I realize this is a form of slacking. As a weekly contributor to ComicMix, I’m supposed to have the authority and gravitas that justifies the esteem in which I’m held by my colleagues, as well as the salary I’m paid. No answers, no paycheck.
Last week, my pal, Joe Corallo, wrote an impassioned column about Alters, a new series from AfterShock Comics about a group of superheroes that includes a transgender character. Joe was interested in the title but he confessed to a degree of fatigue caused by stories written by cis people about transitioning.
We met for tequila last week and talked about his column. While I hear his point, I think storytellers should tell the stories they want to tell. At the same time, audiences, of course, can ask for the kind of stories they want.
Apparently, Paul Jenkins, the writer and creator of the series, had somewhat similar thoughts. He reached out to Joe, and they did this interview. It touches on a lot of my obsessions. Who decides what stories get told? Who gets to tell them?
I don’t mean storytellers who are also fan, as my colleague Vinnie Bartilucci described. Fandom is its own thing, wild and free, which is as it should be. I mean people who are professional, who either work on creator-owned projects or get hired by the people who own the intellectual properties in question.
These people are, overwhelmingly, straight cis white men. They look like and talk like the people who hire them. Many of them create stories that move me and make me laugh or cry or hide under the covers with my cat because I thought I heard a noise. I’m very happy to live in a world where creators I like get to tell me the stories they want to tell.
At the same time, there are lots and lots of people who are not straight cis white men, who also tell stories that I enjoy. I like what I like. I hope you, too, enjoy getting to like what you like.
There are probably thousands (if not millions) of people of all colors and categories who also could tell me stories I would like, but I’ll never get to see them because they don’t have the same access to media as those mentioned above. I mean, I started to get work at Marvel Comics because I found out Denny O’Neil lived down the street from me, and I volunteered to water his plants when he went out of town. This is not an opportunity that anybody could have, even in the 1980s. It’s just about impossible now, not least because Denny is married and has a better support system for his botanical dependents.
Paul Jenkins wanted to tell a superhero story that includes a transwoman going through her transition. That’s the story that interests him. Joe has read a lot of stories like that (although probably without the super-powers parts) and he would like to read something different.
Who is right?
That’s the part I can’t answer. i’ve liked so much of what Paul has written over the years, and I’m looking forward to seeing what he’s going to do with Alters, especially since it seems like a terrific premise. I’m also with Joe, wanting to see more different kinds of stories.
However, I will note that the most recent issues of both Bitch Planet and The Beauty are telling non-transition stories about transwomen.
The Internet was supposed to change a lot of this. It was going to be easy and inexpensive to publish, and everyone would have equal access to the means of distribution. That didn’t happen in quite the way I wanted (perhaps I’m too old, but finding new comics and reading them online is frustrating for me). The big names tend to be the people who look like the editors, and the editors keep looking like the money people, and the corporations are overwhelmingly run by straight, white men – who also are in charge of distribution, retail, and media.
We need more people telling more kinds of stories that more kinds of people will like. We need to acknowledge, with respect, that some people want to create and/or read stories that we, personally, might not want to read. Having highfaluting discussions about the socio-political implications of our choices is a wonderful thing, and my life would be diminished if I couldn’t do it.
Those opinions are not the same thing as criticism.
Are there stories you want to read about parts of life you think shouldn’t be ignored? By all means, speak up. Tell publishers what you want. Maybe try to create that story with your friends, and self-publish. That would be great.
Do you want to see more diversity in the professional comics community? So do I. Make a lot of noise. Write letters. Post columns. Ask questions at comic book conventions, especially at panels. Our industry is way behind the curve in this matter, and we all suffer as a result.
Paul Jenkins should tell the stories he wants to tell at AfterShock. And AfterShock should have more than one woman on staff and more than three women creators on their roster.
This week we review two amazing comics anyone who bakes or cooks will love. We talk to Nutmeg writer James F. Wright (the art is by Jackie Crofts) and compare that comic about two girls who bake brownies to Space Battle Lunchtime by Natalie Reiss on Oni Press.
Writer’s note: Why after almost two years am I bringing this to a head? Because I’ve tried and tried to reach these guys and still nothing.
I’m also sick, and this was consuming me making me sicker. I reached threshold when Rich Johnson of Bleeding Cool asked me to comment on some verifiable information he now had.
And I’ve had enough.
Eighteen months ago my world, already rocked by a series of devastating events, was almost destroyed.
Milestone 2.0, the new company founded by Denys Cowan, Reggie Hudlin, Derek Dingle and myself hit the world. The initial story broke in the Washington Post a newspaper with a global reach underscoring how big deal this was.
The announcement landed on the comic book press like a bomb, with the explosion killing me. Yep. I’m dead.
That morning I was returning from somewhere I can’t remember where when I noticed substantial activity on my cell phone. I get a lot of texts but rarely does anyone leave voice mails as I don’t listen to them. Who does in this age of ridiculous back and forth texting?
I’m guilty as are most people I know of this utter stupidity. One question asked could result in a 20-minute exchange whereas the same inquiry could be answered in a 20-second call.
My excuse is I detest talking on the phone. That morning I realized I’d have no choice, something important was up, and only a maroon would
forgo a voice for type.
Without listening to any of the voicemails, I decided just call everyone back. I started with my former director of all things cool, Tatiana El-Khouri. If the calls were connected, she would have the scoop.
She had the scoop… and then some.
“Hey, are you all right?”
Any concern in Tatiana’s voice is rare. I’ve known her for 10 years and seldom does her Vulcan-like coolness show cracks of sentiment. This time in her voice I could clearly hear her increasing trepidation.
