By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 6/15/2016
Recently Marvel’s Director of Content Development Sana Amanat met the President of the United States during a Women’s History Month event. Evidently she liked the White House so much she returned yesterday for The United State of Women Summit where she appeared on a panel called “REEL Change: Advancing Equity and Opportunity in Media.” This […]
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 2/23/2016
Prof. Carol Tilley, who previously revealed that anti-comics crusaderDr. Fredric Wertham’s research wasn’t all that is at it again. While rummaging through the archives at the Billy Ireland Library she found an unknown comic by an unnamed artist that satirized Wertham’s anti comics crusade. It was called “The Uncanny Adventures of (I Hate) Dr. Wertham.” […]
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 2/23/2016
Rokudenashiko (aka Megumi Igarashi) is a Japanese artist best known for creating a kayak that was based on a 3D scan of...an intimate part of her body. And she paddled around in it. Happily. The Japanese government was somehow offended by this and prosecuted her for obscenity—the trial has taken place and a verdict has not been rendered yet. Her memoir What Is Obscenity? The Story of a Good For Nothing Artist and Her Pussy, will be published this spring by Koyama Press, and she's coming to North America for a series of lectures and signings sponsored by arts organizations and free speech advocacy groups. And appearing at TCAF. So you will be able to hear all about her travels and canoeing*** in person.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 2/8/2016
Here we go again. A parent in Seminole County, Fla. found that her nine year old brought home This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki and thought it was way too adult for her kid and complained, and the local TV news has launched an investigation and discovered that shockingly, the book, which […]
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 1/27/2016
Hm, a TV show called Lucifer. I was wondering when someone would object to a network TV show named after Satan, and sure enough One Million Moms took up the challenge: FOX’s new drama “Lucifer” is spiritually dangerous. The new program “Lucifer” glorifies Satan as a caring, likable person in human flesh. The character Lucifer […]
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 1/4/2016
Twitter has had a harassment problem for a long time. Like, a loooooooong time. Something about the impersonal format gives free reign to any and all disgusting behavior. I myself—along with several other women in comics—was the target of a troll who made all kinds of creepy threats (including rape) for years. It took many […]
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 10/19/2015
It seems that Chris Ware, the genius behind Building Stories and other structural comics masterpieces, and Hajime Isayama, the Attack on Titan creator we wrote about a few posts ago, share some of the same things: low self esteem as the lot of the cartoonist. Ware has as piece called “Why I Love Comics” in […]
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 8/28/2015
The famous murals at New York's Palm restaurant appear to be gone.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 8/28/2015
Was that letter everyone linked to about a sweet Wonder Woman lunchbox getting banned at a child's school real? Or are we all just sheeple who believe everything we read on the internet?
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 8/24/2015
The Hugo Awards, honoring the best in science fiction, were presented this weekend surrounded by a nebula of controversy. Amy Wallace has a lengthy write-up at Wired explaining everything, but the short version is… Well, there is no short version. The award nominations, which are open to attendees and supporters of the annual WorldCon, became […]
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 8/24/2015
With cons and fan events growing in popularity, and shooting an almost everyday occurrence here in the US, one wonders if there will ever be an "incident" at a con. Well here's one that MAY have been thwarted. It seems two invited participants in the Pokémon World Championships were arrested after making some online threats and showing up armed to the teeth:
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 7/21/2015
“Dogs and cats, living together!” – that’s what immediately popped into my mind yesterday when I read Tony Isabella praising DC on Facebook for how it was treating him in regard to Black Lightning.I’ve never seen the original contract between DC and Isabella in regard to Black Lightning so I have nothing to say of substance in regard to the property’s legal status, but as anyone who has followed Tony’s online writing over the years can tell you, Isabella’s statements about DC’s treatment of him and his landmark creation have not exactly been complimentary. That changed, however, yesterday, when Isabella called attention to an Amazon listing of the April 2016 release of Black Lightning, volume 1, the first of what could be a series of collections featuring DC’s first African-American superhero to star in an an eponymous book.
According to Isabella, the rapprochement is the result of outreach by Dan Didio and Geoff Johns, and Isabella is confident that DC will treat him fairly in regard to the payment of royalties. He also raised the possibility of doing more work for DC given sufficient reader demand; the prospect of Isabella working with, say, the creators of the revived Milestone line on a multi-generational crossover is particularly intriguing, given certain thematic resonances with Milestone’s nuanced reflections on creative identity.
To say that Isabella’s announcement is the most unexpected Facebook post of the year is an understatement — it’s one of the most dramatic turnarounds I’ve seen in decades of reading about comics-related disputes, and kudos to all involved for bringing about what I hope will be a truly lasting peace in our time.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 5/15/2015
A pinup from artist George Petty, alluded to in Prof. Lepore’s piece
I kind of missed the tidal ebb and flow over Jill Lepore’s analysis of A-Force in the New Yorker while I was at TCAF. I saw it in my feed and figured it would ignite some debate but I was misled by the title on the piece
Looking at Female Superheroes with Ten-Year-Old Boys
as opposed to the internet title of the piece
Why Marvel’s Female Superheroes Look Like Porn Stars
which is a bit more clickbaity.
