There’s that social context for indie comics I was talking about a while ago. Following a twitter exchange, Ignatz nominee Whit Taylor expands on issues of race in indie comics circles:
I feel slightly uncomfortable talking about my own experiences, because I don’t want to alienate or blame anyone. Indeed my work doesn’t appeal to some people and that’s normal, but I have felt alienated at times due to my race. Sometimes I wonder if people pass my table at a con, size me up and assume that they will not be able to identify with my work or experience because I’m black. Maybe this is ridiculous, but from a life of learning to detect subtle racism, I won’t discount it. Indeed some, OK ALOT, of my work deals with race and I have no qualms about that. But that is not the entirety of what I write or care about when creating a piece. I’m a black cartoonist, but I’m also a cartoonist who happens to be black.
The best part of the story is that Taylor has found a way to make a difference by encouraging readers to check out unfamiliar material. Anyway, just read the wole thing.
I think simply pointing it out like this is the best thing she could have done.
As you, Heidi, have pointed out before, alt/indie/art/wedontreallyhaveagoodnameforthemrightnow comics are super welcoming and inclusive.
By bringing it up without making it an attack has gotten the conversation started, and from what I can see most people are nodding their heads in agreement and admitting that they’ve never really thought about it before.
You know how deal with being a cartoonist…you see that? I’m just a cartoonist. Yeah i’m Black and Turkish, but I didn’t choose it and I can’t lose it, so why I should I care?
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