Comments

1. Jennifer-Ruth wrote:

   Holy shit – that is meant to be Misty Knight?!

   If I had been presented with this panel and asked to identify the character, I would have said Sasha Boardaux or Catwoman (yeah, I have a bit of a DC bias). I would never have guessed that she was meant to be a woman of colour.

   There is no excuse for this shit – the writers know who is a PoC and if the artists and colourists don’t, then the writer should damn well be writting better notes. They should all be doing their job better.

   I stopped buying JLA due to the whole Vixen thing – I wish I could vote with my wallet here too but I don’t read Iron Fist.

   (I bet Newsarama is still being all “why can’t we just be colourbliiiiind?!” over this shit)

   Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 9:13 am ¶

2. Tony wrote:

   I’ll give you Misty.

   Ryder the only problem is the hair and some black men do straighten their hair (Remember the Jerri Curl).
   IMO his old dreads looked stupid as hell, absurdly large.
   I’d prefer a middle ground though, you know, shorter/smaller but still dreads, or just natural hair.
   The long straightened look does look stupid, but I wouldn’t really call it a whitening.

   It’s not like his skintone is also changed.

   (I refuse to call using a different haircut whitening…especially since I was one of the first non-whites/non-native americans to wear a mohawk)

   Misty on the other hand.
   That change is just absurdly stupid, assuming she has the same skintone in the rest of the issue (and it’s not just a couple of panels).
   And blue eyes is just plain inexcusable.

   Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 9:18 am ¶

3. Sarah J wrote:

   The funniest thing about it is that comics fans are the most likely people to yell “that’s WRONG!” when something is changed on their beloved characters, so seriously, wtf could the reason be?

   Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 9:36 am ¶

4. Sarah J wrote:

   other than race, of course

   Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 9:36 am ¶

5. F.O. wrote:

   Make yourself feel better and get your comic fix solely in torrent form.

   Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 9:55 am ¶

6. DEAF FEMINIST PUNK!! wrote:

   I regularly read comic books every week and I am a HUGE X-Men fan.

   To be honest: I think you are overreacting, sorry.

   I don’t see anything wrong with the new cover or style. Comic books are always re-invented, re-interpreted, and drawn differently by different artists who have a different take on one long continuous storyline.

   So what now? Should we demand that Storm, a Black X-Man of African/Egyptian heritage, have black hair? Or should we demand that Bishop, another black X-Man, should look more “black” whatever that means? And do we demand that Nick Fury, who is often interchangeable in skin colour (sometimes he’s white, other times he’s black) should remain black at all times?

   if I’ve offended anybody with this, I apologize, but I feel like I need to call bullshit on this one article.

   Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 10:03 am ¶

7. DEAF FEMINIST PUNK!! wrote:

   Also let me ask everybody here: don’t many black women today have straightened hair, and isn’t that “normal” of the 2000s?

   20, 30 years ago, many black women didn’t have straight hair, and you could see the trend of Afro’s and dreads in old comic books. I remember in one X-Men series, there was one regular Black female character named Stevie Hunter, she had cornrows here:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevie_Hunter

   That was back in the early 80s.

   today, if Stevie Hunter is resurrected in new X-Men comics, they’d probably redraw her with straight hair, because that’s the CURRENT TREND that many Black women have today.

   Am I right or wrong?

   Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 10:07 am ¶

8. Atena wrote:

   @ Tony: Questions – Are you seeing his facial features and ambiguous skin tone? Note the lips. Sure, we come in all shapes and tones, but at first glance…

   Also, if you wanna go there, do you really think this “new hairstyle” is an intention expression of creativity through coiffure? India Arie is right – we are not our hair. But there’s a difference between sculpting a mohawk and letting your hair grow out (specifically, growing out your dredloc-able hair and straightening it down your back – talk about high-maintenance!).

   I know that these artists rarely take the nature of biology and physics into account when creating these images, but most (not all, but most) black guys don’t just stumble into waist-length hair that whips in the wind. That’s all I’m sayin’.

   Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 10:15 am ¶

9. Genevieve wrote:

   I only download comics because I’m too frequently offended by something to justify spending money on them.

   I’m not familiar with Ryder or The Initiative, but it’s fucked up that my Native-American-sensors went off well before my African-American-sensors did. (It’s the long hair and “solemn expression”.) I wouldn’t have guessed “black” until at least 2 or 3 tries in, because of the hair, and, this is fucked up, the lack of stereotypically black features. It’s absurd, but in the comic-book universe, characters of color are caricatures with “very special” (and usually deeply flawed) plotlines/episodes, or have their “other”-ness ignored, whitewashed, or not mentioned entirely; or some bizarre combination of the two, like with Storm of the X-Men.

   The Misty Knight change is surreal, and it is inexcusable. It is racist. It smacks of an ulterior motive similar to Vixen’s change, and it makes me nervous about Marvel in general, and its moviemaking ambitions in specific.

   However, and this is another character I’m not familiar with, if this was an entirely new character claiming to be black, I’d be startled and deeply suspicious but not entirely against it. There are other things to consider, such as the “One Drop Rule”, mixed-race origins, and the rarely-spoken-about act of passing for (or being able to pass for) white. But, such things tend to be way too complex and logical and well-intentioned for the comics universe, and I’m probably giving some (very likely white) people more credit than they’re due.

   Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 10:26 am ¶

10. Genevieve wrote:

    Also, as far as I’ve seen, black Nick Fury is limited to the “Ultimate” line of comics, which is full of bizarre and not intended to be canon in any line but its own. Excluding the new Iron Man movie, movies being their own separate continuity, I guess.

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 10:31 am ¶

11. Tony wrote:

    @Atena

    The skintone is still about the same as it is in the other “dreadlocked” picture, look at the areas he’s not being hit by light (His left arm).

    The face is off, but the entire thing looks like it was drawn by Rob Liefield or someone imitating him.
    Liefield can’t draw faces. Period.

    Every single Liefield character has that face, regardless of race, put Captain America next to Falcon, next to Chapel (Liefield own created black character),next to any asian character and they will ALL have that same facial structure.

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 10:34 am ¶

12. Tony wrote:

    Quick correction, put any of those characters drawn by Liefield or someone imitating him and they will look the same.
    Liefield does the same thing with women, all the same face regardless of race.

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 10:36 am ¶

13. Tony wrote:

    Also @DEAF FEMINIST PUNK.

    If you’ll note I disagreed on the Vixen thing and on Ryder, but Misty is a pretty clear cut major revision.

    It’s not just the hair, or a panel where the lighting may be washing her out some.
    It seems to be normal lighting, and her skintone is whiter than mine (and I’m about the whitest skintoned mixed person on the planet).
    PLUS she now has blue eyes.

