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Tweeks: Color of Earth #ChallengedChallenge Week 5

For week 5 of the ComicMix Challenged Challenge, we discuss Kim Dong Hwa’s graphic novel, The Color of Earth.  Aside from the over use of flower metaphors, we loved the book. It’s about a Ehwa, a girl living in Korea with her widowed mom. The book deals with Ehwa growing up and so there’s talk of puberty and all that kind of related stuff that apparently makes some adults very uncomfortable. Uncomfortable enough for this to be the second-most challenged book.  It’s a coming of age story and so we’re stumped as to why the essential parts of coming of age are so scary for the intended readership (who, you know, have just come of age or are in the process). But we try to break it down in our video.

VFK: Greg Pak On Telling THE TRUTH

Things in the DC Universe are upside down with the world knowing who Clark Kent really is, Lois Lane behind that big reveal and even a new player in the Batman costume. “Truth” is a multi-title story overseen by Greg Pak who talks to VOICES OF KRYPTON on just how far these changes will go,

Mindy Newell: Politically Incorrect

strange-fruit-3273177Saturday, I met a very nice young man named Moses in my local comic books shop. We got into a conversation about *duh!* comics and he was very frank in stating that he was not buying many DC comics because – and I’m paraphrasing here, since I didn’t happen to have a tape recorder on me – everybody in the office is white so it’s impossible for them to understand the black experience. I told him that I didn’t agree with any part of that, but that is Moses’ perception, and perception is everything. Isn’t it?

Yesterday, I read Marc Alan Fishman’s latest column here at ComicMix, Affirmatively Actionable Comic Equality, in which he referenced J.A. Micheline’s August 4th piece over at Comics Alliance titled Why I’m Boycotting Marvel Comics, which I linked to and read. In her own words:

“Marvel, you and I are taking a break. It’s not me; it’s you – and you made the decision really easy. In the past two to three weeks, I have watched you disrespect and disregard marginalized voices and I’ve had enough.”

Then I Googled “diversity of comics creators” and found an article by Laura Hudson published over at Wired on July 25th of this year: “It’s Time To Get Real About Racial Diversity In Comics.” She writes:

“July in particular has been an interesting month to ponder that question, thanks to a series of recent events that offered a prismatic lens on the complex friction between race and representation in the field. Not only did the Marvel variants spark discussion, but this month, DC Comics announced that Milestone Media – an imprint created by black creators and focusing on black superheroes – would be returning to the larger DC Comics fold, along with most of the black artists and writers who had created it. Meanwhile, Boom! Studios released Strange Fruit, a comic made by a white creative team that dealt with racism in the American South, prompting discussions about when works by white creators are erasing the voices of the people they’re writing about.”

Jon Stewart asked us to do something on his last show: “If you smell something, say something.”

Okay, Jon, I will.

It’s about fucking time that people stopped creating these stupid fucking artificial lines.

To be brutally forthright – and quite politically incorrect – I don’t give a damn what color, what religion, what ethnicity, what nationality, or what sex a creator is.

The only thing I care about when I’m reading a story, the only reason I’m reading it, the only reason I continue to read it, be it comics or prose, is that I’m enjoying it, that I’m sucked in, that I can’t put the goddamn thing down, whether that means reading it at work while on a break, or at home while eating dinner, or reading it on the toilet wherever that toilet may be.

So Strange Fruit, a series about racism in the South, was written and drawn by Mark Waid and J.G. Jones, two white guys. So what? I think they should be applauded for writing about it. I think the premise, about a super-powered alien who looks like a black man in 1927 Mississippi, is great, and I’m putting it on my list to buy. And by the way, Quantum Leap did an episode in the very first season in which Sam jumped into the body of an elderly black man in the pre-Civil Rights South (“The Color of Truth”). Nobody objected that it was produced by a white man and starred two more white men.  

And if a story about racism was so important to you, African-American creators, why didn’t you go out and create it?

Oh, wait. You did.

Maya Angelou. James Baldwin. Octavia Butler. Amiri Baraka. Toni Morrison. Ralph Ellison. Zora Neale Hurston. Lorraine Hansbury. Langston Hughes. Richard Wright. Alice Walker. Alan Paton.

