Well, hello, Tony Starks! Ghostface Killah – Cell Block Z.

To his fans, Cole Dennis is a heavyweight contender with a devastating right hook. To a city being held hostage to chaos and terror, Dennis has a grit and charisma that make him the shining hope for justice–until he is arrested for a brutal murder. Framed for a crime he did not commit, he finds himself captive in a foreboding high-tech superprison whose masters secretly conspire to turn inmates into tomorrow’s most terrifying bioweapons–with Cole Dennis as the intended prize specimen. But Dennis is nobody’s lab rat. Reborn as a towering engine of destruction, Dennis will prepare for the fight of his life. He will rename himself Ghostface Killah. And his cry of righteous rage will echo beyond the cold steel walls of Cell Block Z.

I need to get in touch with somebody at Hachette asap. This is right up my alley.

Preview.

Yesterday, Jean Grey forced Magneto to see Nick Fury’s memories, which caused Magneto to repent all of his wrongdoing. Then Cyclops acted like a total hero by exploding the head of an old man who was no longer a threat. Good going, guy.

In the actual comic, Fury really showed Magneto how mutants were man-made in a laboratory, as part of Ultimate Origins. I’m still not totally sure why this caused Magneto to change his ways completely. Magneto’s war stopped being humans vs. mutants a while ago, what with him not only killing mutants by the score, but the fact that he was killing his own underlings for the hell of it. And yet this little snippet of information puts him into, “What have I done?!” mode.

Let us move forward.

I blame ManiacClown for that Burma Shave gag and the Wonder Pets thing. Give the guy a break on the latter one. He’s a father. It’s his business to watch that show.

We’ll continue with the X-Men insanity tomorrow, plus a little trip to Latveria.

Day Six!
Day Seven!

It’s been a long time, I shouldn’t have left you…

Here’s some catchup for you, Joe Casey Fanclub style-

-I joined my Joe Casey Fanclub gang on The Factual Opinion‘s Television of the Weak a couple weeks ago. Thrill as I talk about Leverage, the last TV show I watch! You can read the first entry here and click on through to the second. Read the third here. Just wait until Matthew Brady gets back on the Television of the Weak train. That’s the Comics Blogger Death Squad right there.

-Speaking of Matthew Brady… that guy has been on fire lately. He’s finally finished 100 Bullets, and he came with the big guns in “100 Bullets: Everyone dies in a flurry of arrows” and “100 Bullets: My only friend, the end.” On top of that, he’s doing these Jack Kirby flashback posts that rock my world. In “No goddling! No faltering! No whining!,” he’s got a great big panel, and then a wonderful sequence of Big Barda nonchalantly destroying things while Scott Free quips, and then a look at Holocaust imagery that Kirby used in his 4th World. He’s also got “Wow! Get that Orwell ‘double think!’ I’ve read ‘1984’–It sounds nastier–when spoken!” This is another flashback piece, and just as good as the rest.

If you aren’t reading him, you should be. Here, I’ll make it easy– here’s his blog and here’s his rss.

–Comixology‘s Comics app for iPhone/iPod Touch is pretty great. Just saying. I haven’t gotten a chance to see Longbox yet, though.

–Tucker Stone and Jog wrote my favorite reviews of The Hunter. Tucker’s is here and Jog’s is here. Neither of them approach it like a normal review (here’s the art, here’s the words, here are some opinions, in conclusion…) and the reviews are all the better for it.

–Sean Witzke‘s found a couple awesome things lately. There’s James Brown reading Werewolf by Night and ALL CAPS, an idea that I totally wish I’d thought of first. If something similar appears here, don’t be too surprised. Sorry, Sean! Ideaspace! Information wants to be free!

-Advanced Common Sense Episode 4:

In non-JSCF news–

-Laura Hudson wrote an excellent post on the direct market over at Comics Alliance. You should definitely read it sooner rather than later.
-You should read Charlie Huston‘s Twitter. He’s writing a story. Start from the bottom.

