The New York Times has a story on how Comic-Con has become a venue to market to — gasp! — girls, with lots of info on various toy and clothing lines, including gymnast Nastia Liukin’s Supergirl line of clothing.

And marketers, including publishers, toy manufacturers and Hollywood’s entertainment giants, used Comic-Con 2010 last month to promote products for girls and to build anticipation for new ones. Mattel, for example, used Comic-Con to promote several toy lines for girls, offering an exclusive set of its Polly Pocket dolls dressed as superheroes and promoting Monster High.

I was actually interviewed for the piece by author Gregory Schmidt, who was very smart and nice and did a fine job on the story, but everything I said got cut out in editing. I was nonplussed by this, not so much because I didn’t get my name in the NY Times again, but because it leaves the article with just men quoted about selling to girls.

So yet again it’s a story about girls and women and what they like without a single woman expressing an opinion on the matter. Thanks, guys! We’ll just keep shelling out the money — no need to actually listen to us.

After nearly shutting down just a few weeks ago, Friends of Lulu has reemerged with an interim volunteer board. In addition, missing financial records have been recovered, and the organization is moving forward once again.

Long Beach Comic Con has generously granted women in comics organization Friends of Lulu a venue for their 2010 Lulu Awards, as well as a booth at the show and a panel. The Lulu Awards will be held on October 29th, 2010 at the Long Beach Convention Center, and will recognize the fantastic comic and cartooning work by and about women from the year 2009.

The partnership with Friends of Lulu demonstrates LBCC’s commitment to expanding the boundaries of the comic book reading audience, and their support of women in comics.

Martha Donato, Executive Director of Long Beach Comic Con, commented on the exciting collaboration:

“Long Beach Comic Con and Friends of Lulu have a lot in common – we’re both proud supporters of women in comics, and the comics business overall.  I’m particularly pleased that we can give them a home for their Awards ceremony that publicly recognizes the contributions women have made in the business.  We look forward to expanding our Women in Comics programming opportunities with the help of Valerie and her talented staff.”

Valerie D’Orazio, President of Friends of Lulu, expressed her excitement at the prospect of teaming with LBCC in October:

“Long Beach Comic Con has provided Friends of Lulu with an opportunity that has literally energized the organization. We are very much looking forward to representing women in comics at LBCC and presenting the Lulu Awards to another year’s worth of talented individuals.”

Also, please note that nominations for the Lulu Awards are now open to the public. The categories include:
• Kim Yale Award for Best New Talent
• Lulu Of The Year
• Woman of Distinction
• Leah Adezio Award For Best Kid-Friendly Work
• Female Comic Creator’s Hall of Fame
• Best Female Character

Eligible comics for nomination in this year’s awards must have been published (via print or the Web) in 2009. Please visit the official 2010 Lulu Awards page for more details and to enter your nominations. NOMINATIONS CLOSE AUGUST 23rd.

Lesson #1 of San Diego Comic-Con 2010: You can’t live on breakfast from the Embassy Suites.

Or if you do, you will pay a frightful price.

It was Thursday morning at Comic-Con, the morning after Preview night and the day when things blast into high gear with a roar of thunder and a crack of ozone. It was my second morning at the Embassy Suites, the “family hotel” of the Inner Circle. With a free breakfast buffet and “manager’s receptions”—aka FREE BOOZE—every evening, not to mention giant suites that sleep 6 comfortably, the Embassy Suites is the best bargain at the con for those, like this year’s Beat, on a budget.

By only the second day in, the low-grade bacon and baked-by-Methuselah bagels were already setting off a protest march in my stomach. That left nothing but small portions of yogurt and plates of rubbery melon to set me up for a day of rugged expeditioneering over the crevasses and screes of Under the Sails and the Hilton Bayfront. According to lore, a hearty morning helping of proteins and potatoes is the only thing to help you through this endurance test.

But you need good quality rations.

This is going to be one of those “I didn’t get enough to eat,” con reports. I’m sorry. My flight was delayed on Tuesday night, and the three-hour setback was enough to throw the whole schedule off because it meant I never got to go to Ralphs and every problem I had at the con could have been solved with a trip to Ralphs. But it never happened.

By Saturday, my body had toughened up, and adjusted to this new, no-food regime. But I wasn’t alone. Oh no. Everyone was reduced to a hungry zombie state, roaming a hostile landscape, storming media lounges for bits of sustenance.

I know you all think I’m being dramatic. But by Saturday, as I waited in the lobby of the Omni to conduct an interview with director Adam Egypt Mortimer, I ran into these two fellows – let’s call them Tom and Jerry — who were there making a documentary about a well known Comics Figure. Adam arrived a bit late, apologizing for the delay, explaining that he had abandoned his lunch halfway through, and brandishing a styrofoam container full of cold French fries and a few morsels of cut-up steak. He then generously offered the three of his his leftovers…and since none of us had eaten all day we started devouring the French fries like zombies who just caught up with a red shirt.

“I can’t believe we’re eating scraps!” Jerry exclaimed.

While enjoying the bounty, Tom was more worried about their cameraman who was sitting weak and pallid on a divan. “Maybe we should give this steak to Bill. He was really complaining about being hungry,” he suggested. Indeed, their mercy mission to offer Bill the left over steak scraps was successful. I offered to share the bag of peanuts that I had been living off of since the Eisner Awards, but they bravely declined.

The bizarre fact that this reenactment of the rescue of the Donner party was taking place in the lobby of a well-stocked and civilized hotel — nearby, Erik Estrada mugged for autograph hunters, Charisma Carpenter and Lou Ferrigno wandered by, and mere yards away, comics creators hobnobbed with producers, pitching movies — was not lost on us.

As the week progressed, it was increasingly clear that comics are now living off the scraps of the Comic-Con media monster, whether it was waiting for the leftover dollars of vacationing families, or living on the trickle down of the studio system. This particular eco-system isn’t the way the whole comics industry works — some companies that just publish books are doing just fine — but in San Diego, it was unavoidable.

Lesson #2: Always remember to sample the charms of Old Con.

Have you been over to Old Con? It’s so quaint and timeless with its antique longboxes and Pow! Splat! décor. If you ever wonder what “the olden days” were like at Comic-Con, just go to halls A and B because you can find the old tribes still living in their primitive Mylar huts, almost untouched by time.

But the people who live in Old Con might just be endangered by the high-rise booths at the other end of the hall. The constant refrain among comics publishers was that sales were flat or down. The reason most often cited was that the 126K attendees had bought their tickets six months previously and weren’t interested in anything that wasn’t a big media presentation. The convention has had to spread out over the adjoining hotels to thin the crowds, and this has also thinned the number of people who want to go to Old Con to buy comics.

While no one we talked to had an out and out shit show -– and indie pacemakers Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly reported strong sales and sellouts -– as it becomes more and more expensive to travel and exhibit, it becomes harder and harder to recoup all that money. Every year, people throw down their hat and cry out in disgust, “That tears it! I’m never coming back to San Diego!” only to be seen partying at the Hyatt like a rock star 12 months later. But it’s safe to say that everyone questions their involvement every year more and more, and the questioning is getting more and more serious.

One thing we did notice –- a few publishers we talked to had disappointing sales, but most artists in Artists Alley we checked in with seemed to do very well. For instance, Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett had sold out of their copies of Boilerplate by Saturday afternoon. It’s the added value of an autograph and a conversation that seems to seal the deal in AA.