But what no one seems to have commented on is that MARVEL SENT THE NEW YORKER AN ADVANCE COPY OF A-FORCE! The issue doesn’t go on sale until May 20th, but here it is:
The morning after we saw “Age of Ultron”—a sleepover was involved—Captain Comics and Mr. What? and I read the first issue of “A-Force” at the kitchen table, unheroically, over waffles. I asked the captain to tell me who the women on the cover were: a swarm of female superheroes.
“She-Hulk, Phoenix, Scarlet Witch, Storm, Medusa, Rogue, Wasp, Electra,” he began. “Rescue, Miss—no, Miss Marvel, Black Widow,” he trailed off, vaguely. “I think that’s Dazzler…”
As you probably know, the co-author of the comic, G. Willow Wilson, gave a spirited rebuttal to Lepore’s musings over sueperheroine’s descent from pin-ups of the 30s:
So I was a bit surprised that someone who obviously values rigorous scholarship would analyze the first issue of a crossover event without any apparent knowledge of what a crossover event is, or what the heavily tongue-in-cheek “feminist paradise,” Arcadia, represents in the context of the Secret Wars and the wider Marvel Universe. (Does she know about the zombies? Somebody please tell her about the zombies.) Thus decontextualized, what Dr. Lepore is left with is a cover depicting a bunch of characters about whom she admits to knowing nothing, and one fifth of a story, which is perhaps why her analysis reads as so perplexingly shallow, even snarky.
As sympathetic as I am to Wilson, and supportive of the idea of an all-woman Avengers, there are a few people in the world—mostly history professors at Harvard, like Lepore, I suppose—who don’t know what a crossover event is. They may not even care. Lepore was responding to one set of tropes, while Wilson writes that the comic was created with knowledge of those same tropes:
We, the creators and editors (three women and a gay dude, by the way) are aware that the characters in A FORCE come from a bewildering mashup of genres and mythologies and time periods. That’s the whole point. A FORCE comes out of a very specific conversation about gender in comics that has been evolving rapidly in the past few years, driven as much by fandom as it is by creators and editors. Across the industry, we have been systematically un-fridging (I’ll let Dr. Lepore google that one) female characters who may have gotten short shrift in the past, looking at their backstories, and discovering, as a community, what has been left unsaid. And in A FORCE, we’ve put them all together–for the first time.
I was frankly, more interested in the story suggested by the visible title, examining just how tweener boys, the traditional audience for superheroes, actually respond to female characters, a reaction seemingly at the root of the dearth of Black Widow and Gamora merchandise, as well as the male audience that many observers to comics still presume. Lepore did quiz her kids a bit, but didn’t dig in:
“All the girls here have, like, gigantic cleavages,” Captain Comics said, giggling.
“Why do they have gigantic cleavages?” I asked. Did it seem inevitable to these little boys, I wondered, that women would be drawn this way?
“Because they’re girls, Mom,” Mr. What? said. “What else is going to happen?” And he laughed, because it was funny, and he knew I would find that funny—the idea that nothing else was possible—the way it’s funny when Jessica Rabbit says, “I’m not bad. I’m just drawn that way.” Alas, the Avengers are not funny, and neither are the She-Avengers.
I’d also like to draw attention to another rebuttal that Wilson linked to that hasn’t gotten as much attention, written by Leia Calderon, a member of the retail group the Valkyries:
Perhaps you were concerned with how much of female superheroes are drawn for the male gaze, which is a completely valid concern. Let’s talk about how to fix that. How do we reclaim She-Hulk from the fantasies of teenage boys, if that’s all a grown woman like yourself sees when she opens A-Force? I pictured She-Hulk as she is and turned an imaginary boob-dial in my head to reduce her cup-size… and my stomach churned. It felt like body-shaming a powerful character that I adore, and would adore no less if she had a different figure than the one she’s had for almost 25 years. I understand your superficial criticism, but not your implied solution.
Obviously, there are some deep cultural forces at play here, and one would hope that A-Force will be able to transcend them. I guess I’ll have to wait until May 20th like everyone except the Lepore household to find out.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 3/27/2015
Gilbert Hernandez’s Palomar—a masterpiece of small town life, longing and the search for love—survived a challenge and will remain on the shelves at the school library in Rio Rancho, NM Betsy Gomez reports for the CBLDF.
The book was challenged a few weeks ago as “child porn” by a parent in a highly slanted scare TV report. A review committee has decided that the book can stay:
The Rio Rancho review committee agreed. By a 5-3 vote, the committee voted on March 16 to retain the book.
“We commend the Rio Rancho Public Schools for adhering to its challenge policy, and are pleased with the result that the review committee has retained this important book for the benefit of its student community,” says Charles Brownstein, Executive Director of KRRP sponsor organization Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
As NCAC’s original letter stated, a decision to keep Palomar would “demonstrate respect for your readers and their choices, for the professionalism of the librarians who serve the reading public, and for the First Amendment and its importance to a pluralistic, democratic society.”
