CBR posted a little announcement and interview today dealing with the next chapter in Thunderbolts. With Osborn on the outs, what’s going to happen to the team? Who’s going to be the leader and who will he be commanding?

Get a load of this:

I’m starting to believe that Jeff Parker is God’s gift to me. I’m especially pumped. As an aside, looking at that cover, whoever unloaded on Cage should be thankful that he didn’t hit a nipple. That’ll set him off.

In addition to Luke Cage, the initial line up of Thunderbolts has been revealed to include Juggernaut, Crossbones, Ghost, Moonstone, and Man-Thing. Is there anything you can say about these characters motivations for being on the Thunderbolts?

I think everyone’s prime motivation is: I do not want to rot in this cell. I would rather have Luke Cage screaming at me as I run into the probability of certain death than rot in this cell. Except for the Man-Thing, of course – no one can ever tell what he’s thinking. And no one asked him anyway.

How would you describe the initial dynamic between these characters? Is there anybody Luke can trust on this team?

That’s what Luke would like to know! Moonstone is in and out of the program. She shows promise and then, bam – she lets you down. Ghost also seems promising, but then there’s quirks, like him trying to kill Iron Man. Juggernaut, some people think he’s a hero too.

This shows a ton of promise. Let’s look at the line-up, one by one.

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Guess.

Which series.

I’m buying.

My, god.  He’s got a *Bat*buckle.  From io9.

What do Black Panther, Black Lightning, John Stewart, Black Goliath, Luke Cage, John Henry Irons, Sam “Falcon” Wilson, and Martha Washington have in common? Easy: they were created in whole or in part by white (or Jewish) dudes.

Your boy John Shaft? His origin lies in a novel written by Ernest Tidyman, a white guy from Cleveland. Foxy Brown, the meanest chick in town, was written and directed by Jack Hill, another white guy. Are there any black pop culture figures that have been homaged, swagger-jacked, referenced, and emulated more than Shaft and Foxy? Maybe, maybe James Brown or Muhammad Ali?

Consider the importance of Gordon Parks as director of Shaft. Shaft‘s New York City is grimy, dirty, vibrant, black, and beautiful. We see opulence and poverty, violence and peace, and in the midst of all of this is Richard Roundtree as John Shaft, head held high and in control of the situation. Shaft presented black characters who didn’t feel inauthentic and a world that had depth. It’s fair to say that having a black director, and an actor as talented as Roundtree, served Shaft well. Parks got it.

I love Jack Kirby and I dig his Black Panther, but it took Christopher Priest to make me a believer. I found Reggie Hudlin’s take on Black Panther to be fascinating, at least in part because it pushed a very specific, relatable version of Panther. The two of them brought an aesthetic, or mindset, to the book that hadn’t been there before, and it worked. The character clicked for me for the first time.

Let’s talk about diversity.
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-Gavin read President Evil for some strange reason.
-6th Sense’s 4a.m. Instrumental for the theme music
-I made Esther read the first volume of Yotsuba&!.
-She made me read Devin Grayson’s run on Gotham Knights.
-Then we fought to the death!

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Well, it’s Sunday night and we’re ready to strike!
Our special forces are in for a fight!
With heroes in the air and zombies on the ground!
This Week in Panels is takin’ over the town!
We gotta get ready! We gotta get right!
There’s gonna be some comic art at 4th Letter tonight!

So get ready…
I MEAN, get ready…
ARE YOU READY FOR SOME PANELS?!
A COMIC BOOK INVASION!

This week I’m going against my rule of never using a final, or even last-page, panel for this. Why? Because that Deadpool Team-Up panel completely sums up the entirety of that issue and why Stuart Moore wrote it in the first place.

Batman Confidential #41
Sam Kieth

Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #3
Greg Rucka and Nicola Scott

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The easiest thing to point to when someone says “What’s cultural appropriation?” (in the unlikely event that somebody actually wants to know the answer to that question) is the theft of rock and roll. ego trip’s Big Book of Racism!, in addition to being an incredible read, has a great series of lists about rock and roll and race. Long story short, of course, cultural appropriation is the act of taking something that “belongs” to one culture–be it music, arts, literature, drama, whatever–and taking it for your own.

