Interesting. Anna Wintour, the inspiration for fictional, abusive fashion editors in The Devil Wears Prada and Ugly Betty will be filming a reality series for A&E. I’m looking forward to this, if only for the glimpse into what goes into creating a major magazine. I’m sure we’ll get people yelling at each other, instead.
• Hoo-boy, here’s yet another comic creator acting like a fool in public (via Beaucoup Kevin) Hear those snickers? That’s what you’re most likely to get when you attack your critics.
• Have your heard of Alice Frick before? She was an early Doctor Who producer who was key to the series’ eventual long existence.
• If anyone else was seeking a recipe for Japanese-style “Vermont Curry” that doesn’t call for a mix you can find one here. I might try customizing this one, if I find this makes a good template.
• At Shakespeare’s Sister, litbrit notes the juxtaposition of incidents where the leader of a country was accused of major crimes is getting discussed in the news. She raises an interesting point, news media coverage are definitely using two sets of measuring sticks.

I hope everyone out there has a happy new year ahead of them.

• Scott gives us his look at the Best and Worst Comic Medicine of 2006.
• I don’t want to know anyone who got a jewel-encrusted Hello Kitty for Christmas.
• There’s plenty of hilarious snark to be found at The Greg Land Deconstruction Project. As expected, there are plenty of gifs to be found of Land’s artwork and the photos he traced for that artwork. (via Beaucoup Kevin) Some gay creator needs to do a comic parodying Land’s art where every third guy looks like Jamie Bamber.
• Me, I find a silver-haired Ben Stiller to be pretty smokin’.
• Haagen-Dazs is repeating its flavor search competition. (via) Anyone think the world is ready for Rose Ice Cream? Cherimoya? Has Haagen-Dazs put out a Lychee Ice Cream yet?

• Dorian has the Best Snark-tastic Recap of 2006 in comics fandom, get a years worth of comics blogosphere dysfunction in one post.
• Speaking of dysfunctional comic fanboys what’s up with these ads Johanna found. Hoo-boy, that’s why I only visit major comics sites when a comics blogger says there’s something worth reading, there.
• From the Missed Opportunities Dept: Jenna Fischer says she approached the producers of Dancing with the Stars and was turned down. Fisher would have brought some new viewers to Dancing, I expect. She is, after all, the greatest celebrity on MySpace ever.
• Oh. No. According to a profile on radio host Stephanie Miller CNN contacted her about a possible show. (via) I’ve enjoyed Miller’s radio show in the past and even remember her short-lived talk show, but she’s primarily a comedian even when she comments on the news. I’d love for Miller to return to television, but I don’t want to see that on any “news” channel. The line is blurred enough already with all the pundits playing news anchor.
• SFist samples Balut a delicacy in the Philippines and Vietnam that, coincidentally, came up in a lunchtime discussion with a friend recently. (She said the red wine mustard on The Spouse’s plate looked unfortunately like Balut. It turned out she was thinking of blood soup.)

Does anyone out there use MyBlogLog.com? From the looks of things, I’d call it a blog-centered MySpace (that sounds odd, somehow) with communities centered around a particular blog. I’ve signed up with an account but haven’t found any community based on blogs I frequent.

I’ve seen a couple of interesting MyBlogLog.com plugins, so I’m a tad curious if they’d be worth giving a further look…

Metrokitty coined the term “You touched my stuff” which accurately described a formula for action movies one that, until Kill Bill vol 1, featured a woman defined in no greater terms than her value to her man, the hero of the film. It’s a great turn of the phrase that quickly describes how stories of this nature as little more use for female characters than as possessions to be lost and be avenged.

While I was away, Kitty gave us another short phrase that says so much — “The Paper Mirror” which describes the feeling of reading something that expresses something you previously thought you were alone in feeling, noting that this is will be harder for the male creators working on DC’s Minx books to evoke. It fits well in that discussion, but it’ll fit so well in other discussions yet to come.

Livejournaler Morchades notices an article mentioning that the 110th Congress will include the first two Buddhist members of Congress in addition to the first Muslim member of Congress that has generated so much dumb punditry, Mazie Hirono of Hawai’i and Hank Johnson of Georgia.

That got me to do a bit of Googling that lead me to a pair of interesting blog entires attempting to explain the religious background of each politician. Mazie Hirono is listed as belonging to Jodo Mission, a sect that I encountered frequently growing up in Hawai’i. My impression of Jodo is that it’s not as philosophical as most Westerners perceive Buddhism, I’d describe most of the Jodo Mission services I’ve attended (mostly funerals, which might bias my impression) as resembling your most mundane and calm Christian Church service, except with chanting and bells.

Hank Johnson, meanwhile, belongs to (what sounds like) a sometimes-controversial sect that’s included celebrities like Tina Turner, Orlando Bloom, Duncan Sheik and Patrick Duffy.

It’s some interesting reading, at least. Too bad it doesn’t seem to be getting much media attention outside of liberal blogs (or so it seems based on Google) since this seems significant enough to spill a little ink. (Though I’m a bit surprised that Hawai’i never elected a Buddhist to Congress until now.)