Also, it’s not entirely certain what effect the absence of Comic Relief and diminished presence of Bud Plant had on the show. Both retailers formerly offered giant booths where you could buy all kinds of cool comics and books. Comic Relief gave up their primo spot, and for reasons that weren’t explained to us, Bud Plant was much smaller. It made it far harder to make an impulse buy on some comic you’d heard about on a panel.

Also unclear is just how the continuing bad economy affected the fantasy economy — a lot, we’d guess. Nearly two years into the Great Recession, it’s possible people are just beginning to question those nerd purchases. It’s certainly why some bloggers were economizing by eating other people’s leftovers.

Finally, it’s just not clear how to keep the comic in Comic-Con any more. This is the year we all just Gave Up. While everyone was proud that THE WALKING DEAD and SCOTT PILGRIM, two creator-owned properties, were the hottest things at SD10, getting attention without covering a hotel with a banner, making over elevators into vampire-themed make-out rooms, or flooding the air around hotels with floating bubble people was much harder.

Lesson #3: The “heart” of Comic-con is now the entrance to the Gaslamp, although “heart” may not be the proper body part.

The piazza at the confluence of the Hard Rock, the Omni, the Tin Fish, the Gaslamp Hilton, the trolley and the Gaslamp district is now the heart of Comic-Con where ninjas, masked wrestlers, Con Girls, alien resistance fighters, indie rockers, religious nuts and everyone else stands around and flogs their products. By Saturday, the ground was a disgusting litter of flyers, as the tight butts of the Green Hornet girls wiggled on one side by the Black Beauty, and the Scott Pilgrim Experience handed out garlic bread on the other.

Two fellows dressed as characters designed by Dean Haspiel handed out comics drawn by Dean Haspiel, and he wasn’t even there to enjoy it. Just crossing the street was an ordeal like walking around the Pyramids or the Taj Mahal, as huckster marketers swamped every hapless tourist– only instead of begging for a few American dollars, they were giving you disposable shit – candy, tattoos, stickers, whatever. Most of it was garbage.

Outside the swirl of hucksters, it was nonstop Zombie Gras as lines of professional autograph hunters camped out by the Hard Rock, pedicabs zipped around and “media types” headed over to various swanky sponsored press rooms. Someone who seemed to be knowledgeable suggested to me that the actual number of people in town for Comic-Con was closer to 160,000 – a full 35,000 people over the number of folks with actual badges. After spending a few moments at Zombie Gras, this number seemed modest. It seems that many, many folks now come to Comic-Con just to make the scene and snap up the off-site swag — there was a lot of stuff you could get without a badge.

The net effect of all the shilling was probably gross and definitely crass. Next year the pedestrian bridge over Harbor Drive will be completed and the human traffic pattern may change a bit, but the Marketing Town Square will probably still be high on my “places to avoid” list.

LESSON #4: Douchebags ruined Comic-Con.

SERIOUSLY. If I hear one more person slam Twilight for ruining Comic-Con, I will stab someone in the eye. The horrors of this douche spill -– pumping out over 100 millions gallons per day of Prada cologne and bullshit — are just being recognized. Over 100 acres a day of comics wetlands are being lost to this tragic spill, and if we don’t do something the entire coast will be eroded.

If the riot gear level security was the big complaint last year, this year the problem was the all-pervasive stink of Hollywood. All of my studio moles confirmed that this is the year that San Diego became Park City. Sure there were signs before – Kardashians, endless agency parties. But this year no one even pretended that comics were important.

I’ve already recounted how almost no one from Image could get into the AMC/Circle of Confusion party on Thursday, despite the fact that the theme was The Walking Dead, a comic they publish. I heard lots of stories like this about Hollywood’s increasing disdain for comics – Hollywood in general hates writers and people who create things, and comics have joined this tradition of disrespect, even as the fear of “the internerd” makes publicists coach their clients on how to pretend to be “geek savvy” and dress in the proper T-shirts. Helen Mirren’s Harvey Pekar moment was hilarious but it was about as genuine as the racks on those Green Hornet girls.

Comic-Con is becoming comics’ very own Barton Fink Moment.

The Douche Spill is mostly lemmings….it isn’t really FOR anything. NO ONE really thinks that the crowd of 6000 people who are dedicated enough to sleep out and get into Hall H are the ones who are going to make or break any movie. Comic-Con is for entertainment fans, not that mythical “geek” and the fact that Hollywood automatically equates people who like their products with social undesirables tells you a lot about Hollywood marketing people.

Along those lines, there isn’t a single person I talked to who thinks that SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD is going to be a huge blockbuster because it had the biggest presence at Comic-Con of anything ever. Everyone is very happy for Edgar Wright and Bryan Lee O’Malley, those pesky CREATORS, and what is by all accounts a charming, quirky movie. The giant hotel banner, multiple screenings and fucking theme park was a very innovative way to promote the film, but we’ll have to wait and see who goes to see it in a few weeks.

Studios are increasingly playing one-upmanship with Comic-Con and the “nerd herd” – whatever the fuck that is. “Peeks for geeks” trumpeted a headline in Variety. Once again, I can’t jibe the Orange County teenagers and families pushing strollers and folks dressed as the Scarlet Witch with tastemakers who will tell all their friends about this great postcard they got at Comic-Con. All the lists of “winners and losers” don’t mention the real people with things at stake: studio marketing planners who want to impress their bosses. Comic-Con is just another pissing contest for studio heads, a blank canvas on which to paint more and bigger banners, posters, room keys, lounges, yachts and sky-writing.

It’s been my experience —and surely that of some of you reading this – that far from being tastemakers, when one of those “geek nerd herd” folks starts waving a postcard at you and telling you how great this or that fantasy zombie direct-to-DVD movie is, your general reaction is to run away in fear and turn up the sounds on 30 Rock.

Unquestionably, there are more nerds and geeks than ever before because it is socially acceptable now, but by and large Comic-Con’s marketing efforts for big name movies come down to preaching to the converted. Did Angelina Jolie showing up at Comic-Con help SALT beat INCEPTION? No. Did it enable the people who marketed Salt to say “See, we were at Comic-Con!”? Yes.

Todd VenDeWerff at the A.V. Club has an excellent post that covers whether media people even NEED TO BE AT CON ANY MORE. Certainly it’s easier to sit at home and write about what’s happening than it is to be there and write about it. The increasingly controlled and staged events that are trotted out are another factor:

I’m not trying to argue myself out of a job or anything, but I do wonder if the amount of ink spilled on Comic-Con is truly necessary. This is an event created to specifically keep people from saying, “Oh, hey, maybe this won’t be good, huh?” Aside from all of the big, obvious problems – the long lines, the inability to stop thinking like a small convention when this is one of the biggest conventions out there, the ridiculously overpriced concessions, the fact that the whole thing may move to Anaheim, LA, or Vegas — no one really talks about whether news organizations should even be sending people like me to cover this stuff. Comic-Con started out for the fans, and then Hollywood got involved and tried to make all of the attendees fans of everything it could possibly get them to consume. And now, the event is such a big deal within the entertainment media that it sometimes seems as though the studios are using it to sneak a virus out to the public at large, just another bit of marketing in the long march toward a big opening weekend, but a form of marketing that we haven’t yet built up a resistance to, like billboards or TV commercials.

