Strange Fruit #1

[laughing_tree]

CBR: Following the announcement of the book, there was some response on social media expressing skepticism towards two white creators telling a story about the historical Black experience. How would you respond to that notion?

Mark Waid: That it's a fair point and a responsibility that we do not take moderately or without careful consideration and some measure of peer review. We'll have more to say about this as the release date nears, I'm sure -- although, ultimately, the story itself will have to stand or fall on its own...

-- Interview

Trigger Warning: Racism

Comments

[redmagpie]

This essay on this is really interesting http://womenwriteaboutcomics.com/2015/07/08/the-white-privilege-white-audacity-and-white-priorities-of-strange-fruit-1/

Also this
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2015/02/25/too-many-black-superheroes-michael-davis-from-the-edge/

[reveen]

Okay, first question that should have been asked during the planning stages in this comic is "Why does the Superpowered black guy have to be a space alien?", the second is "How many paddlings do you think trying to make the black hero a space alien is worth?"

It's stuff like this that makes me think that trying to directly address real world injustices through the superhero genre is inherently crass. Too much temptation to make it a fanciful, comforting, power fantasy instead of looking what happened right in the eye.

I'd read March instead.

[captainbellman]

...What the hell does any of this have to do with the origin of the title, apart from the word 'strange' having multiple meanings? It's like they tried to make a Jewish superhero set in WW2 and named him "The Great Dictator".

Jesus, Mark Waid, just when I was starting to think you were cool.

[superboyprime]

"What the hell does any of this have to do with the origin of the title"

...Did you read the whole issue?

[captainbellman]

Admittedly, no. Does it involve people being lynched? Hazarding a guess - by a bloodthirsty chapter of the Klan?

[lucean]

So wait, you felt justified making snobby comments about the name of the comic and how this caused you not think Mark Waid as cool anymore with directly referencing to the content of the story that you had not read.

You are something else.

[captainbellman]

I don't know, I suppose you'd respect me more if I spent all my time jumping down the throat of anyone who dared voice a negative opinion about something I enjoyed, yammering people into submission - or then again, would you be angry at me stealing your M.O.?

Either way, congratulations on coming across as very insecure.

[lucean]

I cannot even begin to explain how much it amuses me that your reaction to me apparently gravely attacking your character is to attack my character as being very insecure. I really did stop to laugh for a moment after finishing that sentence for the sheer absurdity of it.

As for the rest of your assertations, I think I've responded to you maybe four or five times in total, so I am somewhat confused about all the times I've been jumping down your throat for expressing a negative opinion. Especially since I have no issue for someone not liking something, as what I am supposed, tell them to love it. What is weird that from the rest of your explanation, it almsot seems that you are referring to my discussion with thatnickboy, which you weren't involved with at all as far as I know and if it is, then you really missed my central point. For example with MoS or BvS, if someone doesn't want to see it, fine, then they shouldn't. Asserting that some lifelong Superman fan doesn't like it should count as some kind of an argument is difficult, because what is the implication there about some other Superman fan liking it? Although if I recall correctly your rants on the subject, I really don't know why you feel to have some kind of a moral high ground on this matter.

As for the actual subject here, the comic in question, as superboyprime already pointed out, if those were issues, maybe that should have been what you should have discussed instead of rushing to make comments how the title doesn't have anythign to do with the story you had not read.

[captainbellman]

Or perhaps it doesn't really matter.

[captainbellman]

Also, I would love to know the mentality that takes my concern about a white writer taking the name of a song historically important to the black struggle and using it as the title for his poorly-planned fanciful tale of a mute black giant wearing the confederate flag - problematic for a LARGE NUMBER OF REASONS, mentioned in both the articles linked above, not least that it's stealing the thunder from a book about real black people by a black comics creator - and call that "snobby".

Whatever 'something else' I am, I'm glad it's not the 'something' you are.

[superboyprime]

Those are valid concerns. Maybe you should have talked about them instead of "This title has nothing to do with the plot, which I'm not actually aware of because I didn't actually read the book."