Oh, you mean comics?

Christopher Priest. Michael Davis. Damion Knight. Matt Baker. Reginald Hudlin. Darryl Banks. Denys Cowan. ChrisCross. Kyle Baker. Jamal Igle, Malcom Jones III, Mark (M.D.) Bright. Billy Graham. Keith Pollard. Brian Stelfreeze. Ron Wilson. Larry Stroman.

Dwayne McDuffie.

Okay, what’s wrong with this list?

No women.

But they do exist.

Charlie “Spike” Trotman. Carol Burrell. Barbara Brandon-Croft. Afua (Lakota Sioux) Richardson. Alitha Martinez. Cheryl Lynn Eaton.

Yes, I admit, these women were a little harder to find. And that’s bullshit, too.

Still, obviously, I managed.

You could, too, if you wanted to.

I could write a whole column about that. But then I might be accused of being a white Jewish woman who has no business writing about the black woman comics creator, because, you know, that’s not politically correct.

But if any of these women would like to have a dialogue with me on these pages, you’re very welcome to get in touch with me. In fact, I’ll ask Editor Mike to be our liaison (mike@comicmix.com).

See, I think making it in a profession that is your passion takes talent, sweat, blood, tears, aggravation, patience, aggressiveness, stick-to-it-iveness, and luck.

A whole lot of luck.

The truth is that luck is the goddamnest wild card.

And that’s a truth that is politically incorrect to say out loud.

 

Ed Catto: Geek Culture – How Far We’ve Come!

Libarary 2

When I was a kid an ad in my local Pennysaver newspaper caught my eye. It was placed by a guy selling old comic books. In those pre-Internet days The Pennysaver was a weekly community newspaper that served as a want-ad compendium. As a young boy this particular ad was especially glorious because (1) I loved comics and (2) living a small town like Auburn, NY, I didn’t have a lot of ways to get old comics. Sure, occasionally we ordered by mail, but this was different.

IMG_1891One problem was that this seller lived on the “other side” of town. Way over on the bizarrely named Frazee Street. And Mom was very suspicious that there were sinister motives involved. The person placing the ad might have been luring young boys, like my pals and me, with the siren call of comics. After much discussion, I wore my mother down and she said she’d supervise a visit to this suspicious seller of old comic books.

The first visit was… fantastic! This collector had amazing stacks of all the old comics my neighborhood cohort and I had previously only dreamed about. We were eager to read Silver Age Marvels. To us, it was like finding buried treasure. And the collector (“a guy named Joe,” in fact) priced his wares fairly. His method was to charge us 60% of the stated value in the Passiac Book Center Guide Catalog. Yes, in those early days, the Overstreet Comic Book Guide was a mere babe in publishing years. Instead, the local gold standard by which to judge a comic’s worth was with the mimeographed and stapled pages of the Passiac Book Center Guide.

Library 3Well, Joe wasn’t an axe murderer and, in fact, over the years he,and his wife and kids became family friends. But it was a slow process for my mom to get over her maternal trepidation.

Now, contrast that story with the recent classes I’ve been teaching. I’ve been asked by local organizations – Bergen Community College and the Ridgewood Library – to teach courses on “How to Create a Graphic Novel.” That’s a fancy way of saying “Teach Kids to Make Comics.” These courses are tailored to high school, middle school and even elementary school kids. We review the basics and quickly shift to the creation stage with several short exercises. And you know what? These classes have been very close to full or SRO every time!

Spurred by a thirst and curiosity for pop culture and comics, kids want to know more and their parents want them to know more. And they are not intimidated. These kids want to fully engage and create their own stuff!

Some kids are talented in drawing and some are natural born storytellers. Some are a little shy, but typically even they are fully engaged by the last 10 minutes of class. In general, there’s not a lot of hesitation. In fact, so many of the students are eager to share their pop culture credentials with me. They want me to know that they know comics and graphic novels and plotlines from superhero TV shows and artists’ styles and Marvel Comics trivia. Way back when, I’d work hard to hide all that from my peers or teachers.