So much that happens at SDCC is obviously canned. After the show a few people told us that the kid who asked Ryan Reynolds to recite the Green Lantern oath (above) was a plant — a notion supported by all the videos of the event staying up on YouTube.
Lesson #5: If you came for a spectacle, you came to the right place.

Everyone was talking about the throne in the Marvel booth, the actual Odin’s Throne set from the upcoming Thor movie. It was Disney-esque in so many ways – from its forced perspective, to the way they only opened the doors behind it at certain times—kinda like the way the Pope only opens the holy doors at the Basilica once every 25 years, for Jubilee. (Why the Pope is an X-Men fan is not clear, but it probably had something to do with Milo Manara’s X-women.) It created great spectacle and interest as people tried to sit in it, and brought the razzle dazzle of moviemaking right into the comics booth. (Marvel did something like it last year with the Iron Man armor, but this was way bigger.)

On the other hand, the movie prop associated with a DC movie – the corpse of proto Green Lantern Abin Sur in a glass case – was located in the Warner Bros. booth, not at DC. Given the level of traffic at the DC booth, adding movie props to the scrum is probably not a great idea, but what with moving to Burbank and all, it’s getting more and more likely.

Lesson #6: Protect yourself at all times

A few told me that this was a “jumping the shark” year for Comic-Con, and cited the “Hall H Stabber” as the defining moment of shark jumping. While it made for some excited tweeting, and excellent cosplay, the actual incident – as opposed to the blogging speculation about it – seems to have been quite minor, and the details have effectively been hushed up. Both the Stabber and the Stabbee must be the ONLY two people at Comic-Con who don’t have blogs, Facebook or Twitter accounts, and their identities – and even the extent of the injury that left the Stabber with a big splash of blood on his Harry Potter T-shirt – have not, to my knowledge, been expanded upon from initial police reports. As the police were eager to point out, Comic-Con remains a peace-loving, law-abiding creature, despite the crowds and tumult.

BUt you know, there is still much fun to be had, even if the purpose and execution of a successful Comic-Con evolve. DQ’s Peggy Burns for the defense:

Perhaps, I may be considered lucky, but despite all the craziness and sometimes utterly depressing fall of humanity-esque atmosphere that is witnessed, I like San Diego. I like comics. I like seeing friends. I like meeting new ones. I like meeting our fans. I like meeting the artists. I like the panels. I like the Eisners. I like the people who put on San Diego. While the floor did seem emptier than usual on Saturday and it would be great for the convention to figure out way to not sell every single pass six months beforehand, and perhaps stagger some releases of badges so that the casual fan of comics or someone who reads the press the convention generates, has at least a chance in hell to attend, we made our {modest} goal and enjoyed our time. So let’s get going.

Lesson #7: Always go to Ralphs.

ALWAYS. Crawl on bloody stumps if you must, but get yourself to Ralphs. Carrots for day, Jack Daniels for night. Motrin for the morning. So simple.

******

The conflicted feelings over which way to take Con — and whether it has “ruined Fandom” — is very much evident in other writings about the show. Here’s a gallery of views and voices:

Veteran retailer Chuck Rozanski is always worth reading. This year he apparently was featured in the Morgan Spurlock documentary, along with his assistant Ashley, and makes some interesting observations:

…everyone is walking around with cameras. At first blush that might not seem important, but an epiphany that struck me as I was walking through the media section (which was, once again, insanely crowded), was that the real motivation for many people to come to Comic-Con these days is to be able to post breaking news and photos to their personal social networking sites. I later confirmed my hypotheses by asking people what they were going to do with their snapshots and video streams. The irony is almost palpable when you realize that for a great many people who are in this building right now that their elevation is social status is no longer derived from actually owning cool items, but rather from being the first to be able to report that they’ve seen something cool. The media moguls seem well aware of this trend, so they are doing their very best to try and motivate fans to take as many photos as possible of their new projects, in the hope at they will then go viral on the Internet. As crazy as it may sound, this sharing of information (and the bragging rights to being able to be the first to report to their peer group) has become more important to many people than scoring free stuff.

First timer Van Jensen had a bit of Con-pocalypse:

Tangentially: Comic-Con clearly isn’t a comics show anymore, and it’s a little saddening to think that I never experienced it in that form. Now it’s an insanely crowded typhoon of promotion, with pretty well every media entity exhaling every piece of nerdery they can. And the bulk of those trapped in the typhoon are those who want to see celebrities, who want to sit on a prop Odin’s throne, who want to stab someone in the eye over the right to watch Harrison Ford talk about whatever Harrison Ford talks about nowadays.

As far as comics goes, the show is increasingly not the great sales event it once was (just ask any retailer or publisher). And it’s not a great opportunity for promotion unless you have a movie coming out (just ask me). With the show’s organizers pondering the next stage of Comic-Con’s evolution (to L.A.?), I would hope they sit down and simply ask what they want the show to be. And if they want it to remain in some significant way a comics show, they need to figure out how to make it worthwhile for the smaller publishers to handle the ever-rising cost associated with attending.

Mark Evanier marvels, as we so often do at just how well it all works:

I continue to be amazed at how little goes wrong at these conventions. I’ve been going to cons, good and bad, for four decades now and I think I know a little about how difficult they are to organize and how many disasters can occur. Even when things go wrong at Comic-Con International, the crew knows what to do, how to do it, how to keep things running smoothly. That was one thing that was often on my mind this year. Another was a new (to me) way of looking at the attendees…

BTW it’s time once again to recognize the fact that the Comic-Con staff does a fantastic job making sure everything runs smoothly every year. This time security did their job with a minimum of fuss and hassle, and just being on the floor wasn’t a struggle against a totalitarian society.

Equanimous Eric Reynolds also had a good time despite it all and even managed to find a whole steak:

That said, I kept telling folks all weekend that even though it’s in my nature to complain, I had almost nothing to complain about in regard to this year’s show (which I realize makes for a boring con postmortem). Yes, I find it weirdly condescending and annoying that every retail worker in downtown San Diego now seems to wear some generic comics-related t-shirts or capes for five days straight (especially when you know they’re being forced to do it and probably resent it every bit as much). But so be it. When I go to a nice restaurant downtown, I can promise you that I’m not so hungry to relive my day on the floor that I need Green Lantern-themed cocktails or steaks named after the wild creatures of Pandora. But I will be famished enough to forgive it.

Warren Ellis had a few thoughts on the side of Hall H that most will never see.

I’ve already linked to the Videogum guy’s moaning about how shit Comic-con is; of course, I’m secretly happy that the whiny hipsters who just started coming had a crap time, doused with the stench of entitlement. But I think they also caught onto the baffling mystery behind the whole enterprise:

Perhaps I’m not the intended audience for Comic-Con, and that’s fine, but my question, then, would be WHO IS?! I certainly understand feelings of alienation, and the thrill of finding a place where people accept you as you are, but that doesn’t really seem to be what this is about. What this is about is shoving endless promotional materials for uninspired and/or unnecessary nonsense into increasingly large branded gift bags. If you would like to know how it feels to be at Comic-Con it feels like you are a door, and people won’t stop shoving fliers under you. A door saddled with oversized garbage bags.

