems to agree, now. It's a good time to be a nerd. I have almost had this site for five years, and it's gone through a number of changes. I hope at least, the spirit has remained the same. As the creator, I have changed quite a lot, too. I am now in my 30's, married, and my fantasy-princess long curly hair has been mostly shaved off for a number of years now. Life happens, time pushes on, and you figure it out. You learn about who you are, and you grow into yourself. With any luck, you, too, are more confident, happier, and smarter than you were in 2019. So where do I, this blog, and occasionally, podcast, stand, now? 5-year check in, GO! Still trying to grow the Yancy St + 10th discord community! https://discord.gg/D8ShrN6uVF We've got weebs, collectors, well-behaved deviants, geeks, shybois, freaks, stoners, bakers, collectors, and maybe YOU! I said collectors twice. Oh well. the Sensational She-Geek youtube channel does still get updates every now and then, most recently with action figure reviews for Kaiju No. 8 and the new Marvel Legends Sensational She-Hulk! Coming soon: an overview of our comics collection highlights! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-KoazT-HEFbqCALjxRLjFQ the Big Five and my personal Top 13 I will not provide a reason to my choices, nor why they are almost all Marvel. Basically, iykyk. If you don't know, check out the various things I've written about them! Try the reading orders page, that's a great start. Now. 1-5 in no particular order:
As for the rest, I have a fair amount of content for them all, whether it's been posted or not. They all deserve their own tags, but you can find them under "Big 5" or "Top 13" in the blog tags, for now. We're all a work in progress, what can I say. Character "Bibles" and other updates coming to the blog The first thing I have to do is update the reading lists that I already have going, and add commentary to those that I do that for (see the list above, basically). After that, I'll be merging them with the information I've collected for their podcast specials, since I have that research on most my reading order characters. What I want is to be an ultimate resource for anyone looking into these female characters, who I am passionate about for various reason. Ideally, I will also add MORE content on them for their Bibles, updated and with fresh takes. I still want to keep this as some kind of resource for beginners of all these communities I am a part of! Be it comics, manga, anime, or whatever, I want to keep as much beginner/starter information available here as possible. Feel free to flip about the tabs, read what I've got right now, and let me know on Threads or Instagram [both @annawiththecomics] (or however!) what you think I can do to make it better! Posting my current reads and watches these pages are very much works in progress, but I hope you can see the vision! For the comics I'm currently keeping up with, I've been posting their reviews/discussion in the discord community, which will continue to be where they premiere, but then they'll end up here. Some of them are just....so long, already, and extensively commentated on by myself. In those cases, for my own sanity mostly, I'll simply be continuing the commentary and reviews on the blog, not posting the previous issues. For that, you can still go to the Discord, where I will still be posting 100% of the content I write about. As for the list of what I'm watching, I've created a fun Excel sheet that mimics the handwritten one I use in my office, charting shows across each day for each season: Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. I don't do written commentary about these, or episodic reviews, but I encourage you to join the Discord again to do so! We have community tabs for all of this fun stuff, trust me. Personally? I have writers block, but a number of honestly, genuinely solid things to work on. I have a number of "coffee table books" in the mill, at least one solid comic I'm working on the pitch for, and two books that are eating away at my soul if I don't keep working at them. but those are all stories for another day. It's a good time to be a nerd. Keep it sweaty.
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