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 2/27/2015
Sadly I can’t embed the local news scare quotes story here but the transcript is almost as good. A mother in Rio Rancho, NM found her son had checked out Gilbert Hernandez’ PALOMAR from the school library, and then things got dangerous!
She said her son checked out the book “Palomar” from the Rio Rancho High School library Wednesday.
The 14-year-old thought it might be a Magna, or Japanese-style comic book. There are cartoon-like characters, but Lopez said she found 30 disturbing images in the book.
“I started to find child pornography pictures and child abuse pictures and I was like, ‘No. That’s not going to happen in my house,’” she said.
Online, “Palomar” is described as a graphic novel written by Gilbert Hernandez.
Even more incredibly the book—which reprints Hernandez’s acclaimed stories set in a small Mexican town from the first 10 issues or so of Love and Rockets—had been in the library since 2006! And no one noticed! The school library is investigating to find out HOW THIS HAPPENED?
How did it happen? Palomar is an acclaimed book by an acclaimed author, probably.
That said, the Palomar tales are definitely full of pee-pees, woo-woos and lots and lots of bazingas. It is a haunting, adult story of love, sex, betrayal, memory and loss. No one in comics draws guys with their dinguses hanging out quite the way Beto does. That said, as wonderful as this material is, school libraries are under a lot of pressure over standards, and Palomar is definitely rather adventurous material.
I would link to some images by my ad network won’t allow it. UPDATE: Jen Vaughan has a dingus parade! Thanks Jen!
Anyway, this seems like a tempest in a teapot with some deliberately misleading scary inaccurate quotes. Will it blow over as virtually every similar scandal—PARENT led protests, that is, not government led ones like the removal of Persepolis from Chicago schools—in recent years has? We’ll see.
UPDATED 2: ON a more serious note, the CBLDF is responding to this with help and information:
Needless to say, Palomar is not actually a collection of child porn — Publishers Weekly called it “a superb introduction to the work of an extraordinary, eccentric and very literary cartoonist” and it often draws comparisons to the magic realism of novelists such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The book collects Hernandez’s “Heartbreak Soup” stories which originally appeared in the Love and Rockets series, a collaboration with his brothers Jaime and Mario. Gilbert Hernandez’s stories focus on the interconnected lives of characters from one family in the fictional South American town of Palomar.
Although filtered by KOAT’s biased reporting Rio Rancho Public Schools officials’ characterization of the book as “clearly inappropriate” is worrisome. We certainly hope that the said officials are up to speed on their district’s policy on Request for Reconsideration of Library Materials, which says in part:
Review of questioned (“challenged”) materials will be treated objectively, unemotionally, and as a routine matter. Criticisms of print and non-print materials must be submitted in writing on a Request for Reconsideration of Library Materials form obtained from the librarian at the library/media center where the material is housed and submitted to the Superintendent of schools. The Request must be signed and include specific information as to author, title, publisher, and definite citation of objection.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 11/19/2014
A graphic novel has become Exhibit A in the latest Obamacare controversy.
Clear, simple, understandable, useful – those are just a few of the words that recurred in reviews of Health Care Reform: What It Is, Why It’s Necessary, How It Works, a 2012 graphic novel by Xeric-winner Nathan Schreiber and MIT’s Jonathan Gruber.
The irony of these descriptions is no doubt evident to anyone who has been following political news over the past weeks — years after Gruber won praise for his adeptness in making the proposed health law easy to grasp, Gruber has become the center of a political storm due to his recent off-the-cuff claim that the language of Affordable Care Act was deliberately misleading and designed to take advantage of Americans’ “stupidity.”
The dust-up has given new life to the Gruber and Schreiber graphic novel, which thanks to the vagaries of Amazon pricing algorithms appears to become an expensive collectible in hardcover. Conservative sites are finding the book funny in unintended ways, although no one has yet to explain the replacement of its originally announced artist, Dean Motter. It’s natural to assume that there may have been issues of scheduling or style, but perhaps there just wasn’t a place for health care in Terminal City.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 10/13/2014
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Oh my! I’ve been waiting for the story of cosplay harassment at cons to get more TMZed. According to the above teaser, tonights’ Inside Edition, which is syndicated nationally, is going to do a story on “the dark side of Comic-Con” which involves inappropriate touching and the usual harassment problems.
I doubt this will set off any witch hunt because we all know that touching people without their consent is wrong, but it is writing a new narrative about conventions.
From what I heard, there were fewer incidents at this year’s NYCC. Certainly the Cosplay is Not Consent posters by Amy Reeder Hadley were EVERY WHERE, and presented a much better message than last year’s Arizona Iced Tea promotions about women with big cans. Unfortunately there were a few incidents, and any is too many. But progress is being made.