Sean T. Collins has a “when they came for Trina Robbins I said nothing!” type epiphany right on the interweb:

I guess what I’m saying is that in retrospect, I should have stuck a big fat caveat lector atop my dismissal of the post-show pique that flares up after each year’s Con. Don’t get me wrong, I do think a lot of that stuff really is just pique (and pandering for hits). And in fairness to myself, whenever I talk to people who haven’t been to the show, I warn them that there are lots of people who are just not constitutionally suited to that level of crowd and media and visual overload, so it’s not like I’m totally head-in-the-clouds about the inhospitability of the show for some people. But I’ve been far too willing to ignore the fact that there are people with perfectly reasonable and even noble expectations for the show for whom those expectations are now going unmet.

Even movie people — like this writer from Slash/film — were disgusted by the marketing:

That Comic-Con is quickly become a marketing maelstrom is news to no one, but this year the marketing flaks were even more aggressive than usual. It was especially bad at the 5th Avenue streetcar crossing that separates the Convention Center from downtown San Diego. Perhaps because it’s such a bottleneck for foot traffic, many TV and movie marketing teams decided to camp out right at the crossing and try everything in their power to make con-goers notice them.

They would usually just hand out a small piece of marketing fluff, but more than once they continued to badger me and others even after we declined their crap. The marketers also had the bad habit of jumping right in your way as you moved back and forth from the convention center, making the already-packed crossing even more tortuous.

In the wake of this year’s marketing-fest, the very nature of nerd-dom is being debated. This fine piece in New York magazine lays out the terrain: How Fanboy Obsessions Became the Pop-Culture Norm. Over at Techland, Lev Grossman, Wil Wheaton and Douglas Wolk also argue the nature of fandom. Is Comic-Con Really Hurting Nerd Culture? asks Wheaton before concluding “No!”

Grossman, on the other hand, had a crap time:

Comic-Con is hurting nerd culture, in a broad and systemic and probably permanent way. Nerd culture is a counter-culture, and counter-cultures can die; in fact if there’s one thing late-stage capitalism is good at, it’s co-opting and killing counter-cultures. Viz. punk, the 60’s, etc.

Douglas sensibly splits the needle and suggests that everyone have a place to sit down.

My own convention was middling. I had some great moments of serendipity, got to see a few old friends, fleetingly, met a few of my idols, had some good meals towards the end of the show. Kate and Torsten did a fantastic job manning ground control, but I had a lot of on-site tech issues that left me more frustrated than anything with my own coverage. The days when one person could cover Comic-con are long gone. I mean, I can cover MY Comic-Con, but isn’t that what Twitter is for?

I have some more observations and suggestions but even though this already took a week and no one cares any more, those will have to come out tomorrow.

[Bloody Eye logo by Nathan Schreiber. Hall H stabber perp photo by Frank Patz.]

Valerie D’Orazio, the president of Friends of Lulu for the last three years, has announced on her blog that due to financial problems, personnel problems, and her own lack of will to keep it going almost single-handedly, the organization for women comics readers and creators will be forced to shut down in four weeks:

If by September 2010 nobody steps forward and shows interest in helping run this organization, I will start taking steps to officially dissolve it as a non-profit. Then I will donate the leftover money (if any) between the other major comics charities, return the donated artwork, and ship the historical records and sketchbooks to a University or MoCCA.

Before I would take steps to dissolve FoL (if it comes to that), I will personally contact a number of concerned parties via a mass email asking for volunteers to keep the organization going.

Johanna Draper Carlson, who has publicly sparred with D’Orazio in the past, and was an energetic Lulu volunteer in the early days. has her own observations and suggestions:

The women who created the organization in the early 90s were older, and several of them were from an era where activism was possible and had the potential to achieve results. In contrast, today’s younger female creators don’t see the problems FoL was created in response to (in part due to FoL’s actions) and thus don’t see much of a need for the group. These creators have more avenues available to them — webcomics, book publisher graphic novel contracts, online organization and support — and a formal group may seem old-fashioned.

A younger Woman in Comics, Comics Alliance’s Laura Hudson, responds as well:

D’Orazio says that whether her silence helped the organization is “debatable,” and I tend to agree. While I’m sure that she tried her best in a difficult situation, what would have helped the cause of women in comics most is what would have helped the organization most: a more transparent approach to their difficulties, and either a timely resolution of the problem, or a timely recognition of the fact that the reins needed to be handed over. Regardless, I’m glad to see that D’Orazio has made the decision to clearly delineate the financial situation of the Friends of Lulu and help it move forward by offering the leadership role to someone with the time and energy to make this the full-time job that it needs to be, deal with the serious documentation problems that laid it low, and help the organization rediscover its purpose and presence in the industry.

As the co-founder and early driving force behind Friends of Lulu — which has been around since 1993 (I think), obviously I have a lot of thoughts about this, which I don’t fully have time to lay out right now. I will note that I did offer to help Val with the awards — given my own busy schedule, I don’t think she believed me and never followed up. That offer stands.

Both Johanna and Laura are correct — the world that FoL was created to confront doesn’t exist any more. Women are back in comics as creators, readers, retailers…you name it. Even characters now and then. The ’90s were a period when women had been driven out of the medium, for the most part, even as it was a blossoming time for women IN the media, with Buffy and Sailor Moon, the two founding mothers of modern day Girl Geekdom.

As an old school Feminist, I don’t believe that anything is ever safe and secure, and we could go all Handmaid’s Tale at any moment. Examination and questioning of all aspects of life and art are the only way to understanding and progress.

Which is all a way of saying, I believe that there is a place for specifically singling out Women in Comics for their own little place. But I leave it to the new kids to figure out how, where, and when the tea party will be thrown. If they don’t want to party, it is their decision.

Also, I remain committed to keeping the Friends of Lulu Awards going in some capacity. If we can have The Glyph Comics Awards and GLAAD Awards, we can have some kind of awards for Women in Comics — although they are certainly winning the co-ed awards in increasing numbers.

Developing.

It’s a good thing the Westboro gang didn’t know about David Hasselhoff.

Prism Comics, a nonprofit supporting LGBT comics, creators, and readers, has unveiled its slate of activities for San Diego Comic-Con International 2010, one of the world’s largest pop-culture gatherings, at the San Diego Convention Center from Wednesday, July 21st through Sunday, July 25th. Prism will host four jam-packed panels including Andy Mangels’ legendary “Gays in Comics” panel, the 6th annual “Heroes vs. Villains” party, appearances by Howard Cruse (Stuck Rubber Baby) and the largest roster of LGBT Creators ever at its expanded booth, now filling three exhibit spaces (#2049/2146/2148). Pick up a copy of The Gay Agenda, Prism’s guide to everything LGBT at Comic-Con, at the Prism booth, or download a copy in PDF format. 
 
Expanded Booth Space
“We’re very excited to be able to expand our presence at Comic-Con,” said Prism Co-President David Stanley, “With 50 percent more booth space, we can host more LGBT creators than ever, and some of the most prominent LGBT comics pros working today will be our guests, including Howard Cruse, Tim Fish, Paige Braddock, Bob Schreck, Ed Luce and many, many more!”

Prism is thrilled to feature nearly a dozen comics creators under its banner, which has long been considered “Queer Central” at Comic-Con. These creators will be exhibiting their wares and meeting their fans each day of the Con: Charles “Zan” Christensen (Mark of Aeacus), Dave Davenport (Hard To Swallow), Dylan “NDR” Edwards (Politically InQueerect), Justin Hall (Glamazonia), Jeff Krell (Jayson), Ed Luce (Wuvable Oaf), Steve MacIsaac (Shirtlifter), Jon Macy (Teleny and Camille), Brad Rader (Fogtown), Chance Whitmire (Fanboys of the Universe, Fanaticon), and Sean-Z (Myth).