    I’d be willing to give the hair a pass, even if I thought it was odd, but a sudden hair change plus a MASSIVE skintone change, plus an EYE COLOR change (to BLUE of all colors)?
    It’s more than a ‘reboot’. It’s a major alteration, especially considering how recently Misty appeared as a darker skinned, afro loving, dark eyed woman.

    She went from looking like my Black grandparents to looking like Angelina Jolie with a wider nose.

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 10:43 am ¶

14. Latoya Peterson wrote:

    @Deaf Feminist Punk:

    Just out of curiosity, have you read these posts?

    http://www.racialicious.com/2008/03/27/if-the-first-time-is-a-coloring-error/

    http://www.racialicious.com/2008/02/21/comic-heroine-vixen-gets-a-white-wash/

    Or these?
    http://www.digitalfemme.com/journal/index.php?itemid=740

    http://www.digitalfemme.com/journal/index.php?itemid=795

    http://www.digitalfemme.com/journal/index.php?itemid=352

    http://www.digitalfemme.com/journal/index.php?itemid=708

    It is not just a coloring error. This does not fucking happen with the same frequency (if ever) to Luke Cage and Shang Chi as it happens to Storm and Jubilee. Skin colors are lightened. Features are changed. Why? I would really like to know why. But every time a person stands up and asks why, she’s shouted right down. She’s ignored. You’re seeing things that aren’t there. Let’s talk about something else. Right?

    Fuck that shit.

    The problem exists. I know it exists. You know it exists. We can joke about the Wasp no longer being Asian in Ultimates 3 (insert plug for 4th Letter awesomeness here) and make snarky comments about Storm’s features, but when it comes time to man up and talk seriously about this shit, everyone disappears. Except for the minority women. And no one’s fucking listening to us anyway. They just nod until they can interrupt and tell us how wrong we are or divert attention away to a topic they find important. You aren’t hearing us.

    That’s Cheryl, of Digital Femme. She has stopped participating in these discussions as they have become entirely too predictable.

    Particularly in reference to your black hair assumption:

    http://www.digitalfemme.com/journal/index.php?itemid=365

    And Willow said it best here:

    http://seeking-avalon.blogspot.com/2008/05/vixenification-right-on-damn-schedule.html

    Give with one hand and take away with the other. Vixen has been getting on a lot of covers this year; As a White Woman!

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 10:54 am ¶

15. DEAF FEMINIST PUNK!! wrote:

    LaToya:

    thanks for these links, I’m gonna check these articles out.

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 11:01 am ¶

16. Jennifer-Ruth wrote:

    Deaf Feminist Punk:

    “I don’t see anything wrong with the new cover or style. Comic books are always re-invented, re-interpreted, and drawn differently by different artists who have a different take on one long continuous storyline. ”

    Right – because Superman used to be Latino and Black Canary was East Asian.

    Funny how when character magically changes race it only seems to go in one direction. To white, white, white. And the thing is, it isn’t like there are many racial minority characters in the first place – so on top of being racist you are also removing characters that PoC can identify with (we all have a paper mirror).

    Secondly – yes, costumes are updated and continuity is tweaked. But there are staple things that never change. Batman will always have seen his parents die in front of him and he will always have black hair – he ain’t gonna be turning up blonde or with African skin either.

    No one is demanding that Storm should not have white hair (because we all know that she rocks it, especially that mohawk back in the eighties) or that Black Lightening should look more…er…black. But it is a bit of a slap in the face for PoC when that person suddenly becomes whitewashed (although it seems to happen more to female characters, amiright?).

    There *has* to be a certain level of continuity in character appearance. So you can follow characters from book to book, for one thing. Otherwise you might as well just be advocating that it is okay to draw Magneto as temporal being from the 5th dimension that appears only as thoughts in one book and then next week draw him the size of Galactus – because that is just comics, right? It’s just the artists interpretation of what Magneto looks like! Or is that stupid…?

    Well, I think it is just as stupid, insulting…and completely racist…to take a well-known black character and have her suddenly turn up white.

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 11:04 am ¶

17. Genevieve wrote:

    Latoya, your post just reminded me that a few days ago post-op from getting my wisdom teeth removed, I was watching the 90s Spider-Man cartoon on Toon Disney and it was an X-Men special, and Jubilee’s eyes were very obnoxiously blue.

    Also, having watched all of both X-Men cartoons, Storm has been handled so poorly as a character that I’m not surprised I forgot she was on the original TV show until reruns aired on Toon Disney a few years back.

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 11:05 am ¶

18. Jennifer-Ruth wrote:

    Oh, and Nick Fury is white in the Marvel Universe and black in the Marvel Ultimate Universe.
    They don’t co-exist in the same universe…because that would be stupid (unless they did some kinda DCmultiverse trick!)

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 11:16 am ¶

19. Atena wrote:

    @ Tony: You mean the shaded area? Hmm – I don’t think I buy that. I have to disagree – the features + tone = ambiguous. This isn’t the nail in the coffin, so to speak, but it matters. The question isn’t “does he look like he might be black?”, but rather, did the artist intentionally present remarkably different characteristics that could alter the visual identity of the character in a way that is problematic. I say there’s a good argument for ‘Yes.’

    Regarding “can’t draw faces,” I’m sorry – that holds no water with me. As a person who has drawn many, many faces, this makes no sense. The act of rendering a face does not mechanically translate that way. If you can draw thin lips, you can draw full lips. The question is, does it occur to the artist to do so? Has the artist observed and practiced drawing anything else? While drawing, the wrists and arms talk to the eyes and brain about what they are doing and the eyes and brain are in charge, not the limbs. Anyone who can do a technically proficient drawing of *some* features can apply that skill to any features, if they make the effort. I reject that the face is “off” because dude “can’t draw faces.”

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 11:16 am ¶

20. Genevieve wrote:

    I’m going to jump to Deaf Feminist Punk’s defense: continuity is important, but changes are just as important to keep with the times, and to be honest, to keep with the consumer group’s money. She never said Vixen wasn’t whitewashed, the cover comment was based on Ryder. And the defense of new interpretation is valid, too; if I were writing X-Men, there would be some changes made, including to characters’ races and ethnicities. I mean, aren’t there like, two or three origin stories for Magneto at this point? New writers and artists bring their own messages that they want to convey through an established material, sometimes just to try out “what if?” scenarios, and sometimes because they feel they have something to say. If Harry Potter was written over a 40 year period by scores of authors, one chapter at a time, and you add in a visual aspect to the series, how much of a difference would there be to that story and those characters over time?