IMG_1896And at the recent classes in the local library, the staff trotted out many of their graphic novels to show to the class. And they sure knew their stuff. The library staff was vigorously promoting comics to the kids – cool stuff like the collected editions of the new Ms. Marvel comic and Scholastic’s Graphix books by Raina Telgemeir.

In fact, I couldn’t help but wonder if librarians are the secret weapons on the front lines of Geek Culture – but that’s probably another thought for another column.

It was great to have parents drop off their kids to learn about comics. It was encouraging to see how passionate kids (of many ages) are about Geek Culture. And I think it would be cool to follow some of these kids and see if the spark that was lit turns into something more.

There you have it: community approved Geek Culture for all supported by all. We’ve come a long way from Frazee Street.

 

John Ostrander: A Very Fond Farewell

Jon Stewart

It was a good show.

Jon Stewart ended his run on The Daily Show last week with an hour-plus long installment. It was a good episode and a good final episode. I’ve seen a few of these things – where a long time reporter or entertainer walks away, of their own volition, from their show. I saw Jack Paar (you kiddies go ahead and Google him or look him up on the Wikipedia) leave his weekly show, walking out through a series of spotlights cast on the floor. I saw beloved newscaster Walter Cronkite sign-off for the last time, telling us, “I’ll be away on assignment, and Dan Rather will be sitting in here for the next few years. Good night.” I saw Johnny Carson, the King of Late Night Television, leave The Tonight Show with his “very heartfelt good night.”

These kind of shows can be difficult to pull off. The episode can be too much, it can be too little, it can be awkward – as parodied brilliantly by Gary Shandling on The Larry Sanders Show. I thought Letterman’s exit from The Late Show was a little flat and Stephen Colbert’s exit from The Colbert Report somewhat over the top, even for him.

Stewart’s final show was entertaining, funny, surprising in places, and human. Basically, it was a very good episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. There were the tropes you expected and wanted to see such as the former “correspondents” coming back for one last gag, usually at Stewart’s expense. I didn’t even know who some of them were, that’s how far back it went.

One of the surprising sequences was the taped appearances of some of the folks Stewart has pilloried over the years, climaxing with Sen. John McCain’s “So long, jackass.” That sounded heartfelt to me. If you’re Jon Stewart and you’ve pissed off these people (and scores more) you’ve done your job.

What was both somewhat surprising and very human was Stewart’s final take to “Camera Three” where he used to give advice to some person or group. This last time it was to us, talking about “bullshit.” Basically, he was telling us how to pick up the slack once he left. His advice boiled down to: “If you smell something, say something.” That’s what he’d been doing, and doing well, during his tenure on The Daily Show. That’s what he was urging us to do.

The show wound up with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performing two songs live in the studio. The second was “Born To Run.” It was both a surprise and fitting – one New Jersey icon saluting another.

And then it was done.

I’m really going to miss Jon Stewart. Yes, his opinions mostly coincide with mine, although not on pizza. His denigration of Chicago-style pizza was a rare blot on his record. I know others prefer Steven Colbert or Bill Maher or John Oliver but Stewart made me laugh more, made me smile more, made me share his anger together at worthy targets. He was intelligent, witty, insightful and he wasn‘t afraid to make fun of himself as well as others. According to tributes I’ve read of him, he was generous to other talents, dedicated, and hard working.

In the end, he was tired. Why else would he leave with the 2016 elections coming up and the GOP offering up so many nice juicy easy-to-hit targets? He left while he was still on his game and I salute him for that.

I expect that, at some point, Jon Stewart will walk out on the public stage again. However, when Johnny Carson retired he said he would return in some format some day. He never did. I worry that Jon Stewart might do the same thing.

I’m sure the heir apparent to the Daily Show hot-seat, Trevor Noah, will do a fine job and I intend to tune in. He won’t replace Stewart; it’ll simply be a new show, Noah’s version of it. That’s how it should be. But he won’t be Stewart. Jon Stewart, over the years, became a friend, one who was articulate and funny and not afraid. You never have so many friends that you can afford to lose even one.

