Many people out there have headed back to school this week, whether they are students, teachers, or loving parents. And if not this week, then they’ve probably been at it long enough to already long for the blissful freedom of summer vacation.

And so, as the fortunate or unfortunate majority who no longer return to those hallowed halls yearly, and instead must assign our own homework, we’d like to highlight some schools where it doesn’t seem like any learning goes on at all, or where half the student body is dead by the end of the first semester.

Blame it on the gray skies, blame it on the end of the Steam Summer Sale, blame it on the interminable length of time between now and the winter holiday season. At the end of summer, gamers can find ourselves convinced there are no good games coming out. Ever.

But never fear! There’s still plenty left in 2012 to get excited about. I’ve gathered a selection of upcoming releases that will hopefully pull you out of your impending autumn blues!

With summer interns making their way back to the hallowed halls of education and Jill and I starting to realize just how close New York Comic Con is, we felt it was a good time to take a look back at the good, the bad, and the… wait, that came out this summer? Eugh. I’d repressed it from my memory.

Are you interested in reading manga, but don’t know where to start? Are you an avid comics fan looking to bulk up you feminist-friendly reading list? Much like anime, good, feminist manga is often difficult to find, especially when you’re relying on reading titles that are legally licensed in the United States. It’s often a very thin line that separates manga that pokes fun at sexist tropes, and manga that regularly utilizes sexism to advance its plot, and even if you can find that rare-as-a-unicorn story, there’s no guarantee the story will be compelling and worth $10 a pop. But don’t worry: we’re here to help. Hit the jump for 10 manga series you should totally throw your money at!

It can be rough when your show goes on hiatus. It can be especially rough when your show goes on hiatus after one of the most emotionally harrowing season finales you’ve ever seen, with nary a promise of when to return other than “sometime after Peter Jackson frees Martin Freeman from New Zealand.” And considering they’re going back to film a third Hobbit film, that probably isn’t anytime soon. BBC’s Sherlock series said they’d start filming the third season “sometime in 2013,” which could be anywhere from six months to a year and a half from now. In the meantime, we’re still chock-full of what we can only call “Reichenfeels,” and sometimes we just don’t know where to put all of them. To help ourselves (and you), we put together this list of six things you can do to distract yourself while we wait.

History: It’s chock full of colorful characters and crazy random happenstances. But more often than not, when a historical character makes it to the big screen it’s in the form of a  cookie-cutter biopic. What gives? History is dynamic and exciting! As a history geek, I’d much rather see Napoleon fighting wizards and fairy kings than some boring Oscar bait biopic on the (actually not short!) Emperor. Here are ten examples from TV and film of history geekery done right. Your favorite not make it to the list? There’s a historical character (*coughArthurConanDoylecough*) you really want to show up on Doctor Who? Want to defend Anastasia? Get thee to the comments.

Getting into anime, let alone keeping up with it, can be quite difficult in the United States — so, in order to make your life easier, I’ve compiled a list of 10, feminist-friendly anime to legally watch on Netflix and Hulu!

In honor of The Hobbit‘s wrapping, I took a little personal trip down memory lane to the last time I was this excited about the holiday movie offerings. LOTR — as it is commonly thought of by our lot — fulfilled plenty of our lofty expectations, and then some. It launched, and re-launched, careers, earned its place in cinematic history, and set off more than a few trends that we’re still seeing the effects of today.

We’d like this list to serve not only as a celebration of LGBTQ characters on television, but also as a reminder that this is not the end all be all of queer representation: there is so much work to be done, and maybe one day we’ll be able to publish a power grid of queer characters without a disclaimer accounting for all the identities overlooked and misrepresented. These characters are fighting against broader cultural norms and prejudices in a way that improves the lives of queer people everywhere, if only just a little bit.

After thinking about how most of the parent figures in the things we watch and read and play are secondary characters, antagonists, or just plain missing, we wanted to feature parents who were none of those. We wanted to talk about parents who are protagonists.

Our seven Momtagonists are here, but this weekend is Fathers’ day in the US, so we’ll be covering seven Protagidads, all men who are either the main character of their story or, if it’s more of a team narrative, at least as important and vital as the other members of the core cast.