    And if all fictional characters were judged adequate or inadequate of publication based on degree of “blackness”, “whiteness”, “asianness”, etc.– when said judgment does happen in reality to a great many people who are ostracized or accepted based on the results– we would end up with media full of stereotypes and cliches, and invariably a portion of the population would rightfully feel they were being ignored and not represented. Not to take anything away from this argument, but I have relatives across 3 generations who have passed for white, been able to pass for white and didn’t, were labeled as black when they weren’t because of their cultural location, were expected to prove their identity, who have preferences for a certain race in marriage and their children’s marriages, who have been ostracized, counted as less than citizens, and who don’t look like they were related to their family and had it questioned by people who had no right to do so. There are light-skinned black women with straight hair and light eyes– “blackness” in American society means more than the color of your skin and the texture of your hair. It is a distinct cultural identity with its own history.

    I repeat: I am almost certainly giving someone way more credit than they deserve, and the whitewashing of predominantly female characters of color is a real problem in American media. But the problem is not the depiction of a black woman as having straight hair and blue eyes, the problem is the mindset that this is more desirable, the conversion of an established minority character to make them more marketable based on perceived desirability, and the lack of other minority characters outside of a token caricature to prove otherwise.

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 11:35 am ¶

21. Arturo wrote:

    Hold up a tic — to Ryder’s left on that cover, is the 3-D Man, who also used to look a bit darker.

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 11:59 am ¶

22. Kali921 wrote:

    Hi all,

    Firstly, I wanted to say thank you so much for letting me be a featured blogger here – it’s very humbling! I love reading Racialicious, so it’s truly an honor.

    Secondly, I also want to make clear that I’m by no means unique in writing about these issues, as was pointed out above. People like the divine Willow over at Seeking Avalon and the equally divine Digital Femme, along with a huge number of other erudite bloggers, have been writing about Vixenification and its offshoots for far longer than I have. Major props are due to fen of color for articulating the snarl of tensions inherent in inconsistencies in these problematic visual portrayals of characters of colors in the medium of comics (as well as in other spheres of popular culture) and for generally educating the rest of us by pointing out where this subtextual racism occurs.

    To Deaf Feminist Punk: I respectfully submit that you are perhaps missing the point. The point is not that characters should not evolve in terms of personal sartorial (or tonsorial) choices. The problem is that a character like Ryder, who is a consummate badass that spends 99% of his time hunting down and killing Skrulls along with the rest of the Skrull Kill Krew, is not someone who is logically going to sit down and spend a lot of time futzing with his hair. That’s like positing that Frank Castle – the Punisher – would go out of his way to shave in the middle of hunting down a hive of mafia scum somewhere in Queens.

    Because integrity of characterization and logical consistency of character extends to the realm of personal appearance. The medium of comics is unique in that comic characters, unlike television or film characters, can appear simultaneously in multiple titles, written and drawn by different people within the same sixty day period. Comic fandom is used to the fact that there will be inconsistencies between writers and artists – we’re notoriously flexible AND picky about those things – but when Misty is drawn with a natural by the SAME ARTIST just a few months before she appears with shorn and straightened hair, where perhaps less than two weeks has passed within the time frame of the actual action in the comic, it seems…off.

    I don’t want to imply that I think characters of color should be restricted in their choices of hairstyle or fashion, because that’s patently absurd and an indefensible position. But characters of color are consistently and increasingly depicted in mainstream comics with LESS diversity, and, as I note above, increasingly homogenized and whitened. Because it’s often white artists that do this, I find that disturbing.

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 12:34 pm ¶

23. Treacle wrote:

    To Deaf Feminist Punk:

    “Should we demand that Storm, a Black X-Man of African/Egyptian heritage, have black hair? Or should we demand that Bishop, another black X-Man, should look more “black” whatever that means? And do we demand that Nick Fury, who is often interchangeable in skin colour (sometimes he’s white, other times he’s black) should remain black at all times?”

    I, too, am a regular comics reader and I have to call shenanigans on several of the things you just wrote. One, Storm is a character of Kenyan and African-American descent. Ignoring the fact that her creators primarily gave her white hair because they thought it’d be cool, her white, straight hair occurs in continuity with the character. In other words, she had straight, white hair when she debuted (which I’m going to go out on a limb here and say is not a natural look for very many young women of African descent), and her straight, white hair has also been linked in continuity to her family’s powers of witchcraft.

    Furthermore, I don’t believe it’s out of place to think critically about why exactly Storm, who is arguably one of the first African-American characters in comics and certainly one of the most influential, was given blue eyes and white, straight hair instead of a more “ethnic” look. You cannot pretend that these choices occur in a vacuum. Chris Claremont and company made that decision deliberately to, at the very least, make her more palatable to mainstream American audiences.

    Bishop is a character of Australian Aborigine descent from the future. I don’t know what “typical” Aboriginal features are. For that matter, I don’t even know if Australian Aborigines identify is black, so the comparisons are not equivalent in this case.

    Finally, Nick Fury is white in the mainstream Marvel universe and black in the Marvel Ultimates universe. You’ve made it sound as if he’d randomly drawn as different races at different times when that’s simply not true. He has always been white in mainstream Marvel continuity and always been black in Marvel Ultimates continuity.

    The selection of Samuel L. Jackson as Ultimate Marvel’s avatar (so to speak) is problematic as well, as Marvel is developing a trend of drawing black characters from life, something they don’t do with their white characters.

    20, 30 years ago, many black women didn’t have straight hair, and you could see the trend of Afro’s and dreads in old comic books. Am I right or wrong?

    Comics do tend to reflect social trends, and one of the social trends they consistently reflect is that minorities are “better” when they look more white.

    There are very, very few characters of color in comics, even today, which makes it all the more important not to whitewash them.

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 1:14 pm ¶

24. Treacle wrote:

    To Genevieve:

    I mean, aren’t there like, two or three origin stories for Magneto at this point?

    Totally random and not really the point of this post, but Magneto is one of the few characters (another is Captain America) whose origin story never changes.

    He will always be a Holocaust survivor in the Marvel universe, and I believe that’s a good thing.

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 1:17 pm ¶

25. Tony wrote:

    @ Atena

    I mean the area that isn’t darkly shaded or the area bathed in absurdly bright light.
    I’d hardly call the skintone ambiguous it still looks very black to me.
    Perhaps one could say maybe darker indian (Like the guy who plays Mohinder on Heroes) but there’s no way people look at that skintone and think he’s white.

    I’m not saying everyone can’t draw faces.
    I’m saying the artist is going for a ’style’ (if it can be called that) that uses those same facial features for every single male, regardless of ethnicity.
    I never said that was a good or positive thing, just that I’m not going to worry until I see him drawn by someone who isn’t using that style.