“Why? Who died?”
She told me that in the massive amount of Milestone 2.0 press blowing up all over the industry, nowhere was I mentioned. She seemed to think I knew about the launch.
I had no idea.
Likewise, no idea about the Washington Post interview with Reggie Hudlin. Given no clue of the press release from DC Comics or any of the dozens upon dozens of other news impressions, unmistakably part of a well put together time-consuming plan.
No one at Milestone 2.0 said a word to me. After four years of working towards this moment, they just discarded me. Despite my considerable efforts on behalf of M2.0 that excellent plan did not include me, I was never included. When I’d asked Tatiana “who died” I never dreamt the answer was me.
I was not only dead. To them it seems very much like they want to bury me as well.
After receiving news of my death, I called Reggie in heated anger. I said some horrible things, feeling justified since such a horrible thing had been done to me.
The truth is the vile things I said to Reggie were not just my reaction to my death at Milestone it was my response to years of hooking Reggie up and being treated with no respect.
I’ve supported Reggie in countless ways since we’ve met. I’ve thrown parties for him, arranged speaking engagements, put together panels as well as personally vouched for him with Urban Ministries Inc., who vet anyone and everyone they bring into their church space.
And believe me, when I say their church space I mean their church space. When Viacom and BET thought they had significant juice to allow them last minute booth access at SDCC they found out they didn’t. I did, and I gladly did so for him.
I also really liked Reggie. I knew he didn’t care all that much for me when we first met, but I grow on people. I assumed since I’ve shown him nothing but love I’d grow on him. He’s an Ivy League-educated man smart enough to see where my heart is and understand my swagger may be annoying at times, but I’m a good brother. I’m an Ivy League-educated man smart enough to see he’d come around.
Parents, save your money. Send your kids to a good state school. Neither of us was smart enough to avoid this bullshit.
The thing I think I was lividest about when I let loose my fury filled tirade on his voicemail was the realization I chose the wrong side when a rift developed between a former brief protégé of mine and Reggie.
Aaron, I fucked up, and I’m sorry.
I continue to regret my words and although I was still livid that morning I called back and apologized. I also sent a text and to my utter surprise, he responded with what seemed genuine concern.
I called Derek Dingle next.
Derek didn’t pick up, so I left a message. Not an outraged one, although still angry and horribly so. I had to get it together. I loved Derek and he would fix this.
I had so much respect and love for Derek that when SDCC did not invite him for Milestone’s 20th Anniversary I told them unless Derek was there Denys and I wouldn’t be there either.
I needed to calm down, so I called my mom. She didn’t answer either, and my call went to her voicemail. It takes me a moment to remember my mom had moved, and I didn’t have her new number in Heaven.
I forgot she was dead, and that’s not the first time I did. Nor the last.
Now I’m crying uncontrollably. Lucky for me I’m no longer alone. My friend Dr. Phil had just knocked.
I call her Dr. Phil because she always giving me advice. She had come by to check on me and bring me breakfast before she went to work. Having survived a parallel depression, she pops in from time to time. She saw the Washington Post story and decided this was one of those times to pop in.
She was right.
Derek calls back, and I felt better. The last time I saw him, he stood beside me in front of my mother’s casket.
“Michael, we’re family. We’re going to do great things together.”
I tell Dr. Phil this is all about to be cleared up. I say to Derek “Tell me who’s colossal screw-up was this? What happened? What’s going on?”
“Michael over 20 years ago when you began the lawsuit against us…” Derek said this in slow, measured tones.
I lost it.
“I did what????” That’s all I got out before my friend shouted:
“You don’t talk to me like that!!! I won’t stand for it!!”
Then he hung up.
NEXT WEEK: 20 Years Ago They Did The Same Thing… Only Different
It’s fully summer now, with all the heat, sunburns and humidity that the earth can muster up. As a summer tradition, I like to hide indoors by an air conditioner and read. It’s much better than outside, where the big orange ball scorches me.
I signed up for the Comixology Unlimited app, mostly to check it out and see how it is. Its biggest strength and weakness is the amount of older material on there. A lot of volume ones but lacking in more recent materials. However, it has given me an opportunity to catch up on some titles that I was always interested in but didn’t start; either due to lack of funds or lack of stock at the library. Luckily, this has lead me back to Valiant.
Before this app, I had only read a few issues of Valiant titles, barely testing the waters in their universe. When Faith came out, I did jump in wholeheartedly because her story really does speak to me and is beautifully created by Jody Houser, Francis Portela and Marguerite Sauvage. I agree with my fellow columnist Martha Thomases that it is a must read. Despite this amazing, eye-catching title, I feel like Valiant series are usually underrated or ignored. So with this app, I finally have the chance to go back to the beginning of the new Valiant universe and start from scratch. (As a side note, the current Valiant universe is based on the original Valiant universe created in the 1990’s. A group of investors/Valiant fans restarted the company and the universe came back in 2012. I’m strictly talking about the newest iteration of this universe.)
Well, I’m loving my journey through Valiant. It’s been an interesting ride, reading what I can from the various series. This entire Valiant universe is weaved so well, it’s almost perfect in its structure. Characters can float from book to book, including overarching villain plans and origin stories. I can finally read Faith’s origin in Harbingers, while also getting introduced to Gilad the Eternal Warrior, Ninjak, Toyo Harada and so many others who show up throughout the universe. For humor I’ve got Archer and Armstrong, and for a taste of true honor I’ve got X-O Manowar.
