The Last Guru
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Riri Williams/Comics Diversity by Dwayne McDuffie
Unsurprisingly as soon as Riri Williams was announced to take over as Iron Man from Tony Stark, there were people on the internet looking at it as proof of Marvel’s agenda to replace all white characters with POC.
This is one of my favorite pieces from the late/great Dwayne McDuffie regarding fan reaction who perceived a “black agenda” when he was writing Justice League. Much of McDuffie’s writing/work really relevant today.
“But there is a hardcore piece of the audience whose back goes up whenever you go into these issues, and they don’t even realize it. And what kills me about it is that when they’re writing about it, they’re always hyperrational. You know, Look the fact is, there are more white characters, and if you picked randomly, you would end up with all white teams. And the fact that there were three black people on this team is statistically ridiculous. It’s obviously a quota. And the quota arguments on fictional teams crack me up. Because who’s actually I’m sorry, is somebody losing a job here? Which fictional character is losing a job? There’s no connection. They’re not talking about what’s going on in the comics. They’re talking about what they think is going on in their lives (and that’s not really going on either.)”
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Hi everyone!
This is an illustrated guide I made as part of my co-admining work at The Middle Eastern Feminist on Facebook! It will be published there shortly.
The technique that is displayed here is a genuine one used in psychology - I forgot the name and couldn’t find it again so if you know about it, feel free to tell me!
Some could say: “Yes but you can use that technique for instances of harassment other than Islamophobic attacks!”, and my reply is: Sure! Please do so, it also works for other “types” of harassment of a lone person in a public space!!
However I’m focusing on protecting Muslims here, as they have been very specific targets lately, and as a French Middle Eastern woman, I wanted to try and do something to raise awareness on how to help when such things happen before our eyes - that way one cannot say they “didn’t know what to do”!
I’d like to insist on two things:
1) Do not, in any way, interact with the attacker. You must absolutely ignore them and focus entirely on the person being attacked!
2) Please make sure to always respect the wishes of the person you’re helping: whether they want you to leave quickly afterwards, or not! If you’re in a hurry escort them to a place where someone else can take over - call one of their friends, or one of yours, of if they want to, the police. It all depends on how they feel!
For my fellow French-speakers: I will translate it in French and post it on my page as soon as I can :)
Please don’t hesitate to share this guide as it could push a lot of people to overcome bystander syndrome!!
Lots of love and stay safe!
PS: I you repost this cartoon of mine on twitter or instagram, please add me in the post so I can see it, with @itsmaeril :) -
Q: Maybe people would be less willing to post anonymously if they didn't think the minute they criticise your "diversity" that you'd insist to everyone reading they are by default an ignorant racist? I know at least one user who had to quit Tumblr over enormous amounts of hate mail they received that was instigated by you accusing them of being so for criticism of your new "Nick Fury".
A:
If somebody received enormous amounts of hate mail based on something they said here, I would suggest that it may have more likely been triggered by what they said than any instigating by me. I am not in favor of such tactics and do not support them.
I think, though, that this does point to a place where maybe people ought to be taking a look in the mirror and making a gut-check to themselves about how they are representing their opinions. There’s nothing wrong with liking the traditional Thor, or Carol Danvers as Ms Marvel, or Steve Rogers as Captain America, and with wanting any of them back in those roles. But at the point where your expression of such a feeling is about being the victim of diversity, about being “deprived” of your favorite character due to “politically-correct reactionism”–as though 80+% of all comic book super heroes weren’t straight white people–that’s where you stop talking about a preference for one fictional character over another and get into biases based on real-world ethnicities, religions and orientations.
As a reader, there are literally hundreds of characters who, in one way or another, mirror my experiences as a human being, because I happen to be a straight white dude. Whereas for other people in this world, a huge number of them, the options are far more limited. And this isn’t a white world–it hasn’t been for years and years and years. That’s frightening to some people, but that’s the tide of history. And it’s right. And I do not think for an instant that there is anything unfair about their being some characters, prominent characters, of every possible persuasion. We don’t have every single base covered yet, but it’s a process and we’re working on it. But it takes a special kind of entitlement to feel like 80+% isn’t enough for you.