    Complaining about not having realistic features in a “Liefield” style drawing, is like complaining about most Manga characters having unrealistic eye sizes and hair color.

    Of course people CAN draw anything.
    When they go for a certain STYLE of drawing, they limit themselves to what fits in that style.
    Liefield style means absurdly thin lips and narrow noses even if the character is 100% African, their skintone is dark and their ethnicity is mentioned in every single story they are in.

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 1:37 pm ¶

26. DEAF FEMINIST PUNK!! wrote:

    @ Treacle:

    
    “I, too, am a regular comics reader and I have to call shenanigans on several of the things you just wrote. One, Storm is a character of Kenyan and African-American descent.”

    My bad. I thought Storm was of Egyptian descent, because in some of the early storylines from the late 70s, her background was often told of her as a child thief growing up in Cairo. But I never knew if she was actually African or Egyptian.

    http://www.marveldirectory.com/individuals/s/storm.htm

    but you are right, she is of Kenyan descent. I always assumed she was Egyptian because of her childhood spent in Cairo.

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 1:38 pm ¶

27. Tony wrote:

    @Tracle.
    Magneto is always a Holocaust survivor, but he’s not always JEWISH.

    There was a very controversial story, which I believe was first printed in X-men Unlimited #2 (or maybe it was #4). That claimed he was Gypsy and not Jewish.

    The common theory is Marvel realized they didn’t have a lot of Jews and didn’t want one to be, well, a genocidal maniac who tried to tilt the earths axis.

    This was later retconned again I think, and he is back to being Jewish last I heard.

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 1:40 pm ¶

28. DEAF FEMINIST PUNK!! wrote:

    Does anybody here remember The New Mutants, an off-shoot of the X-Men, in the early 80s? It was really racially and ethnically diverse. There was Roberto DaCosta, the son of a rich Brazilian businessman, Rahne Sinclair, a Scottish redheaded girl, Xi’an who was from Vietnam, and Danielle Moonstar/Cheyenne, a Native American.

    You can see some diversity still today, in “New X-Men Academy” (if that’s the right comic title, my mind’s kinda blurred right now) and there’s a few relatively new characters like Dust (Sooraya) who was from Afghanistan, and they’ve even implemented some queer characters, too.

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 1:41 pm ¶

29. Kirk Van Irvin wrote:

    At last! A subject I can really get into!

    @Kali921:

    I’ve been Black all my life, and reading comics since I was 8. And I guarantee nobody has been more pissed off than POC comics fans about how minorities are shown in comic books . I feel you. I had the same problem with Bishop( from Black to white to BLACK black !)

    Nevertheless, I think you are going overboard on this .

    Back in the day, you’d have been right. Who was writing comics? Jewish /white dudes. But don’t jump down my throat- You wouldn’t have a Comics industry without Jewish /white guys! These same guys gave us all the comics we love! Superman was created by Jewish guys. Wolverine was created by Jewish guys- And GASP- the Black Panther , Luke Cage ,the Falcon- the list goes on and on -were created by White/Jewish guys.

    Have you always liked how they’ve portrayed them? No. But at the time, that’s all you had! Marvel has always been the leader in putting Minorities in comics, and surprisingly for the time, they were surprisingly sensitive about how they portrayed them.

    But Have you been reading comics lately?
    There has never been the number of POC writers and artists in Comics, and they are fixing the stuff you brought up in this article. Luke Cage is a perfect example for me. When I was growing up He was one of three Black superheroes I had’ . I didn’t mind the “Sweet Christmas” every so often . I’ve liked the way they’re brought him up to speed con temporarily. Check out the Black Panther as an example. Reginald Hudlin and Eric Jerome Dickey have written for Marvel . Jim Lee, Dustin Nuygen , Mark Teixeira, just to name a very few are other Non-Black minorities that have significantly changed how minorities have made inroads into comics . As for women Gail Simone is one of the top writers period! What I’m saying that it is getting better!

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 1:55 pm ¶

30. Kali921 wrote:

    To Kirk Van Irvin:

    I’m Jewish. Out of honest curiousity, why do you go out of your way to carefully note that the “White” writers you talk about are “White/Jewish”?

    I’m well aware that Marvel is ahead of DC in putting racial and ethnic diversity into its titles – out of the Big Two, Marvel clearly jumped into the game earlier with richer and less stereotyped portrayals of minorities of all kinds, but they’ve had their share of spectacular screw ups. Shang-Chi had his own title in the seventies – that was amazing for the genre, an Asian headlining his own book – and the writing was very strong, but did also indulge in stereotypical tropes.

    Marvel and DC do employ creators of color, certainly. But they are still rare. I’d add Brian Stelfreeze as a perfect example of an outstanding artist who, if there was any justice in the universe, be doing at least two covers a month for Marvel or DC, but he hasn’t done any work for the Big Two in the last few years that I’m aware of.

    Also keep in mind that white writers do a better job, in my opinion, of writing a diverse cast with strong, realistic, and rich portrayals than writers of color do. Look at Reginald Hudlin’s T’Challa, for example. Christopher Priest wrote a stately and refined T’Challa that was a supreme tactician, superb head of state, and capable of feats of ass kicking that left readers with jaws agape. Under his pen Wakanda was fleshed out to be a country with a rich and distinctive culture.

    Under Hudlin? We see a return to stereotype. We see Hudlin utterly ignoring the female warriors of Wakanda, we see T’Challa behaving like a patronizing twit to Storm, and we see the early years of Storm and T’Challa’s relationship retconned so that it was T’Challa who saved Storm, not the other way around, which was a slap in the face to everyone that loved that particular storyline.

    Dwayne McDuffie is another black writer that I generally love, but under his recent run on the Fantastic Four, he had Storm trying to prove to Ben that her hair wasn’t a weave. Ororo Munroe? Having to justify her hair to Ben Grimm? Oh, no. No, no, no.

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 2:24 pm ¶

31. Kali921 wrote:

    Er…clarification to my last comment: I meant to cite Greg Rucka and Eric Trautmann as white writers that do a damn good job in writing characters of color. The recent work on Checkmate should illustrate that.

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 2:26 pm ¶

32. Kali921 wrote:

    Yet further clarification:

    I meant to write that *some* white writers do a better job at portraying characters of color, not all. Oy! Clearly I need to proof my posts better.

    My apologies for cluttering up the comments here.

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 2:27 pm ¶

33. DivergentDana wrote:

    “For that matter, I don’t even know if Australian Aborigines identify is black, so the comparisons are not equivalent in this case.”