What I like best is that this is better for me than the big two. I don’t feel the weight of the overtold stories or muddled past. This universe is laid out and still new enough that stories don’t feel repetitive or overdone. When I feel like I’ve missed something, it’s just because I haven’t gotten to that series yet, not because it is a reference to an older story from 5 reboots ago. It’s a fresh, different take on superheroes, mutants (aka psiots in Valiant), aliens, and mythology. With all of our complaining about DC and Marvel constant resets, we had another worthwhile option this whole time.
If you need another opinion than mine, the fact that Valiant received 50 Harvey award nominations this year (as in more than every other publisher) should sell you on checking out this universe. If you haven’t read anything from Valiant, I still think the Faith mini-series is a great place to start, followed by the upcoming Faith ongoing series that starts in a couple weeks. Just remember, Faith is a gateway to a whole new universe of superheroes. Once you get started, I think you’ll want to continue.
Yesterday, I awoke to the news that the should-be city of Brooklyn was honoring the 75th anniversary of Captain America with a 13-foot tall bronze statue, to be planted in Prospect Park next month after visiting the San Diego Comic Con. “Pretty cool,” I said to our cats, who I believe responded with “Yeah? Does he have a pro pass?”
Then I saw the sketch. In case you haven’t seen it, look to the left.
That is not Captain America. That’s the guy who starred in the past several movie adaptations. That one hasn’t been around for 75 years, but he has been around for over five billion dollars.
I really hate it when the media adaptations are conflated with the “real” thing. The biggest event in the history of comic books should have been the marriage of Lois Lane and Superman. Instead, it was just another episode of Lois and Clark – an afterthought that was unceremoniously (comparatively speaking) ported over to the comic book. Getting rid of that fiasco actually justified one of DC’s many, many reboots.
Not all stories work out, no matter what the medium. Movies and teevee adaptations are made for their times. This is understandable when a $200 million budget is on the line. I don’t get angry when they “get it wrong” as long as the end result is an entertaining experience. That’s why it’s called an adaptation. But I do get concerned when the adaptation becomes canonical.
There’s a reason why Captain America has lasted 75 years (admittedly, with a couple years off during the 1950s and 1960s). There’s a reason why Superman and Batman have lasted almost 80 years each. Quite frankly, there’s a reason why the reboots of Doctor Who and James Bond worked so well: both were extremely faithful to the source material. Neither character became somebody or something else. Their re-creators understood what made those characters work.
That’s why I feel it was a mistake for Marvel Comics to replace the Lee and Kirby version of Nick Fury with the Samuel L. Jackson version in their mainstream comics universe. I’m certainly a very strong advocate for diversity in comics. That’s why I asked Joe Corallo to do a weekly column here at ComicMix covering that very issue. But SHIELD is an organization that employs about a zillion people and presumably is a diverse place; coming up with another Nick Fury to track the movies wasn’t necessary.
Statues are likely to last a long while. There’s still a statue of Andy Gump in downtown Lake Geneva Wisconsin – in fact, when some drunken idiot smashed it to pieces in 1967, it was replaced with another. Andy starred in a popular newspaper comic strip called (of course) The Gumps. It ended in 1959 and today very few people know of either the strip or the character. But that statue lives on. It is nice to think it inspires some to Google the name and learn a thing or two about comics history.
Captain America? The movies will be with us in one form or another pretty much forever. The comic book? Sad to say, that’s somewhat less likely – but, clearly, over the course of time more people will know Cap from those movies than from the comics.
I firmly believe that all media is political, that you cannot separate the political component from a cultural artifact anymore than you could strip out narrative or theme. I usually try to only be at about a six out of 10 in terms of political content when writing these reviews because I worry that I might come off as too singularly focused and, if I’m being completely honest, because I’m concerned that my analysis is not nearly sophisticated enough to be my leading edge. I’m throwing that out of the window for The Purge: Election Year partly because it is such an aggressive political piece and partially because other than the political content it isn’t offering much beyond the established Purge formula. If you’re the kind of person who desires no politics in their media criticism I can tell you that The Purge: Election Year is very similar in tone and pace to The Purge: Anarchy and while it has a lot of additional world building it isn’t moving heaven and earth to get there. If you want a fun thriller with a complex if not entirely unpredictable narrative, this is a good choice. I also urge you to stop reading here because from here on out I intend to only engage with the political content.
My main critique of the first Purge movie was that it gestured to some bigger political issues, but was really nothing more than a monster in a house movie. The daughter character is there to raise questions about the fairness of the Purge, but every other character tells her to keep it to herself. At this point it seems they’ve heard this critique and Election Year is much more comfortable engaging in politics and having a clearer point of view on contemporary issues. The ruling party, The New Founding Fathers of America, is a right wing party that has wrapped itself in religion and firmly believes that there is no point in trying to create income equality and is trying to murder the poor. They also hire an army of Neo-Nazis decked out in patches of the Confederate flag and white power slogans to murder their political enemies. I’m sure when they were writing this, it seemed a little more dystopian and far-fetched than it does on a weekend when a major party political candidate posted an image from a Neo-Nazi web forum on his official Twitter account. It’s no coincidence that the last round of advertising I saw for this film features the slogan “Keep America Great”, and it’s nice to see this series engaging with issues instead of pushing it aside for the sake of simpler thrills.
While I appreciate the willingness to go to a more political place, I picked up on some attempts to draw equivalencies between both sides of the issue of purging and I’m not entirely sure that’s appropriate. I want nuanced and complicated characters on both sides of the equation, but I also want it underlined that the people fighting to stop the night of unregulated murder that disproportionately targets their community are much more morally right than their opponents… and I’m not sure the movie always agrees with me there. There is a resistance group, introduced in the last film, composed of almost exclusively people of color that run a hospital on Purge night but that also want to engage in a political assassination to influence the election. I thought the movie made it seem like this assassination attempt was just as evil as the attempt of the ruling party to assassinate the candidate opposed to the purge, and I don’t think there is a moral equivalency here. Trying to stop the Purge is a cousin of self-defense, and while it isn’t a lofty political ideal to kill your opponents I understand why they thought that was their only option. It’s worth noting at this point that my fiancée, a scholar with extensive training in media and representation, does not think that they were saying both groups were similarly bad.
