io9 
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San Francisco, 1:09 PM
Mon Nov 9
21 posts in the last 24 hours
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09/08/09
Examples... 1) The Prowler - Hobie Brown, black villian. Hobie is first shown as a window washer, (dead end job) and frustrated with his place in life mostly due to his color. 2) "Robbie Robertson" the lead editor of the Bugle. Robbies son was involved in a strike at E.S.U. (non racist strike) and the father & son have a discussion about 'making it in a white mans world'. A few instances where Robbie convinced JJJ that he was supporting a racist (Sam Bullit). Once JJJ realized his mistake; he (Jonah) pulled the newspapers support and threw Sam out of his office.
The Sam Bullit issue (#91, "To Smash A Spider") is an excellent example. The issue touches on the racial tension of the day w/out allowing it to interfere with the story.
09/08/09
09/08/09
The reason why I disagree is because of when these comics started. Spider-man began in 63! Wrong or right a black Spider-Man simply would not have sold in 63. With that in mind I think Marvel did a good job addressing the race issue and offering their opinion on it while still working to sell a product. The prowler issue ends with Hobie Brown as the 'lucky one' (no matter your color, you get to lead a 'normal' life while I must continue being miserable) and the Sam B issue ends in a similar fashion - With Sam getting outed by JJJ & Robbie.
S-M is but one example. Many of our favorite comic super-heroes are very old, they go back as far as the 60's & 70's. Selling a product in that time almost demanded the 'white guy - leading role'. Still even with that demand, still knowing they have to sell a product (yes, Marvel employees love their job but they gotta pay the bills like the rest of us), I think Marvel has done a good job at least offering their opinion on the race issue = "It's wrong"
Stan has even mentioned (more than once but I cant find the orig reference I want) that the X-Men (Mutants) are based on racism and the struggle to live in harmony with those that are different. [newsone.com]
09/07/09
I think the reason Milestone failed was that they were not part of the regular DC universe. The easiest way to shore up the sales of a lagging title is to have special guest stars ("hey look! It's Static's pal Batman!")
I think what I'm saying is that this isn't a problem that can be easily solved.
09/05/09
09/07/09
I agree it's a writer problem. One of the stupidest things I remember from the Secret Wars was Jim Shooter's portrayal of Rogue. Now, white Southerners are not a racial minority, but their accents are often used as examples of "stupid" by Northerners. As written by Claremont, Rogue still retained a bit of her accent but became a bit more sophisticated. When Shooter wrote her around the same time, she sounded like she belonged on hee haw.
09/05/09
Not too important, they're freakin' comics ...
That's kind of like the Earth-shattering cultural influence of chewing gum ads.
-Kle.
09/05/09
I think I can understand why Naruto is so popular...
09/05/09
I think Manga scares the crap out of the Big Two, because they can't understand it. But I would actually say that Manga kind of ignores race - that's the only way I can understand that, for example, Sailor Moon (yeah, not really Manga, but whatever) is supposed to be a blonde Japanese girl.
09/05/09
09/06/09
Whether or not most of it is "crap" (a strange thing to say about a genre that encompasses a much wider swath than anything in North American comics) the fact is that if you go to a bookstore, you're going to find a hell of a lot more manga than mainstream graphic novel collections. There is a whole generation for whom comics = Naruto and Shonen Jump.
09/05/09
The irony is that the world of North American comic *artists* is far more integrated that that of comic characters. If superhero artists' drew themselves, we would have a lot more Filipino, Korean, and African-American characters than we already do. (Filipino artists in particular have been popular since the 1970s)
09/04/09
You really think black and latino kids need minority characters to have an interest in comics? That kind of condescension carries as much racism as anything else discussed here. A good character is a good character, and outside of very narrow, closeminded groups, readers of any ethnicity are totally willing to embrace characters of any background, provided they are engaging.
09/04/09
Yes, there are readers who can get past that, obviously. I know a few of them. But I think that when most of the readers of Batman or Wolverine are white males of a certain age, you're not talking about characters with 'broad appeal and relatability'.
09/05/09
That said relatability is important to crafting popular characters. So from a strictly business sense (not that I espouse it), if it makes a character substantially more popular, make him/her/it white. It IS a business. And no, engaging and creative stories DO NOT guarantee new readership or even success with the built in fans.
And if you have the conversation about the American comic industry, why not manga? Its FAR FAR more popular and, in all honesty, SUBSTANTIALLY more racist (and very open about it). Yet manga fandom crosses all racial boundaries. Somehow, I think the law of cause and effect isn't being met here.
Besides comic readership is so negligible. I mean, top books sell between 60 and 150 thousand (on the very upside) copies. Thats an absurdly small number. The insignificance of this debate borders on the inane. I'd wager there are more neo-nazis running around than serious comic fans.
09/05/09
Most people enjoy characters they can associate with. It doesn't mean that Latinos are going to completely ignore Spider-Man or African Americans are going to hate on Batman 'cause he's white (I mean, I suppose some might, but not rational people), but it does mean that
However, I think the big problem isn't the lack of a market as much as it is the fact that most minority characters seem to exist solely for the fact that they're a member of a minority. If people can get characters to the point of "Hi, this is John," and resist the urge to scream "ALSO HE'S BLACK SO THERE'S MY TOKEN MINORITY CHARACTER!" then things might be better.