    They actually do… as an aside, I never knew that Bishop was Aboriginal. And Ryder’s hair seems to have sustained some continuity in the pics shown — it remains quite ridiculous. Dreads don’t interact with gravity that way when they’re that length, and they have to be kidding if they think that black men are sporting waist-length relaxed hair on the regular these days. I think black hair gets straightened in comics because the artists are unfamiliar with how to render it, especially without going “retro” and doing a full-on fro. Hell, even straightened black hair usually doesn’t reflect light the same way as white hair does, and the same with Asian hair. However, I remember when Cecilia Reyes was an X-Man, and that the series of artists during that time did a commendable job with her dreads. Folks should really take some time out to research these things, and see drawing different phenotypes as an interesting challenge as opposed to a chore. But then again, look at some of the sloppiness going on out there — even a lot of the white characters (especially the females) look like the same person with different clothes and hair, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the colorist gets confused on a regular basis. Seeing as the comic industry ain’t doing that well these days, perhaps some serious quality control is in order… and this is from a fan, so it’s not just idle hating.

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 2:36 pm ¶

34. Kali921 wrote:

    To DivergentDana:

    You raise some excellent points. In fact they are points that I rant about fairly regularly. Most mainstream comic artists working in the superhero genre can draw only one or two faces at best, and only two body types: muscled male, and muscled female with a 36DDD rack yet freakishly skinny arms. When artists in the genre are crippled by the fact that they can’t even depict a diversity of faces and body types and refuse to explore or evolve their art, the result is the all-too-familiar generic superhero art that you see in so many titles.

    (I won’t even get into how little most male comic artists have absolutely no sense of fashion when it comes to what women wear.)

    Two artists that do a good job with diversity? Khari Evans, who did a marvelous job on the recent Daughters of the Dragon miniseries with Misty Knight and Colleen Wing, and all of the issues of the current run of Green Lantern Corps pencilled by Patrick Gleason, who goes out of his way to draw female faces with distinctively different features.

    The fact that these two examples stand out so much makes me sad. The genre is capable of doing so much better, and there’s no shortage of artistic talent.

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 3:07 pm ¶

35. Tasha wrote:

    I’d like to state again that these accidental choices/print errors never seem to happen in reverse.
    blue eyes don’t seem to turn brown, straight hair curl and lock, blonde hair turn brown and most certainly not a character’s skn color darkening. then again i’m not that versed could someone link me and prove me wrong?

    thnx

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 3:07 pm ¶

36. Kar-leone wrote:

    I’m new to this blog, BUT I think the point is, why take a character and change their Characteristics to continually to a point to where the’re story and impact is different. There a difference between short hair and dark skin and brown eyes versus blue eyes and light skin.

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 3:11 pm ¶

37. Kar-leone wrote:

    *I meant their*

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 3:11 pm ¶

38. Tony wrote:

    Tasha.

    To be fair.
    Not many people curl their hair on purpose anymore.
    LOTS of people with curly hair straighten theirs.
    It’s not even just african ancestry, white people with curly hair tend to straighten theirs nowadays.

    Lots of white characters did have somewhat ‘fro’ like hair back when it was popular for whites to curl theirs.

    Also. blonds in the real world don’t generally dye their hair, lots of people (mostly women, but some men) do dye their hair other colors.
    I’ve seen pleanty of local black women with red, magenta, and blond hair.

    The only time I see white women dye their hair a non-natural color or black is if they’re Goth or Punk or such (not exactly large numbers of those subcultures in comics)

    Skin darkening, well it’d depend on how many shades of difference you need to consider it darkening, and how long you want it to have lasted.

    We can’t get ticked off at comics creators for changing things actual people change about themselves every single day.

    I’m ticked about Mistys skin change, since it’s obvious it’s not just lighting like it was in Vixens case, and if she continues to be drawn that way I’ll be joining alot here in protest.

    But I’m not about to get ticked off for someone drawing a black people with straight hair or unnatural hair coloring considering I see it every time I so much as look out the window.

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 4:15 pm ¶

39. Genevieve wrote:

    One of the origin stories of Magneto I remember hearing about was that he was rich and had ties to the oil industry. I did know about the Gypsy/Jewish switches made, and I know his children (Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch) use the last name Maximoff while he uses Lensherr; I’m not sure if his last name was ever Maximoff in the comics, or if the twins took their mother’s name. I was referring to changes made over time to fundamental basics of a character, and Magneto jumped to mind first is all.

    And I didn’t realize Bishop was Aboriginal. I remember him being portrayed as African-American in X-Men TAS, which is really most of my experience with the X-Men thus far outside of Ultimate-verse, and I haven’t even read that in over a year. (Although I remember a Nick Fury drawn from a photo of Samuel L. Jackson and a Storm drawn from a Halle Berry photo.)

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 4:15 pm ¶

40. Lyonside wrote:

    Sorry, mainstream fans, but this is why I tend to read indies and online comics/graphic novels – I lost interest in DC (mostly) and Marvel overall back in the late 90s. At that time, the proverbial straw was the XMen origin miniseries, specifically, when Gambit’s series had gorgeous art and good writing, and Rogue’s (which immediately followed) was totally T&A and lack of facial features (I mean, it was a close up of her face and they declined to draw in HER IRISES – she’s just a girl, noone’s going to be looking at her EYES, right?), and craptastic writing.

    I’m saddened but not surprised to see the industry hasn’t gotten much better in 10 years.

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 5:30 pm ¶

41. Juan wrote:

    To be honest, sometimes I wish I was at least white so I can take myself, and others seriously, in beliving the ‘it’s not really a problem’ line of thought. Other days, I just laugh at such people if I’m not rolling my eyes at them or doing both.

    As for character ethnicity–Magneto was supposedly considered a Gypsy because he took the identity of such in hopes that it’d help in finding his wife, who herself was a Gypsy. That’s how his current bio is structured at least.

    And Bishop, since his first appearance, has been and is continually depicted as Black (along with his sister and even daughter who starred in her own alternate timeline miniseries). Yet the Aborigine thing is rather recent and it has more or less been confirmed with his grandfather (or is that great-grandfather) being the Aboriginal mutant Gateway and some mention of his own father as being Australian. His mother I can’t remember, so he could be Aborigine and Black or just the former, though he’s continually depicted/portrayed nonetheless which just adds to confusion.

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 5:57 pm ¶

42. yazikus wrote:

    @ Tony-
    Last I checked there wasn’t a worldwide mandate on women’s hairstyles.
    I would say that many women curl their hair.
    Some straighten, though, imo, it is usually a longer and more damaging process to your hair.
    Many more die it non-”natural” colors, outside of the goth punk scene.
    In fact, there are myriad ways for women (and men) to style their hair.
    I found your comment to be incredibly short sighted.

