I’m sure some of you remember my I2CAP picture post.
Well, we had another competition, this time in Tamale, the capital of Ghana’s Northern region. Pictures and a short write up are on the work blog (still under redesign)
My pictures and thought will be up either later today or tomorrow. Either way, enjoy. I did. Smart kids make me happy.
Thanks to this post from Nalo I just found a comment on my Octavia Butler obituary that I must have missed the first time. I guess that’s what happens when I get lazy and start occasionally skipping my daily blog reading.
Since that quote was attributed to Nalo, she went ahead and answered it here and covered the topic pretty well. I still felt the need to address it though. I guess something in my ego just keeps me from just letting this slide.
Of course, the really amusing thing about that blog entry is how generic it was. Generally speaking, as Pam noted, there seems to be a generic white response to these kinds of complaints about genre writing. Namely, the assumption that any mention of the whitewashed nature of the genre most imply some sort of automatic dislike of white people. Usually this is just followed by some kind of MLK-lite suggestion that we judge the writers by the content of their works instead of the color of their skin. I have seen it over and over again in discussions of race and science fiction and comics. At this point I can pretty much see them coming.
What is really amusing about these statements is that they tend to reveal how little critical thought the person making them has really put into the issue.
Why do I say this? Simple. How exactly would a black person who hated white people get into a whitewashed genre to begin with? Who would they be reading?
Personally, I’ve been a science fiction fan for the better part of two decades. I already made a post about the books that most influenced me as a child. Long before I’d ever heard of Octavia Butler, Samuel Delany, Steven Barnes, Nalo Hopkinson etc. I was reading Asimov, Heinlen, Ben Bova, Andre Norton, John Brunner…. Obviously I have absolutely no idea what it means to relate to someone who does not look like me. Ok, bad sarcasm aside, the truth is that every genre fan of color must by definition be able to relate to people who are different from them. There is no other way to get into the genre. There just aren’t that many non-white people in it. The chances of there existing a black science fiction fan who has only read black authors and/or characters is so small I’d rather lay odds on that snowball in hell first. On the other hand, it would be remarkably easy to find white fans who have almost never read a science fiction book which didn’t have a white writer and/or character.
Hell, as far as I know there isn’t a stigma against putting white faces on a book because they might not sell as well. Which makes it remarkably interesting that the question being asked is why people who have to make a special effort to *not* read a genre story which requires them to identify with someone who doesn’t look like them are prejudiced. If anything, the question should be reversed.
Why is it that putting a black face on the cover of a book is automatically a bad thing?
Why are non-white authors such a rare thing?
Where are the non-white fans?
What keeps them out of a supposedly universal genre?
And why is it that those who do exist tend to cluster into their own communities?
What is the cause of this defensiveness that shows up chiefly among white fans whenever the racial makeup of the genre is discussed?
Like I said, that piece displayed an all too common lack of critical thinking about the issue. I understand its probably due to long standing unquestioned assumptions that people are not even aware they hold. Still, since cornute was kind enough to ask…..
My first Prep Time Posse piece is up. In true Die Whitey warrior tradition (yes Pam, I’m stealing that from you) I talk about marvel’s new family of black Captain Americas and how much they irritate certain fans. Enjoy
Pam also sent me this link which covers a lot of the frustration I feel whenever I hear people talk about the continenent: How to write about Africa
Those of you who also read Pam’s blog already know about my new hobby, a collaborative comics blog called Prep Time Posse. This is another one of those things Okayplayer has gotten me into. The people on this blog are people I usually end up discussing comic books with on the boards. Between all of us I’d imagine there probably hasn’t been a significant comics event in the last two or three decades that we lack expertise in. The stuff currently up is definitely gold and I expect that to continue.
(sidenote: the name comes from our version of the standard ‘which hero would win in a fight’ argument where it was eventually agreed that given enough prep time batman could defeat pretty much anyone)
I don’t have a piece up yet but it will be coming soon. In keeping with my comics talk here, it will probably border on the sticky issue of race and comics fandom at some point. I’ll also talk about comics I think you should be reading, recommend old stuff I like and maybe work in at least one Milestone Comics post. There will also be some general ‘what is wrong with comics’ posts
I’ll definitely let you know when my stuff starts to roll out.
I’m also taking part in an online food log where I shall be providing all the gory details of my daily eating patterns. I might also use it to log exercise. That I haven’t decided yet.
Rich Watson, the writer of Glyphs (which, for those of you who haven’t clicked on the link, is a pretty comprehensive look at comics with black characters or creators) is now writing a column for Buzzscope entitled ‘What’s a Nubian?’
For those of you who missed the reference, its from Kevin Smith’s ‘Chasing Amy‘
Its basically a continuation on the theme of his blog, but in front of a larger audience. For any comic book fans looking for new stuff to pick up I think its very much worth reading, and especially for comic fans of colour its a great resource to find out about books that usually get little to no mainstream exposure
I hope you like them
Guess what I’ll be getting myself next month
*geeked*
This weekend, I ended up in New York City hanging out with an old friend. While I was there I passed by Midtown comics specially to see if they had a copy of the Fierce Trade paperback. Fierce is a product of Ghettosake comics(link in sidebar), the brainchild of brothers Robert and Jeremy Love.
