DC at SDCC: Provocative (Grant Morrison in a Dress) is Good? (Final Part, Saturday)

[turtlefu]

This is it! The final part of this massive clusterfuck! But first, legality!
 

Maybe they'll get around to the black guy... eventually

 

DC’s New 52 Panel (Saturday Morning)

Winick says that with Batwing, he’s trying to mix superheroes with real-world issues in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He called Africa “a very politicized and ravaged country”.

“Now THERE’s that white privilege I was talking about! Good job we have mighty whitey to tell us how horrible of a “COUNTRY” Africa is! I get a huge feeling Winick is going to use this book as his mouthpiece for his opinions on the politics and culture of Africa, which he will grossly misunderstand and possibly turn into a "look at those SAVAGES" situation.”

DiDio made a list of heroines in starring roles. He says DC has the best percentage of females in starring roles.

“DC, DIVERSITY IS NOT ABOUT NUMBERS. Why don’t you guys GET THAT!? Also, I call bullshit on that anyway. Besides, Marvel is employing far more female creators (Deconnick, Immomen, Rios, Liu, etc.)”

Morrison says that Cass still exists in the DCU.

“Yay Cass!”          

The same Batgirl fan from the panel who asked about heroines on covers asked this panel why there weren’t more female creators in DC. DiDio says, GET THIS, they hire the best writers and artists they can! And the audience applauds! Morrison mocks her by saying he looks great in a dress, then turns around and encourages the female fans to submit work to DC.

“So, DiDio implies that the female talent out they isn’t good enough for DC, and then Morrison mocks a justifiably upset fan. Then he turns around and saves face by encouraging the female fans to submit their work. Presumably to be told that they aren’t good enough for the wealth of talent that DC only employs, like the kind that puts out Cry for Justice or the Rise of Arsenal.”

DC’s The Dark and The Edge Panel (Saturday Afternoon)

Lemire says Animal Man’s main character is actually Maxine, Buddy’s daughter. She gets her own powers.

“Which is interesting, but I can’t help but feel it takes away from the “everyman” qualities Buddy was supposed to have”

Cornell SPECIFICALLY calls Horsewoman a “diversity character, to state it crudely”, and compares her to the Man with No Name [Clint Eastwood’s Western Character]

“Good Job Cornell, you just took away the good feelings I had for you. Turns out his wheelchair user was just there for diversity cred!”

Cornell says Apollo and Midnighter are still gay, but they meet for the first time in the first issue, and their romance is slow. He also says that if he changes anything he won’t expect to come out of the “Gays in Comics” Panel alive.

“Okay, I do like the idea that they don’t immediately jump down each other’s pants, like they did originally. But apparently Cornell feels like the only thing wrong with changing their sexualities would be the negative fan reaction? Uh, you shouldn’t change their sexualities because that would homophobic, not because you fear how the fans would react.”

This one is the worst. DC replies to the negative fan reaction towards Harley’s new costume by saying “Provocative is good”, but says that Harley still has the same personality.

“REALLY DC, why is PROVOCATIVE only good for your FEMALE heroes, so you can dress them is as objectifying clothes as possible, but your male heroes wearing briefs on the outside is SO BAD it needed to be changed IMMEDIATELY.”

“Oh and just to add, included were some pages from an unknown book showing a gratuitous scene with strippers. I think it was either from Blackhawks, Suicide Squad, or Sgt. Rock.”

Comments

[shadowpsykie]

yeah... i kinda get what you are saying now.

i hope you don't mind me asking, but are you a Jewish Male?

side bar, i don't think it's fair to say that he is going to go off and he will grossly misunderstand and possibly turn into a "look at those SAVAGES" situation.”

IMHO that is a pretty extreme leap. might he use it as a mouth piece? will he get some things wrong.... maybe... but we don't know. I for one often get confused over whether or not Africa is a country or a conitnent (give me a few seconds to think and yeah, i know its a continent. though my first thought is usually country) and this is coming from a Gay latino male.

[cleome45]

No. Ask away. :) I can't even remember whether I mention gender in my profile. I'm female, cisgendered, and hetero.

All this stuff about the "country" Africa makes me wonder if anyone besides me remembers Tales From The Heart. Maybe I'll dig around in the closet this weekend and see if any of my copies are scan-worthy. It's the only comic I own that attempts to depict an African country realistically. (Specifically, it's set in Bangui, and told from the POV of a White American who joins the Peace Corps in the 1980s.)

