#antholgies

[readsofawe]

Collections, anthologies, and even individual stories count!

[delilahdesanges]

[publishing] Get Your Fresh Flesh Here!

Rejoice, for it is publication day! That’s right! You can now buy the paperback version of Bound in Flesh from Ghoulish Books! HERE And hopefully from many bookstores both reputable and less so. Or pester your local library until they order it. Whichever you like, I’m not in charge here, I’m just the guy with the story in the body horror anthology, standing in front of a potential reader,…

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[thinkingalexis]

How to become an exception and why diversity in creators matters

If you follow my blog it’s not shocking to you that i am a card carrying member of the social justice avengers. Yet I get upset about some people and I don’t get upset about other people doing some things. Everyone has their exceptions so I went to a quite place and mediated (metaphorically) on why it is exactly I have exceptions. What I found was exceptions to the rules aren’t really exceptions to a rule, they are people who are doing extra work.

The root of the currently problem with diverse hiring and why people like Dan Slott, Nick Spencer, Tom Bevoort and Brian Michael Bendis are getting hate for being white dudes who are cashing in on diversity. It’s that back in the day we wanted people who looked like us, who had the same sexuality as us, who shared the same background as us because we had none of it. We finally are starting to get that in mainstream comics but it isn’t enough. These characters might as well be body suits for white men because they don’t think like us. The reason we need more diverse creators is because no matter how hard they try their perspective can’t be one of a person in these groups they are trying (or in the case of queer representation seemingly actively not trying) to happen.

It takes a queer creator or a strong ally to think “Oh gee we got a team of 6 characters to talk about social issues in america today, why in the world are none of them queer?” Mark Waid isn’t that guy, Mark Waid is the guy who thought the offensive Strange Fruit was a great idea that would promote the black community. The man who wrote Airboy didn’t think his group of assholes saying offensive things about trans people would bother trans people just because the people in the book were assholes.  People like Dan Slott who are so happy to have a gay man in their book yet find that the queer community don’t like them can be baffled. Just writing a character and putting them into a book or having them lead a book is not enough.

A good ally doesn’t lump a gay man who made casual criticism with a bunch of people making death threats but Dan Slott did. So Dan Slott isn’t trusted by the community because actions speak louder than words. Writing well is the job of being a writer, it’s not enough if you want to cash in on that sweet diversity money. Using marginalized people to cash it just doesn’t work anymore for cis/het white dudes. Writers gotta go deeper, they have to start to support the communities that they claim they support. When you are Brian Michael Bendis and you write 5 books and even if you didn’t write any comics you would be making more money than most people in your company perhaps you should consider  getting a PoC to co write your PoC book.

It’s really about proving commitment and that isn’t so hard to do. A person could start by listening to the groups they are trying to represent and hire them to be consultants. As previously mentioned if they are making enough money getting someone as a co writer is a great way to help train up the new generation. A person could support visibility the projects of the marginalized groups they represent. Retweet lots of projects, read them, share them, engage with them. They could hire these people to be their artists, get them jobs at their companies for writers, etc. Creators can do so much better at these things. Hell committee to some diverse webcomics and read them on the phone while taking a dump then talk about them publicly. Just find a way to support people and use that privilege to support the people helping give make the pay checks.

If creators just listened more instead of switching to playing defense when it’s critics turn with the ball we wouldn’t have marginalized folks mad at the comics industry.  Listen and learn comics industry and we can build a better future for comics. The comics industry doesn’t need to go into the hands of someone like Max Landis in the future, the future can have bright new voices who are pushing forward the social chance the heroes that built the comics industry would be proud of. Let’s make a better comics industry, let’s listen more, and then maybe we won’t need to make exceptions.