A few days ago I received an email from my friend John Jennings. John is a fantastic artist and teacher and I’ve known him for a lot of years. I was not happy with what John had to say and let him know it. What John wrote me was a pretty detailed accounting of why…
I have reported here and elsewhere about the goings-on at Archie Comics. While DC keeps on hitting the reset button like a monkey in a crack experiment, and Marvel keeps on doing endless – literally endless – mega-events, Archie has been slowly making history. In the past several years they’ve added a major gay character…
Please see last’s week part one. Although closeted in the interim report of the 1954 comic book hearings, race was not an issue that America really wanted to deal with and perhaps that above all is why race had been given little more than a nod in the hearing. Race was however one of the…
I got the idea for this series when I received a call and was told a project of mine was turned down because “Black doesn’t sell.” I was told to my face more than once by a certain asshole “when it comes to entertainment, black means death.” Really, Bruce? How you living now, motherfucker? I’m…
If you have not done so, please read last week’s article. Thanks. The opening night of the movie Blade, I was sitting in a packed Magic Johnson Theater in the Crenshaw district of Los Angeles. Crenshaw is a predominantly black community, so needless to say the crowd for a black superhero movie in a black…
In many entertainment fields, people hold closely valued opinions, making their decisions of what to purchase or reject based on these beliefs. Moviegoers won’t respond to strong female leads. Men don’t read. And so on. The problem is that no one knows where these beliefs come from since so few of these businesses actually do…
Well, I suppose it was inevitable. After all, the American Nazis objected to Heimdall being played by a black man in last year’s Thor movie. To swing 180 degrees in the opposite direction, many Asian groups objected to the casting of a European in the role of a Eurasian in the play Miss Saigon. They…
I’m looking for a few good artists. In February 2013, I will have the honor of curating a galley show called Milestones: African Americans in Comics. Pop Culture and Beyond. The show will held at the Geppi Entertainment Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. It’s my goal to make this the most comprehensive showing of black comic…
Officially, I’ve worked in comics since 1983. In all that time I think I’ve only met one black woman who was involved in comics in a decision-making capacity. I’ve known black woman receptionists and assistants but I can only think of one who had a job in which she was part of the comic book…
It’s not a black or white world. The world is made up of many shades of gray. Yet somehow when something happens to a black character “racism” always clings to the debate. There has been a flurry of activity since DC cancelled Static Shock. The DC official line is the book was cancelled because of…
I am a black man. Well that’s not really true. I’m a tall and unbelievably handsome black man. I work in television, mainstream books and comics. Most of the works I’ve created in all of those mediums have featured black people in foremost roles. I create black characters because I’m a black creator and I’d…
According to a friend I trust, when the trailers for the Green Lantern movie appeared, kids asked, “Why did they make Green Lantern a white guy?” That’s not a joke like “Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?” It’s because, to folks under thirty, this is the Justice League: But this is DC’s reboot:…