Also, Dwayne McDuffie's JLA and Hudlin's (?) Black Panther were comics that seemed to go the extreme opposite route and throw in a bunch of black characters like it was some sort of catharsis.
Me, my comic's featuring a female as the main character, and I'm avoiding the "super feminist icon" route just as much as I'm avoiding the "sex object" route, which seem to be the only ways that women leads can be portrayed in comics anymore (Ms. Marvel aside).
09/05/09
Problems with your premise: 1) we're talking about comics, not movies, and 2) you're assuming that because a movie made money, it was successful in all demographics. Until we see a sales breakdown, you can't assume that.
And yes, manga are also racist. No arguments on that point. But I don't agree that manga fandom crosses racial boundaries in a meaningful way; go to any convention (or fandom community) and you can usually count the number of non-Asian people of color on both hands.
Again, just because there are a few fans who happen to be people of color does NOT mean that the industry is sufficiently inclusive. And good luck saying that discussions about racism are inane simply because the industry in question is small.
09/07/09
But the very success of Manga has been as a crossover to white kids. It's not everything, but it's a step. (And actually, not so much Manga but asian pop culture has often been adopted by African-Americans cf Wu Tang Clan.)
As well, Manga crosses the gender barrier better than any other mainstream comics outside of Archie (and interestingly, I have held the suspicion that Archie's "new look" - the major redesign in 40 years - was a response to Manga)
09/07/09
The thing about Hudlin's Black Panther (actually, the character in general) is that it seems to be a noble attempt at creating a sort of African utopia. I haven't read the entire run of the Hudlin series, but it seemed to me that it had no bearing on what is really happening in Africa. (Of course, such a comic would be pretty depressing)
09/04/09
09/05/09
09/06/09
09/07/09
I can think of a few exceptions, but yeah, it's pretty bad. One interesting exception is Gotham Central, although you could argue that it is essentially a Law and Order-style TV series done as a comic.
09/04/09
Secondly, I have a blog about Black female superheroes and comic book characters and I choose not talk about issues of racism there when possible - but of course, that's not always avoidable. In some cases, racism is blatant (Captain Confederacy being married to a Black woman, who later BECOMES Captain Confederacy comes to mind). I prefer for my blog to be about celebrating the existence of these characters.
My interest in Black female comic book characters began last year and I was SHOCKED to find that there are at least several hundred. Still, somehow, Black women are criminally underrepresented in the world of comics - characters, creators, and consumers.
[blacksuperheroines.blogspot.com]
When it comes to American vs. Non-American, Non-Americans are often villains. There seem to be A LOT of characters from Africa whenever a Black character is invented. Like Black from America and Black from Africa are inherently different and imbued with different traits. Who can say why that is...
09/04/09
09/05/09
My first thought when I saw the panel was "Superdickery"!
In all seriousness, the Superman Family comics were among the most freakish things I've ever seen put to paper.
09/07/09
The worst examples are the token characters from the 70s and 80s. Remember the Contest OF Champions? We had Sabra from Israel, Arabian Knight, Collective Man (from China, natch, because they're all commies, right?) Shamrock, Blitzkrieg, Peregrine (from France). Even the "white" foreign characters were pathetically stereotyped.
09/04/09
All that foreignness and he was still successful; if not an immediate bestseller, then an enduring and powerful franchise with multiple spinoffs and great staying power.
So - much as the comics industry would like to believe it isn't so - it might *not* be entirely a failure of the buying public, but a failure of the writers (mostly white american males) to realistically and engagingly imagine stories involving non-white, non-american people and cultures.
09/04/09
09/05/09
09/05/09
I think Gaiman has lived long enough in the US to qualify as an "expatriate." Although such things are up to the person to define themselves.
That said, I think that Gaiman is able to do that because he's already established. The thing is, like I wrote above, the world of creators, even among the major companies, is a lot more heterogenuous than the world of characters. Filipino artists, for example, have been a major force at Marvel and DC since the 70s. There some very good African-American artists - Kyle Baker, Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan, Christopher Priest. George Perez is Puerto Rican, and, of course, Jim Lee is Korean.
So, to me anyway, it's not about a dearth of creators, it's about the fact that the media is still culturally conservative.
09/05/09
09/04/09
09/04/09
09/04/09
What's really interesting is that outside of North America, Mickey and (especially) Donald Duck are much more popular in comics.
09/05/09
09/05/09
Not to mention that the Carl Barks comics were brilliant. Without them, Jeff Smith's work would have been very different.
09/05/09
09/04/09
Now, as a white, male Canadian, what I would love to see is a version of Alpha Flight that was actually, y'know, written by a Canadian and didn't rely on American stereotypes. Like, seriously, a midget who dresses in black and is called Puck. REALLY?! I'm surprised they didn't throw a girl with red pigtails and a straw hat in there too.
09/05/09
@Cory Gross:
Don't forget this classic moment. "Bon Jour," indeed.
09/04/09
Kidding, obviously, but Disney was, and still is, inherently racist. Didn't a Gawker site recently complain about their Princess and the Frog game site?
As for comics, it's a mixed bag. The issue has so many sides to it, I'm not even going to go into it here.
09/04/09
09/04/09