"Nicky and Zane #1- as always, click the images for higher resolution. Use it to teach your children the joys of reading. *(Endorsed by Nicholas and Sam.)
Monday, July 6, 2009
Friday, July 3, 2009
When EC Comics Told the Comics Code Authority to...
As a follow up to my post from yesterday about comic book racism: There is a cool CBR article about EC Comics and a black/white situation.
This is the proud comics tradition that I'm talking about. From the article:
"When the issue first came out in 1953, it was heavily lauded, including the following missive from a certain Mr. Bradbury…
However, when Gaines and Feldstein went to put it in place of the pulled story, they were told no, the story violated the Comics Code.
Judge Charles Murphy (administrator of the Code) said that they would have to change the astronaut from black to white if they wanted it to be included. This was not part of the Code at the time. Feldstein and Gaines felt that Murphy was just deliberately messing with them (again, Gaines felt that the Code was designed specifically to put him out of business).
After being told that, clearly, the color of the astronaut’s skin was practically the whole point of the story, Murphy backed down a bit, but said that they would at least have to get rid of the perspiration on his skin. It could possibly be that Murphy felt that it was exploitative. I do not know, and neither did Feldstein nor Gaines, who only had their suspicions that they were being screwed with.
Feldstein and Gaines both refused to comply (I believe the terms they used included at least one use of the word “fuck”), and Gaines threatened a lawsuit and/or a press conference to shine a light on why exactly the story was objected to.
The story ran as is."
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Comic Book Racism
I've been reading comic books for most of my life. I was always proud of the progressive tradition of racial and gender equality being presented by said books. I remember being very young and getting warm fuzzies when I realized that "Storm," a black woman, was just as good a leader (and sometimes stronger and smarter) as her male counterpart "Cyclops," a white man.
Storm won this battle with Cyclops and became leader of the X-Men. The white man was just wasn't in the frame of mind to lead. The black woman was better fit to rally the troops- go X-Men!
I'm not discounting the chauvinistic and racist moments that do exist in comic history, but I thought that as a geek culture we'd moved past a lot of prejudices.
I guess not.
Dwayne McDuffie, a comic book author and a black man, recently posted a preview of one of his upcoming comics. It featured a few black characters as integral parts of the story line. Some of the "fan" responses were quite disturbing:
“…how many blacks did McDuffie manage to sneak onto the team this time–five? (I bet DC editorial gave him the same order as Burger King in that lawsuit–to “lighten things up around here.”)”
“Why don’t they call this the “Minority League”? ”
“I don’t think anyone will support an original black “mainstream” character. I know I won’t.”
“Couldn’t they get Static, Black Lightning, or one of his daughters instead of Dr. Light on the cover of BET League of America? Ha!”
“Maybe they should establish a separate league for all the negro superheroes. I’m not saying kick them ALL off. One would be okay. (Doesn’t Hollywood have some kind of law that says every movie has to have at least one black in it?) I just think they’re going overboard with all this diversity stuff. I mean, how many comics do minorities read anyway?”
Wow. Thanks for being progressive and accepting fanboys. Heaven forbid a black man writes black characters.
Apparently there's too many "minorities" on the cover...
Mymymyohmy!
This is another lyric post. It was the greatest song ever. It's about superheroes having sex. Sweet.
Mymymyohmy!
Mutant heat ray eyes
Ninja robot thighs
Hide your poison knives
Infinite gauntlet history
Feel my powers you cannot see.
Secret identity loving me
Super-baby killing me
Secret Identity loving me
Super-baby killing me
Mymymyohmy!
Superhero lies
Hundred million times
Through resurrected lives
Infinite gauntlet history
Feel my powers you cannot see.
Secret identity loving me
Super-baby killing me
Secret Identity loving me
Super-baby killing me
Mymymyohmy!
Superhero thighs
Mymymyohmy!
Hold the sweet surprise
Oh... Who will help me?
If it's a battle royale you want, you got it mister!
How shocking!
Even bone is turned to powder!
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Thought Crime Man
This guy sounds like a champ. His comic books have interesting concepts too.
From SF Scope:
Comics writer Mark Sable was detained and intensively questioned by the TSA for carrying a script for an upcoming comic book about a writer who is detained and intensively questioned by the TSA for writing a comic about terrorism.
"Flying from Los Angeles to New York for a signing at Jim Hanley's Universe Wednesday (May 13th), I was flagged at the gate for 'extra screening'. I was subjected to not one, but two invasive searches of my person and belongings. TSA agents then 'discovered' the script for Unthinkable #3. They sat and read the script while I stood there, without any personal items, identification or ticket, which had all been confiscated.
"The minute I saw the faces of the agents, I knew I was in trouble. The first page of the Unthinkable script mentioned 9/11, terror plots, and the fact that the (fictional) world had become a police state. The TSA agents then proceeded to interrogate me, having a hard time understanding that a comic book could be about anything other than superheroes, let alone that anyone actually wrote scripts for comics.
"I cooperated politely and tried to explain to them the irony of the situation. While Unthinkable blurs the line between fiction and reality, the story is based on a real-life government think tank where a writer was tasked to design worst-case terror scenarios. The fictional story of Unthinkable unfolds when the writer's scenarios come true, and he becomes a suspect in the terrorist attacks.
"In the end, I feel my privacy is a small price to pay for educating the government about the medium."
The Accidental Universe.
Yesterday I woke up beneath the mountains. In the dim morning glow I saw that The Great Wall of China had appeared in my backyard.
I made my way up the side of the wall and walked the stone path, which no one had really put there. I walked a million years and then a million more. I met a creature that no one had created.
He said, “We are without a father.”
I said, “Where is a son without a father?”
He replied, “I came from the wall.”
I followed the creature to his great library made of glass that stood high. Inside I saw the literature of the lonely.
The creature said to me, “This is where we know where we came from.”
I asked, “Where?”
He answered, “The Wall had the rightness of life, and we grew up from the unseen.”
Outside the library as we spoke a city grew up on it’s own, and reached to the sky, and created it’s own light. And the Sun winked down.
And the Sun said, “I came from nowhere. I made you from chaos with dice.”
I turned to the creature in distress and asked, “How can this all be!?”
He said, “You don’t understand. Read all these books. Once you do, you might have the reason and logic that I have found.
“Then you’ll know that you have no father.”
Yesterday I woke up and The Great Wall of China had appeared in my backyard. Nobody had put it there.
What? You don’t believe me?
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
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