There’s one more unsettling bit in here (as long as we’re drawing parallels to modern politics from a movie made by a studio famous for caring only about keeping costs down and making as many movies as they can). There’s a B story about a deli and the owner trying to protect it on Purge night when his insurance is cancelled at the last minute and the crazy aggressive local girl who is nursing a grudge over a shoplifting incident. I very much want the intent behind this plot to be about how marginalized communities are often turned against each other to fight over scraps instead of fighting against the systems that serve to oppress them. However, the much easier parallel to draw from that is one about “black-on-black violence” and if that’s legitimizing that nonsense to their audience then there’s some actual evil going on here.
I appreciate that with The Purge: Election Year, the franchise is starting to engage with the social issues at the root of their premise. All good science fiction should aspire to engage with contemporary issues and hold a mirror up to the places that could be doing better. At its best moments Election Year is doing a great job at that, and in other places it feels like it is trying to hard to please everyone to have a strong enough perspective on some things. I’m thrilled that there’s the space to have these observations and actual conversations about a Purge movie and I’m excited to see where (if?) things go from here, an enthusiasm I did not have the first time around.
JC: Alters is a passion project of yours that you’ve wanted to pursue for over a decade. Could you talk about the genesis of the project and how it’s changed since its original conception?
PJ: Alters was conceived as a way to tell stories about “superheroes with disadvantages” when I was writing more often for DC and Marvel. I thought that would be a tremendous concept because we’d have people dealing with certain problems – at the time I was slightly more focused on things like physical disabilities – and they’d also have a sort of “super-advantage.” I thought that would be very fertile ground for interesting stories that were in my personal wheelhouse as a writer – very much about characterization and less about powers. Both DC and Marvel always expressed an interest but it’s tough to get new characters off the ground so it never got picked up.
Over time I realized just how many stories there were to be told if I expanded a little more and dealt with different kinds of disadvantage. For example, I fractured my neck playing soccer years ago and have written many times about how hard that period of time was for me. I was indestructible right up until I got hurt, and then I dealt with post-concussion syndrome and very debilitating vertigo. So I am going to do a story about one of our Alters who will be stricken with vertigo every time their power manifests because that is interesting to me. I have stories about a homeless character, a person dealing with PTSD, a person who is bipolar, a person who is dealing with a form of superhero Alzheimer’s. The list goes on.
Despite the opening arc revolving around Chalice, our book is not intended to be the LGBT comic. It’s a comic that has a prominent trans character who will always be a focal point. Why? Because she kicks ass, and her story is interesting. I happen to think she’s going to be a very popular character because she seemed to have a good voice from the first time I wrote her into a script. We shall see how people react to her.
JC: You’ve stated before how diversity is important to you in terms of comic creators as well as their creations. As far as the creative team behind Alters goes, how involved were you in putting the team together or having input on how the team would be shaped?
PJ: I had a lot of input. This decision was guided in part by the initial loading screen in the video game Assassin’s Creed. They state that the game is developed by a team of many differing faiths and beliefs, and I loved that sentiment. I wanted our book to be created by a group of differing ages, genders and gender identities, ethnic backgrounds, you-name-it. With AfterShock, it was not something I had to fight for – they believed in that vision for the project immediately. But remember: this is a book that deals with many types of people so the diversity in our creative team is never going to cover the diversity of the characters.
JC: Though Chalice is a central character, we do know of at least a couple of other Atlers in the series have been mentioned. Could you describe to us the format of these stories? Will this be more of a team book or a shifting narrative?
PJ: I suppose “team book” is a good enough description. I’d probably compare it to the style of the Inhumans, which I wrote for Marvel in the late 90’s. Inhumans was a 12-issue maxi-series in which I’d highlight each character as the story unfolded. In Alters, we will sometimes tell single issue stories about one character or another. We may focus for another character for five issues or so. I happen to think Chalice will always be prominent but then again, so will a few other early characters. One is called Octavian – he’s able to access every portion of his brain, so he’s super-hyper-intelligent. He’ll be around for the duration, too.
We’ll meet new characters as new Alters come into being. There’s a lot of ground to cover, not to mention a number of villains.
JC: Was the idea always to have Chalice as the first character to be highlighted in the series once it got picked up by Aftershock? What ultimately guided that decision?
PJ: Well, I think so, yes. I think Chalice is very intriguing as a character because she has a compelling back story. We have a specific situation in mind for her that creates a sort of “ticking clock” tension from the first moment – she is transitioning but dealing with a tough family situation and is really struggling with how to tell her family. The family are beginning to see changes in her but as they see it, she is the middle brother of three. It’s going to be difficult. And just as she struggles with that transition, she discovers she is a powerful Alter and that changes everything.
JC: Alters, and specifically Chalice, have gotten attention in media outlets including The New York Times and CBS News. What has the reception been towards Alters so far? How does this kind of media attention around a character like Chalice make you feel about the future of comics and expanding diversity in the medium?