And not that I'm an NYT cheerleader, but a few years back there was this.

[shadowpsykie]

thanks. see the reasons I defend Winnick probably is colored by my sexuality (probably my gender to a certain degree to be sure, but i tend to lean towards female oriented/femenist thought... ummm this could get complicated....)

anyways. part of the reason I like Judd Winnick is his outspokeness about gay rights and gay issues. can he get soap boxy? yes (especially early on). BUT he has good intentions and for the most part he does well.

i'd like to beleive that here too he has good intentions... only the book will tell.

[cleome45]

No problem. Most of what I know of Winnick comes from this space and a few other fan boards. I don't really have much experience with his writing.

Oh, and naturally I dug out my TFTH comics and realize that I should have said the main setting is "Bangui, in the Central African Republic."

[facepalm] I should be working at DC. :o :o :o

[shadowpsykie]

yeah his GL was good, it brought out good issues such as Gay Bashin (and i don't mean fun parties where everyone is happy.... damn you Drawn Together!) it was... very soap boxy and the character dissapeared after (though i think so did Winnick shortly after that arc) but his Green Arrow stuff was great and he REALLY made Mia Shine when Smith left. (again some stuff WAS saturday morning cartoony, but regardless it was good) And his Mia/Redhood interactions were great. Hell his Redhood in general is good (red hood as in jason todd not... ummm okay) he is one of the only ones that seems to be able to write jason todd as a character and not as "The bad one"

again these are all just my opinions.

[greenmask]

issues such as Gay Bashin (and i don't mean fun parties where everyone is happy.... damn you Drawn Together!

Forgive my OT flippancy, but this has reminded me of something from my childhood: a bunch of us got in trouble because we were playing "Grannie Bashers". The adults thought we were playing some sort of 'violence against the elderly' game, but actually we had no idea what the term really meant and had misinterpreted the phrase we'd heard on the news: we were just pretending to be the violent elderly. Grannies, bashing - not grannies, the bashing of.

Language: it is so troublesome!

[shadowpsykie]

okay i LOL'ed at that. just because you know... the innocence of Youth... :D

but yeah, The TV show Drawn Together, (A horribly funny irreverant adult cartoon (ummm not ADULT, but Adult...)) has a gay character and as a "Coming out Party" they decided to throw him a "Gay Bash" and he was like... :Ummm you know what that means?!? "

[cleome45]

Would that be like the old Monty Python sketch about "Hell's Grannies"?

[starwolf_oakley]

Indeed. Jason told Mia "You and I are from the streets. For reals, dawg." That was interesting, although I'm not sure where it was going. Jason would have a hard time convincing anyone "Murder is fun!"

[shadowpsykie]

i don't think he was saying is fun, but he was saying it was justified...

im sorry but i am of the mentality that you know what, sometimes you HAVE to kill. Max, needed killing, Joker? NEEDS to die... Drug dealers? Pimps? Child/Spousal abusers.... Dead or severely beaten themselves.... Or Maybe they could take a few cues from "The Doctor" (ie see Family of Blood)

[feyandstrange]

I had to go check whether the CAR bordered the Congo, and I am hopeless at keeping track of which Congo is which these days. But hey, we at least checked! And I bet if we were writing a comic instead of a blog post we'd have tried harder.

[nezchan]

Tales From the Heart (didn't the title also include "Of Africa)? Oh, I think I had that! That was about a bunch of Peace Corps kids building a school, wasn't it? I recall some locals saying of the cocky guy "He walks like an elder" and he thinks it's a compliment.

If it's the same book I remember, I totally loved it and read it many times. Wish I still had it, honestly.

[cleome45]

Yeah, I think the story you're thinking of is "The Temporary Natives." If it was square back, in color, and from Epic. (Rather than either Entropy Press or Slave Labor, both of which published other, shorter stories in B&W with color covers.)

It would be tricky to post the Epic stuff, good though it is, because I don't want to crack the spines. But I can do some of the B&W stuff at some point, maybe... Hmmm...

[nezchan]

Yeah, it was The Temporary Natives, I remember that now. Fantastic story, really good art, I totally fell for it. I always wanted to see more, but never did have any other volumes.

I'd love to see anything you've got.

