Episode 160 Topics Include:
- Women and minorities in comics
- Ripping up paper for fun and profit
- This week in trailers: Red Tails, A Good Old Fashioned Orgy, Avengers One-Shot: The Consultant
- What we've been watching
- Featured Review: Black Death
Running Time: 1 hour, 22 minutes
Episode Songs:
I Sell Comics - Courage My Love vs Walt Flanagan
Bridges - Courage My Love
This Podcast May Include Some Explicit Language
...It Also Most Likely Contains Some Spoilers
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something got messed up! the streaming audio link is busted ("not found") and the direct download file doesn't play and is only 1 K in size. :\
ReplyDeleteYea, I'm not sure what happened. I know Rian uploaded the file earlier but for some reason its not on the server anymore. I will talk to him and we will let you know when its up. Sorry about that!
ReplyDeleteTo anyone who was trying to listen, sorry about the mix-up. I accidentally capitalized a letter in the filename, so the link from the blog couldn't find it. It's fixed now, so feel free to listen to your heart's content.
ReplyDeletegreat episode! women and racial minorities in comics is a sprawling issue, and one that's one important to me, so i'll try not to ramble forever on this one, hehheh.
ReplyDeletei'm not going to get into an affirmative action debate, but the basic concept is a crude way to compensate for social inequalities; it's not perfect but sometimes you need a quota like that because without it the same shit keeps getting perpetuated. the same people keep getting hired and the same characters keep getting created because the people in power like the folks running DC don't see what's happening or they don't care. i don't think they're bad people, they're not actively sexist or racist despite some of their readers being so (like all the fucking shitbags on various online comment threads), they're just not seeing it, which seems dumb for a company that wants to make money. the problem with women in Big Two comics isn't that they're not good enough or the right caliber or that they wouldn't LIKE to work on Big Two comics and get nice paychecks, it's that they aren't being sought out and the people doing the hiring aren't seeing them. especially at places like DC where they don't take unsolicited submissions, you can't even get your work in there, so hiring largely happens due to networking and who knows who, except men usually know mostly other men in a field dominated by men, the highest profile creators in mainstream comics have been men for decades, that's whose work is most readily in front of the bosses. not to mention the long-standing myth that chicks don't like superheroes that i think still pervades a lot of comics people and readers. and obviously there are plenty of exceptions, nothing is mutually exclusive, but it all contributes to the current situation which i think is pretty obvious by looking at each company's slate of books. sometimes they need that kick in the pants to get them out of that rut.
yeah, it's 2011, and it would be nice if race or gender didn't matter regarding hiring and creative stuff, but they do matter. we're not there yet, we haven't achieved some Star Trek society or something, and sometimes coming at issues with a super idealistic angle isn't really helpful or practical. and you guys are right that ultimately if a story/artwork is good it's good regardless, but stuff like gender, race and nationality isn't interchangeable and absolutely affects what a person brings to the table; it's about voice, and in mainstream comics right now women don't have much a voice. a woman might write a female character differently because she's familiar with the troubles a woman might go through or she'd catch the little things that a man might not, stuff a man doesn't have to think about during his day or things he might not even be aware of (and vice versa), a woman's story might touch on something authentic for a woman reader that a male writer would never get. for me that's what this push for women and racial minorities and LGBT creators is about, as well as just comics growing. things can be better.
haha, shit i wrote a lot. i forgot about Ultimate Spider-Man too! anyway, comment #2! i agree that the new Ultimate Spider-Man push seems a little hollow, but at the same time i don't think a Black Hispanic character is "politically correct" (which is just a term invented by conservatives who are afraid of loss of social power and want to prop up the status quo to benefit themselves) because Black Hispanic boys ARE REAL. i don't get when people say it's stupid because making a character a minority of any combination is pandering or "PC" or whatever bad thing, because it's like make a character who's anything but white and straight and it's a gimmick? how does that even make sense? it also plays into the idea that white and straight are the "neutral" defaults for every character and anything else is "extra" or tacked on. well i say fuck that!
ReplyDeleteon one hand i really feel strongly about all this stuff and i want the Big Two to change, if just to get some overlooked folks some paying gigs, but on the other hand i also agree with you guys that the Big Two are sort of old hat now. they're old news. i know a lot of people really care about these characters, and maybe DC and Marvel can get better, but the indie stuff is where it's at now.
and HULK! yes!! i hadn't seen the Ang Lee Hulk since 2003 but i watched it recently, Rian and i tweeted about it a bit, but man i love that damn movie. so compelling. i found the Ed Norton Hulk kind of boring, myself, i don't know, the action was dull and it seemed too generic. i love how weird and comic booky the Ang Lee Hulk is, it's so brightly colored and emotionally overwrought like old Silver Surfer comics and it's so off the wall. i love the Hulk's body language and how he bites a missile in half. and Nick Nolte ROCKS, he is just BONKERS in that final scene. "stop WHAT! stop WHAT!!!"
shit i wrote SO FUCKING MUCH. i promise i won't comment for the next two episodes just to make up for this. O_O
ReplyDeleteNo way, I love reading your comments! And they are way insightfull.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed recording this episode because I felt we actually had something to say. And as two guys not in the industry all we can do is comment on what we know (which ain't much lol).