Other LGBT creators appearing at the Prism booth include Brian Andersen (So Super Duper), Paige Braddock (Jane’s World), Abby Denson (Tough Love: High School Confidential), Tim Fish (Cavalcade of Boys), Sina Grace (Books with Pictures), and Michael Troy (The Blonde Squad), among many others. The most up-to-date schedule will be posted daily at the booth.
 
Special Guest: Howard Cruse
Comic-Con Special Guest Howard Cruse, creator of Wendel and founding editor of Gay Comix, will make several appearances at the Prism booth, signing the recently published 15th Anniversary edition of his Eisner and Harvey award-winning graphic novel Stuck Rubber Baby. Comic-Con is throwing a “Spotlight on Howard Cruse” on Thursday, July 22, from 3:30-4:30pm, in Room 8. He is also appearing at two Prism-sponsored panels, detailed below.
 
Queer Press Grant Portfolio Review
Cruse will also provide portfolio review at the Prism booth, along with many other comics professionals including Bob Schreck (IDW, Jurassic Park), Paige Braddock and Brian Andersen, with more reviewers to be added. Portfolio review is provided exclusively for those interested in applying for Prism’s Queer Press Grant. Potential applicants are encouraged to read the grant guidelines online before coming to the Con. Past winners of the grant will speak at the “Queer Press Grant Roundup”, a panel taking place on Saturday, July 24th (see below).
 
Prism Programming at Comic-Con
Prism is proud to present four entertainment-filled panels at the Con. Prism’s panels are lively, hilarious, heartfelt and sometimes headline-making, featuring some of the top creators in the comics industry, who in the past have included Stan Lee, Paul Levitz, Phil Jimenez and Geoff Johns (the latter two will be returning this year, as well).

“Divas and Golden Lassoes: The LGBT Obsession with Super Heroines”, Thursday, July 22, 10:30-11:30am. Why do LGBT comic book fans, especially gay men, worship female superheroes? Going beyond just collecting the comics of Wonder Woman, Batgirl, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Donna Troy, Saturn Girl, and many more, LGBT fans intensely identify with and take great inspiration from these iconic heroines. Moderator Charles “Zan” Christensen has assembled an esteemed panel featuring Marc Andreyko (Manhunter), Phil Jimenez (The Essential Wonder Woman Encyclopedia), Andy Mangels (founder, “Wonder Woman Day”), and Michael Troy. Room 8.

“Writing Queer: Creating and Writing LGBT Characters“, Thursday, July 22, 6:00-7:00pm. Creating genuine and well-rounded LGBT characters is a challenge for writers, as they must give voice to a population whose stories have been kept hidden for so long. How do writers, both queer and straight, as well as mainstream and independent, create narratives that reflect the diversity and humanity of LGBT individuals, as well as the obstacles they face? Moderator Justin Hall (Prism Comics’ talent chair) leads a spirited conversation with some of the best writers working in comics today: Gilbert Hernandez (Love and Rockets), Greg Rucka (Detective Comics), Gail Simone (Wonder Woman), Judd Winick (Pedro and Me), Paige Braddock and Howard Cruse. Room 32AB.

“Queer Press Grant Roundup”, Saturday, July 24, 3:00-4:00pm. Prism Comics started the annual Queer Press Grant in 2005 to help queer cartoonists self-publish their comics. Five years and many thousands of dollars later, the QPG has helped out an impressive lineup of some of the best upcoming LGBT cartoonists and remains one of the only grants available for comics creators today. Prism will kick off the submission process for the 2010 Queer Press Grant at Comic-Con. Join moderator Roger Klorese (Prism Comic’s Publications Chair) and past recipients Justin Hall, Ed Luce, and Steve MacIsaac as they discuss applying for the grant, what they’ve been up to since receiving it, and what’s next for both their comics and the grant in 2010. Room 3.

“Gays in Comics: Year 23!”, Saturday, July 24, 5:45-7:15pm. An all-star panel examines the rising diversity in the comics world today as Andy Mangels’ long-running “Gays in Comics” panel continues into its third decade at Comic-Con. As mainstream companies DC and Marvel continue to frontline gay characters such as Batwoman and Northstar and hire top-level gay or gay-friendly creators, independent publishers and creators are publishing unequivocal content spotlighting gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered characters, to the cheers of the thousands of fans who are out of the comic book closet. Welcome a top-level panel of GLBT and straight creators, who will give amazing insights and glimpses of surprises to come! Joining founding moderator Andy Mangels, the USA Today best-selling author of Star Trek novels and Iron Man: Beneath The Armor, are Howard Cruse, godfather of the gay comic movement; Geoff Johns, writer of Green Lantern, Flash, Brightest Day, and DC Entertainment’s chief creative officer; Marjorie M. Liu, the New York Times bestselling author and writer of Black Widow, X-23, and co-author of Dark Wolverine; Daniel Way, writer of Wolverine and Deadpool and co-writer of Dark Wolverine; Jim McCann, writer of Hawkeye & Mockingbird, Dazzler, and Return of the Dapper Men; Charles “Zan” Christensen, founding member of PRISM Comics and new publisher of gay-themed Northwest Press; Dan Parent, writer and artist for Archie and Betty & Veronica and creator of Archie’s new gay character, Kevin Keller; and Tim Fish, creator of Cavalcade of Boys and writer/artist for X-Men: Nation X, and Iron Man: Designed Intelligence! Plus, there’s always a surprise or two! Room 6A

Afterward from 7:15 to 8:15pm, stick around for the hour-long “Gays in Comics Mixer and Silent Auction”, hosted by PRISM Comics, with prizes and surprise special guests! Meet your favorite LGBT creators and fellow comics fan, plus stay for the special free drawing of a “Comics Gift Basket” and the silent auction of hot comics items! Room 6A.
 
Heroes Vs. Villains Afterparty
Party with Prism on Friday, July 23rd, from 9:30pm to 2:00am, at the 6th annual “Heroes vs. Villains Comic-Con After Party” at Rich’s Nightclub in the Hillcrest district of San Diego! Enjoy go-go dancing heroes and villains and a special performance by Happy Feet, get your keepsake photo at a special photo booth, win Comic-Con passes, participate in the Costume Contest with over $200 in cash and prizes, enter the Sexy Underoos contest where the coolest Hero or Villain undies will win prizes, get your face painted, buy jello shots to help Prism, check out the Obelisk Book Shop booth to buy specially made action figures and other comic book based items, plus meet surprise guests. Cover is $10 at the door, $3 off with Comic-Con Badge till 11:00pm. Free until Midnight if you come in costume. Come and get your Geek on! Rich’s Dance Club San Diego is located at 1051 University Avenue. For more information, go to richssandiego.com.

§ Why is this totally AWESOME quote by Dan DiDio not getting the attention it deserves???

The pants are really intentional for the actual story itself, again

§ JMS notes an odd dichotomy:

It’s not a case of either/or. What I found fascinating recently was a Wonder Woman reader, a woman, who pointed out that the difference between male and female superheroes is that male heroes are idealized in their appearance (muscles, skin-tight, but not being overtly sexual or posed in sexual ways), and women heroes are objectified (the posing and what’s shown is more overt). I thought this was absolutely fascinating, and dead on. So what we’ve really done here, I think, is move her from objectification to a more idealized appearance. But she remains strong, and attractive, and, I think, that makes her even more sexy, in a tough-minded way.