• After objecting to Publisher’s Weekly Top Ten Manga and Top Five Manhwa for 2006 list Kethylia compiles her own list of the 2006’s best manga. I’ve got to check out Close the Last Door just based on her past praise of Yamada Yugi and calling Let Dai the “Korean answer to Banana Fish” certainly gets my attention.
• The BBC’s wedding present to John Barrowman? A an order for a second season of Torchwood.
• David Welsh once again sings the praises of La Esperanca. I passed on that title after reading a preview, but David’s getting me to reconsider that (it still sits in the purchase queue after Close the Last Door, Hero Heel as well as the final volumes of Yellow and Antique Bakery.
• ABC’s adaptation of Footballers’ Wives moves forward, with a pilot order. Bryan Singer, who last directed the pilot for House, may direct the pilot.
• Wow. A conservative group wants to Take Back the Rainbow, saying that the symbol of LGBT pride was perverted from originally being a holy symbol. Sigh.

Before noticing the Beat Girl the first thing that caught my attention on the cover for the January 2007 issue of Shojo Beat was a giveaway for a pink DS Lite.

See, early in Shojo Beat’s run, they gave away a pink iPod mini generating a letter from a male reader saying that he felt left out by the sweepstakes because he wouldn’t want such a girly-colored prize. The letter got a response from an editor promising more gender-neutral colors (like a green iPod mini) saying that they didn’t want to leave any of their readers feeling left out. I felt mixed on this, as much as I believe in comics gateways being inclusive, a part of me felt like I was seeing male privilege at work — that fanboys get to justify excessive cheesecake in comics by pointing to the percentage of male superhero comic readers, but a girls’ comics anthology ends up avoiding features that leave boys feeling excluded.

But now, apparently, pink is back at Shojo Beat and we’re seeing pink prizes being given away by the magazine. I find this interesting, considering the lettercol from the magazine’s early run (the magazine had a different editor at the time, IIRC).

And then I read the Editor’s Letter introducing the Beat Girl:

Who is the Beat Girl? Well, in a nutshell… she’s all of our readers! She loves dressing up in fancy clothes and going out with friends, as well as staying in, putting on her favorite jeans, eating popcorn and watching anime. She changes her hair color as often as she changes her mind, and her skills at Guitar Hero 2 are unmatched. She likes all kinds of music, but is really getting into J-pop and J-rock. She’s a big fan of shojo manga, is filled with curiosity about the world around her and loves making new friends.

Looks like the “Boys welcome, too!” sign (to paraphrase the sign at Working Girl Deli) has been quietly taken down at Shojo Beat.

Catching up after the vacation edition:

• David Welsh reads far more comics than I do, but has similar tastes, so I found his year-end Year In Fun as well as his second list a good guide for the next time I’m ready for a new title (that said, I just picked up Hikaru No Go volume 3). 12 Days, Emma, ES and American Born Chinese are pretty high on my lists already.
• Wow. So, the ghost writer who wrote an official, fictional blog for Archie Comics heroine Betty complained about an upcoming revamp of the character and then moved to another blog off of Archie Comics’ website to air greviences against the new look? How strange.
• Tim Gunn tops Reality Blurred’s year-end list of 2006’s Top Reality Whores, which turns into a compliment noting how he did all those reality TV whore things while still seeming classy.
• Brian K. Vaughan joins the writing staff at Lost. It’s almost enough to get me to consider giving the show another chance, considering the level of skill with serialized storytelling that Vaughan’s comics work show, but I suspect Lost is so far past their shark jump that there’s no turning back.
• Check out the Japanese version of the Mac vs. PC ads. I think I like Japan’s Mac guy better than Justin Long and their PC guy doesn’t suffer in comparisons to John Hodgman.

Hooboy, catching up on a week’s worth of being away from the blogosphere sure takes a lot, doesn’t it? More links tomorrow…

1. “One year later”: Battlestar Galactica easily had the most daring season-ending cliffhanger when it jumped forward in time one year, leaving things drastically changed and headed to conflict that changes the series direction masterfully.
2. When Dwight met Andy: When the Stamford and Scranton offices merged on The Office, there were plenty of jokes about the Scranton employees meeting their Stamford equivalents. Nothing beats the meeting of Dwight and Andy, two people who take themselves and their jobs way too seriously. The battle for supremacy between these two led to some of the series biggest laughs — and that’s saying something.
3. Stephen Colbert’s Green Screen Challenge: When Stephen Colbert uploaded video of him spinning a light saber against a green screen, challenging his viewers to turn it into something interesting, the results were great. Colbert’s creative team managed to top all those entries, however, with the appearance of finalist “George L from Marin” who turned out to be George Lucas with an ILM-created Colbert video.
4. Blythe Hunter at the Vengeance Superstore: MyNetworkTV’s English-language telenovelas finally got a moment worth turning into pop culture reference to endure on Wicked, Wicked Games (a vast improvement over the network’s initial offerings) when Tadum O’Neal’s revenge-obsessed character retorted, “I am shopping. I’m shopping at the Vengeance Superstore and I’m buying in bulk. If the show had more viewers, I’d expect a Vengeance Superstore t-shirt from Glarkware.
5. Robin Sparkles: I’ve said before that How I Met Your Mother isn’t a show that makes me laugh, but I enjoy following the characters enough that I keep watching. That changed for the series in an episode that introduced the “slap bet” as well a deep, dark secret for one character — a history as a Canadian teen pop singer. Even better, the episode to follow was similarly funny, a sudden improvement in an already-enjoyable series for me.