PJ: The reaction has, for the most part, been very positive. I think the media are going to probably concentrate on the trans character because transgender has become a popular topic of late. But at the risk of repeating myself, Alters is a comic about many different people who are dealing with disadvantage, whether it be disability or marginalization. I’ve stated this clearly in every interview I have conducted. Chalice happens to be a central character and is featured in the first arc. She’s not the only character in the book. Now with that being said, I’m hopeful that the recent highlighting of transgender in the media will prove to be a positive thing, even if some aspects of the portrayals are negative. Every time we have a dialogue in our society, it helps to effect change. So if Alters simply adds to the dialogue, then that is a small positive.
JC: When creating and ultimately writing Chalice, how did you go about preparing for that? What kind of research did you do?
PJ: I make sure each script is read by at least three trans people who are helping me as consultants. I’m learning that there’s such complexity here that it’s going to take me a long time to really cover things in depth. And of course, people have very different experiences. There is no one way to write a character like Chalice – I can only try to be diligent in my research, and try not to write the obvious. I try not to take too much creative license, and to pay attention when people tell me that my character is doing something unrealistic. Remember, too, that our colorist Tamra Bonvillain is trans. She’s been really helpful, and I’m grateful that she understands I may or may not want the character to do certain things that drive the story. For example, it seems less likely in the scheme of things that a trans person might begin hormone therapy without first alerting their family. But I felt this conceit would help propel the story forward, and while it is unlikely it is at least conceivable (more on this below). I think it is really important that I concentrate on “story first.”
That is the common denominator of every single successful project I’ve ever been involved in. Someone recently told me that I must be a crusader in this endeavor, that by choosing to write about a trans character I have no choice. Well, I happen to disagree. My job is to tell a compelling story and by doing so, the crusade happens organically. If our book becomes preachy or out of touch, we’ll have failed. In order for our characters to feel rounded, they must not know everything, and they must sometimes make mistakes.
JC: In a book like Alters that will have characters of different backgrounds throughout, is a character like Chalice meant more to introduce the idea of a trans character to a cis comic audience that isn’t familiar with someone who is trans or to serve as a character that a queer and specifically trans audience can relate to?
The annoying answer here is “neither, and a bit of both.” As I stated above, my job is to try and write interesting stories about interesting characters. There is no perfect approach. If I write a treatise on my research about trans people then I might as well create a documentary. If Chalice is a kick ass character – and believe me, she is quite strong and powerful in our series so far – then we have a good book on our hands. Having written her, I like her. She’s trying to manage three lives. She has challenges. She’s not perfect but she’s pretty damned cool, and she has a strong will to succeed. She has compassion, especially for her less-than-perfect family. And she sees herself as a defender of persecuted Alters. So she’s more like Spider-Man or Wolverine, and less about some statement I have to make on transgender.
JC: The hook of “a young woman who can only really be herself…whenever she is not herself,” can lend itself to the tragic queer trope, where a character’s tragedy is directly caused by or linked to their queerness, and specifically their transness in this case. Do you feel that is part of Chalice’s story? As her creator, what does define her as a character?
PJ: Okay, so… here I feel I have to take issue with your previous article a little bit. Your description of me as a “well-meaning cis ally” is intended to demonstrate that I don’t understand what I’m writing about, or that we are clearly going to bumble our way through this series with little to no idea of what we are doing. I did not write this book in an ill-considered way. I felt in your article you made this assumption, and glossed over the details because they did not fit your premise. I’m a writer trying to write good stories – that is the be all and end all of it.
Here are a few things that we are not: we are not trying to be crusaders for the trans community. We are, however, featuring a trans character as the focus of our series. We are not inattentive to the difficulties faced by the trans community. But neither are we going to create a tool to educate people about transgender. Instead, by creating a cool, interesting premise (people dealing with disadvantage and hyper-advantage), we create a product that anyone can gravitate to. And if someone learns about or finds a new perspective on the subject of transgender, then that will be awesome. Some trans people have written to me to express their excitement about Chalice. Some have written to me to express their concerns, and I have tried my best to address those concerns and allay their fears. No story in history has ever been perfect, and we don’t expect to be. I readily acknowledge that Alters will never be able to mirror any individual’s personal experience. I hope the readers acknowledge that also.
So to answer your question directly: that particular hook occurs because of a story point, not some ill-advised tagline. Her “transness” does not make her tragic. Her family situation creates an issue which drives the story. Charlie, Chalice’s alter ego, is struggling with self-imposed pressure to keep her family unit intact. Her older brother, Teddy, is stricken with cerebral palsy and she worries that her transition will create added pressure on her parents. But she also knows that this is her time – that she must become outwardly who she really is. So she has begun her hormone therapy in secret, all the while knowing that puts her on the clock, so to speak. This may not be the perfect decision. It’s the one she has made, and she’s going to deal with the ramifications. And right in the middle of this, she suddenly becomes an Alter and must deal with a second type of transition. One may argue that this is outlandish, or unrealistic, or whatever. Newsflash: every superhero ever created is outlandish and unrealistic. So we’re in good company there. :)
JC: Chalice’s story appears to be linked to her transitioning and while this is happening, coincidence or not, she is gaining great power. Other stories in different media as well as in the news have used transitioning as shock value and to exploit the trans community for the purpose of entertainment and to feed an inappropriate curiosity. What makes Chalice’s story different?