I think the world in general would be a better place if people could stop looking for differences to divide us and instead embraced the commonalities that make us all the same. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that there are assholes of every possible persuasion–but those assholes are not representative of the whole of the demographic groups to which they happen to be a part–they’re just assholes. But that’s not everyone, and isn’t really even most people.
And, bottom line, if you need the anonymity to express your opinion on a matter like this, you might be an asshole. Stop, double-check yourself. Be the better version of who you are. (A clue: if your statement begins with some version of, “I’m not a racist, but…”, you’re firmly in asshole territory.)
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1983 letter from David Letterman to Marvel editor Mike Carlin, thanking him for Avengers #239, in which the superhero group appeared on Late Night.
Art by Al Milgrom and Joe Sinnott. Letters by Jim Novak. Colors by Christie Scheele. Words by Roger Stern. Concept by Mike Carlin. -
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Beating Back The Devil
Yesterday we spoke a bit about Daredevil’s physicality and how he moved more like a gymnast. However there’s another aspect of his physicality which can’t be ignored. Thanks to his mentor Stick (who I sadly have never drawn), he’s been trained in many different forms of martial arts, but at his core Matt’s a brawler like his dad. I’ve always loved the scenes when he’d go back to Fogwell’s Gym to take out his frustrations on the heavy bag. For those keeping score, to the left is page 6 from Daredevil 9, to the right is page 7 from issue 14.
Mirror Mirror
A tool I learned to use on a regular basis from watching how animators worked was a mirror. Animators would often keep a mirror by their desks and use themselves as a model when drawing facial expressions and I thought this was really smart so I figured out a way to rig an 8”x10” mirror to my art table on an old adjustable desk mounted document holder. It was perfect, every time I needed help with an expression, like the ones seen here of Matt, I would pull it into place and just use use my own face as a guide. If I needed extreme lighting I would adjust my art lamp to give me what I needed. Eventually I stopped using the mirror when taking quick photos with my computer’s camera became more practical.
Funny story. There was this one day I was in the office drawing a Wolverine cover and I was violently grimacing (as Wolvie’s inclined to do) into the mirror and Dan Buckley (our publisher) walked into my office to speak to me about something. I didn’t notice him at first until I heard him ask if I was okay. Apparently he thought I was having a seizure.
Behind The Page.
At the very bottom of page 6 you can see that we added some fun graffiti at the construction sight. I’ll leave it to you guys to figure it all out.
On the second panel of that same page Matt holds a photo of Karen. There’s also an envelope with his name on it and a letter. This is the same letter that opens the very first issue of Guardian Devil. However, issue 1 was not the very first time that letter showed up nor was it the very first DD story by Kevin and me. There was actually a Daredevil 0 that never made print and that very few people ever saw.
Back in 1997 when we were still working on computers made of wood, flint and dental floss, a young John Cerilli (now Marvel’s VP of Content and Programming) pitched me on this thing called a Cybercomic (I know). It was a clickable story technology with limited animation possibilities and sound effects. In fact it was the very first Infinite Comic and for it’s time it was pretty cool. I remember the project vividly because the deadline to put it together was insane on top of everything else we were doing to launch Marvel Knights at the time. It nearly killed me. While I had wished I had had more time to make it cooler, it turned out okay. Unfortunately because the tech platform it was built on was so archaic, those files are unretrievable today so sadly no one has seen hide nor hair of that story in probably well over a decade.
It can’t shock anyone that Joe Quesada draws with a huge mirror aimed right at his face.