The plot is action movie fare. Actually, the entire movie has an espionage thriller type feel. It would work great as a movie. Jamaican-born psychic Jonathan Fierce work for Razor, a special FBI unit. Someone betrays the unit and they all end up dead except for him. In their search for vengeance, the former members of his team all lend him their skills, turning him into a world class shot, hacker, martial artist, explosives expert and driver. With these new skills he returns to Kingston to find out who betrayed his team and exact bloody revenge. As with any good story, there is also a romance between him and the FBI psychiatrist assigned to help him deal with his psychic visions.
The writing is pretty much what you’d expect for something this action oriented. Its enough to develop the characters and make us empathize with them, but not so much that it interferes with the action. The great things about this book are the art and the action scenes. Every single panel is beautifully drawn. Honestly, I can skip the words and just enjoy the images. That’s really rare for me. Usually I’m more about the writing than the art. As for the action, like I said before its more than ready for the big screen. I was really impressed with how well the scenes were imagined. I’m guessing the brothers are both huge film buffs. Either way, this takes up a well deserved spot in my collection and I have no qualms about recommending it to anyone.
Sidenote: Below is the cover of Ghettosake’s next project, Chocolate Thunder. Its supposed to be a mesh of blaxploitation and martial arts movies on page. Personally, I can’t wait.
I also picked up the first issue of Kyle Baker’s latest project, Nat Turner. Seeing this art makes me wonder why he was unable to turn out work like this for Marvel’s ‘Truth’ miniseries
I’ve seen this movie twice since opening day. Once by myself and again with the geek crew (two of my brother’s friends, both engineers and comic book geeks). I can honestly say its tied with Spider Man for best comic book movie. Then again, I’m biased.
Batman has always been my favourite comic book character, followed closely by Spider Man. Its really not that hard to understand why if you’ve ever met me. Batman has no powers. He’s just a normal man who has developed his mind and his body to the absolute best of their potential. Granted, he’s an emotional cripple, but he still represents the potential inherent in a trained, disciplined body and mind to accomplish great things. Kind of the reason I’ve always been a fan.
Sidenote: How many times is Morgan Freeman going to have to take a minor character and make him into someone memorable before hollywood gets the message that he deserves much bigger and better roles? Lucius Fox is a minor character at best in the comics. However, in the movie, he is transformed into someone as important to the story as Alfred, in no small part because of Mr. Freeman’s acting skills
For those of you who have been reading this blog since the beginning, my reasons for making a post, or series of posts even, on blacks in comic books will not be hard to understand. For the rest of you, take a look here. Incidentally, there will also be similar posts concerning science fiction and I still need to address the entire ‘white male power fantasy’ issue.
The subject of today’s post is the gentleman in the picture above carrying a rather large gun, which he uses rather frequently throughout the book. He’s Aaron Day, otherwise known as Blackjack. A soldier of fortune and explorer in the same pulp vein as Indiana Jones and Alan Quartermain, except he’s also an educated, wealthy black man in the 1930’s, with all the problems that brings. I own several Blackjack comic books but today we’ll restrict ourselves to the ‘Blood and Honor’ graphic novel since, as far as I know, its the only one that’s easily available.
In this book, Blackjack and his Chinese indentured servant(yep, you read that right) head to Japan and then China to protect the life of a Japanese minister against the more militant elements of his own government. In the middle of all the predictable violence. Aaron must also come to terms with the fact that he effectively owns another human being. There are several other subtexts to the book which I can’t reveal without spoiling the book. I’ll just assure you that it is action packed, really well drawn and deals with a lot of issues you will rarely ever find in comic books. If you get a chance, pick it up. you won’t be disappointed.
Sidenote: Blackjack’s writer, Alex Simmons, was responsible for the creation of Orpheus, the first compelling take I saw of a black character in a Batman book since Steven Barnes’ ‘Underground Railroad’ story arc. Unfortunately every subsequent batman writer had no idea what to do with him so he was depowered, shuffled aside and then killed off. An action that brought to an end my support of all bat-related titles besides Gotham Central and Gail Simone’s run on Birds of Prey
My last final is tomorrow and I’m having a hard time going to sleep. At the same time, I’ve studied so much for this thing that my brain is about to start leaking out of my ear. Since I have nothing else to do and I’m already seated behind the computer, I figured I’d do some blogging. Since this past Saturday was free comic book day, I figured I’d let you guys know what I have been reading these days.
As you will probably notice, a lot of these are written by black writers or feature black characters. This is partially due to the fact that the writing is good and partially because I figure if I have the time to complain about the lack of representation in comics, I can put my money where my mouth is and support well written black comics. Plus I’m getting tired of the culture of sensationalism that the big two comic companies are working from these days so I’m going further afield in search of good writing and decent art. Anyway, without further ado, here is the list.
Black Panther
I was huge fan of Christopher Priest’s remarkable run on Black Panther and was really unhappy when the book got cancelled. I was livid when the series he moved on to, The Crew, was cancelled without ever getting off the ground. But that’s a story for another day.
