DC: A bunch of liars for me now

[Corrina]

What I'm trying to get at is that I've heard it from too many people -- my hispanic friends in college talked about honestly liking some things but being afraid of being called "coconuts" -- "Brown on the outside but white on the inside" -- by their friends.

A speaker I saw in grad school was African-American and mentioned feeling the pressure of having to be some kind of "perfect" example of the educated African-American in order to counteract racial stereotypes.

I'd like to see more stories which explore this sort of thing but saying that Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent's stories would be EXACTLY the same if they were of another ethnicity is naive.

Very true, depending on how close the DC world is to our real world and in Gotham, that's pretty close.

I have an unpublished mystery series and I once was going to swap the main character from white to African-American but when I went to research, I realized in a contemporary setting, especially in New York City, a white man and an African-American would experience the city in very different ways.

It was simply not the same. One can't swap one out for the other in a contemporary setting. Not that this should stop people from adding diversity, of course, but the personality/experiences are going to be different enough that someone like Bruce Wayne would, yes, be different.

And that's not a bad thing, it just is.

Now, in a fantasy or SF setting, where the entire universe is different, race may or may not matter at all.

[Shurato2099]

Agreed with Stressfactor: race, ethnicity and background are parts of the character but they aren't the total package. In some of my writings I've got a protagonist who's of mixed race (Chinese - Scots-American) and works web for a local newspaper, her instructor is a feudal Chinese peasant-turned-"story -demons- tell their children" and the big-bad is a former Edwardian/Victorian (haven't decided yet) aristocrat out for all the power he can grab. Race is there, it factors into who these people are, but it isn't everything about them. ... I really should get back to that at some point, too.

[zemo]

What I'm trying to get at is that I've heard it from too many people -- my hispanic friends in college talked about honestly liking some things but being afraid of being called "coconuts" -- "Brown on the outside but white on the inside" -- by their friends.

A speaker I saw in grad school was African-American and mentioned feeling the pressure of having to be some kind of "perfect" example of the educated African-American in order to counteract racial stereotypes.

I'd like to see more stories which explore this sort of thing but saying that Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent's stories would be EXACTLY the same if they were of another ethnicity is naive.

Well, to be fair: Superman's and Batman's stories would be exactly the same. You could work a bit more of racial struggle into Bruce Wayne's and Clark Kent's stories.

As for the gender, race, sexuality as part of the character: People have said in here they want a good story before they want a representative character. Fair enough, that is your personal opinion. That said, the problem seems to be that barely anybody at DC can come up with an interesting story with a female or minority character, then. That, or they are unwilling. Yet it has been claimed time and again that they are willing and are trying.

Here they could have given a completely new character their own book, and that character could have been female, or a minority. Yet this is clearly a white, or white-ish, male. As of right now I am not willing to give DC the benefit of the doubt and assume he might be a sexual minority. You want to tell me that the writer came to DC editorial, with a concept in hand, for a compeltely new character, that gets their own, brand new book, and this concept HAD to have a white male protagonist? Because having a woman or a person of colour would have been so severely detrimental to the proposed story, that it would actually have reduced its quality? I am not willing to believe that.

The problem is simply that to a majority of the creative and responsible people at DC, white male is the default. And a brilliant story gets crafted, and the writer convinces the editors, and then it gets pasted onto that default. And at no point in the process has one person even thought about whether the story might actually have gotten more interesting if the character was female, or a minority.

You say you rather want a good story before introducing a female or minority character. I am saying that is exactly why you're not getting the best story possible. The writer, in the best of cases, has hand-crafted a perfect paint brush from hand-picked horse hair. He has hand-made all of his colours, using the natural ingredients that would bring out the exact shades as perfectly as possible. And then he goes and paints his painting, which he has given so much care for in preparation, on a bog-standard paper canvas he bought at a Walmart sale.

If you are still unconvinced, ask yourself the question: If the writer had proposed this book based on a minority or female character, would it have ever made it into printing? Or would the pwoers that be have said "Too risky, won't work out, not big enough of an audience." DC's actions as of late have led me to ask myself questions like this. And I have to say "No, probably not." DC may actually be better than that. But, at least to me, right now, they don't look the part.

[Stressfactor]

Very true, depending on how close the DC world is to our real world and in Gotham, that's pretty close.

I have an unpublished mystery series and I once was going to swap the main character from white to African-American but when I went to research, I realized in a contemporary setting, especially in New York City, a white man and an African-American would experience the city in very different ways.

It was simply not the same. One can't swap one out for the other in a contemporary setting. Not that this should stop people from adding diversity, of course, but the personality/experiences are going to be different enough that someone like Bruce Wayne would, yes, be different.

And that's not a bad thing, it's just is.

Now, in a fantasy or SF setting, where the entire universe is different, race may or may not matter at all.

*Nods*

And I'm not saying that DC shouldn't continue to strive for diversity as much as possible either.

But I do want to cut some writers some slack in that the story that they want to tell needs to be told with the proper characters for that story.

And I still want a GOOD character not one who just fills a quota.

For example -- I read the new Blue Beetle series. I LIKED Jaime Reyes. I liked his family and I liked his supporting cast and I liked his stories. Good job all the way around.

I TRIED to read the new El Diablo mini-series with Chato Santana as the new El Diablo... HATED it. Did NOT like the character. Didn't like him AT ALL.