Anyway, set your DVRS—the show airs at night in most areas, although it already aired here in NYC. And then watch a story about a dentist with bad Yelp reviews.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 9/25/2014
It’s Banned Books Week, a n annual event mostly held in libraries which spotlights attempts to remove books. This year’s theme is graphic novels, as discussed in this article from PW by Rich Shivener. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is sponsoring several events this week and has much more information and a list of banned or challenged comics here. The idea for GNs as a focus started when last year it was announced that the top ten challenged books nationwide includes Bone by Jeff Smith.
Tonight’s big event is a discussion by Scott McCloud and Larry Marder, co-sponsored by the CBLDF, Comic-Con International and the San Diego Central Library. Needless to say, if you’re in the area, it’s worth a listen.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 7/28/2014
As just reported, the NY Times delivered a pretty strong diss to the economics of Comic-Con, and I’m sure con vets and observers will be responding very soon, as Marvel’s CB Cebulski already did:
@Comixace They fail to mention that the line at Subway on Thurs was that long because of a Community promotion where sandwiches were free.
— C.B. Cebulski (@CBCebulski) July 28, 2014
In the meantime, the Bonfire Agency’s founding partner Steve Rotterdam</strong> penned a response for the Beat. The Bonfire Agency specializes in crafting ad campaigns to the geek demo, so they have some thoughts on branding strategies in general:
Sadly, the NYTimes article reflects the writers’ misunderstanding of the relationship the brands cited have with pop culture consumers, in general, and SDCC attendees, in particular. Most of the brands cited in the article are, in fact, returnees and many have extended their sponsorships to other pop culture “superfan” conventions throughout North America. More importantly, these brands have come to know that overt, hard-sell, commerce-before-content posturing and tactics at such events not only do not work with attendees, but have a tendency to backfire – particularly in the social realm. So what is dismissed by the writers as laid-back soft sell is, in fact, the best strategy for success when sailing through fan-infested waters.
Be it at the San Diego Comic-Con or at a local comic shop, brand support that smartly celebrates the passions of the geek demographic pays off in increased brand awareness, loyalty and word of mouth. Because when brands like Hyundai, Dr Pepper, Pizza Hut, Schick, MAC Cosmetics and Uber help superfans better connect to what it is they care about, they better position themselves with these discriminating, socially influential consumers for when the time comes to buy.
One thing the writers did get right. Compared to attendees of other conventions and trade shows held in San Diego, attendees at Comic-Con don’t spend as much to wine and dine themselves at area restaurants. First of all, the majority of them don’t arrive with expense accounts. More importantly, they prefer to direct their indulgences and dollars to the dealers and vendors on the exhibit floor.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 6/4/2014
Every year the Banned Books Week National Committee announces a theme, and for 2014 its comics and graphic novels. The announcement comes in the wake of Bone being named as one of the top ten most banned books of 2013, the growing number of challenges to Fun Home and general “They hate us!”-ness usually aimed at libraries. Captain Underpants, the most banned book, is even considered a graphic novel for the purposes of the announcement.
“This year we spotlight graphic novels because, despite their serious literary merit and popularity as a genre, they are often subject to censorship,” Judith Platt, the chairwoman of the Banned Books Week National Committee, said in a statement.
“It’s shocking that books are still banned and challenged. Comics are especially vulnerable to those challenges,” Charles Brownstein said in his own statement. “With this year’s Banned Books Week focus, we welcome the opportunity to engage the public in a vital dialogue about intellectual freedom and the powerful role comics serve.”
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 6/2/2014
A graphic novel is dropping this week called The Forgotten Man Graphic Edition: A New History of the Great Depression . It’s a 320 page history of The Great Depression, adapted from Amity Shlaes book, drawn by Paul Rivoche. Shlaes is a conservative historian and pundit, and to promote the book she has a piece in the National Review called A Cartoon Manifesto which is a kind of “gosh wow graphic novels can communicate” piece with the angle that the left has been taking advantage of this medium, the right better catch up.
Given my own liberal views (and lack of knowledge of the subject), I’m probably not the best person to judge whether the book’s view that The New Deal extended the economic hardships of the Depression, and Roosevelt and pals were to blame for a variety of ills is the truth. Yes, it’s Hayek vs Keynes over and over again. That said, for someone who writes history books, Shlaes’ research into comics was kinda…weird. Like the very word “mangas.” I guess this was a crash course and not an in-depth exploration.
Counterintuitive as it may sound, these graphic novels not only feature nonfiction but also lend themselves enviably to difficult nonfiction topics. Take Persepolis, a mauve-and-grey depiction of a girl’s life in the Iranian Revolution. Artist Marjane Satrapi depicts the habits of the Shah’s SAVAK officers and their terrifying successors, Khomeini’s PERFUMED police, better than any print history of Iran and certainly better than, say, the film Argo. Maus, another graphic novel, takes on a yet touchier subject, the Holocaust, and somehow manages to convey what happened without exploiting or reducing the record. What’s more, these long cartoon books have much the same capacity as films to entice the reader to delve deeper. As Bill Bennett, one who gets the medium, noted recently: “After reading the comic of The Iliad, then I read the children’s edition of The Iliad, and then I read The Iliad.”