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 8:56 pm ¶

43. DivergentDana wrote:

    “Many more die it non-”natural” colors, outside of the goth punk scene.”

    Case in point- the brassy gold “blonde” color that some black women dye their hair, and the purplish merlot “red” that some white women use… those colors have only a tenuous basis in reality, yet they’re part and parcel of conventional hair dye canon now because consumers willed them into existence.

    Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 9:27 pm ¶

44. Joseph wrote:

    Great post/thread. I’m glad to see this issue getting some play outside of the insulated bubble of the comics blogosphere.

    I don’t think this post is an overreaction–there is a clear pattern of representing POC in comics with European features. Some get Europeanized after the fact and some are created with incongruously European features from the outset. It is maddening.

    Has anyone else noticed that when multiracial characters appear in mainstream comics their European characteristics are always improbably dominant? So you end up with Wally West’s half-Korean daughter as a redhead, the Eurasian Connor Hawke with blonde hair and blue eyes, etc.

    Others have mentioned Storm–who is a beloved character and an icon but…I have always been ambivalent about her because I can’t get past her design. A black woman with blue eyes and long silky platinum blonde hair? What the fuck is that supposed to be? I have felt for years that her origin heaped one cliche on top of another to overcompensate for this original flaw. Not just an American black woman but an African one, not just an African woman but a Queen, not just an African Queen but a Goddess…it is ridiculous.

    Imagine a Storm that looked like an actual black woman without all the “regal” “noble” “royal” baggage: awesome, right?

    It is hard not to believe there isn’t some sort of agenda at work here. It may have been unconscious in the past but the ‘net has ended any possibility that might be true in the present. The fans have an unprecedented ability to communicate with creators. How can they not know?

    Posted 11 Jun 2008 at 12:33 am ¶

45. Tony wrote:

    Yazikus-
    I was referring to Tashas complaints about things not happening in reverse (curlier hair, darker hair, darker skin)

    In doing so, I was meaning more to mainstream America since that is where about 90-something% of mainstream comics writers and artists come from or currently live.

    Where I live (New Orleans) I don’t see many people curl their hair.
    I don’t see tons of white people dye their hair darker colors. (with the exception of the goth scene)

    I do see lots of black women (and some black men) straighten their hair.
    I do see lots of them lighten their hair by dying it.

    While these may be opposite worldwide, it’s unreasonable to expect a writer working in the US, writing for the US, to follow trends in the rest of the world.

    As I’ve said, I’m ticked off about the change in Mistys skintone.
    But I’m not going to expect artists to do the opposite of actual current hair trends.

    I live in a predominantly black city, most of my going out is to predominantly black places, and I still see more black women with sort straight hair than I do big afros.

    Posted 11 Jun 2008 at 3:58 am ¶

46. Kirk Van Irvin wrote:

    @ Kali921:
    I was just pointing out a fact : The early Comics Industry was dominated by Jewish men. This is true. It’s not something I made up. And if you’re wondering why I separated them , it’s that some of them (ex. John Romita ) were not Jewish. I’ll just blanket use “White” from now on. Wasn’t trying to start anything, and I apologize if that’s the way it came out. And I could have sworn I was giving a compliment to them for creating characters that I enjoy so much.

    You wrote this: “Also keep in mind that white writers do a better job, in my opinion, of writing a diverse cast with strong, realistic, and rich portrayals than writers of color do.”

    It’s easy to say that when the majority of the people who are writing the comics are white men . Until around the early 90’s , with very few exceptions, that was the case. As for Hudlin and Priest, both of them saw that the Black Panther needed a face lift. I liked them both, although I agree with you that Priest’s run was better. I think Brian Michael Bendis did a great job on Luke Cage, but to me he falls into the “Super writer” category anyway.

    And to throw this out, while I’m glad that POC’s and women are getting more of a say in writing and drawing, doesn’t make them better writer/artists of that character . (in my opinion, Jodi Piccault’s run on Wonder Woman is a perfect example of this). What they do is bring more diversity and points of view to the characters, ,If only for being there if someone has a question. I’m looking forward to Gail Simone on Wonder Woman. Like I said, she just writes good comics period. And I thought Eric Jerome Dickey’s Storm mini- series was great; He writes love stories , and that’s just what he wrote. I expected more romance , less ass-kicking from him.

    God, I miss Milestone. And I forgot to give a shout out for them.

    Posted 11 Jun 2008 at 5:03 am ¶

47. bdsista wrote:

    I quasi read comics and having lived through the 60s until now, the Afro means something to those of us who have a sense of its sociopolitical significance. In the 60s, 70s, even now, choosing an Afro, dreads or natural hair style may mean less options in terms of employment or promotability. Just b/c Black women wear their hair straight doesn’t mean they don’t support other women who wear Afros or dreads. We may choose straight hair, weaves, whatever b/c of work, whom we’re dating or fashion, but still be can support the concept that true Black hair is nappy at the roots. That’s why there are millions made on Black hair care products.
    Ryder’s hair does NOT look ridiculous! I go to Jamaica 2Xs a year and if you have nappy roots your hair will stick up regardless of how much length you have in the back.
    check out these links
    dreadlocks.skyrock.com/6.html
    http://www.rootsreggaeclub.com/culture_reggae_afro/reggae/bob_marley_dennis_morris.jpg

    I think the pic of Ryder with his thick high dreads is hot and very masculine and he looks like a real Roots Dread!
    Rant No. 2
    Just a question: Why do all the Asian anime artists draw themselves as white? I have a multiracial (mostly asian) and black child and she likes anime which I think totally denigrates her self image as Asian. After years of Black Barbies and fighting the American Girl doll people about their lack of diversity (no Asian doll and the Black one is dark and they all have buck teeth), I went with a My Twinn doll. But then we go to Japan and what does she find? Asian drawing themselves as white!!!! Damn! I just put Boondocks in her hands to give her some perspective. But my premise is that the whitening of comic characters is subconscious white supremacist actions by white artists and brainwashed colonialized racist acts by Asian artists.
    Yes color of skin does matter. When you grow up with NO representation of yourself in comics, TV, or film, it matters that when the characters do appear, that they look like you, that they represent your people. I gather from some of the comments pooh-poohing this that none of you were born in the 1950s. You don’t know what it means to be invisible from birth. The whitening of cartoon characters is racism and it Matters!

    Posted 11 Jun 2008 at 9:14 am ¶

48. Persia wrote:

    The face is off, but the entire thing looks like it was drawn by Rob Liefield or someone imitating him.
    Liefield can’t draw faces. Period.