Previously, Colossus and the Hulk smashed the hell out of stuff because blowing up pieces of Avalon is really important. How come? I guess they want to make sure that they destroy Magneto regardless, but I’m sure there’s some cool stuff the world could use from a big, floating island. It seems so pointless, you know?

Then Nick Fury showed up alongside Reed, Doom and Zarda. His ace-in-the-hole (or at least the one for this version of the story) is that it doesn’t matter that he has a metal gun on him. The way Magneto’s been fighting, it’s like he only strikes in the name of his own delayed defense. Valkyrie cuts his arm off and THEN he uses his magnetic powers on her sword. Captain America beats him around and THEN he uses his magnetic powers on his shield and the surrounding environment. Wolverine mauls him for a minute and THEN he uses his magnetic powers to tear his skeleton apart. Even this whole scheme is based on following up, “They started it!” I’m just trying to make sense out of what they’re giving me here.

Anyway…

Yeah, that’s about it for Magneto. Come back tomorrow, as ManiacClown and I start on the long stretch of epilogue. We still have two overly-violent deaths to go!

Day Five!
Day Six!
Day Seven!

I have no memory of what made me buy my first comic book, and I don’t know what made me buy the one after that.  What I do know, is that I never would have gotten into comics at all, let alone bought half the comics I own, if it weren’t for fan culture on the internet.

You want to know who the current Robin is?  There’s a site for that.

You want to know what happened in issue 82 of Legends of the Dark Knight?  There is a site for that.

You want to talk about the psychological problems of Batman, or the physics of Superman, or how cute Nightwing’s butt looks, or the exact continuity of the Crises?  There’s a site for that, and that, and that, and god help you, but that, too.

There are also scans, and stories written by fans, and fan art, and a thousand arguments to get involved with.

We’ve all heard the horror stories about how comics, particularly superhero comics, are dying a slow painful death.  I have no idea whether they are or not, but what I do know is that you’re unlikely to find people down the street from you who are into comics.  The internet serves as both a social place in and of itself, and a way to meet other people who have an interest in the same things you do.

It also serves as a way to gather information.  How many people here would be into comics if they couldn’t get online?  How many became more involved when online societies began forming?  What ‘net stuff do you like?

What we need, particularly on stages like Comic-Con International, is to show that the African American creative comes from lots of different places and that the African American community wants and, more importantly, needs lots of different choices and voices.

What we need is no more Niggapaloozas like The Black Panel each and every year.

-Vincent S Moore, Niggapalooza

Moore lost, and in the process, he lost me.

It’s fair to criticize the Black Panel. That’s the prerogative of anyone who attends any panel. Would I like it if there were more Q&A at the Black Panel? Sure! It’s always fun to pick a creator’s brain. But, it is what it is, and we can only judge it on its own merits, not on the baggage we bring to it.

Is Davis’s moderating style overbearing? Well, yeah. It’s his panel, which means he gets to run it as he sees fit. He didn’t inherit it, or kill the guy who had it before him and take it over. It’s his. It’s Michael Davis and his Amazing Friends, and has never been advertised as anything but. You’re gonna get a lot of Michael Davis in that mix.

Vincent Moore, though, came to the panel ready for a fight, took notes, and finally held up an entire panel as Everything Wrong With Black People Today. He went so that he could “vent [his] spleen about this travesty.” What he missed, and what the several hundred other people in the room seemed to get despite the apparent non-stop minstrel show, is that the Black Panel is important. Every time I go to one, I’m reminded of something vital, something that’s easy to miss if you get your comics news from the internet.

Black people are active in entertainment. We, the monolithic we that the Black Panel is bringing down, are doing things. We aren’t just hungry artists looking to get put on, writers chainsmoking and toiling in dark rooms, or people who are smart enough to get noticed, but not smart enough to get on. We are working, we are out there.

I can’t overstate the importance of that. This year’s Black Panel had a veteran actress, an artist who has been in the business for a couple decades now, a rapper learning how to tell stories in a new way, another rapper trying to stretch out into new areas, an experienced actor, a comedian staging a comeback push, an executive who has stayed busy for a couple decades now, an established television writer, and a woman working on a new property. That right there is a range of skills across a variety of disciplines, done by a number of vastly different people of various ages and levels of experience. It’s saying, in no uncertain terms, “You can do this, because we did this, and we are doing this.”