The new relaunch of the Black Panther comic is being written by Reggie Hudlin, director of House Party and Boomerang as well as co-writer of the incredibly funny Birth Of A Nation. Unsurprisingly, he’s proving to be one hell of a writer. So far, I have been loving every issue of the new ‘Panther’ and I’ve even managed to turn a couple of people unto the book.
For those of you who are unaware of the story behind the Black Panther, he is the monarch of Wakanda, a fictitious African country that also happens to be the most developed nation on the planet. He has no actual superhuman abilities of his own, a special herb gives him heightened strength and senses but he is mostly a superbly trained human being with access to an arsenal of the most technologically advanced equipment on the planet. Basically, Imagine a black Batman with significantly greater resources at his disposal and you’ll get an idea of the potential of the character. When he was first introduced into the Marvel Universe he hunted down and captured the Fantastic Four as a test. Of course, immediately after that he spent the majority of his comic book time as a glorified cheerleader for the Avengers until Priest brought him back to life as a credible character who was always several steps ahead of his enemies. Reggie’s work seems to be continuing very much in this direction and if definitely worth picking up if you’re a comic fan.
Incidentally, for those interested in Priest’s excellent run on the character, there are two trade paperbacks available that I highly recommend. This and this.
Angeltown
This book is the latest crime series by novelist Gary Phillips. I was actually unfamiliar with his work until I started reading rave reviews for this series. Which is sad because I’m a huge fan of crime novels. He’s pretty high up on my summer reading list now.
Anyway, back to the book. Its a modern day noir-ish detective story about a private detective trying to track down a professional basketball player accused of murdering his white ex-wife (I wonder where the idea for that could have come from)
Of course, nothing is what it seems and this case ends up attracting the attention of people high up on both sides of the law leaving our detective to stay alive long enough to figure out the truth and find his man while avoiding a lesbian bounty hunter trying to snatch up the same target. Of course there’s a huge amount of sex, violence and strong language, all staples of the genre. If you like crime stories you’ll probably like this one. Its well paced and really well written
Ocean
I’m a huge Warren Ellis fan. I have been since Transmetropolitan, which, I believe, is one of the best critiques of the modern media I have encountered in a work of fiction. Plus the main character uses a weapon called a ‘bowel disrupter’ on people. Some people i know find him too cynical and suspicious of people in authority. Personally, I share a lot of his misgivings in those areas so I tend to agree with his stuff. Plus I enjoy his somewhat twisted sense of humor.
Ocean is a straightforward science fiction thriller about a UN weapons inspector who gets called to one of the moons of Jupiter when an exploration crew finds the cryogenically preserved citizens of an alien race and their weapons. Of course, it just happens that the only other people in the area are he crew of a weapons research station belonging to one of the largest corporations in the known world. This being an Ellis book, the company is evil and the manager of the station is insane. Plus the aliens might wake up at any minuye and the only thing we know about them is that they are prone to violence and have bigger guns than we do. It’s funny, violent and very thoughtful in parts. Pretty much what I expect from him. Plus, as usual, he provides a diverse cast of characters and even throws in a black male lead. That’s actually the other thing I really like about him. He creates incredibly diverse worlds and makes them seem perfectly natural, as opposed to a lot of writers who toss in one non-white character and them write them as a token.
Cannon Busters
This I picked up almost on a whim this weekend. The creator of the series, Lesean Thomas, is apparently one of the new generation of black comicbook artists and writers. His art seems to be very anime/manga inspired, which is not that unusual these days. i have a teenage cousin who also wants to become a comic book artist and also draws heavily from the same sources.
The book itself is set in a magic - meets - technology style world and apparently draws heavily on The Wizard of Oz for its story about a young robot and her friends who are on a quest. So far, we’ve just been introduced to the world and our main character when all hell breaks loose. The art in this issue is very well put together. I hope the story lives up to it. For now, it gets three issues to prove itself to me.
Papa Midnight
Like Angeltown, this book is also being written by a novelist who has decided to try his hands at comic books. In this case, Mat Johnson gets to write the origin of Papa Midnite, a character from the Hellblazer comic book series and the movie Constantine.
Papa Midnite is a nightclub owner in New York who serves both humans and supernatural beings. In the movie he maintains a strict neutrality while in the comics he is somewhat of a crime lord and definitely has an agenda of his own. Mat Johnson creates a story rooted in Akan mythology and the history of slaves in New York to put together a very interesting tale of Midnite’s origin and his true purpose. I’m biased towards this book since my father’s side of the family are Akan(Ashanti and Akyem for those who are interested) and there is obviously a lot of attention put into getting certain aspects of the culture and mythology right. That aside, its a really enjoyable read that I would recommend to anyone.
Anyway, thats enough nerdy behavior for one day. I’m going to bed now. Wish me luck tomorrow.
 | granadamang on At the end of the week, I ceas… |
 | durai on Aah, beaten to it(another Wire… |
 | Daron lumpkins on Black Comic book characters:… |
 | kwasi on Aah, beaten to it(another Wire… |
| kwasi on In which I return to the world… |