But both characters are Latino so, hey, whether or not they're actually good characters or whether or not one actually LIKES them shouldn't matter, should it? All that matters is that they're Latino so they fill a niche and that's the important thing. Filling a niche.

I'm not saying that diversity isn't NEEDED because it IS but BAD diversity is no better than NO diversity because then, when the title or the character tanks nothing is gained.

[t.c.johnson]

On a semi related subject, I had expressed some concerns about Judd Winick writing a comic book based in Africa. Not because he is a bad writer or anything, but he has actually never been to Africa.

I found a blog entery here that explains what I meant very well.

can’t help thinking that his portrayal of the DRC in particular and Africa in general is clichéd, dull, narrow-minded and lacks any serious research. Research is something that permeates a story; you can spot it a mile away. Research is what distinguishes Alan Moore’s dense take on magic in Promethea from your ordinary Doctor Strange story. Research is what distinguishes From Hell’s respect for real life people from Jonathan Hickman’s distorted, mean-spirited take on real life scientists in The Manhattan Projects. Bringing a real place and culture to life is what Grant Morrison does for Argentina in Batman, Inc #3 by having characters actually speak in Spanish and make references to Argentine literature, history, and politics. And if that mythical creature, the sophisticated comicbook reader, truly wants a well-researched comicbook set in Africa, may I recommend Joshua Dysart’s Unknown Soldier, a much better series about Uganda?


Read the nine issues and ask yourself this: what have I learned about DRC from it? Do I know the names of cities or towns? (Tinasha doesn’t count – it’s fictional.) Do I know what newspapers they read there? What they eat? What kinds of jobs people have? What different ethnicities there are? What musicians or novelists they have? What they do in their free time? What clothes they wear? How their public transportation looks like? Have I learned anything about the country’s history besides vague references to a ‘thirty-year-old war’ that indeed existed but which was so generically portrayed it could pass off as any war in any African country? After reading Joshua Dysart getting into real geopolitics and including real-life war criminals like Joseph Kony in his series, it’s disappointing to see Winick create a fictional dictator called Masika Okura, especially after claiming that Africa is a place “where we don't really have to come up with super villains. We have men in Africa that call themselves warlords who kidnap children and put guns in their hands and hop them up on meth and have them go kill people. These are the real guys.” Yes, real dictators like Mobutu Sese Seko, whom he turned into a generic dictator called Masika Okura

http://comicswithoutfrontiers.blogsp...-in-which.html

And just want to repeat this line here because it is important:

Bringing a real place and culture to life is what Grant Morrison does for Argentina in Batman, Inc #3 by having characters actually speak in Spanish and make references to Argentine literature, history, and politics

Batman Inc #3 was not a documentary by far, but Grant Morrison put in the research to make it truly a story that takes place in Argentina. Another wonderful example of this is Gail Simone's Birds of Prey that took place in Singapore.


I am bringing this up just to point out that if DC wants to bring diversity into their comics, that means there writers are really going to have to sit down and do a lot of research on the cultures they are trying to represent. (Or just hire creators from those cultures, but that would be silly.) If not, we will just get DC's version of Luke Cage. Sweet Christmas, do we need more of that?

[Ray G.]

I think the "lie" is in the statement that they would diversify their characters more.... and haven't lived up to it as much as they could and should.

Only if that means "Only create minority characters from here on out".

Given the fact that this talon will likely be a reformed mass murderer, and the similarities to another former brainwashing victim, Michael Lane, I can't say that making this talon a minority would have been received all that well.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Only if that means "Only create minority characters from here on out".

Given the fact that this talon will likely be a reformed mass murderer, and the similarities to another former brainwashing victim, Michael Lane, I can't say that making this talon a minority would have been received all that well.

Yeah, I could see that....

[zemo]

Only if that means "Only create minority characters from here on out".

Given the fact that this talon will likely be a reformed mass murderer, and the similarities to another former brainwashing victim, Michael Lane, I can't say that making this talon a minority would have been received all that well.

No one said they should only be making minority characters from now on.

But the first completely new character coming out of a big event, straight away gets an own book, and it's a white male.

We can't have legacy characters or colour, because they aren't as successful as the originals, or the original fans of the old character will be pissed. We can't, in a comicline-wide reboot, have major characters be turned into minorities, because that would be too much of a break. I can understand that DC doesn't want to upset their fanbase, they want to make profit.

But then you get a new character out, whom you give a book to, straight away. There is no old baggage. There is nothing stopping you from going crazy. The perfect opportunity to live up on your statements of supporting minority and feminist causes. And you decide to go white, male, around 30.

Not cool.

[Tom Stillwell]

We can't have legacy characters or colour, because they aren't as successful as the originals, or the original fans of the old character will be pissed.

Except for characters like Blue Beetle or Mister Terrific both of which have their own titles in the new 52. But let's not facts stand in the way of a good frothing.

[Lunar Archivist]

Well, to be fair: Superman's and Batman's stories would be exactly the same. You could work a bit more of racial struggle into Bruce Wayne's and Clark Kent's stories.

Someone, I don't think a white Kansas farm couple attempting to pass off a black alien child as their own would work very well.

Given current trends, you could easily make Bruce Wayne ethnic by having his rich parents adopt an orphan from Asia or Africa, though I'd avoid giving him an origin reminiscent of the black Nighthawk from Marvel's MAX imprint because he's an even bigger asshole than the regular Batman is.