Moore, in his haste to demolish the panel and bury Davis, completely misses this. The audience at every Black Panel I’ve been to has routinely been the blackest at the con. Black people want to see what we’re doing, and the Black Panel is usually a good peek into that world.

At the same time, the Black Panel has never been, nor is it intended to be, the be-all, end-all of black pop culture. It’s a slice of black pop culture, like any other panel at the con. Marvel doesn’t discuss every single one of their books on their big panel, but no one holds that up as a cheat. In fact, for the first few panels I attended, Davis opened it by saying that it isn’t for complaining or whining about how a brother can’t get on. It’s about celebrating the fact that we are on, and have been on, and will be on.

The long list of people Moore wants invited isn’t even a real criticism– it’s “I know how to run my idea of what your panel is better than you do” couched in “you’re a failure for leaving out these people.” I could ask for Andre 3000 to guest star on every album ever, and DJ Premier to produce at least 50% of that album, but that doesn’t mean that’s a valid criticism. That just means that I want things.

The latter third of Moore’s essay basically boils down to calling Michael Davis a cooning minstrel hardhead who’s keeping other black panels out of the show, setting himself up as a Martyr for the Cause (Because No One Else Is Brave Enough), the usual call for black people to act better so that white people will like them, and a little bit too much “You kids get off my porch” for my tastes.

There’s a bit of completely unfounded conjecture, too. Moore takes issue with Davis’s story of how Milestone came about, which was basically “Denys had an idea, I was like ‘That’s a great idea!’ and then Denys got it going.” Moore says that “the silence of Denys Cowan at this point of the panel says so much more than I or any other commentator could.” No, here is what the silence of Denys Cowan at that point said: nothing. He’s ascribing motives here, seemingly just to paint Davis as that old golliwog jigaboo stepinfetchit lying negro.

Here is the gospel truth: who cares what (this theoretical and monolithic group of) white people think. Seriously: who cares? And if you care, get over yourself. Stop trying to appease massa. Black people, as a group, don’t have to prove anything to anybody. If someone is stupid enough to judge your entire culture off the actions of a few, and you care about their opinion, here’s a newsflash: you’re doing what is probably the dumbest thing in the world.

What we need is no more Niggapaloozas like The Black Panel each and every year.

This is the thing that pissed me off. The rest of the report, whatever, it’s a mix of perfectly fine opinion and some stretched truths. This bit, though, no sir. This isn’t how it works.

The Chris Rock Black People vs Niggas thing? That thing that you’re invoking here to describe the Black Panel? It’s kind of what I expect from a guy who says “We should use it as a chance to calm the subconscious fears of white people, to say that all we want is room to breathe and dream, just like you” or “I guess this is the price I pay for being a self admitted Boojie Oreo.”

We aren’t all like them, he’s saying. They’re niggers, you see. We’re just trying to get by, but those niggers on trying to get over.

I shouldn’t even have to explain this one, but I will. By terming the Black Panel “Niggapalooza,” Moore is making a choice. He’s choosing to use “nigga” like a slur, something to be hated, something of low class. He’s using it exactly like the white people he wants to impress used to, or still, use it.

Nice one.

Top Shelf has another goodie with Just Another Post-Apocalypse Story. It’s just 22 pages, and free, so you should definitely go and read it.

I first met Nicholas Doan, the writer of Pray for Death, from Zuda, DC’s webcomic division at Wonder-Con.  When I ran into him in San Diego, with the comic’s artist Daniele Serra, they very kindly agreed to tell me about how their journey to publication.

Detective Abigail Jenkins is the inverse of the typical pop-culture cop; the one who is labelled a ‘loose canon’ by the press while the guys at the station indignantly talk about how he ‘gets things done’.  She’s lauded by the press after an early success, but condemned by her peers.  When she starts to investigate a serial killer with a religion fascination who thrills at the thought of getting caught, it seems everyone around her is setting her up to fail.