[captainbellman]

My exact words were "any of this" - i.e., the above scans. Any other context I gathered from the articles I mentioned, above. Note that not everyone can afford to buy and read every comic, or have the opportunity to.

Besides, even if I had read the whole thing that doesn't justify someone making aspersions about my character just because he still bears a grudge that one lousy internet poll won't make me reverse my opinion that BvS looks like a tedious waste of time and money for everyone involved.

[superboyprime]

Come on, look at what you wrote.

'...What the hell does any of this have to do with the origin of the title, apart from the word 'strange' having multiple meanings? It's like they tried to make a Jewish superhero set in WW2 and named him "The Great Dictator". Jesus, Mark Waid, just when I was starting to think you were cool.'

You were clearly accusing the title for having nothing to do with the story. If you were merely saying it has nothing to do with these specific scans, it wouldn't even make sense as a criticism.

"Note that not everyone can afford to buy and read every comic, or have the opportunity to."

Yes, including myself. There are plenty of criticisms that one can legitimately raise about a comic they haven't read, from just sampling a few pages: Criticisms about the art in those pages, about the lettering, about some bad dialogue, etc. Your criticism was not that kind. I mean, I doubt it'd be hard at all to take almost any comic series and find four pages that having nothing to do with the title.

"Besides, even if I had read the whole thing that doesn't justify someone making aspersions about my character just because he still bears a grudge that one lousy internet poll won't make me reverse my opinion that BvS looks like a tedious waste of time and money for everyone involved."

I know nothing about this. Maybe that poster is gunning for you. I don't know. But if they are, in this instance you were the one who provided the ammo.

[captainbellman]

Eh, I suppose so. I'm less bothered by my mistake than by that guy apparently using it as some kind of judgement on my character (alongside my lasting belief and hope that BvS will do terribly and be forgotten).

[lyricalswagger]

To be fair that's not at all unusual here.

[lego_joker]

A criticism, from a purely aesthetic point of view:

Jones' painted art is real purty - second to not even Alex Ross, really - but the speech bubbles just seem so distractingly... *modern* layered on top of it all. I feel that with art like this, you can't just use standard comic-book speech bubbles; you've got to make it fit the faded, semi-photorealistic look or it'll clash horribly.

[captainbellman]

I had similar thoughts. It feels a little like those terrible Star Trek comics they're making with stills from the show.

[lego_joker]

Oh dear God. I've seen quite a few "comics" they tried to make from stills of a show, and it doesn't even work when you're doing it with a cartoon. God help you if you're doing it with a live-action show.

[baihu]

The little red caption box in the second-last scan works quite well with the palate and the nicely done edges. They really should have at least put some of that textured edge around the speech bubbles, as well as maybe giving them an off-white 'natural' looking background color as well.

[freezer]

So, Icon, then?

[starwolf_oakley]

Or "Brother from Another Planet" starring Joe Morton, even though I've never seen that.

[espanolbot]

Pretty much.

[minervasolo]

On the one hand, it's good they're doing this with a level of self-consciousness, and as white men they have the opportunity to do this when a lot of black writers don't (it's pretty hard to argue the industry isn't institutionally racist). But if white people want to tell a story about racism, they need to tell it from their point of view. District 9 works because it's a story about racism told from the point of view of a racist person, because that's the experience Niell Blomkamp can draw on. He hasn't experienced racism, but he'd experienced living as the privileged race in a racist society and knows how that shapes the way people think and talk (and, clue, white people very rarely tell white people off for being racist in it, even when it does make them uncomfortable). As it stands, Waid and Jones are ignorant of their ignorance, which is why they've created a super strong mute black hero without realising that's racist in itself.

[laughing_tree]

I see that last part differently. For me, it'd be problematic if this mute, strong guy was the only black character, but as just one guy in a cast of a bunch of different black characters? He's no longer standing in for a whole people, then, and whatever traits he exhibits can and are balanced out by the other portrayals. Plus, he's only appeared in a handful of pages so far, so I think it's too early to say whether he's mute or not.