It isn’t a focused movement, exactly. There are no malicious men sitting around a table, plotting on how they can steal bachata and make it there own. It tends to be a byproduct of what happens when racism and institutional racism work hand in hand. Taking rock and roll for an (extremely simplified) example– white America in the mid-1900s had no interest in letting black America onto their jukeboxes and into their clubs. However, white musicians performing what was often the exact same music was met with, if not acceptance, something more positive than racially-motivated revulsion. Over time, rock and roll became a “white” genre, something associated with your average run of the mill white people rather than blacks.

Blackface is another example of cultural appropriation, though much more actively racist and malicious. White actors portrayed black characters for the entertainment and edification of a white audience, donning burnt cork and shoe polish and emulating (or just making up) the ways that black people acted.

A more recent example of cultural appropriation are the dozens of kung fu movies starring white guys. Once Hong Kong action cinema proved to be popular in the ’70s, one way of making it even more popular for American audiences was to toss a white guy into the main role. A good example of this is Danny Rand, from Marvel’s Iron Fist. Danny is a rich white guy who ended up in a thinly obfuscated Shangri-La and ended up becoming its greatest warrior, even triumphing over the natives of the city.

In the fall of ’08, I took a work trip to Tokyo, Japan. I didn’t get as much time to dig in and explore as I wanted, but I did end up spending a lot of time in Shibuya and Harajuku. I saw a lot of people dressed like I dressed, or like people dressed back home. I spent some time in a streetwear shop where the two clerks didn’t know much English beyond “Biggie” and “Nas,” but they knew rap lyrics and fashion.
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The other day my old Ultimate Edit writing buddy ManiacClown sent me these old superhero radio drama albums from decades ago, including a Justice League record from the 60’s where during roll call they break into a Rat Pack musical number.

One of the albums is from the 70’s, starring Spider-Man in what they call a “Rockomic”. It’s a story involving Peter Parker being blackmailed by the Kingpin into trying to kill Spider-Man, with Spider-Man talking like Jon Lovitz as Master Thespian. It also starts off with a completely trippy nightmare sequence that sounds like Peter’s having a bad acid trip. In-between the acts of the story they would toss in some musical tracks that are without a doubt from the 1970’s. Most of them are awful, but the main theme is a special kind of awful that keeps drawing me back in for repeated listens.

And now, little man, I give the watch to you…

[MEDIA not found]

He’s no one woman’s sex machine, you know. The Devil saw to that.

I wrote a bit about Milestone Media in honor of the release of Milestone Forever #1 this week. It’s a brief history and essay on its impact, a lot of which gets forgotten nowadays.

A brief excerpt:

Oh, you knew it was coming, didn’t you? It’s Black History Month, baby, pay attention!

Milestone was never the “black” comics company. Its creators, like its characters, were a multicultural blend of various races and ethnicities. It stands to reason that when your company is composed of a variety of types of people that your books will reflect that reality, doesn’t it?

In the case of Milestone’s comics, that is definitely true. “Blood Syndicate”‘s cast was composed of black, white, Chinese, Korean, canine, Latino, and alien characters. In fact, in a move that is still amazingly rare, “Blood Syndicate” featured Latino characters of different Latin ethnicities. A Puerto Rican, a Dominican, and a Salvadoran in the same book? That’s incredible, because most companies just stop at “Generic Hispanic Character.”

It’s nice that mainstream comics are making a play at paying attention to people who aren’t white dudes again, but don’t forget that before Batwoman, before Steph Brown, before Jaime Reyes, and before Luke Cage was on the Avengers, there was Milestone. Give credit where it’s due. Pay attention.

There’s this Malcolm X quote I like. He said, “You can’t drive a knife into a man’s back nine inches, pull it out six inches, and call it progress.” If you’re doing something now that isn’t as forward-thinking (or equal, or normal, or whatever) as seventeen years ago? That ain’t progress, doggie. That’s playing catchup to everybody else. It’s nice that you’re trying, but either do better or go home. I’m not going to congratulate you for finally doing what you’re supposed to have been doing for decades. That’s like congratulating parents for paying their rent. Newsflash: you’re supposed to be doing that.

And that’s about as negative as I’m willing to get over race & comics this month. I’m tired of fighting.

Go give that post a read. Denys Cowan comments below and he dug it, which basically made my day.