    Fixed that for you. I do agree the “Liefield-ization” that happens in comics is part of the problem– when everyone’s drawn to the same facial ‘type’, racial and ethnic differences start disappearing. I remember some particularly disappointing runs of Excalibur where Nightcrawler started looking disconcertingly like Captain Britain. It’s more obvious and problematic when it happens to characters of color, of course.

    And does not explain in any way Misty Knight’s randomly blue eyes. What the hell?

    Posted 11 Jun 2008 at 9:47 am ¶

49. Joseph wrote:

    @Persia
    “…does not explain in any way Misty Knight’s randomly blue eyes. What the hell?”

    Exactly.

    While it is true that hairstyle trends change, I think focusing on that as an explanation obscures the point. A Misty Knight with a silky fringe whipping in the wind over her blue eyes is strange left turn for a character known for decades as an afro-wearing black woman.

    Posted 11 Jun 2008 at 12:28 pm ¶

50. Big Man wrote:

    I live in New Orleans and I see old white ladies with Maroon hair all the damn time. Tony and I should hang out.

    Posted 11 Jun 2008 at 12:56 pm ¶

51. DivergentDana wrote:

    “Ryder’s hair does NOT look ridiculous! I go to Jamaica 2Xs a year and if you have nappy roots your hair will stick up regardless of how much length you have in the back.”

    I don’t want to get into a huge to-do about this (black people+hair too often= knock-down drag-out argument) but I was thinking of that particular Marley photo when I made the claim. In that photo, he looks as if he’s in the early stages of locing where the hair is shorter and indeed sticks up. The other guy’s hair, as a result of being longer and heavier, doesn’t stick up as much as Marley’s, and it certainly doesn’t stick straight out from his head supported exclusively by air.

    Posted 11 Jun 2008 at 2:25 pm ¶

52. Tasha wrote:

    @ Tony
    actually it’s not fair

    or there would not be such an uproar
    they are not ’simply’ making a stylistic change as with a haircut. women go from fro’s to locks to braids regularly as well but this seems to go unnoticed . This is certainly not as simple as a stylistic change i’d like to add you make it sound as if stylistic changes were also normal there are certain things about characters i notice it would be anathema to change or even consider changing superman/spiderman/batman’s uniform cause contorversy every time an eye is batted wrong i could only imagine what would happen if they made a ’stylistic’ change of making them more ethnic featured

    Posted 11 Jun 2008 at 3:09 pm ¶

53. PlasmaRit wrote:

    This is what really kills me about Marvel–they’ve consistently been whitewashing their PoC recently, and it drives me nuts. I’m not familiar with Ryder, but seeing him whitewashed like that really got me angry.

    But I was really pissed when I saw what they had done to Misty.

    I LOVE Daughters of the Dragon; Misty is my favorite character in that book. Heroes for Hire irritated me with those stupid bangs, but what they did to her in Iron Fist is unforgivable. In that image, I don’t see Misty; I see a blue-eyed, white-skinned imposter. You’re absolutely right, it’s racist and it’s wrong.

    Seriously, is it that hard for Marvel artists to draw black people?? Christ.

    Posted 11 Jun 2008 at 3:47 pm ¶

54. Vik wrote:

    So I’ve got the Immortal Iron Fist Vol 2 trade paperback (not graphic novel!) which includes this here issue…though I’ll have to check the other # 14’s in my store to be sure, but it seems they have “corrected” Misty. By corrected I mean that her eyes are brown and she’s a tad darker. Working in a comic book store and having the opportunity to flip through the millions of comics at my disposal has allowed me to discover countless instances of…discoloration, racial swapping, and extremely exaggerated racially/ethnically specific physical characteristics (Asian people don’t really have eyes that slant that damn high and Black people don’t all have lips that big!). Though some of these things do disturb me I just tell myself, “It’s the artist’s interpretation.” I mean if you look at Jim Lee’s past art, I’m pretty sure Jean Grae and Cyclops weren’t as Korean as he made them look.

    Posted 11 Jun 2008 at 10:42 pm ¶

55. Lea wrote:

    Again? Jeeze, Marvel, go buy a clue.

    Actually, it’s pretty rare (as far as I’ve noticed) to see this sort of thing with a male character. Most artists who draw characters like John Stewart, Bishop, Luke Cage etc. do seem to manage a decent-looking Black guy. It’s usually the women that stump them.

    Half the time I can’t tell whether they alter the characters deliberately to make them look more like their idea of “hot” — Storm’s voluminous straight hair, Jubilee’s blue eyes, etc. — or because they base their drawings on actresses and models, fields where women of color seem much more likely to succeed if they look “more White.”

    I’m trying to think of mainstream comics that have really nice, good-looking characters of color in the art. The closest I can come up with is Pia Guerra’s brilliant work on Y: The Last Man for Vertigo, DC’s “mature” imprint. Agent 355 always looked beautiful (and consistent) to me.

    Posted 12 Jun 2008 at 7:19 am ¶

56. Persia wrote:

    It was years before I realized Jubilee was not supposed to be white. Years.

    Oh, and there was supposed to be a strikethrough on ‘faces’ in that “Liefield can’t draw” line.

    Posted 12 Jun 2008 at 11:22 am ¶

57. Tony wrote:

    I thought Jubilee was supposed to be half-asian, half-white.

    And what I’m saying Tasha is that in real life the switches in hair do tend to occur to be one way and not the other.

    I’m certainly not excusing the whitening of Mistys skin, I’m just saying we shouldn’t get ticked off about hair-changes that thousands of people actually make every single day.

    Changing your hair alone isn’t changing your ethnicity, it’s not a ‘whitewashing’.

    Now, what happened to Misty, with a total skintone change and an eye color change, THAT is a whitewashing.

    If we cry “whitewashing” because a character changes his hairstyle, then it makes us easier to ignore when we get ticked off about a whitewashing that really IS a whitewashing, like Misty.

    Posted 12 Jun 2008 at 1:23 pm ¶

58. Tony wrote:

    Also, I want to clear something up.
    When I said I think Ryders old hair looks stupid.
    I’m not saying real life dreads look stupid.
    I’ve considered doing my hair in dreads.

    Look at that second picture.
    His “dreads” somehow tower to a height that is about the same height as his HEAD.

    I’ve never seen dreads somehow stack up on top of each other like that.

    It’s not like he has them tied up, it seems as though they are supposed to be growing out of his head and stacking on top of each other to a height equal to his head, then branching out.

    I dislike them not because they are dreads, but because they look nothing like dreads.
    To me it looks almost like a caricature of dreads.