PJ: I think part of the answer to this is covered above. I certainly understand your point, and have found some of the coverage appalling. Of course, the coverage of the U.S. election/Brexit/terrorism and just about everything else these days is equally appalling. I’m not going to agree that we are somehow taking advantage of trans people simply by writing a character who is trans, especially because we have other characters dealing with different issues and I haven’t heard you complain about us addressing bipolar disorder or the issues facing someone who is quadriplegic. Every single character in our book is presented for the purpose of entertainment, Chalice included. I am in the business of entertainment. But I happen to be a research fiend, and I’m always going to be worried that a trans reader will find my character unrealistic. I feel the same way when I am writing detective fiction – I hope that actual detectives would find my stories plausible, and I try to research them that way. I will take the same approach with our bipolar character, our homeless character, our PTSD characters and so on…
I hope what makes us different from those who would try to exploit the trans community is that we’re focused on story first, and have only a minor secondary agenda in terms of shining a light on various people who are dealing with disadvantage in our society. I think the diversity of our creative team helps. And I’d like to make it quite clear before anyone tries to find fault here that we are absolutely not equating transgender with, say, disability. Our series addresses people who are dealing with disadvantage. Being marginalized by society, misunderstood, bullied, harassed and exploited by the media certainly qualifies for being at a disadvantage. Other characters will have obvious physical disadvantages. Others may have less obvious disadvantages (such as the character with vertigo).
And this leads me to the other issue I had with your previous article – the complaint that this is yet another view of transgender through a cis lens, as if I am disqualified from writing a trans character. You casually mentioned that we do have a core team member who is trans but “that’s not a position with creative control in a narrative sense.” That is an assumption on your part. You don’t know Tamra’s input, so you can’t make that assumption. Now, we each have our jobs on the creative team and it’s not as though I have Leila or Tamra’s artistic expertise. And while you happen to be partly correct – as the writer I am the initial creator of the story – I happen to be a very collaborative writer, and always have been. It has stood me in good stead over the years I have been working in this industry. I invite input, and truly believe that comics are a collaborative medium.
To address the point: where would we be if we were forced to write only what we are? We’d be without Othello, for one thing because Shakespeare was hardly a black, Muslim dude from Venice. I would be forbidden to write people from different ethnic backgrounds than my own, and I would never be able to write a female character. The argument that this series must have a requisite trans writer is specious and absurd: I hope that trans writers create tons of material that will hit the mainstream. I hope a trans creator makes the next popular superhero character, and that no one gives a royal shit that they are trans or otherwise, as it should be. My audience is anyone who wants to read the book. If they happen to be trans I hope they like Alters, and feel we have done a halfway decent job with the trans character, especially.
I’m not one to pay lip service to things – I do understand your concerns and any concerns of the LGBT community who are worried that Chalice is being created in part by some middle-aged straight white guy. I hope (and believe) that we are doing our best to address those concerns. The work should be judged for what it is, not pre-judged for who is creating it.
JC: I want to thank you again for talking with me about your new comic, Alters, being published by Aftershock Comics starting September 7th. What’s the best way for people to follow the release of Alters, spread the word, and discuss the comic?
PJ: My pleasure, Joe. Thanks for giving me a chance to respond. Support your local comic store, and follow AfterShock and our creative team on Twitter and Facebook. Wish our book luck, and please buy lots of copies!
So as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted by fellow columnist Emily S. Whitten calls “Convention Crud” and I called, last week, “Airplane Adenovirus”…
I had an ABFAB time at the Denver Comic Con 2016!
That’s “Absolutely Fabulous” for those of you too young to remember the BBC show.
Overseen by the Denver-based Pop Culture Classroom, a non-profit organization whose aim is to use comics and other pop culture media to educate kids and inform the public, the con is held annually at the Colorado Convention Center, an edifice that puts the Jacob Javits Center here in New York to total shame, in downtown Denver. Incredibly yuuuge – it stretches over four city blocks – with many atriums letting in the sunlight of the Mile High City, the con never felt crowded, despite its 100,000+ attendance.
I was invited because of my connection to Wonder Woman, who was created by William Moulton Marston 75 years ago this year. I must admit to having some trepidation, because, to be completely honest, I didn’t think that my work on the Amazon Princess was remembered, and I had images of sitting alone and ignored for three days. To make it worse, I hadn’t thought to bring any samples of my work to put out on display, so my table was white and bare in comparison to my nearest neighbors, authors and artists whose work was exhibited in beautiful and multi-colored presentations.
(To be fair to myself, I actually have very little of my work here at home. Over the years I have given out 99% of my work to my daughter’s friends, to cousins and the children of friends for birthday, communion, and bar-or-bas mitzvah presents, and for Halloween treats.)
But those little fears disappeared immediately as I became entranced by everything at the convention. The first thing I saw when I entered the Exhibitors Hall was a “life-size” beat-up and dented X-Wing fighter, looking as if it had just returned from a rendezvous with the Imperial fleet. (I immediately took the above picture.) The next thing I saw were two Stormtroopers, and I handed my phone to the volunteer who was leading me to my table as I stepped between them; she obligingly snapped a photo.
I was, as my daughter had put it as she drove me to the airport, “with my people.”
I was on many panels, not all of them to do with “Women and Comics.” Pop Culture also features educational classes for kids and adults at the convention, and I was slated to lead “Creating a Four-Panel Comic,” which was for kids [I would say] from eight-years old and down. That experience is one of my most treasured memories!
When Alix was in elementary school I gave some “lectures” on creating a story for her English class, so I wasn’t at all nervous. I immediately involved the kids in the audience, not staying on the stage, but going into the audience and letting them talk into the microphone. The kids proved to be incredibly imaginative and involved. A young girl volunteered the superhero, named FlashDash for her super-speed. The villain was Lunchbox. This bad guy carries a lunchbox, and inside it are burritos. “Burritos?” I laughed along with audience, who were obviously enjoying themselves. “And what do the burritos do?”
“They explode,” said the young boy, who was about seven, and whose name I can’t remember, damn my menopausal memory!
“And when they explode, it smells like the worst fart ever! The smell will kill you!”