Shlaes does have the know-how to link to an article I wrote on comics and libraries for PW, and she also tips us off to an illustration version of Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, which will set every eco-comix fan’s heart a flutter.
Things REALLY get fun in the comments, where you can see good the old “comics are dumb” attitude in full flower! Ah how I missed you. There’s this:
One thing I learned about the Left: they prefer it when the kids don’t know how to read too well. They prefer kids who can be led around the parking lot singing Civil Rights songs and hymns to The Lorax. That, to them, is more “educational” than anything a kid might learn in a (shudder) book.
and THIS:
I am lower middle class and I have lived in some of the poorest regions in America (including Alabama, West Virginia, and Kentucky). I have been homeless. I have lived in homeless shelters. And I worked my TAIL off to get my kids an education.
It’s not elitist to point out that reading Marvel comics is something you should do on your own time, not something that should be treated as educational.
We teach literature because the great books have depths that cannot be accessed unless one learns a particular skill set first. Learning this skill set is part of being educated. Today’s kids are not getting that education – and that limits them.
and on and on…
Whatever its politics, Rivoche’s work on this book is AMAZING. All this ax-grinding and arguing could make for a very very dull book, but he goes out of his way to make it visually compelling. There’s a tumblr devoted to the book and you can see some of the pages. I can’t judge this book as history, but as a comic it’s stunning!
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 5/28/2014
A few days back I ran a rundown of one particularly crowded weekend for comic cons, among them one called SuperFan ComicCon in Toronto, which I had never heard of, and which had…well, a somewhat dodgy website, something I was too polite to mention. It turns out the show itself did not please attendees or vendors. Organizers predicted 15,000 attendees, and about 2000 showed up, proof that even in this day and age you can still throw a pretty crappy comic-con if you don’t know what you’re doing, don’t promote it and have a subpar guest list.
I don’t know anything about the show itself or the organizers, but I did note that the venue, the Exhibition Place Better Living Centre in Toronto is not the most hospitable place for a show. I attended a show back in the day there, the Paradise Comic-Con which was a great show in many ways, but not overly attended. The Exhibition Center is (or was then and I assume still is) kind of isolated with little in the way of amenities. I’m sure there were other problems.
Anyway, Bleeding Cool has a round-up of complaints from Facebook that were deleted, something the organizers admit was a social media blunder. You can still see some apologies and anger on their page as this from the organizers:
Thank you to all who have patiently been waiting for your questions and concerns to be answered. We at SuperFan ComicCon wish to welcome all feedback from our online community, fans, and vendors whether it be negative, positive, or somewhere in between. We want to thank you for being a part of our first comic convention show and for your patience. The show had a few hiccups which you may have experienced, but we’re working to address these issues for future events.
We do want to acknowledge that the event was still a success. We would like to thank all our fans and vendors who enjoyed their time at the show and sent their support. We were all brought together by our passion for comic conventions and everything they include and we had hoped for this event to bring everyone together to celebrate those passions. Even we at SuperFan ComicCon are people who have a love for all things comics. Our goal was to bring a community together.
We understand that some aspects of the show didn’t go as planned or turned out as we had hoped. We thank those fans and vendors who have shared their experience (both negative and positive) as we will take this feedback as lessons learned to be applied to future shows. It is our intent to address any and every issue.
And one typical response from one Herbert Kwan:
lol what do you mean a success. Vendors and artist were packing up and leaving for good by mid Sunday, and by Monday 2pm 1/2 the vendors and artists are totally gone. You guys were even late opening for people who spend extra money to buy VIP passes. This is probably one of the worst show I attended, even compare to other first time cons. With that much unhappy vendors telling others how bad it was, who is going to buy booths and table for next year’s show? You guys were even classy enough to deleted bad review comments. I really really think that all the vendors, exhibitors, and artist deserve their money back after the lies and being mistreated by you guys.
Anyway what have we learned here? As con culture gets bigger and bigger and more lucrative, it’s obvious that more and more sharks and clueless newbs are going to get into the business. Maybe vendors could have done more due diligence, but although obviously big claims were made—it pays to vet people.
But also a reminder to people who are jumping on thee comic-con bandwagon. Vendors and artists need ACCURATE information about shows before they lay out money for booths, let alone travel, accommodation, sandwiches, and so on. It’s why when I hear claims of huge attendance numbers I try to verify ones that sound out of whack. GIVING OUT INFLATED ATTENDANCE NUMBERS IS FRAUD.
Some of this is self-regulating. Word spreads and people soon know who are the con men and who aren’t. There are a couple of other Facebook sites where vendors and guests share experiences at cons, and we’re going to see more of this. And there are may levels of “succcess.” I personally don’t get excited about most of the guests at Wizard World shows, but I know a lot of people do well at them, and the roster is expanding, and no one ever said those shows aren’t very well run.