§ The moment the Wonder Woman news broke, did you just KNOW that When Fangirls Attack would go into hyperdrive? There’s even a part two. We esp. like the links on how feminism and a lack of patriotism destroyed Wonder Woman.

§ Humor: Variant WW origins by various writers.

§ The Project Wonder Woman’s take on WW’s costume from a while back. Above, Daniel Krall.

§ Johanna Draper Carlson sums up some of our own problems with WONDER WOMAN #600:

In amongst these tales comes generic pinups of a fighter in a too-small bathing suit who usually leads with her breasts. Very few seem to understand the properties of metal, what the front of her costume is supposedly made of, preferring instead body paint. It’s that conflict, between Wonder Woman as sexual fetish and Wonder Woman as role model with unique personality, that traps most creators. I enjoyed reading the stories, but then I’d turn the page and there was someone else’s fantasy fodder.

§ Fashion guru Tim Gunn likes Wonder Woman’s new costume, so that case is closed, then.

§ Gloria Steinem is not a fan of the new take.

§ James Hudnall’s Strident Feminism Is the Problem, Not the Costume prompts us to ask for the thousandth time why feminism is always strident but never bombastic:

So, the characters origins come from a somewhat warped dude. And then, through the years DC has tried to make her some kind of ersatz feminist icon, spouting the usual clichéd bromides, basically saying “you can look but don’t touch!” Hostile, icy women may appeal to some, but are generally not going to win people over unless we’re given a good understanding of them as people. And writers over the years have failed to do that.

While the commenters at the rightist site Big Hollywood go for broke with examples of WW’s anti-American, pro-feminist agenda, no one seems to accept the idea that maybe a superhero that girls and women can identify with is an inherently valuable thing:

This is one of the best comic book-related articles I’ve ever read, Mr. Hudnall. Very perceptive. Wonder Woman lacks Superman’s stoic heroism, Batman’s psychological pathos, the Flash’s sense of fun, or the Green Lantern’s boundless sci-fi backdrop. In the eyes of most comic fans, all she has going for her is nostalgia. As a major draw, she’s doomed to failure; she’s too goofy to be an effective Batman-esque churl, and too churlish to be a Flash-imitating goof.

Book bloggers tend not to go nuclear when they don’t like something. Blogger Tom picked HIGH SOFT LISP, a collection of comics by the great Gilbert Hernandez to read, and sadly he didn’t like it, but he didn’t froth at the mouth, either. We’ll take the liberty of quoting the entirety of his rather short remarks:

I picked HIGH SOFT LISP up to read because of the cover and the title. The woman on the front attracts the eye, but the color scheme plays with the mind on some sort of psychological level. The blurb on the back also was intriguing.

It’s by far, the most bizarre book I’ve read this year. If you like under ground or alternative comics, you might enjoy it. Teenage boys might get a kick out of it, too because there are moments in this TPB that verge on soft-core porn. Other than that, I’d just stay away. Your life will not be enriched if you do read it and it won’t be any less lively if you don’t.

Okay, so Jeet Heer these are not. But sometimes the books win over. Here’s blogger Nikki’s take on Seth’s IT’S A GOOD LIFE IF YOU DON’T WEAKEN, about a cartoonist’s fictional search for a mystery cartoonist:

The simplicity of the images mirrors Seth’s longing for a simpler time and the color scheme winks at the bleak tone of the story. It didn’t bother me that there wasn’t a great deal of substance or that the story lacked a strong, clear resolution. That just added to the sense of realism and the honesty. It’s not a riveting story, nor is it life shaking, but it wasn’t intended to be. Its value is in its minimalism and its plainness. It has an unobtrusive quality that I find endearing.

And Alyce liked THE BURMA CHRONICLES, Guy DeLisle’s non-fiction account of life in a politically volatile country:

One thing I loved about Burma Chronicles was that the art has clean lines and is easy on the eyes. You don’t have to work hard at all to figure out what is going on in the drawings….I loved the cultural and political details in this book, but also appreciated that it was written in memoir form, so the story is not one of dry politics, but rather the daily life of a foreigner living in Burma. His reflections on his time there are written with wit and humor, and chocked full of information. Usually I can read a graphic novel or graphic memoir in about an hour, but I’m happy to say that Burma Chronicles took me at least twice that long because of the detailed content (and I was happy to prolong the reading experience). I liked that there was a substantial amount of information in the book, and that it held me attention completely.

Nicola, a Bookaholic, Conservative, Catholic, Aspie, who reads a lot. took on FOILED by Jane Yolen and Mike Cavallaro, a YA fantasy romance, which older male comics bloggers didn’t like. Nicola had a more positive response:

I loved Foiled! The story within the book is completed and finalized by there are many hanging threads and an obvious ending to let the reader know there will be another book, perhaps even a series. Aliera is a great main character, one that is easy to relate to. She is somewhat shy (though I’d really just say she’s quiet). She stays out of everyone’s way but thinks a lot. She’s got some great comeback’s and oneliners in her thoughts. But push her too far and she’ll let loose like nobodies business and tell you exactly what she thinks. Aliera is not to be messed around with. She may be broody a good part of the time but she is also bold and brave and the one that can be counted on in an emergency. A delightful book, which more than met my expectations. Certainly looking forward to the next one! Recommended!

While we wouldn’t suggest that the book bloggers’ reactions are any more valid than the experts, it is a nice peek into what actual “readers”, as opposed to pundits, critics or fans, think about some of the new graphic novels.

June 22: LGBTQ in Comics edition
June 22: Giant Variety Funpack edition
June 22: Live-Action Blue Beetle edition
June 22: Women and Gender in Comics edition

As much as we like angst and ire as blogging fodder, (see previous statement) it is dispiriting that the blunders of company spokesmen continue to generate tons of blog posts while the reissue of STUCK RUBBER BABY, a multi-leveled work of enduring worth by a pioneering cartoonist that covers the gay experience from a unique viewpoint, gets only two links.

We all know DC sometimes has the sensitivity of a charging rhino, but the fact is they also put out some of the greatest comics of all times, and many of these — like STUCK RUBBER BABY — have a lot to say about the concerns of people of a multiplicity of genders, races. religions and nationalities. Books like Cairo, SENTENCES, Incognegro, the upcoming CUBA: MY REVOLUTION and so on.

If everyone who expressed alarm and concern over DC’s attitudes instead went and bought a work published by DC of greater insight and interest, maybe they would be a little more inclined to publish more such material. Come on people, let’s put that outrage to good use.

There’s been a lot of discussion – and a lot of angry discussion, I’d say – coming out of some of the recent DCU storylines, specifically the death of Ryan Choi in the “Titans” Brightest Day launch…

Didio: And if I could jump in here for a second, I’d ask “What past that?” There seems to be a concern about us pulling back in diversity, and we identify Ryan Choi, but we don’t identify what more than that. If you’re talking about a single character, we can’t run backwards from the way we act and behave with our characters because we’re afraid of addressing characters of different race or putting them in stories that are bigger or more exciting, I’m sorry to say. This is an interesting thing to me, because since I’ve been here, we’ve been extraordinarily aggressive in trying to bring racial diversity and diversifying our cast of characters as much as possible. That’s been part of our agenda for the last five to eight years since I’ve been here. We’re talking about a single character with Ryan Choi, but I’d love to know about examples past that, because at the same time that we’ve got Ryan Choi, we’ve got a Great Ten series running. If you look at every team book and everything we’re doing, we go to extraordinary lengths to diversify the casts and show our audience in our books.