Damn, but I’m going to miss you, Jon Stewart.

 

VFK: Now Serving – SUPERGIRL

  • News
  • August 8, 2015

It’s definitely the “sweeter” side of super-heroism. In a world of Dark Knights and darker deeds, the new CBS series, SUPERGIRL, is a bright light of action and fun. VOICES FROM KRYPTON talks exclusively with the cast and creators on what we can expect when the show debuts on October 26th.

Marc Alan Fishman: Affirmatively Actionable Comic Equality

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A few friends of mine on Facebook posted an absolutely fabulous op-ed by J.A. Micheline, calling out Marvel – and declaring a personal boycott – for some recent decisions passed. It seems Blade has been handed off to a pair of white creators, Hercules is now straight as an arrow, and I assume Spider-Gwen will be replaced by a straight white male version of the character with thigh pouches or something. Upon initial reading of her thoughts, my inner-chauvinist began to itch. A deep breath, a reread, and a few bites of dinner later? I’m fully on board with her fervor.

Now, let me be clear. I myself have boycotted mainstream comics for the better part of eighteen months. I haven’t felt fiction-deprived yet. I’ve enjoyed output from Marvel and DC: Ant-Man, Avengers 2, The Flash, and Teen Titans Go have sated me just fine, sans ink and paper. My boycott though, came not because of any particular editorial mandate or creative team injunction. It came because of the continual commitment to useless event-driven editorial calendars and the retconning of great stories in lieu of quick #1 issue cash-grabs.

Thus far, I’m two for two with DC’s re-Final-Crisising-convergence, and the All-New-All-Different-All-Shuffled-Marvel’s recent releases proving me righter than right. Am I missing some great issues? Likely. But on the whole, mainstream comic collecting requires a financial commitment a father of one-plus-one-coming needn’t part with.

Reading these current malfeasances via Micheline’s article didn’t hit me as being all that surprising. If anything, they were just continual symptoms of a much larger disease. That disease is greed. Axel and company are victims of a system that presently panders to the almighty profit – what little can be made in the floppies. Changing creative teams, changing sexual orientation, changing changes that were changed for the sake of change? All done in hopes of spiking sales just a wee-bit more. But her anger is not unfounded. She’s picking away at scars that scab over yearly. As an industry why does it always feel like we’re taking two steps forward and one step back?

Blade loses its black creators. Johnny Storm is portrayed by a black actor in the upcoming flop Fantastic 4. Hercules is declared straight, and I’m sure someone in DC has recently come out of the closet. But I digress. The point that Micheline is really after is rooted in the “old boy” classicism and predictably shallow attitudes they assume when fans take umbrage over these decisions. Axel and DiDio largely act as if we’re living in the enlightened age where talent is colorless, genderless, and sexually blind. But the truth is our world isn’t there yet. And to act in that manner otherwise comes across only as being out-of-touch. Akin, say, to jamming one’s fingers in their ears and yelling loudly over the sound of people asking for a little equality.

J.A. Micheline asks for no fewer than three new gay characters in comics, as well as three new black creators to be placed on ongoing titles. She’s following Dwayne McDuffie’s “Rule of Three” – adding three members of a marginalized group into any fold will cause the perfect amount of civil unrest. It’s hard to argue with her logic. When you break the status quo, you’re going to hurt some feelings. But frankly, feelings are there to be hurt, and then repaired with time and acceptance. Make more gay characters. Hire black creators, Asian creators, Muslim creators, and everybody else. Fans who may balk at the notion… happily hand them free copies of Youngblood.

Our industry – that of the talented outcasts now coming into our own – is better than others. I say this because so much good has been made under the comics umbrella. So many emotions given clarity. So many characters shown in multiple dimensions. So many myths made modern. We are a medium that should be built on inclusion and acceptance.

What are our heroes and villains, but the id of our very outer-ness made real? Symbols of hope, of joy, of angst, of loss, and everything in between. Surely that begs for those who push the pencils of the ledgers some modicum of social justice… to balance the scales of creation to prove to the other mediums of artistry that we are the torchbearers!