I ask Doan what inspired him.

“I think serial killers are society’s most complex, interesting and disturbed monsters,” he says.  The idea flowed from there.

How did he come to work with Serra?

At first, Doan was in contact with Septagon Studios about Pray for Death.  They put him in touch with Serra.

“I thank them every day for introducing us,” Doan tells me.  “I came up with the concept and he made it look pretty.”

‘Pretty’ isn’t the word I would use, either for the concept or the art.  The people in this comic aren’t glamourous.  They have weathered faces and preoccupied expressions.  The background is hazy.  The pages themselves look muddy and grim, with dark splatters of pigment splashed over them in places.  This style amplifies the noir tone of the book, as well as our sense of forboding as we look through it.  There is a feeling that the killer could very well jump from the shadowy panels.  And there’s the blood.

“The blood,” Doan says, “is perfectly used.”

He tells me that Serra used coffee to get the right pigment and texture.  When I ask Serra where he go the idea, he shrugs and says, “My breakfast.”

Septagon asked them for five pages and two covers, which they supplied.  Then they waited, for days, weeks, and finally months.  Two months in total, which as any creator can tell you, is grueling.

Finally, they went to Zuda.  I ask how their experience was there.

“They took care of us.  It was a good opportunity to be placed in a big company.”

And so, outside of Pray for Death, at least, there is a happy ending.  Inside?

Check it out.

Last time on Ultimatum Edit, Wolverine stabbed Magneto so Magneto killed Wolverine so Wolverine stabbed Magneto so Magneto killed Wolverine. It was a pretty full day, to tell the truth. But what are the strong guys up to?

ManiacClown wanted to make a bunch of Warhammer 4000 jokes involving Mystique’s gun and Colossus looking like one of those soldier guys, but come on. This project can only be made up of references I get. To hell with him.

We’ll continue with Fury tomorrow. See you then.

Day Four!
Day Five!
Day Six!
Day Seven!

I attended the Four Color Reality Panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2009. It was described like this:

6:30-7:30 Four Color Reality: Making Comics Relevant to Readers Across Cultures— Comic book stories have become the core of American pop culture—is there a big-budget spectacular that doesn’t in some fashion owe its existence to comic book roots these days? But sales of traditional-format comic books themselves have been in decline for years. This panel explores one reason for this shrinking market: the divergence between the identities of mainstream comic icons, who are typically straight, white, male, and American, and the demographic makeup of a new generation of readers. How can the comic book industry connect with changing audiences—not just of diverse races and backgrounds, but of different cultural and national origins as well? Moderated by Jeff Yang (editor-in-chief, Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology). Panelists include Dwayne McDuffie (Milestone Comics, JLA, Ben 10: Alien Force), Gail Simone (Wonder Woman), Gene Yang (American Born Chinese, The Eternal Smile), Stuart Moore (Wolverine: Noir, The 99), and Jai Nitz (Blue Beetle, El Diablo). Room 3

Jeff Yang had a powerpoint presentation that kicked a few facts to start off the panel. One was a comparison of readerships between now and fifty years ago. Back then, comics were read by both boys and girls, at about a 50/50 ratio. In 2008, or 2009, I forget the exact year he quoted, it’s 90/10 in favor of boys. 90% of comics readers. He also showed a few quotes. I have the Paul Levitz quote exactly, since I took a picture of it, but I may have slightly paraphrased/cropped the Gary Groth quote.

Like all American media, [comics have] reflected the culture, which means there were things in the 1930s and the 1940s and the ’50s I’m sure we’d be less proud of today…
But in modern times, there have been either heroes or supporting characters introduced in our line that represent different ethnic groups and the world.

-Paul Levitz

It’s the chicken-and-egg question. The market is mostly teenage white boys. The reason is that the content has been aimed at white teenage boys. That’s why women and black adults don’t read comics. Most literate, intelligent people don’t read comics. We’re trying to change that, but it’s really difficult to do.

-Gary Groth.