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I made a Captain Marvel folder game for my pre-k student because she is over the moon about Carol. Like most children her age, she gets “d” and “b” confused and she’s currently having trouble remember what “r” looks like. The game is a typical folder game, but for those of you who are unfamiliar it works like this: Put in several letters that she can easily recognize and then mix in the ones she’s having difficulty with. The difficult letters appear more ofthen on the game board than the easy ones so she gets enough practice, but the easy ones give her guaranteed successes to boost her self confidence, giving her a sense of accomplishment. Then all you need is a six-sided die and some game pieces and your ready to go. The folder is laminated so that you can use a dry erase marker and switch out the letters or use it for number and sight word games. When we get to the end of the game, our game pieces have a “Captain Marvel Party” and dance and sing.
This all came about because I mentioned Captain Marvel earlier in the school year. She was so excited that she was a girl superhero and wanted to know more about her so I showed her a few panels from the comic with concepts I knew she’d understand (like Kit and how she helped Carol to remember who she was, Kit is nice to people and stands up for her friends, CM helps people, that she has a pet “cat,” etc..) This all led to her using “Captain Marvel colors” to make patterns with math manipulatives, creating various structures for CM (using the same color scheme) in Block Center, and drawing herself as Cowgirl Captain Marvel. Don’t get me started on how she reacted when I got the CM action figure. Thank you kellysue, for inspiring my student and inspiring me to use your work as a teaching tool.
Fair warning: We’ve been learning about what an author/illustrator’s job is and well, you’ve got a letter coming your way from a very enthusiastic little girl. ;)
I can’t wait.
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Q: Am I the only person who believes you when you say things? For that matter, am I the only person who believes creators in general when they say things in interviews? With certain of my fellow fans who post on the net, I get the frustrating sense that they think that everything that's said about why stories are written the way they are, characters are changed, etc. is really for some hidden motive and the people who create the stories they read are all lying liars from Liar-Land. it vexes me.
A:
There is a tendency among certain fans to view the creators of the comics like the characters in the comics—in other words, to characterize them simply, based on your own liking of their work. So complex human beings become viewed as trading cards, and are either “super heroes” or “super villains” depending on the argument of the day. If there’s say, a Chris Claremont vs John Byrne disagreement of some kind, then one guy must be absolutely right and the other must be absolutely wrong—and often, this has to do with which guy’s work you prefer, and so which viewpoint you want to see be “triumphant.”
But the fact of the matter is that there is a degree of nuance to almost every situation that you’re likely to hear about—nothing is quite as simple as Fantastic Four vs Doctor Doom where everybody sits neatly in their box. Comics are also a collaborative medium, which means that there are going to be differences of opinion on almost any subject you could name. And those disagreements are often not vitriolic. But it’s easier for readers who are at a distance to view them that way—because to most of you, we are all just names on a credits page rather than human beings, with no greater sense of reality than Magneto or Iron Man.
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Q: Ryan: Why are their still no Marvel animated movies based on the big 'event' storylines (Annihilation, Civil War, World War Hulk, Avengers vs. X-Men, Age of Ultron, etc)? They seems like such perfect source material for animated movies.
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We're running out of colors...
A few weeks ago, we announced that Ms. Marvel #1 is getting its SIXTH PRINTING. Wowza. If you aren’t already aware, that’s pretty historic. Simultaneously, issue 2 is getting a 4th printing and issues 4 and 5 are getting their 2nd printing. We’re elated, not only because it seems like we’re…
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Finally got a #duckface picture with @kellysued today. She was super sweet as...
Amazing Spider-Man #700 (2012)
Cover by: MR Garcin
Spectacular Spider-Man Vol.2 #1000 (2011)
Cover by: Paolo Rivera
A find at the Fan Fest: Classic Asinof book, “Eight Men Out” #ASG
- hesoslim said: Tom, please. No context was lost. You were posting here and you said that X-Men is limited because you guys don't get the profits from it because Fox makes X-Men movies. You then implied that it is wrong for a fan to root against something, which led to me calling you a hypocrite because you all are trying to limit the appeal of the X-Men in place of other characters. You're hoping people gradually forget X-Men and pick up some other lesser characters if you guys avoid promoting that franchise.
I’m sorry, but you’re projecting a lot of motive (and even some actions) here.
Look at our...