Comix – Page 44 – Wis[s]e Words

The sorry Saga #12 saga

Published on April 14, 2013Leave a comment

Controversial panel from Saga #12

So, to recap, the latest issue of Brian Vaughan’s and Fiona Staples’ Saga comic felt foul of Apple censorship over the panel to left amongst others, and it couldn’t be sold through the Comixology Apple App. On hearing this, Vaughan and Staples went on a PR campaign to protest this decision, only for Comixology, their distributor, to come back a day later and say it was all a misunderstanding and Apple never had even seen the issue and it had been their own decision not to publish it through the Apple app.

A happy ending? Not really, as apart from that whole being lied to by Comixology about who took the decision to censor what, there’s still the reality of the threat of Apple censorship and the influence it already has on how companies like Comixology behave. It was their ideas about what Apple would and would not allow to be published on iOS that led them to pull Saga 12 and this might not have been the first time they did it. It’s not just a problem with comics either of course; everybody who has to deal with Apple as gatekeeper to publish on the iOS platform will have to self censor to a greater or lesser intent to deal with their guidelines, which can also be a bit vague.

It’s not just Apple either. We’re entering an era in which, as everything migrates online while the devices that we go online with become increasingly less open, there are now several powerful gatekeepers emerging that can strangle freedom of speech. Apple, Google, Amazon, all have the potential to do this, or are already acting as a censor to some extent. This is not necessarily done maliciously, but in any situation where there’s only one party that can give you access to a certain platform, there will be censorship emerging naturally from ordinary business considerations. When we were all using desktop pcs this wasn’t that big a problem, as there never was this central gatekeeper and you as a user could decide for yourself what to and what not to install. With publication on an iOS platform only possible through the Apple store, this is no longer possible and anything Apple deems unsavoury or against their own interests will therefore be rejected.

The only real solution to this problem therefore consists of the opening up of all such walled gardens, to allow rival shops on iOS, Android, Kindle, etc, rather than allow a monosophy of gatekeepers to persist.

“Avengers Assimilate”

Published on April 1, 2013Leave a comment

page from Uncanny Avengers

Andrew Wheeler is not happy about Havok’s speech (see above) in Uncanny Avengers #5:

The speech leaves us to believe that Havok doesn’t want there to be any word that describes his minority identity. He’s not saying that he’s not just a mutant, but that “mutant” is not among the things he wants to admit to being.

That’s not a message of inclusion. That’s a message of assimilation. That’s a message of erasure.

While Andrew Wheeler is correct in his analysis and why Havok’s attitude would be problematic in a real world scenario, to see a fictional character, even one that’s portrayed as sympathetic in context, should not necessarily be a problem, should it? Even in actually existing history there have been plenty of people from particular ethnic or cultural groups arguing for assimilation rather than inclusion, as any casual glance at Jewish history in 19th century Europe would show you. To see one particular character in one particular comic arguing the same for mutants, especially when said character is, as Wheeler points out, one who could pass for regular human fairly easily, is therefore no more than realistic, another political position between the extremes of Xavier (cohabitation) and Magneto (subjugation) to throw in the mix of mutant politics, more fodder for the usual angst ridden X-Men storylines.

That is, if you can trust the writer, Rick Remender, who did throw a snit on Twitter when people first started criticising this speech, but who has since apologised.

Unfortunately, experiences over the past few years with how mainstream (sic) superhero comics handle identity politics has taught a lot of people, not necessarily excluding myself, not to trust the writer in cases like this. Too much sexism, women in fridges, fucking around with characters of colour and general bad faith has meant that even mildly subtle plotlines like this are looked at with suspicion rather than interest. For those who are interested in seeing a more diverse approach to superhero comics, there is little trust that writers can handle identity politics like this sensibly and sensitively.

Why Marvel is more diverse than Fantagraphics

Published on March 14, 2013Leave a comment

In a CBR interview with Ann Nocenti and Louise Simonson, the anonymous interviewer asked a question that got me thinking:

Right now, fans of mainstream superhero comics seemed to be more engaged than ever in conversations about women in comics, the need for women creators and the need for strong female characters. While that was never a primary consideration for you two, do you think conversations like this one help? Does it actually accomplish anything or are there other things we need to do if we’re serious about involving women in the industry?

Because while mainstream comics, ie. Marvel and DC and perhaps Image are not doing well in being all that diverse in the talent they’re using on their books, at least this lack of diversity is talked about, if not quite acted upon yet. And if we actually did get serious about diversity as a comics community, it would be relatively easy for a Marvel or DC to get more women, more people of colour on their books, just because of the kind of books they publish: assembly line comics with an emphasis on the characters rather than the creators.

Yet what about a publisher like Fantagraphics, the exact opposite of Marvel and DC, a publisher that prides itself on publishing the very best cartoonists publishing in English? If you look at their catalogue and the people they publish it isn’t any more diverse than the socalled Big Two are.

The thing is, it would actually be harder to “fix” Fantagraphics than it would be to fix Marvel justbecause the people being published by Fantagraphics aren’t interchangable cogs. Therefore, if the publishers, Gary Groth and Kim Thompson would want to increase the diversity of their catalogue, they need to do more work: find the sort of cartoonist that would fit in well with Joe Sacco and Daniel Clowes and Chris Ware, but is a woman, or a person of colour. Either that or move away from the Fanta “house style” and find new, interesting areas of “art comics” that unrepresented groups do better at.

Chris Mautner’s Comics College

Published on March 11, 2013Leave a comment

Windsor McCay was one of the first superstars of the American comics strip, a pioneer in both cartooning and animation, massively prolific. All of his work is in the public domain, but where to start? Over at Robot 6, Chris Mautner provides the lowdown in the first installment of a new series of Comics College, “a monthly feature where we provide an introductory guide to some of the medium’s most important auteurs and offer our best educated suggestions on how to become familiar with their body of work”. The previous thirtytwo installments profiled the following cartoonists and writers:

It’s a decent list, one that’s clearly the work of one particular person’s tastes, but which is also partially driven by which creators are currently relevant for one reason or another. The one thing that’s a bit of a disappointment is the lack of female creators, only four in a list of thirtysomething.

How to make money as a newspaper cartoonist

Published on March 9, 2013Leave a comment

As a counterpoint to yesterday’s video…