Category Archives: comics

Black, Yellow, Brown, Or Normal

Posted on September 27, 2013 by | 12 comments

The title of this post comes from the image below, which I see floating around the internet from time to time. It might’ve been from one of Cracked’s PhotoShop contests, I really have no idea.

ornormal

The reason I’m bringing this to your attention is to underscore the fact that, by and large, “White” really does equal “normal,” at least in North America. You don’t really have to search hard to stumble across that fact, either. Think about how it works when you recount stories to other people-

Imagine you’re talking about this weird dude who sat down next to you on the subway. If he was White, would you bother mentioning that? How about if he was Black, or Asian, or Latino?

The terminology used in this gif aside, you probably never make reference to a White person’s ethnicity.

Continue reading →

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Posted in comics, film, media, race, writing

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DC Is Terrible, But They’re Not Homophobes

Posted on September 6, 2013 by | 6 comments

Look, let’s be clear, I’m not a fan of DC. To be a little more specific, I am not a fan of DC’s business practices and editorial decisions. All of that being said, yesterday the internet perpetuated one of my least favourite of its trends: snap judgement from journalists fishing for hits.

Late Wednesday night W. Haden Blackman and J.H. Williams III, the writer and artist of Batwoman, respectively, posted  a message on the former’s blog that they would be leaving the title. Here’s the section of that post that has received the most attention [emphasis added]:

Unfortunately, in recent months, DC has asked us to alter or completely discard many long-standing storylines in ways that we feel compromise the character and the series. We were told to ditch plans for Killer Croc’s origins; forced to drastically alter the original ending of our current arc, which would have defined Batwoman’s heroic future in bold new ways; and, most crushingly, prohibited from ever showing Kate and Maggie actually getting married. All of these editorial decisions came at the last minute, and always after a year or more of planning and plotting on our end.

From what I can tell, the news was first broken by The Outhouse, and was soon followed by all the other major comic book news outlets. ComicsAlliance and Newsarama both likewise delivered the news straight, but elsewhere this wasn’t the case. Continue reading →

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Posted in bizarreness, comics, internet, lgbt, news, writing

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Mything The Point With Zack Snyder

Posted on August 30, 2013 by | Leave a comment

I had wanted to write about Man of Steel once and once only, but just last Thursday director Zack Snyder had an interview with The Japan Times in which he had the following to say in regard to the massive collateral damage that takes place during the latter part of the film:

“I wanted the movie to have a mythological feeling. In ancient mythology, mass deaths are used to symbolize disasters. In other countries like Greece and Japan, myths were recounted through the generations, partly to answer unanswerable questions about death and violence. In America, we don’t have that legacy of ancient mythology. Superman (who first appeared in ‘Action Comics’ in 1938) is probably the closest we get. It’s a way of recounting the myth.”

That having been said, let’s talk about mythology. Continue reading →

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Posted in America, comics, film, religion, writing

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It Is An Exciting Time To Be A Minority Canadian Comic Book Fan

Posted on August 23, 2013 by | Leave a comment

As an Asian-Canadian who spends far more time on comic book news sites than actual news sites, this week has been all sorts of crazy. There’s been . . . a lot to take in.

Mighty Avengers

To begin with, next month heralds the first issue of Mighty Avengers. Take out the “gh” and add “nori” and you more or less have an understanding of what the book is all about.

I refuse to show any of the interior artwork, so this variant is all you’re going to get.

The fact that we have far too many titles featuring the word “Avengers” aside, this is a huge deal in that, of the nine heroes in the team, the majority are people of colour. Luke Cage, Falcon, Blue Marvel, and Monica Rambeau are African-American, White Tiger [Ava Alaya] is Hispanic, and Power Man [Victor Alvarez] is a mix of both. Rounding out the team are Spider-Man, She-Hulk, and a new Ronin whose identity is yet to be revealed.

With the very talented Al Ewing on writing, the only thing that would make this book perfect were if Ron Wimberly, who illustrated the variant cover on the left, were the actual artist on the book. Unfortunately, that job was given to Greg Land. I do not have anything civil to say about him. Just click the link. Continue reading →

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Posted in bizarreness, Canada, comics, film, race

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Shame Day: Internet Journalism

Posted on August 13, 2013 by | 2 comments

So yesterday I was reading through comic book news, as I do, and came across
this image that features award-winning actress Glenn Close as Nova Prime in the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy.

When I saw this I thought to myself, “Huh, that doesn’t look a darn thing like Glenn Close as Nova Prime in the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy.” Then I moved on with my life. Aside from that brief thought I didn’t really question it. The thing is, neither did most sites. Continue reading →

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Posted in comics, film, internet, media, news, Shame Day, writing

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“Rape”: Storytelling Device

Posted on August 9, 2013 by | 9 comments

In 2011 I wrote about rape as a term not to be used casually out of context. In 2012 I wrote about rape as a subject for comedy. In 2013, and in light of a few recent events, I am writing about rape as a storytelling device.

Mark Millar is famous for books such as Superman: Red Son, and Jupiter’s
Legacy, but probably most well-known to the non-comic-book-reading-public as the man responsible for Kick-Ass and its sequels. He is also a writer who has featured rape in a number of his works. I’m not going to go through the process of listing them all, but instead am going to present a quote he gave regarding his opinion on using rape in writing:

The ultimate [act] that would be the taboo, to show how bad some villain is, was to have somebody being raped, you know? I don’t really think it matters. It’s the same as, like, a decapitation. It’s just a horrible act to show that somebody’s a bad guy.

Now I could begin quoting a number of very smart people who responded to Millar’s words, but this isn’t that kind of post. If a list of that sort is what you’re into, I’d like to direct you to this article on the Los Angeles Times Hero Complex. A better compilation of tweets and quotes about this specific subject would be difficult to find. Continue reading →

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Posted in comics, feminism, morality, sex, writing

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