    To me Ryders old dreads are to dreads what a lot of old cartoons was to thicker lips.
    A cartoonish caricature so exaggerated that it’s insulting

    Posted 12 Jun 2008 at 2:59 pm ¶

59. DivergentDana wrote:

    Nope, Tony… Jubilee is 100% Chinese-American.

    Posted 12 Jun 2008 at 3:10 pm ¶

60. Jeff Lew wrote:

    All this discussion makes my head spin, mainly because everyone here seems to miss the point. Mainstream American comic books have been, and always will be the doman of the white teenage male. Just like WWE wrestling.

    And, just like WWE wrestling, you may have a minority here or there, but the white people will always be the top tier characters. On occasion, you might have a non-white person but only if they act more or less completely white, or alternatively, fall into some exaggerated stereotype.

    Storm was black, but what about her character made her black? What seperated her from a white woman? Cyborg was black, but what was black about him other than his looks? Ironman’s sidekick, Warmachine, was black, bug again, how did he think or act in any way that was different from a white person? Jubilee was Chinese? Really? Was there anything Chinese about her? Coulda fooled me.

    And don’t even get me started on the out-right RACIST depictions in Marvel/DC comics. The Mandarin, anyone? What about Egg Fu? Oh, and let’s not forget my all time favorite, Mother of Champions, who is a Chinese woman that can give birth to a “a litter of twenty-five super-soldiers about every three days.”:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Ten#Mother_of_Champions

    Posted 12 Jun 2008 at 4:18 pm ¶

61. Latoya Peterson wrote:

    @Jeff –

    Mainstream American comic books have been, and always will be the doman of the white teenage male. Just like WWE wrestling.

    WWE hit the mainstream when I was in high school. Everyone I knew that year was into it.

    And I have a huge issue with the “way it always will be” line of thinking. That’s bullshit. Things can change, will change, do change. And if it isn’t for us – the comic lovers – to initiate that kind of change, who will?

    Posted 12 Jun 2008 at 4:31 pm ¶

62. Kali921 wrote:

    To Jeff Lew:

    I have to disagree.

    Firstly, if you’re arguing that it’s still teenage white males who predominantly read and buy comics, you are factually incorrect. (As a nonrepresentative sample, most of the comics bloggers that I read are in their late twenties to late forties – and most of the prominent comics bloggers in the superhero genre are *definitely* not teenage white boys.)

    With the increasingly mature themes that the Big Two present on a weekly basis, I’ll argue that comics aren’t even *designed* for teenagers anymore – I know I sure as hell wouldn’t want to see a teenager reading Marvel’s Moon Knight, which is an intensely disturbing and dark read yet rated as an all ages title, IIRC. There’s no way in hell that Marvel is thinking solely of a white teenage male when creating that book.

    I’ll argue that the Big Two know that their main buying demographic is aging and that they craft their product accordingly.

    With the rise of the comics blogsphere and the increasingly vocal discussions about comics, whether as medium or genre, from fen of color and from a feminist perspective, you can see the differences in presentation and execution from the Big Two over the last few years. As has been stated above, comics fans have always had an unprecedented amount of contact with creators, long, long before the rise of the internet. Comics, in many ways, are a collective effort – the fans and creators exist in a stage of both synergy and syncretism. The very fact that some in the industry bother to *respond* so quickly to charges of racism and/or sexism is a mark that the industry is, on some level, paying attention. Whether or not they *change* is another discussion, but the intensity of the dialogue has definitely increased over the last seven or so years.

    When I shop at Comic Relief, a very famous and well known comic bookstore in Berkeley, white people are never in the majority. There’s always a healthy diversity of people shopping for comics in the Bay Area, and if that is on any level a representation of the larger demographic currently reading comics, then no, you’re wrong. Comics aren’t for white teenage boys anymore.

    Sadly, the major powers that be in the industry may not have gotten the memo. But I’m confident that things will change.

    Posted 12 Jun 2008 at 6:34 pm ¶

63. Tony wrote:

    @Jeff.

    I have a problem with the whole
    “How did they act/think that was different than a white person?” mentality.

    It comes across as ASKING for stereotypes.

    What exactly do you want them to do to make them “blacker”?

    Listen to hip-hop/R&B , Jazz or Blues?

    Dress in certain outfits?

    Speak a certain way?

    Stress race every opportunity they get?

    The entire idea someone has to dress/listen to/speak or act a certain way to “really be” an ethnicity is just incredibly offensive to me.

    Posted 12 Jun 2008 at 8:00 pm ¶

64. Joseph wrote:

    @Kali921
    Cosign.

    Posted 12 Jun 2008 at 11:37 pm ¶

65. Multiracial Muse wrote:

    This makes me wonder what my publication success rate will be when I feature chracters of color rather than white people as my main characters in my stories. I haven’t entered the querying process yet, but this really saddens me.

    Posted 13 Jun 2008 at 11:32 am ¶

66. Kesha wrote:

    I was always considering entering Tokyopop’s manga competition, but the racism in the industry scares me. I have a multitude of notes for plot lines that involve mainly characters of African, Asian, and Latin descent but the trends in the industry have always irritated me. It always boiled down to me doubting my ability to gain readership, but reading this article makes me more confident, if just a tad, that a demographic exists that is all too willing to buy comics with characters that are anything but mainstream. You can look at my blog for some old unfinished artwork. I still haven’t lost my dream of doing art and writing on the side thankfully, but I don’t plan on making storyboards until I finish this giant stack of unfinished artwork on my drafting table. Eh, college.

    Great post!!!

    Posted 13 Jun 2008 at 8:47 pm ¶

67. Tasha wrote:

    Jubilee’s Asian!?!?!?

    i NEVER knew this

    this is ridiculous guys

    Posted 16 Jun 2008 at 12:21 pm ¶

68. Keisha2Doll wrote:

    I’m really hurt about the changes to Misty Knight. In the 2006 photo she looks exceptionally beautiful but, in the new photo she looks like pop singer Rihanna. Is this because the folks at Marvel would like to bring her character to the big screen. I’ve also noticed that Storm now looks like Halle Berry, and Monet St. Croix looks like the late Aaliyah.

    Posted 10 Dec 2008 at 3:41 pm ¶

69. Amanda wrote:

    I agree with many of you guys post things will change and please write them Kesha i will read those, i want to also get into that industry and do the same. I’m tired of all the skin lightening, this type of thinking has crossed all boundaries, cartoons, Anime, comics, the music industry, tv shows, movies, and the list goes on. Then they wonder why some girls have a complex with their skin and blah, its this type of nonsense that causes it.

    Posted 25 Jan 2009 at 2:04 pm ¶

70. Kev wrote:

    well… ultimate wasp changed from being asian-american to white

    Posted 01 Jun 2009 at 12:17 pm ¶