Well, I don’t know about you, but fart jokes crack me up. Just the mention of the word fart makes me go silly. So imagine the reaction of the audience and those within hearing distance – remember, me and the kids were using a microphone – when the young man said this. A gigantic Bwa-bwa-hah-hah! went up and echoed in Exhibitors Hall.
I didn’t want to embarrass the boy. “That is absolutely fantastic,” I said, still smiling and laughing a little. “Lunchbox uses the exploding burritos the way Hobgoblin uses his pumpkin bombs. That is so great.”
“So how does FlashDash defeat Lunchbos?” I asked. The creator of Lunchbox shot up his hand, and even though I really wanted to involve some other kids, everyone was looking at him, so I went with the flow.
“FlashDash waves her cape super-fast and blows away the fart,” he said.
I’m tellin’ y’all, this kid is going to be a comics superstar in about 20 or 25 years, or even sooner!
Meanwhile, up on the podium, my artist, a really talented young guy named Colton, was drawing all of this out on an easel in four panels. We had three, so far.
“Okay,” I said, “So FlashDash, in the first panel, meets Lunchbox. The second panel shows Lunchbox throwing the burrito and it exploding.” Colton used wiggly lines to show the farts’s uh, “waves of stink.”
“The third panel has FlashDash waving her cape at super-speed, dispersing the fart cloud. So we have one more panel. What happens?”
A little girl, a very little girl, she must have been four years old, bashfully waved her hand, and I walked up to her. “FlashDash’s dragon uses his fire breath and burns up Lunchbox’s lunchbox,” she said softly. I’m telling y’all, this child was absolutely adorable.
“Oh, FlashDash has a pet dragon?” I asked her. She smiled shyly and nodded. I turned to Colton, who was already adding a little dragon hovering over FlashDash’s shoulder to the preceding panels. I said to the audience that this was an example of a writer and an artist “editing” their work, meaning changing it to make it better.
Then Colton drew the final panel, with the dragon’s fire breath melting the burrito-containing lunchbox.
“And that’s the end of Lunchbox and his exploding fart burritos,” I said. “FlashDash and her pet dragon have saved the day.”
We weren’t able to photocopy the story, but many parents and kids came up to the podium and snapped photos of the “Four-Panel Comic.”
Yep, I had an AbFab time in Denver. I caught up with old friends – Andy Mangels, Barbara Randall Kesel, Timothy Truman, Trina Robbins, Peter David – and made new ones – Cat Staggs, Yannick Paquette, LJ Hachmeister, Joe Staton, Hannah Means Shannon (a.k.a. Hannah Menzies), Marguerite Sauvage, and Jeff Hendon and his wife.
I met so many terrific people, I could fill this whole column with their names alone. I met that at the convention, I met them at the hotel. I met Jae Lee on the ride back to the airport.
I sat on panels and signed autographs and took pictures with fans. Oh, yeah, remember how I talked about my white, bare table? I found Mile High Comics, and bought a bunch of my comics, including issues of Wonder Woman (including what I consider mine and George Pérez’s best work on the title, #46, “Chalk Drawings”), “Lois Lane: When It Rains, God Is Crying,” and “Legionnaires Three.” (I then gave them as a gift to my Exhibitors Hall neighbor, the aforementioned Jeff Herndon, an amazing illustrator in the Denver area, and his wife in exchange for a beautiful painting of Gail Godot as Wonder Woman. I wanted to pay for it, but he and his wife wouldn’t hear of it, so instead we did the “barter.”)
Comics. Celebrities. An X-Wing, Stormtroopers, and R2-D2. The TARDIS.
Even though it’s Independence Day today, I am going to talk about Flag Day. It was a couple of weeks ago, and on that day Geek Culture paused to remember the passing of a favorite son. It was a day to celebrate the legacy of Mark Gruenwald, taken away too early twenty years ago. And for a guy who loved Captain America, it was fitting that his birthday was on Flag Day.
Catherine Schuller organized a wonderful tribute to her late husband celebrating the passion and humor with which he lived his life. By just looking at the crowd in the funky New York City club where it was held, you could tell his passion was infectious and long lasting.
My first exposure to Mark Gruenwald came from his visionary fanzine. Omniverse was published long before the Internet provided an infinite number of virtual spots for fans to gather together to deeply discuss various aspects of their fandoms. The fanzine explored comic continuity (i.e., the internal mythology) in a detailed way that so many fanboys, myself included, had only wished existed. It was exciting and fun and thoughtful and invigorating!
Mark’s work on fanzines would lead to a long career at Marvel. He loved creating, writing, and editing stories. He got the chance to do those very things while at Marvel. After debuting on Spider-Woman, he enjoyed a long, groundbreaking run on Captain America, explored group dynamics with The Squadron Supreme mini-series and shepherded Quasar’s series from start to finish.
I attended this tribute event with my local friends Scott Kearny (Hero Cam) and Patrick Riley (The Adventures of Electrolyte), but there really was an impressive assembly of comic creators including Denny O’Neil, Tom Palmer, Fabian Nicieza, Danny Fingeroth and more.
Highlights of the event included a Captain America shield cake courtesy of the Cake Boss, DJ’s, dancers, photographers, an art exhibit and a unique type of autographed mini-posters. Limited quantities of these mini-posters are still available for sale and proceeds go to the scholarship fund. (Fans can contact Catherine here.)
One of the high points was when Mark’s daughter, cosplaying as Dazzler, took the stage with her stepmother Catherine Schuller.
Several comic luminaries spoke, each with their own take on this creator.
Tom Brevoort, currently Marvel’s executive editor, spoke with great humility. Even though he is a man of great accomplishments within the industry, he let it be known that he felt honored to be speaking amongst the other professionals at this tribute. Tom went on to provide great insights into the authenticity of Mark Gruenwald’s professional career.