[cleome45]

The weekend isn't that far off. Let me see what I can do. :)

[marco]

I kind of have faith in Winnick, but that he called Africa (whether he meant Africa or Congo) politicized and ravaged worries me. It feels like another case of "Africa will always be the dark continent, torn apart by war. Look at the people suffer and unable to get their stuff together." The only saving grace there is we have our hero who is black and not white saving them, if it comes to that (here's hoping anyway, lol). I'm in a very confused and worried state, because my opinions on both him and his statements are warring with me now. (And when put beside all he had to say about Catwoman, I just don't know if I even want to try...)

[darkknightjrk]

Well, he also talks about how it's going to be as much of a superhero story, if not more, so I don't think we're going to get "dark continent" out of him.

[marco]

Yeah, that's one part that makes me a little relieved. (I hope we don't get "the dark continent" out of him either way.)

[shadowpsykie]

Yeah Winnick means well. but so long as he can strike a balance between his "message" and the story *clears throat* "All will be well" :D

seriously though. when winnick writes well, he write WELL, when he doesn't... he comes off saturday morning special-ish....

[marco]

Oh, I know he does. The only place I really wonder what/how he means is with Catwoman, and I know he isn't going into the book as willfully ignorant (and insensitive) as some would be, I know Winick isn't perfect. Even though I enjoy plenty of his stuff and think his writing is good, I know not everyone gets every issue perfect (for instance, I can talk about issues that have the racial/ethnic and feminist intersection, but once it gets down to just the feminist side, sometimes things get complicated for me).

Like I mentioned here and elsewhere, I just don't want to see him be one of those writers that tries to use Africa to make a message or feel like since his story takes place in Africa that it has to have a message.

I think another thing that I got stuck on was that he only said it was politicized and ravaged. There was no further, "but it's also this-" or "but here's that too-". There was nothing good there. Just "politicized and ravaged". Even though I have faith in him, I feel (maybe reasonably) worried.

[shadowpsykie]

no no you are right, you have a reason to feel worried.

part of it is that they can only tell you so much (Didio is keepin such a tight hold on everything he won't let any of them say much, okay to be far PART of it might be the writers trying to sell thier story too, but you can tell in the interviews what is THEM and what is Editorial.)

so they use Buzz words and stuff that will catch people's attention.

Winnick might not be the most elegant writer. I think the thing is when he
"tires" to write a message, it gets clunky.... but when he doesn't "try" he ends up tell a good story WITH a message and it is seamless.

[shadowpsykie]

hey i'd like to try and sooth you a little (in a good way not a weird way.... hmmm it probably got weird with me say that.... ignore that... damit why am I still typing!) So here is part of an interview, and a link to an interview on cbr (thanks to Whitesycamore below) hope this helps a little

Africa is both tumultuous in terms of its history and its politics, and it allows us to go in so many places we really can't go when it comes to talking about the United States. Because the reality in Africa is that it is a beautiful, majestic and also incredibly dangerous continent. When writing about superheroes here in the States, there is a lot of stuff I have to make up. That's just my function. In Africa you truly do have revolutions and wars being fought, dictators being overthrown, governments trying to be instituted where there are warlords or entire armies made up of children -- just crazy, over the top stuff that should be the stuff of fiction but isn't. These are the things we get to tap into, this is the landscape we get to work in and the canvas we get to work on, along with the superheroes. It is high adventure, don't get me wrong. Lots of guys in costume, lots of super bad guys, but set against this volatile landscape, which will make it interesting

(interview here: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=32731 )

[arilou_skiff]

Well, the DRC IS war-ravaged. (Not just by internal fighting, but also eg. exiles from Rwanda)

[marco]

Yeah, that was something I mentioned in the other post. There will no doubt be some Truth in Television there (supposing nothing gets exaggerated, etc), but there's also that side to it where everyone always likes to just focus on war-ravaged anywhere in Africa and forget that not all of it is so torn up because of war (whether it's that own country's war or not). It gets old and kind of ugly to see Africa as everyone's little "country" to use as a message and crap.

[fifthie]

i don't think it's fair to say that he is going to go off and "he will grossly misunderstand and possibly turn into a "look at those SAVAGES" situation.”"

I think it's fair to say that he is likely going to go off and be Winick about it.

Which isn't quite the same, but that doesn't necessarily mean better.