There is a LOT of competition for boots on the ground and dollars in the pop culture event sphere. I recently wrote a story about comics events in libraries, and there are dozens of these and some of them draw 2000+ people. More and more comics shops are getting into throwing shows, and they have intimate knowledge of the local fanbase. And of course, big corporations are throwing cons too. I guess what I’m saying is if you want to throw a con, know what you are getting into and don’t try any flimflam—this is NOT easy money.
And once again, I’ll point to the CONversation series by Mike Scigliano, which is, I believe the only step-by-step guide to throwing a comic-con available.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 5/23/2014
In case you missed the Flight 370 of the comics internet, here’s a post to get you totally up to speed on the latest developments!
May 21st 12:10 pm Mary Sue contributor Alan Kistler posts a transcript of a podcast from the night before called Scriptnotes, a screenwriting podcast run by John August. On this episode, called The Summer Superhero Spectacular, August and Craig Mazin talk with Legend of Conan screenwriter Andrea Berloff, Captain America the Winter Soldier scribes Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, and David S. Goyer, probably the single most important guy in the entire DC/Warner Bros film universe, author of the stories of Blade I, Blade II, Blade III, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (League), executive producer of the upcoming Constantine tv show, and a man with a hand in just about every single DC related thing that goes on at Warner Bros.
Kistler transcribed the past of the podcast where Mazin called She Hulk “She slut” and Goyer chimed in with the following:
Goyer: I have a theory about She-Hulk. Which was created by a man, right? And at the time in particular I think 95% of comic book readers were men and certainly almost all of the comic book writers were men. So the Hulk was this classic male power fantasy. It’s like, most of the people reading comic books were these people like me who were just these little kids getting the s**t kicked out of them every day… And so then they created She-Hulk, right? Who was still smart… I think She-Hulk is the chick that you could f**k if you were Hulk, you know what I’m saying? … She-Hulk was the extension of the male power fantasy. So it’s like if I’m going to be this geek who becomes the Hulk then let’s create a giant green porn star that only the Hulk could f**k.
Ouchie.
May 21st 12:11 pm: All hell breaks loose on the internet as Twitter, show biz sites, comics sites and every site except the one you are reading cry out in unison to mock the man who will write the Justice League Movie and to, of all things, defend She-Hulk. As many pointed out, Goyer has grossly misrepresented She-Hulk — she’s Bruce Banner’s COUSIN not his fuck buddy! And she does have kind of a dumb origin: she was created by Stan Lee and John Buscema to copyright the idea of a “female Hulk” since Marvel feared The Incredible Hulk tv show would spin off into a female version, the way the Six Million Dollar Man had with The Bionic Woman. (these are primitive times we’re talking about.) But as hundred of fans pointed out, She-Hulk, in her day job as attorney Jessica Walter, had actually become one of the most well rounded female superheroines on the stands, with respected runs by Dan Slott and now Charles Soule; heck, even the John Byrne run had its moments.
May 21st 4:15 pm: : The Washington Post’s Alyssa Rosenberg hammers the above home with a fantastic post called She-Hulk is a feminist hero, not a male fantasy where she points out that She-Hulk, almost alone among superheroines, is a FEMALE power figure who is so strong she’s freed from all fear and able to enjoy her own sexuality with an agency rarely seen in any female characters:
She-Hulk was sexy, too, of course. But what Goyer seems to miss is that in her earliest and best story lines, She-Hulk’s sexuality is her own. She is not some brain-dead courtesan, but a swashbuckling heart-breaker. Her first love interest is a neighboring medical student, a younger hunk. In Slott’s “Single Green Female” stories, Shulkie brings home a male super-model and then has to figure out how to make sure her Adonis does not get too attached.
The best She-Hulk sex and romance stories succeed because they make an important distinction. She-Hulk is not a male fantasy of how sexual liberation works, where women focus more on making men happy than on their own pleasure. Rather, she is an adventuress with a clear sense of her own gratification and joy.
AND NOW SURPRISE FLASHBACK! In a post on Four Color Princesses by Dee Emm Elms called “People are gonna stare no matter how I dress!” Elms makes a pretty powerful argument that despite her often scanty clothing and art by Greg Horn and Greg Land and the VAST amount of She-Hulk fetish art out there, she is still an icon who stands in for the empowerment of women, representing self-reliance and the power to fight back, a fantasy that a lot of women, particularly battered woman, may find very inspiring. Yes, THAT Shulkie.
Oh yeah, while I was image surfing I found all kinds of amazing images of She Hulk. And I found this one of a little kid whose parents decided to dress their young daughter as She-Hulk. Maybe a little odd…but adorable.