Tom DeFalco talked about Gruenwald’s famous practical jokes, while Bob Budiansky and Elliot Brown talked about the extreme measures that Gruenwald would take to deal with corporate deadlines. Brown painted a picture of Mark as a cross between M*A*S*H’s Hawkeye Pierce and Groucho Marx. With great affection, Carl Potts also shared a few stories about all the practical jokes.
In his tribute, Denny O’ Neil explored what makes a legacy. In a very moving remembrance, the noted writer talked about the enjoyment of blazing new creative paths with Gruenwald and the respect he had for the Gruenwald’s “big shoulders”, i.e. the responsibility he would assume, even when it was unpleasant.
O’Neil revealed that one creative endeavor they were pursuing was actually experiencing strong negative criticism within the company. Interestingly, Gruenwald had protected O’Neil from it in order that “Denny could do his job,” unencumbered by these slings and arrows. Denny O’Neil also revealed that if the roles were reversed, he wasn’t sure he’d have the fortitude to protect Gruenwald in the same way.
Brevoort had an excellent observation. He pointed out that in old Bullpen Bulletins editorial pages Stan Lee was able to paint a picture of a fictional reality where a bunch of zany creators collaborated in a bullpen, making Marvel Comics with madcap fun. In reality, that was not the way it was in most cases.
But during his tenure at Marvel, Mark Gruenwald was an example of that fiction come to life. He was zany and madcap and mischievous. Despite the fact that this is an industry filled with so many introverts, folks loved this fiction and loved being a part of the culture that Gruenwald was bringing to life.
Catherine Schuller is an entertaining woman who clearly still has deep affection and love for her deceased husband. She was able to create an event that was respectful and outrageously loopy at the same time. And it all reminded us how lucky we were to have known Mark Gruenwald, or at least his work.
Mark was a visionary, and his quote from an old issue of Amazing Heroes magazine about a John Walker (a Marvel Character first called The Super-Patriot and later U.S. Agent) could easily apply today’s politics:
“He believes the American Dream is to make a mint and then retire. He says, “Yeah, I’m looking after number one. Why is my country so good? Because it’s given me the opportunity to make a lot of money. That is it’s [the American Dream’s] corrupted essence.”
It’s getting to be the Fourth of July and so it’s apropos to think about this country, what it is, what defines it, what makes it America. Those are somewhat large topics for an essay of 500-700 words (which is where I usually clock in) so we’ll just confine ourselves to one small area.
We deal with pop culture here at ComicMix so let’s think of pop culture icons, those things that we use as symbols of this country. We’re going to focus on one – American movie star/icon John Wayne. Marion Robert Morrison (Wayne’s borth name) made gobs of movies, usually westerns, war movies and detective films. He was a star in the old fashioned Golden Age of Hollywood sense of the word. No one was bigger.
Everybody and his/her brother does an impression of Wayne. My brother does one and I have different versions. In addition to Wayne himself, I do Elmer Fudd imitating John Wayne and lately I seem to be doing an impression of Del Close doing an impression of John Wayne. I also have a version that melds Wayne and Paul Lynde but perhaps the less said about that one the better.
I was not always a fan of the Duke, especially in the 60s and 70s. Wayne was unapologetically right wing and I was (or became) a liberal pinko commie hippie sort of guy. Well, maybe not an actual hippie but I leaned more in that direction than Wayne ever did.
I have become more a fan of Wayne’s work (but not his politics) and three films stand out for me as complex examples of America: Red River, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. In each, Wayne’s character is an asshole.
In the first, he is pig-headed, self-righteous, and ready to shoot anyone who disagrees with him and that includes his adopted son. In the second, he’s on a year’s long hunt for his niece who was taken by Indians when the rest of her (and Wayne’s) family was massacred in a raid. His character, Ethan Edwards, has a hate so strong that you don’t know if he’s more interested in rescuing his niece or killing the ones who killed his family.
In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, he plays Jim Donafin, the only man capable of standing up to and (maybe) killing the notorious outlaw in the title. He’s also a rival to Jimmy Stewart’s Ransom Stoddard, a lawyer who has come to the territory who believes in the law more than the gun, for the hand of Vera Miles’ Hallie.
As Stoddard points out, there’s not a whole lot of difference between Valence (Lee Marvin) and Donafin. Wayne’s character is also a bully, also stubborn, and he’s ready to kill although he’s not the outlaw that Valence is. The movie itself is a portrait of the West at a transition point; the unnamed territory is considering statehood. The ranchers are opposed to the increased limitations they will face while others, such as Stoddard, look for an increase in civilization and the benefits of law, where decisions will no longer be made by the man with a gun.
It comes down to this: is Wayne’s or Stewart’s character the future? While it’s obvious that the answer is, and must be, Stewart’s character, the film has a great deal of respect and admiration for Wayne’s character. Without him, Rance Stoddard would have been dead at the hands of Liberty Valance. Tom Donafin is necessary for civilization to grow but his time is past.
Wayne, in all three films and in others, such as The Quiet Man, is a better actor than he is usually given credit for. The characters in the three films are largely unsympathetic but compelling.
I think I finally understood the power that Wayne has when I saw The Searchers on a big screen, as it was intended to be seen. One shot in particular is a close-up of Wayne, looking hard and mean. I’d watched the movie before on television but here Wayne’s head was damn near two stories high. It was like a cinematic Mount Rushmore and I got it. I understood why John Wayne was – and is – a cinematic American icon. For good and bad, he did and does represent this country both here and around the world.