Hunh.

With this little information, I can’t say much, except that I hope it will be more Young Justice and less Justice League.  I loved the Justice League and Justice League Unlimited series. 

I just really don’t want to see The Justice League, Only They’re Teenagers.  Young Justicehad its own feel and its own cast  (the fact that Arrowette is on the show is a good sign).  I hope that they’re not going to shove adult heroes into teenage roles.

Okay, enough about what I hope it’s not.  Here’s what I hope it is.  I hope that they have the dorky-as-hell Superboy.  He was fun and shallow, but also very sweet, with a poignant back story.  I hope that they include both Cassie and Cissie, and that they’re friends all the way through.

And I hope that they have the adult superheroes in the show, just as they were in the comic; stepping in and annoying all the kids.  Young Justice wasn’t just a series about a team of kids.  It was a series about a team of kids who were rebelling, and challenging, and clinging to, and thinking about, and testing the grown-ups in their lives.  That was part of what made it fun and poignant.  If it’s just a bunch of kids fighting monsters, it would just be like Teen Titans Go!

Oh, and I hope they have the supercycle.

I’m hoping to make a few interviews a weekly part of Black Future Month ’10. I thought about doing the usual rigamarole–“How you doing, how’s it feel to be a black artist in the predominately white comics industry, have you ever been a victim of racism, have you ever been shot, so whatchu think about Obama?”–but I’m having trouble thinking of anything more boring/depressing/terrible. Why interview anyone if you’re going to ask them the same old questions?

Instead, I want to focus on the work. These cats are people who you should be watching out for. This isn’t a comprehensive list, obviously, just a few people whose work I dig and who deserve your attention. Given enough time and knowledge, I’d hit up everyone I ever liked for interviews.

My (loose) plan is to follow each interview up with a piece that is related in some way. The first of those hits on Saturday. It may provide some continuity, it may not, who knows.

First up is Ron “D-pi” Wimberly, artist of Sentences and several other works. Check out his DeviantArt and website. All art is, I assume, copyright to him.

---

I think the first work of yours I saw were the covers for Vertigo’s old Hellblazer: Papa Midnite miniseries. You’ve done work on a few other books for Vertigo, including an OGN, and you’re working on Gratuitous NInja, too. When you add in the magazine work, you’re wearing a lot of hats when it comes to art. Why such a diverse body of work? Is it so you can flex different artistic muscles?

I get bored easily. That’s the long and short of it. I also have alot of ideas. Usually if I am working on an idea I didn’t come up with I am a little unhappy as well, so I have to get my kicks somewhere else. I’m just trying to make great work and be happy. I hope that doesn’t make me too difficult to work with.

I like hats.

Another thing is I gotta eat. 

I want to talk about Gratuitous Ninja for a minute. Its title describes the series perfectly, but where did the series come from? Was it something you did on a lark one day and kept up with or was it more planned out than that?

Gratuitous Ninja started in the Static Fish, Pratt University‘s Student Comic Magazine. We had a talented group of contributers on that run, cats that are really ill, of whom you may or may not know. Raphael Tanghal, Ted Lange, Dan James– really talented individuals came together on these books. I was fortunate to be a part of it.

I always loved Ninja. GratNin was originally a love letter to one of the great loves of my life. A woman I met in college. The original run of GratNin is a silent comic wherein a kunoichi saves this shinobimono from the belly of a walking prison. It’s also a love letter of sorts to Moebius, the original that is, the latest rendition not so much.

You probably can still order the reprint of the book online. It was called the Ninjaversary and it featured pin ups by Tanghal, LeSean Thomas and even a collabo with Aerosyn Lex from the KDU. 

GratNin: Loan Sharks is the latest volume of Gratuitous Ninja and is running weekly on your site right now. I get a real Jet Set Radio feel from it, with the mixing of Japanese aesthetics and mythology and American storytelling, particularly when combined with the addition of real youth culture- something that crosses color lines and and country borders. How’d you develop this style? Is it a synthesis of things you’re into or did it spring fully-formed from your head?

Yeah… uh… weekly.

…the answer to your questions is, “Yes”

I love jidaigeki, chambara and I am a city kid transplanted into the suburban wasteland. The style is born from my experience.

Illumination via juxtaposition. 
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