Consider J.A. Micheline’s boycott as I have: not the frustrated battle cry lambasting Marvel for a lack of diversity… but as a sigil for the future of comics at large. Be blacker. Be gayer. Be prouder, Marvel.

The Point Radio: Judy Greer And Nat Faxon Still MARRIED

Fans and critics agree that the FX sitcom, MARRIED is one of the most relatable series on TV. Stars Judy Greer and Nat Faxon talk about where things are headed this second season and just what condition their character’s relationship is in. Plus Michael Carbonaro returns for a new season of THE CARBONARO EFFECT with a few new twists.

Get ready – the new TV season starts soon and we have the exclusive scoops..  Be sure and follow us on Twitter now here.

Martha Thomases: The Big Cons

women-cosplay-1513768So far this summer, it has been my privilege to only go to one comic book convention, one that was conveniently situated in my home town. I may have to go to more, because that’s what the job is, and I’m okay with that.

It’s become so much easier to be a woman at a comic convention. Sure, the lines at the bathrooms are a drag, but that’s a small price to pay for being an accepted, sometimes even welcomed part of the crowd. As I write this, I’ve read several accounts (none of which I can find now, naturally) that suggest that attendance at the major shows is at least 50 percent female.

They need us. All of them: show organizers, retailers, other exhibitors. Without us, they make so much less money.

A lot of people have done a lot of work for decades to get us to this point. We should thank them and savor their success.

And then we should try for more.

Among the women who work in comics that I’m linked to online, this article made the rounds last week. It tells how women in the tech industry, infuriated that so few women were ever asked to speak at industry conferences as anything but tokens, and what women decided to do about it. They want full parity with men on all panels at conventions and conferences.

So do we.

Quite often, convention programmers will say they don’t know any women in the industry, nor do they know how to find them. The women in the link are assembling such a list.

Women in comics are doing the same.

I realize that it will take some time for women to get equal seating on panels with men. Comic book companies are going to have to send more women. Convention organizers are going to have to invite more women. They’re going to have to think about including more women on panels of general interest, and adding women to those who star in spotlight panels.

It might not be possible, at this exact moment, to get as many women writers and artists who attract fans as men. I get that. It’s kind of circular: If women were hired more frequently, there would be more top-tier women creators. And I think that day is closer than most imagine.

However …

There have always been a lot of women working in comics. We are in the legal departments and the licensing departments and the marketing departments and the international publishing departments. We know a lot about the business of comics, and we have a lot of interesting stories to tell about the backstage part of the business.

More recently, there has been an increase in the number of women working for distributors, libraries, and opening their own stores. Again, lots and lots of good conversation.

Just because it’s going to be difficult doesn’t mean it’s not a worthy goal, meriting our time and effort. We’ve shown that women add to the fun of a convention, and add to the bottom line as well. We should use the power of our purses to push for more.

 

Star Wars Films Rereleased in Character Steelbooks

Star Wars Blu-ray SteelbooksLos Angeles, CA (August 5, 2015) – As the galaxy prepares for the next generation of Star Wars, the six epic films will each release as commemorative Blu-ray steelbooks on November 10th.  These highly collectible films will be available for a limited time only and can be pre-ordered beginning August 7th.   In addition, Star Wars: The Complete Saga will be released in newly repackaged artwork on October 13th.  The announcements were made today by The Walt Disney Studios, Lucasfilm Ltd., and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.
Each film from the Saga is presented with new character packaging allowing fans to choose their favorite or collect all six for a limited time. Characters include:  The Phantom Menace – Darth Maul; Attack of the Clones – Yoda; Revenge of the Sith – General Grievous; A New Hope – Darth Vader; The Empire Strikes Back – Imperial Stormtrooper; and Return of the Jedi – Emperor Palpatine.

In addition to the collectible steelbook packaging, each single disc Blu-ray includes existing audio commentary with George Lucas and the film crew as well as audio commentary from archival interviews with the cast and crew.

The newly repackaged Saga includes all six feature films on Blu-ray, along with three additional discs containing more than 40 hours of previously released extensive special features.

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