Well, I think for some that the focus gets put on characters that fail one way or another. At the same time as this has been going on, there’s been a lot of positive talk of Jaime Reyes as Blue Beetle getting a push for live action. How do you view your role in terms of making sure that successes are carried through in a long term way?

Didio: We’re always going to be exploring different ways to go. One of the things I think Grant Morrison did extraordinarily well with “52″ and “Final Crisis” was to really show that it’s not just that the heroes are U.S.-centric. The introduction of the Great Ten and the introduction of the Super Young Team are things that Grant brought that we constantly build out from. When Dwayne McDuffie was writing “Justice League of America,” we had an incredibly diverse cast of characters as we worked the Milestone characters into the DC Universe. So again, we’re taking great steps to show that we as a company reflect the audience that’s out there for our books. When we go to conventions, we look at the audience, and we see that it’s an incredible blend in terms of race and gender. Men and women read our books. We have a wide breadth of books and things going on, and to focus on one thing is inappropriate, in my opinion. It’s a mistake, because if you look at one book, you have to realize that DC Comics puts out nearly a hundred books each month, and to focus on one book, one issue, is doing a true disservice to the company, the comics and to the industry.

This answer should convince you beyond the shadow of a doubt that Didio has been playing all the internets all these years, and the whole “blue pink green” thing is part of an elaborate work, all built up to drum up publicity.

The evidence? Look at the examples of things DC has done right he mentions! It’s a bingo card of internet outrage. Like, The Great Ten — which would be the 10-issue mini series that got cancelled after 9 issues, becoming synonymous with poor planning. And Dwayne McDuffie’s JLA run? That would be the run the writer was fired from, after complaining about being hamstrung by editorial edicts. For bonus points, that’s the same McDuffie who wrote of DC’s plan to bring back the African-American Milestone comics characters:

Plans for a Static monthly were scrapped by DC last spring. Based on their actions, they never really wanted to publish the Milestone stuff, they wasted my time. We could have done a little deal for them to use Static without me having to spend so much money on lawyers.

Now granted, the Super Young Team — a Japanese super-team introduced by Grant Morrison and the center of the Aftermath: Dance mini-series by Joe Casey — has not been, to our knowledge, the center of an internet kerfuffle, but Didio mentioning these other two controversies in order to avert further controversy? Come on, now. People, you are being played. Turn your attention to other things. Like the next post.

My first “Complaints” post drew a bit of private praise, especially from those who welcomed a return to more pointed commentary. To which I say, I’d love to do more of it but I was literally up until dawn writing that first one (I’m ssslllooowww) and this one will take just as long. Especially since this time I”m taking on everyone’s FAVORITE SUBJECTS: Race and gender. It’s a good thing comics never talk about religion or we’d be here all night and day! And if I can predict one thing with dead certainty it’s this: Gene PHillips will show up in the comments.

¶ Ground zero for recent discussions poor, poor DC Senior Story EditorIan Sattler who hit an instant five-way bingo with this classic, when asked at a panel about recent incidents in the DCU that saw minority characters getting bumped off and replaced with whites:

“It’s so hard for me to be on the other side because it’s not our intention. There is a reason behind it all. We don’t see it that way and strive very hard to have a diverse DCU. I mean, we have green, pink, and blue characters. We have the Great Ten out there and I have counter statistics, but I won’t get into that. It’s not how we perceived it. We get the same thing about how we treat our female characters.”

This has been pilloried from dusk til dawn on sites from Racialicious to Scans_Daily. When Fangirls Attack had an epic round-up of reactions which ranged from lulz to flamethrowers. David Brothers at 4th Letters has been reacting to this and the reaction ever since with a series of posts here, here and here. Oh and a special appearance in the Beat comments here.

Nut graph:

John Stewart is the only Green Lantern to not show up on any covers. Hal, Kyle, Guy, Alan, all of those guys get covers. Hey, pop quiz! Does the JLA have a Luke Cage? No? Well… name a black supporting character in a DC Comic on the level of a Sam Wilson! Steel? Now name another. Or hey, name one on the level of a Robbie Robertson. Just Lucious Fox? Really? Whatever happened to Ron Troupe? Remember him? Married to Lois Lane’s sister, had a kid with her? Oh, right. Lucy Lane is back and superpowered. Ron and the baby are a footnote and a question mark.

DC Comics isn’t a racist company and it isn’t run by racists. This does not, however, mean that they cannot do and say stupid things that are racist. Killing Ryan Choi is not, in and of itself, racist. Ditching Ron Troupe and marginalizing John Stewart is not racist. Replacing Jason Rusch with a more boring version of Firestorm isn’t racist. These are perfectly valid story choices that, in a better world, would have taken place in stories that were worth reading.

His mentioning of John Stewart is particularly interesting. Stewart is a supporting Lantern, and sometime lead character in the DCU since his debut in…oh look, it’s Green Lantern/Green Arrow!

Given this issue’s proximity to the bludgeon used to pummel Sattler into baby seal meat, and remembering that this came out in a time of post Civil Rights Era readjustment in America, it’s not too hard to guess that Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams created John Stewart to be a Strong Black Character from the git go, in a DC Universe that wasn’t too big on minority supporting characters at the time. Since then (and I’m no Mark Waid, so I’m just going by the Wikipedia page) he’s bounced around in various roles, including a starring run in Mosiac, and is currently doing whatever it is people do during Brightest Day. So kind of on the d-lo for now, even as Green Lantern gears up for a Major Media Push ahead of the movie, starring Ryan Reynolds. Which makes sense, because Green Lantern (Ryan Reynolds) is a white dude, not a black dude, so why confuse people who don’t know the character’s history.

However, John Stewart’s great moment in the sun came during the Justice League Cartoon era (2001-2004), when he WAS Green Lantern.

The line-up of characters on the show was specifically set-up to reflect more diversity than just a bunch of white guys and a green guy. (Heck there are two girls, something unheard of these days.) This cartoon wasn’t really aimed just at kids, despite airing on the Cartoon Network, but I can tell you right now that diversity is Really, Really Important in kids cartoons, because then sociologists and educators and all can say “Look, this cartoon promotes diversity! It is good for the children!” and big corporations like to hear that and feel good about themselves.

Sometimes it doesn’t go well.

Oh sometimes it goes very very bad. I found this in a post by Joe Singleton, which has all kinds of gruesome observations:

The first thing I notice is, they’re all male. Second thing….three out of four of them are bare-legged and the fourth is shirtless. Of course . . . We all know that ethnic minority types wear less clothing than wholesome WASP types, right? Ugh!

Of course, Super Friends had the worst minority characters of all times, but it also had the worst CHARACTERS of all times — if we could only return to this ideal of equality for all, maybe things would go better.

Cut to the present. With all the bad feelings about racial diversity in the DCU flying around — much of it directed at Geoff Johns, rightly or wrongly, Johns has taken to the Source Blog to reveal that all sorts of opportunity for minority characters in the DCU. To make up for all the newly demoted non-white characters, the New Aqualad is in fact, African-American.