I think we all agree that the Big 2 are competely missing the boat when it comes to equality and as we stated in the episode the more independent stuff, including Image and DH, are more where it's at.
I hate the term PC too. It's just moronic.
I know that we aren't at the place where people get hired regardless of race, religion, sex, etc... I just think it's sad. We've progressed and evolved so much in technology and science and all that crap but we, as a society, are still so backwards when it comes to race and sexism. I think that's what I really wanted to get across (and probably failed to :)
Thanks again for listening!
Thanks for the comments, Ross. I had a feeling that these topics would spark some conversation with you, because you're one of the few writers/artists, male OR female, who writes a lot of racially diverse and female characters without squeezing them into simple stereotypes. This goes back to what I was saying an episode or two ago about how interesting and real your characters are.
ReplyDeleteI see what you're saying about how it must be tougher for female writers/artists to get into the industry and then make a name for themselves within Marvel and DC, but I do still feel that if a woman and a man are both really good artists and draw exactly the same way, if they followed the same channels to get themselves recognized by going to shows or whatnot, I find it hard to believe that the man would be more likely to get some comic work than the woman. I'm not one of those people who's like, "Girls don't like comics because they're for nerdy guys," but I do have to imagine that the reason there aren't more big name female comic creators at Marvel and DC is that there just aren't as many women yearning to write/draw comics (or more specifically, the kinds of comics that Marvel and DC are likely to print). I think a good example to prove this is the fact that when Jesse and I were in the Kubert School, we had the largest class in the school's history and there were only 5 girls in our entire class. I wanna say we had about 50 or 60 total students, but that's like one tenth of our class or less. Part of the problem must lie with Marvel and DC, but when you look at the small number of female creators at a big, superhero-y show like Philly Con as opposed the large numbers of female creators at a non-superhero-y show like SPX, I think a lot of the "problem" just comes down to there being either A) a lot less women who want to draw standard Marvel and DC superhero comics or B) a lot less women who draw/want to draw in a style that Marvel and DC are willing to try on one of their books.
As for the Ultimate Spiderman topic, I think the part of me that gets hung up about Spiderman changing race is the same part of me that gets hung up on Spiderman's costume changes. I don't have any problem with a character being any race under the sun, but the fact that they're doing it just to bump sales and inevitably undo the whole thing later (which I can guarantee you that they'll do) is what irks me. It's the same situation as when Spiderman got that Iron Man/Spiderman armor during Civil War. It's temporary just to get people talking. I hate the predictability/overuse of this kind of ratings booster. It's the same situation as when the Big 2 kill characters just to bring them back or re-number a series just to change back to the original numbering at a key moment to make more money. In this case, it's just making a mainstay white character a different race.
Ha! You creamed your pants over Loose Ends! Seriously though, it's a fantastic looking book. And great episode, I enjoyed it.
ReplyDelete@Rian: i think the lack of ladies at DC and Marvel is definitely because of factors you're saying, like a lot of women probably don't want to draw that stuff or don't draw in mainstream enough styles, but how did that happen, you know? it's been fostered to be like that and it doesn't have to be, and i think there are plenty of women who'd jump at the chance to work for the Big Two if approached or considered. i think a lot of it is also that women, even if they like Big Two characters, assume those companies are big boys clubs or they've had experiences that reinforce that, and they don't feel welcome so they make their way on a totally different path, one that's not as visible to the Big Two so the cycle perpetuates itself. and obviously there are exceptions, like Amy Reeder who made a big splash at DC and doesn't draw in a really mainstreamy type style and now she's on Batwoman. and i think just the simple fact that sexism exists in society at large is evidence enough that it must therefore also exist in comics. i can't remember who said it, but i read a quote recently along the lines of "desperation creates innovation. comics need to get desperate." i'm not sure that's usually the case since plenty of people innovate all the time desperation or not, but i think it kind of applies to the business aspect of the Big Two, like once they really get desperate and see that their audience is dying and the same shit and the same "look" they've been publishing for decades isn't working anymore, they'll reach out to more artists. it's definitely changing, though, at least in comics; i remember when i was at SCAD there were only a few girls in the Sequential Art classes, but then when i went back years later to visit, the place was filled with them. probably largely due to the manga boom that happened in the interim, which is a section of the medium much more friendly to women.
ReplyDeleteman, i hope they don't undo the new Ultimate Spider-Man, i didn't even think of that! what kind of cynical comics reader am i?! i think it's kind of different, though, like maybe since he's the Ultimate version he'll have a better chance... i don't know. on the other hand all the other non-white legacy characters i can think of haven't really stuck around, like Cassandra Cain pretty much got the boot, the other Atom got killed (i think, just going from news i remember reading), the new Blue Beetle who to be fair i think they're bringing back, and the John Stewart Green Lantern seems to be the version of the character most people outside of comics recognize (i'm not familiar with GL, though, so i'm not sure if he co-exists with Hal Jordan or not). anyway, i guess even if the Miles Morales thing was created to get people talking or whatever, that there's still plenty of potential for the stories to be good and for him to be well-written and everything and be just as good as any other character.