Following the controversy surrounding Mockingbird writer Chelsea Cain’s harassment on and exit from Twitter, comics artists and writers overwhelmingly banded together to support Cain and take a stance against online bigotry. A number of artists created parody images of Mockingbird #8‘s cover, depicting the various characters they work on in “Ask Me About My Feminist Agenda” t-shirts. Among those artists is Jason Latour, who depicted Southern Bastards’ Roberta Tubb in the aforementioned apparel. While originally posted online in solidarity with Cain, Latour and series co-creator Jason Aaron have decided to use the artwork on a special variant edition of Southern Bastards #16.

In a Tumblr post, Latour explained that he wanted to put the image “to better use than just a social media post.”  He indicated that the money raised through sales of this variant will be split between the Southern Poverty Law Center and the ACLU.

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While reception in many circles has been positive, Latour’s Twitter indicates that the cover has already proven controversial.

Last year, Aaron and Latour also courted controversy on a Southern Bastards #10 variant that depicted a dog ripping the confederate flag apart with the caption “Death to the flag, long live the south.” The cover was a rebuke of people who still fly the flag, a symbol equally representative of slavery and racism as it is of misguided notions of rebellion and freedom. The $18,000 raised from sales of that cover went to benefit victims of the tragic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church shooting in Charleston, SC.

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10 COMMENTS

  3. The person asking “who gives a shit?” may be surprised to find that others have different opinions than him. Guessing you’re a white male, which is why, in your lack of empathy, you do not care about this.

  4. That last comment about the first commenter being a white male. I have no idea what the first commenter meant by “Who gives a shit”, and I expect that neither does the third commenter. Maybe the first commenter meant that they didn’t care for the opinions of the people who were hating on the cover. Maybe they meant the opposite. I can’t tell. But what I can tell is that the third commenter thinks “white males” are a problem, which makes me feel pushed away, even though I’m firmly on the side of total equality. I wonder what it does for people who might be on the fence about the issue. The second commenter might have a point about that. I guess I just don’t understand how you expect to get people on your side while you’re pushing them away.

  5. SomebodyWhoGivesAShit,

    You have yet to prove that the majority of people care about social justice.

    It’s hard to see SJ as grass roots movement when many multinational corporations and a billionaire or have donated money to many social justice groups.

    Last time I checked, Wall Street and large multinational corporations, as necessary as they are, don’t have the best interests of the average person at heart. During the election year, along with embracing many social justice causes, Hillary Clinton liked the idea of Open Borders–although many people who don’t like White Culture, and yes, those people DO exist–the gain from greater and greater immigration and the population growth it would fuel is dubious–but no one on the Left wants us to think about it like that at the moment, they want to frame eveything as an issue of Bigotry. It’s moronic.

    Social justice topics in the media often reek of manufactured outrage meant to distract people from real problems.. Real pressing problems facing humanity don’t include whether a transgender person can use whatever bathroom they want.

  6. “But what I can tell is that the third commenter thinks “white males” are a problem, which makes me feel pushed away, ”
    It’s not about equality. A certain amount of social justice advocates want reparations for groups who they feel have harmed them. The most common transgressor is a white man, but on the fringe, it’s becoming increasingly any straight man.
    They way to collect reparations, I mean , ” promote equality” is to marginalize CIS men, and in fringe quarters, CIS men.

    In order words, “social justice” is really about “social revenge”….and “social dominance”.

    Interestingly enough, Wonder Woman was created out ideas about “female supremacy”., not “female equality”. It was a kind and gentle form of female supremacy, but female supremacy, nonetheless .

  7. 1st commenter + 5th and 6th commenter = Biased (with extreme viewpoints that really aren’t relevant to this conversation regarding Bigotry Against A Female Artist Expressing Her Art)
    3rd commenter = Biased (but making at least one valid point)
    4th commenter = Biased (but reasonably feeling pushed away and has a good point about the 2nd commenter)
    7th commenter = Talented for using commenters 1st-6th as his entire comment. (IE: BIASED! I guess maybe we should all consider our biases when commenting and not try to embody supremacy in our own personal opinions? *shrugs* I’m going to go play with my 11 month old and see what he thinks ;) ) =:xB

  8. My views are not extreme and are very relevant to the topic.

    Chelsea Cain wrote a superhero comic where from the get-go she was hammering it into the reader’s head with her feminist views.

    This , naturally put off a lot of aging fanboys who were expecting escapism . The comic was NOT MARKETED as a feminist comic. The meanest comment I’m aware of that she received was that a reader said he ruined MOCKINGBIRD with “feminist crap”. If that’s all that it took for Chelsea to leave comics then she really doesn’t have the fortitude to make it in the industry. Once in a while, readers, fellow creators,and employers will say something unkind. This is real life.. I can’t believe people think they construct a world where (women) are shielded from unkind remarks, rejection, etc.

    The White Knights rushing to defend Chelsea don’t seem to understand that the only thing that drew her to writing comics was the chance to use a Marvel comic as a soapbox for her beliefs.
    She was not producing anything remotely artistic.

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