Despite having “Aqua” in his name, he also hates to swim and lives in the desert, because that’s what you call CONFLICT.
Now, what I noticed about all this was New Aqualad’s dual purpose origin:

At the same time, as previously announced, the YOUNG JUSTICE cartoon series is just around the corner featuring Robin, Kid Flash, Superboy, Miss Martian, Artemis and the all-new Aqualad who will be appearing very briefly in BRIGHTEST DAY #4, but really comes into his own in BRIGHTEST DAY #10 before hitting the small screen this fall.

That’s right, New Aqualad was created for a KID’S CARTOON.

Here we have the basic Justice League cartoon line-up just trimmed down a bit — there’s super lad, revenge lad, fast lad, mythological lass and black lad, but Green Alien and Alien Lass have been combined into Green Lass.

I have no idea which came first — the cartoon or Brightest Day — but in this case, diversity was good for everyone, including the children. Luckily, new Aqualad isn’t being Black Vulcanized and will appear in actual comic books with dramatic covers by David FInch.

Johns has also been raising excitement online with teasers of a screen test that shows that for hispanic teen Jamie Reyes, aka the new Blue Beetle is also being kicked around for a possible TV treatment:

I feel very fortunate to have been a part of Blue Beetle’s introduction way back in INFINITE CRISIS. I’ve said it before, but thanks to the BLUE BEETLE series launched by Keith Giffen and John Rogers with a great design by Cully Hamner, Jaime Reyes rocks. Great character, great story, great look. He’s already appeared in animation, had action figures and right now he’s on my computer in live-action glory. I have an early special effects test that has been floating around of what his armored scarab-suit could look like. This isn’t final. This isn’t greenlit. It’s only a test that was done. We still have a long way to go to see if we can get this off the ground and a lot of people to jump on board…but check out some stills:

In a previous post Johns talked a bit about all the synergy going on:

Our goals with the DC Entertainment are to not only bring you BATMAN and SUPERMAN, but also introduce new characters in the comics and film, tv and animation simultaneously with our partners at Warner Brothers – in this case, the talented crew who’s heading up the YOUNG JUSTICE animated series, including Greg Weissman (who actually wrote CAPTAIN ATOM back in the day!).

While TV appearances seem to be the impetus for some of the diversification, don’t get your hopes up. Minority characters don’t fare very well on TV either.:

Veteran Producer Suzanne de Passe, a former president of Motown Television, offered up her thoughts on the disparity. Noting that it was not that long ago that the broadcast networks had such shows as “Fresh Prince of Bel Air,” “The Cosby Show” and “Living Single,” she laid the blame on media consolidation.

“I have witnessed what consolidation of content and distribution in entertainment and media has done to significantly slow down and diminish opportunity for minority professionals rather than accelerate and increase it,” she said. The networks that used to make shows aimed at blacks “now only offer a minority cast member here and there and a long list of contributions to minority charities under the catch-all word, `diversity,’ ” she testified.

That whole link is worth reading for anyone whose been following this topic since it gives some idea of how all this is handled when there is actual money at stake. It also contained this classic correction:

An earlier version of this post said the stars of NBC’s “Undercovers” are African-American. Actually, neither are American. Boris Kodjoe was born in Austria and Gugu Mbatha-Raw is from England.

In a way this correction explains the whole reason we even need diversity. Gugu and Boris. What were you expecting? English people and Austrian people don’t always look like we expect them to look. It’s a surprise element. Keeps us on our toes. Conflict.

This whole thing made me think about Doug Funnie. You know, from Doug, that cartoon that ran back in the 90s. I was editing some Doug comics back in the day and had occasion to meet with the creator, Jim Jinkins, who was a very nice fellow, to explain the show to me. One of the things he’d done on purpose in Doug, he felt, was remove race altogether by making the kids purple, blue, orange…whatever. I remember thinking that the show was really about suburban white kids who happened to be blue, purple, whatever, but it was a nice thought. If there’s one thing Doug wasn’t, it was multicultural.

This blogger agrees, although he’s a bit harder on the show than I am, probably because I worked on the licensing:

However, Doug tried to make a statement. If you look at it, every supporting character around Doug is some wacky shade except, of course, for Doug Funnie, who is a regular white kid. The main character is white in world full of colorful yet ancillary characters. What does that tell our children? It tells them only the white race is deserving of a spotlight. Only the white race is worthy of being the star of the show. All other skin tones must remain in the background. No, only Caucasians are worthy… and hyper intelligent dogs, of course. Also, take a notice of the coupling on Doug. Every parent is coupled with someone of the same color (or very close proximity) and they produce children of the same color. So, in the TV series Doug, races never mix, the colors never blend. With that logic, Doug would never get with Patty simply because they’re not a matching set.

“…we have green, pink, and blue characters.” Maybe the DCU is set in Bluffington and we never noticed before.

Whoa look at the time! I’m looking at the bingo card, and I still haven’t even gotten to the bonus square:

We get the same thing about how we treat our female characters.

Okay, the complaining will have to continue tomorrow.

The upcoming LAST AIRBENDER movie has gained controversy for casting white actors in the roles associated with Asian characters in the cartoon original. Many folks are boycotting it because of this, including cartoonist Gene Luen Yang.

The cover to Image’s new NANCY IN HELL miniseries by Juan Jose Ryp and El Torres is either a subtle homage to such cameltoe classics as Ryan Kinnaird’s X-Men: Phoenix – Legacy of Fire, or maybe just…a new definition of “in your face.” The PR promises to “take you on a white-knuckle tour of the underworld” so evidently fisting is involved either way.

How does a former cheerleader become a hardened hellraiser? Artist Juan Jose Ryp and writer El Torres answer that question with NANCY IN HELL, a four-issue miniseries that sends a good girl into a Hell filled with tortured souls, lusty demons, and armed outcasts.

 

Fans of Warren Ellis’s BLACK SUMMER and NO HERO will recognize Ryp’s highly detailed art style. Torres is the writer behind the critically acclaimed THE VEIL as well as ZOMBIES!: ECLIPSE OF THE UNDEAD.

 

“Nancy was one of our first creations together, and foolishly, we still love her,” explains Ryp, a resident of Andalusia, Spain.

 

“There weren’t any deep questions or psychological undertones to this book when we first started,” says Torres, who also lives in Andalusia. “We just wanted to create a fun little romp with a blond bombshell armed with a chainsaw, carving her way through demons and the undead. Though after starting with some story details involving Christian cosmogony — after all, she IS wandering through a sort of Christian Hell — the deep questions invariably came up.”

 

“But we never lost sight of the monsters or chainsaws,” laughs Ryp.

 

NANCY IN HELL: Good girls go to heaven, right? But it seems like there are no good girls anymore. After her death, Nancy awakens in a creepy landscape to find decomposing lost souls, demons lurking in the shadows, outcasts, chainsaws, booze, and certain doom. Can Nancy escape from Hell? Amazing artist JUAN JOSE and writer EL TORRES take you on a white-knuckle tour of the underworld to find out!

Mr. Zabriskie, 39, now assistant coordinator for youth services at Queens Library, says manga is for these teenagers what punk rock, New Wave, and Dungeons and Dragons were for his generation: a world of specialized knowledge that excludes adults and opens a private creative space for young people.
While the story has something of a “been there done that” vibe to it, it’s also a reminder that manga is still popular among a wide segment of teens and tweens. Don’t make plans to scatter the ashes just yet.

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