Near as I can tell, Yang pulled the quotes from Facing Difference, a text book that was written in… 1997. The specific article is from the November 14th, 1993 edition of the Los Angeles Times.

One more time: November 14th, 1993. That’s sixteen years ago, give or take a few months. So, let’s get into my problems with the panel, and then loop back around into specifically talking about those numbers, and what they mean.

My (former) biggest problem with the panel is the way it seemed to conflate superheroes with comics. I didn’t quite believe it, but I took the 90% number at face value during the panel, despite my reservations. But even then, there is no way that number is accurate for comics in general. Maybe, maybe, for superheroes, but not for comics, which cover a range of genres and interests. Even leaving out manga, which is a dumb thing to do but something people do anyway, you aren’t going to see 90:10. You aren’t seeing 50:50, but you definitely aren’t seeing 90:10.

And even then, should we be looking at superheroes for racial sensitivity, anyway? This past year has convinced me that the only sensible answer is… no. Superhero comics, by and large, aren’t built for nuance. They are built to punch bad guys, be deconstructed occasionally, and to have large explosions. Nine times out of ten, superheroes are going to approach a subject from a black and white point of view, there is right and there is wrong, and that really isn’t how race and racism works. You can’t beat up racism. There are too many shades of gray, too many varied experiences, and too much baggage for that to ever happen. Sorry. Time to look elsewhere. There’ll be the occasional gem, but then there will also be Superman making proclamations and an entire generation rolling their eyes so hard that they go blind.

My new biggest problem with the panel, the problem I didn’t have before I started doing research with this post, is the research that apparently went into those figures that helped to set the stage for it. Numbers (with no sources) and quotes on the state of the industry from 1993 have about as much to do with the numbers and state of the industry in 2009 as the murder rate in New York City in 1936 has to do with the crime in NYC in 2009.

It’s irrelevant, and using those numbers, comics or murder rate alike, to bolster your point is intellectually dishonest.

Since 1993, we’ve seen an industry contract and nearly collapse. We’ve seen the rise of graphic novels and trade paperbacks as a viable way of reading and producing comics. We’ve seen a burst of movies based on comics. We’ve seen Time Magazine give Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home book of the year. Not Comic Book of the Year– Book of the Year. We’ve seen an explosion of fandom thanks to the internet. That explosion led to an explosion of female fandom online, with Scans Daily, Girl Wonder, and When Fangirls Attack probably being the three highest profile sites focused around girls’n’comics. Manga wasn’t a going concern in 1993. “Real” publishers didn’t care about anything but Maus in 1993. Bone hadn’t sold several million copies in actual book stores. Batman: The Animated Series was just getting going. And so on, and so on, and so on.

1993 isn’t 2009, and you cannot, absolutely cannot, use 1993 to make points about 2009. Those numbers? They were valid, once. Then that time passed, we moved on, and we’re in a different world now. 90% of comics readers being male in 1993, which I feel is already a dubious number but that’s just off gut instinct, has zip to do with whatever the ratio of male to female is these days.

I can understand where Yang was coming from with this. Race and gender and comics? It’s better than it was in the ’40s, yes, but it could always be better. But, pulling out figures from 16 years ago and using them to frame and position a discussion about the comics world of today is a mistake. It’s dishonest. It’s arguing against, what, a strawman? It was true at one point, perhaps, but isn’t now. It’s not a valid position to argue from.

And I mean, I’m ostensibly on Yang’s side. Should comics do better with regards to whatever ism comes to mind? Yes! Absolutely! Let’s get that range of portrayals going. But, to argue from data from 1993? That’s not how it works. If I’m on your side, and I have huge issues with your data, imagine what a theoretical nay-sayer is going to say.

Things are, and have been, getting better. I’d like to think that readers are getting smarter and more, for lack of a better word, diverse. My personal experience has certainly suggested that, and the experience of the circles that I run in.

But, really, we’ve got to do better. Halfway research and outdated figures don’t cut it, not even remotely. It doesn’t prove anything, and it doesn’t say anything beyond “Man, yesterday sucked, didn’t it?”