§ The new Captain America storyline finds Sam Wilson — who is now Captain America— taking on the Sons of the Serpent. That’s good right? But the SotS are detaining Mexican immigrants who are trying to gain entrance to the US, and Cap stops them. That’s…bad? Well, Fox and Friends thinks so! The story, written by Nick Spencer and drawn by Daniel Acuna, made the breakfast club a mite tetchy, as they wished that Cap would go back to fighting Nazis and real foes instead of conservatives like…the racist hate group The Sons of The Serpent….rrrrrrright. Have these guys ever READ an issue of Captain America? From Steve Engelhart to Ed Brubaker…he’s always been a little politically aware. As you might recall, when Brub was writing the book he got death threats for putting a Tea Party poster in the background. Anyhow, F&F say that comics are struggling an have to resort to stunts like this to fight movies. Perhaps they should join that direct market blog roundtable.

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§ Cap was also spotted kissing Thor! While everyone would like to kiss Chris Hemworth, this was Lady Thor, so it’s less controversial. Marvel posted the kissin’ cover by kissing expert Alex Ross last week to show how open minded they were — a mortal smooching with a god — and Axel Alonso explained how it all fits in his weekly remarks:

I think it’s diversity. Diversity of everything. Diversity of styles, diversity of books, diversity of artistic styles, diversity of characters, diversity of talent. And the fact that all of these things gain momentum. We live in a world right now where Thor is a woman, Captain America is African-American and where the strongest character in the Marvel Universe is the 19 year-old Korean-American, Amadeus Cho, who’s become the new Incredible Hulk. That’s not to mention Kamala Khan is the new Ms. Marvel, a Pakistani-American girl; the fact that we have a “Black Panther” series now that will be written by Ta-Nehisi Coates that’s bound to be epic. We have a wide range of offerings right now from, you know, the upper echelon titles — let’s just say the more commercial books — to more offbeat stuff like a book I’m really rooting for, “Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.” We live in an era where at this point we’ve lost count of how many female-led titles we’re doing, and the only time we count them is when people ask. … And the ethnic representation. I’ve been asked a lot of questions by people, “Where’s the hispanic books?” They’re coming. It’s, again, patience. Wait, we’ve got a plan. We said when we launched the hip-hop covers, this is the head of the spear. These covers are a reflection of the diversity of our line, our output moving forward, and we hope that we continue to keep this momentum moving forward as well.

 

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§ Meanwhile, Warners has updated their iconic water tower with an image of Supergirl. These are the times we live in, folks.

§ The Daily Beast chatted up Brian K. Vaughan on how and why he got to be so darned awesome and he pointed out something pretty awesome!

Well, speaking of censorship, Saga has been named as one of the top ten most challenged books of 2014, and was pretty close up there in 2015. What are your thoughts on all the censorship people attempt to apply to comics?

The nice things about it are that, while people often say we are the most banned books, we are not. We are just the most challenged. That means someone will stumble upon Saga in a library and say, “What?! Comic books can’t do this! This is offensive!” The main reason why it hasn’t been banned is because of librarians, who are at the forefront of anti-censorship. They’ve been so great about saying, “It’s fine if you don’t want your children to read Saga, but this is not how libraries work.” It’s frustrating that some people challenge it, but I am so grateful for librarians that let people check out whatever materials they want.

 

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§ To Do: This great Harvey Kurtzman show is still up if you want to see some great art and then a Denis Kitchen show rolls in, so what I’m saying is…go visit the Scott Eder Gallery.

§ AT SPX I had the great privilege of having dinner with Bill Griffith and a few other folks, and asking him about his amazing new memoir, Invisible Ink, in which he investigates the secret history of his family, as revealed in documents he found after his parents’ death. In case you cannot hear the story over wood fired salmon, here is an interview where he discusses the matter.

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§ WWAC is at it again with a discussion of how comics and manga are alike via the medium of a cat comic by Amnda Vail and Joyce Hwang. Genius.

§ Rob Clough did an epic round up of 20 indie anthologies and there is some good stuff there that even I never heard of.

§ This article on how to avoid con crud has been making the rounds, but it’s worth going around again, because it shows how an article can be passed around just like con crud. I got felled by the crud this time, after boasting that I rarely get sick, but thinking back, I usually do get sick after NYCC. When it was held in the winter is usually gave me bronchitis which is a bit worse than crud. I’m pretty sure I know how I got the crud this time — I didn’t wash my hands very often, rubbed my eyes and put my hands near my nose. If you use sanitizer and don’t touch your eyes or nose you will do much to alleviate the crud catching if you have a good immune system. However to build up your immunity, it’s best to keep touching the surface of your smart phone all day, since that is covered with thriving colonies of bacteria and poop. Your welcome.

9 COMMENTS

  1. Won’t believe what Captain America did next? No, that’s the problem. It’s far too predictable. These ham-fisted “look how progressive we are” stories are lame and have as much nuance as a Jack Chick comic. I wonder in what issue FemThor has an abortion, or Peter Parker comes out as trans. When are comics going to be worth reading and not ranting lectures accompanied by superhero drawings? Undertones beats overtones any day.

  2. I agree Nerp. Comics have gotten preachy. It almost feels like there is a check box that creators need to fill to prove how edgy and cool they are.

  3. Yeah it’s so horrible that comics aren’t all about the same issues and experiences that they have been for 80 years! Tradition after all!

    How is knee jerk diversity any worse or different that knee jerk conformity?

  4. Knee jerk diversity *is* knee jerk conformity.
    The temporary promotion of agenda is currently a requirement to write for Marvel.
    We’ll see how many of these changes last once the fad is over.
    We’ll look back on this and laugh like we do looking at Liefeld’s work in the 90s.

  5. Knee jerk diversity *is* knee jerk conformity.
    This temporary promotion of agenda is currently a requirement to write for Marvel.
    We’ll see how many of these changes last once the fad is over.
    We’ll look back on this and laugh like we do looking at Liefeld’s work in the 90s.

  6. Even from a non-political point, Nick Spencer and Daniel Acuna are far more talented than seen on this book. The art was very iffy in places, and the Serpent people’s dialogue came across really forced. The issue felt very rushed, like they had something they wanted to say but didn’t know how to say it so they just went the quickest route with it. Not either of their finest work.

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