BACK TO THE TIMELINE:
May 21st, 5:45 pm: The showbiz internet begins to question why Goyer is even writing Wonder Woman for the Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (League) movie, whose unfortunate title was just announced earlier in the day. Ross Lincoln at The Escapist ties his Martian Manhunter comments—which certainly aren’t very flattering to the superhero world—to Warner Bros’ failure in that department:
It’s been said before, but Goyer almost appears to be ashamed that he’s even associated with comic book films. So it is that the best he can come up with, when asked about one of DC’s most interesting properties, is to delete any trace of the his origin story, misunderstand core aspects of his character, and saddle him with a genericized sobriquet so hackish it almost belongs in a Matrix sequel and plot points that reflect the worst cliches of the last 20 years. I can’t argue that Martian Manhunter isn’t as well known as Superman, Batman or Wonder Woman. But using obscurity as an excuse to ignore him shows a painful lack of imagination. Marvel has made billions producing movies about ancient Norse gods and talking raccoons. Meanwhile, DC’s attempt to copy Marvel is being run by someone who thinks the lone survivor of an ancient Martian civilization is too nerdy for audiences to accept. Make of that what you will.
May 21st, 11:11 pm: Rosenberg’s colleague, Michael Cavna tracks down She Hulk co-creator Stan Lee and asks what he thinks of the controversy. Still sharp Stan responds “Never for an instant did I want her as a love interest for Hulk. Only a nut would even think of that.”
May 21, 11:12 pm: “Stan Lee calls David S Guyer a Nut” headlines begin to fan out over the internet.
May 22, early morning: Current She Hulk scribe (and attorney) Charles Soule begins to tweet about the controversy:
Working on She-Hulk #8 today. Man, she's a great lady.
— Charles Soule (@CharlesSoule) May 22, 2014
Don't spread the negative. If people are confused about a character's value, don't waste time hating them. Skip outrage, try outREACH.
— Charles Soule (@CharlesSoule) May 22, 2014
May 22nd, late afternoon: The original cause of the kerfuffle, podcaster.screenwriter John August Craig Mazin, finally speaks up and says when he called the She-Hulk a She-slut, he was descrying her sexist portrayal, not slut-shaming her:
First off, my point wasn’t that I think She-Hulk is a slut. I don’t. I don’t think anyone is a slut. I don’t think there’s anything shameful about female sexuality or the female body.
What I don’t like is the practice of pushing exaggerated images of female bodies to boys because it sells comic books or video games. Women in comics and video games aren’t accidentally drawn over and over and over again with outsized breasts, long legs and narrow waists. It’s marketing. Having a character remark recursively on that marketing doesn’t negate the marketing, of course. It’s a clever way to defuse criticism with grownups while selling issues to hormone-addled boys. John and I have talked about this issue on the podcast before as it relates to video games (specifically in support of the work done by Anita Sarkeesian).
Bottom line: I wasn’t saying that I think she’s a slut. I was saying I think the people who created her were at one time pushing a visual image of Hulk as Slut in order to make money. And I don’t like that. My comment was entirely about the illustration of a fictional character. It was not a reflection of my opinion of the mind or actions of the character.
May 23rd, 10:00 am: Weighing in on this who kerfuffle, The Beat must smh yet again at how many people in positions of authority don’t seem to get the first thing about What Women Want In A Superheroine. Not every female character must be a role model. Some are just well-rounded characters who are…fun. FUN, I SAY!!!
It wasn’t until I started writing this piece that I made a mental comparison of She Hulk and Power Girl. As a kid I always liked She Hulk; but Power Girl’s giant tits repelled me. Why? Both are fun, sexy characters who are superstrong. Neither is shy about showing off their physiques. And yet, aside from the excellent Amanda Conner version, Power Girl is usually portrayed as the passive object of the male gaze. As fetishized as She-Hulk is, if you look at the images on this blog post, she is NEVER passive. She is active, in control, strong, powerful…someone you would like to be for kicks, even if it had its downside, just like it does for Spider-Man, Batman, Superman and every successful superhero. She knows who she is and isn’t ashamed of it.
I dunno, maybe Marvel has it wrong developing Black Widow for films. While She-Hulk might be a tough sell because she’s…a female Hulk, she’s probably Marvel’s freshest, funniest female character. And there’s no one like her anywhere in film or TV.
I listened to a bit of the original podcast, and it’s clear that Goyer and the rest are relaxed and goofing around. Everyone says dumb shit from time to time, but the KIND of dumb shit Goyer used unfortunately fits in with a narrative that isn’t very hopeful for a) a female superhero movie ever being successful in the studio system and b) a DC movie that doesn’t star Batman or Superman ever being successful. I don’t know Goyer or anything about him, but I can guess one thing: This morning, he’s sorry he ever said those things aloud on that podcast.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 4/14/2014
If you were to guess what the 10 most banned or challenged books in the US in 2013 were, you might guess 50 Shades of Grey for its class-consciousness tinged bondage romance; or John Green’s Looking for Alaska with its classic themes of coming of age and the required drugs and sexuality. And yes both those books are on the list, released today by the American LIbrary Association. But also on the list? Jeff Smith’s Bone series, which we’re told by the CBLDF, has been cited for “Political viewpoint, racism, violence.”
Racism? Is this that anti-Rat Creature party we’ve been hearing about? Or the Rockjaw Defense League?
While Bone is a bit of a shock to be on the list, the first one is also odd because it’s so clearly a kids book: Captain Underpants. I mean sure kids shouldn’t be exposed to underpants, unless they are being told to put on a clean pair because it’s Tuesday already, but…honestly don’t the censors of America have better things to do?
Here’s the complete Top Ten:
1) Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey (Reasons: Offensive language, unsuited for age group, violence.)
2) The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison (Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, violence.)
3) The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie (Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group.)
4) Fifty Shades of Grey, by E.L. James (Reasons: Nudity, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group.)
5) The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins (Reasons: Religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group.)
6) A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl, by Tanya Lee Stone (Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit.)
7) Looking for Alaska, by John Green (Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group.)
8) The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky (Reasons: drugs/alcohol/smoking, homosexuality, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group.)
9) Bless Me Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya (Reasons: Occult/Satanism, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit.
10) Bone (series), by Jeff Smith (Reasons: Political viewpoint, racism, violence.)
According to the CBLDF,
This is Bone’s first appearance on ALA’s annual list of challenged books, but it isn’t the first time it’s run affoul of censors. In 2012, it was banned in Texas at Crestview Elementary and moved to the junior high library because it was deemed unsuited to the age group. In April of 2010, a Minnesota parentpetitioned for the series’ removal from her son’s school library, when she discovered images she believed to be promoting drinking and smoking. A letter from Smith decrying the ban attempt was read aloud at the committee’s hearing, and the challenge was ultimately rejected by a 10-1 vote, to the praise of Smith and CBLDF.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 3/18/2013
As we suspected when the news broke, the removal of Persepolis from the seventh grade curriculum at a Chicago high school turned in to a minor media circus pretty quickly, with school officials saying different things all over the place. If you missed all the confusion, the Chicago Tribune
has the authoritative round up and Claire Kirch covers it for PW. Basically it emerged that the book was not being removed from school libraries or all schools, but it is being removed from the 7-10 grade curriculum where it is is currently being taught. The person who seems to have decided that is at the very top: Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennnet who wrote:
“It was brought to our attention that it contains graphic language and images that are not appropriate for general use in the seventh grade curriculum. If your seventh grade teachers have not yet taught this book, please ask them not to do so and to remove any copies of the book from their classrooms.”
Even though Persepolis currently is included on Chicago’s common core curriculum for grades 7 and 11, it will not be taught to students in grades 7-10 in the nation’s third largest school district until, CPS office of teaching and learning chief Annette Gurley told PW by phone Friday afternoon, a training guide for teachers wanting to use Persepolis in their classrooms can be drafted by the CPS curriculum department and set in place. Persepolis will continue to be taught in grades 11 and 12 and in Advanced Placement classes.
“We want to make sure that the message about inhumanity [is what] kids walk away with, not the images of someone with exposed body parts urinating on someone’s back or someone’s being tortured,” Gurley said, “We are not protesting the value of this book as a work of art. We just want to make sure that when we put this book into the hands of students, they have the background, the maturity to appreciate the book.”
Author Marjane Satrapi was reached for comment by the Trib, and expressed dismay:
“It’s shameful,” she said. “I cannot believe something like this can happen in the United States of America.”
Regarding the district’s concerns about the depiction of torture, Satrapi said:
“These are not photos of torture. It’s a drawing and it’s one frame. I don’t think American kids of seventh grade have not seen any signs of violence. Seventh graders have brains and they see all kinds of things on cinema and the Internet. It’s a black and white drawing and I’m not showing some
And this morning, students at Lane Tech High School, where the teaching ban originated, staged a sit in that was broken up by authorities after about 20 minutes.
Lane Tech students organized today’s 8 a.m. sit-in in the school’s library on Facebook and other social media platforms, however faculty broke it up about 20 minutes later, according to student reports on Twitter.
Multiple students reported on Twitter that the library was locked and up to 400 students flooded the surrounding hallways.
One student Tweeted shortly after 8 a.m., “The lack of keys at the library was pre-orchestrated librarians, teachers, staff knew well in advance what we were doing.
In 2009, parents tried to get both the book and movie banned in the Northshore school district. At issue were three specific complaints about content:
language that “would not be acceptable over the open airways via either TV or radio” and that students would be disciplined for using;
a brief sequence depicting torture in Iran, including a man urinating on a torture victim; and
the vague claim that the book is “sexually charged.”
In addition, complaints were made about parents not being notified in advance and that an alternative assignment wasn’t available. The district claimed this wasn’t true, and a curriculum review committee for the district rejected the parents’ complaints.
A dear friend of mine, also a brown woman, was invited to that conference as well. It’s a high honor and it sounded like an amazing event.
Sama Amanat is an incredible talent and a wonderful human being. I’m very happy she’s being recognized for her outstanding work.
The Outhouse has a good point, too. The comics industry treats women like trash and it’s going to take more than Ms Amanat to fix that.