It is without a doubt that if you are even remotely the tiniest of comic book fan, you have heard about the epic change-up coming in September with the DCnU. The quick recap is: Flashpoint ends in August, and with it the entire DC Universe is relaunched. This means new books, new creative teams, and entirely new endeavors from the second biggest company in comic books today, home to the most famous and important comic character(s) of all time. As DC brands it, they are making history – and the notion isn’t inherently untrue.
However, there’s one thing that also comes with the DCnU, and that is the perfect opportunity to point out all the flaws that the company has, right? At least, that’s the impression that I’m beginning to get.
Take a look after the cut for some thoughts.
First things first: I’m not an expert. I am a fan, and an opinionated one at that. I’ve been writing on this site for two years, from news to reviews to opinionated essays on everything and anything to do with comics and comic-related properties. I don’t normally write Multiversity 101 (anymore, although I had a stint helming the column) because Multiversity 101 is a column specifically designed for thoughtful commentary on trends in the industry, and frankly I just don’t have that many thoughts to share on a weekly basis. So while I always have opinions on everything, I usually keep them to myself or to friends and use the site instead to impart content that I feel will be interesting for the average reader who wants to see news and reviews while others write M101. It’s what I’m good at.
However, this past week was San Diego Comic-Con, the biggest gathering of nerds and fans on the western seaboard, and with it comes the first major opportunity for fans to gather and discuss the DC reboot with almost all of the creative teams behind the endeavor, minus a few names and faces. And of course with that comes opportunity for fans to give the DCnU team a piece of their mind, especially towards the things that they do not like. This is where opinions begin to come into play, and this is what I’d like to talk about today.
What many people may not know — and what I’m really not shy about discussing in any capacity at this point — is that compared to other companies, DC is a rather closed door to the public. As a site, we have worked with people at Marvel, Image, Dark Horse, IDW, BOOM!, Archaia, Radical, Oni, Aspen, and hundreds of independent comic creators — and I love working with all of them to promote their comics. But, despite every attempt I or other members of this site have made in every polite way we can think of, DC is not receptive to us, nor are they as open to fans as, say, Marvel is. Heck, you can contact just about any Marvel higher-up on Twitter or other places (Tom Brevoort’s Formspring should be in every comic fan’s bookmark list/RSS feed/whatever), and they will give you blunt or honest responses to even the most difficult of questions (see CBR’s Cup O’ Joe weekly columns or T&A as well). On the other side, DC has closed their comment section for their blog due to the behavior of the commentators and make press releases through larger venues from USA Today to TMZ. They do not have weekly columns, Dan DiDio is not on Twitter, and while Jim Lee and Geoff Johns do their best to stay immersed with the fanbase they obviously can’t respond to everyone who tweets them. We’ve had the opportunity to talk to DC creators before, but as time goes on and the DCnU approaches, the doors are closed more often they are open (which isn’t specifically any creator’s fault as they have all signed non-disclosure agreements and, while I love this site, we’re not as big as some of our competitors (who probably don’t even consider us a competitor — yet!)).
Continued belowSo obviously, if a company is not that good at having a very open back-and-forth with their fanbase more than a few times a year, fans are going bring up their issues in the opportunities that are given to them — which brings us back to the dangerous realm of “opinions.”
There is a comment that I’ve made quite a few times, and it has led several people (that I know of) to hold an unfavorable opinion of me due to my belief of this, but if there is one thing that I actively feel about comic book fans, it is that they are/can be bullies, whether it is to other fans about what someone may or may not like (such as someone, for example, who may not enjoy a creators work in the “right” way) or to the creators themselves whose work a fan may not enjoy. In today’s age of internet-gained anonymity and the ability to remain as nameless faces, people believe that they can be absolutely rude and be in the right to do so. Some comic fans legitimately believe that they are 100% entitled to a book or character in a way that others are not due to personal connections, and with this comes behavior that is flat out bullying.
I am reminded of last year’s New York Comic-Con where I had to sit through not one, but two panels in which a “fan” attacked a creator in front of a crowded hall of people, somewhat thinking that they were in the right. Let’s elaborate on this a bit:
The first incident took place when a fan, dressed as either Sgt. Rock or Sgt. Hatred (depending on who you hear it from, but I will swear by Sgt. Hatred), addressed Rick Remender during an X-Men panel about the changes that Rick brought to the Punisher. The fan asked Rick, “What were you thinking?”, assuming that the crowd would get behind this question and boo Rick Remender for his Frankencastle arc. Rick responded by saying that he was trying to do something new and innovative with the character that hadn’t been done before to give readers a new experience, and that he felt strongly about his decisions with the character, at which point the fan walked out and the hall cheered. I can’t say that I, as an active reader of Remender’s work and the Punisher character, was a fan of the arc, but that’s really here nor there; actively trying to embarrass a creator in front of a room full of people who have paid to hear active discourse towards the future of some of their favorite works is rude. But hey, who cares about that when it’s easier to just call Rick out and then leave if he doesn’t give an agreeable response, right?
The second incident took place at the popular Marvel panel Cup O’ Joe, in which a fan blasted the entire table, asking for Brian Bendis to be fired and asking for Joe Quesada to resign – because that’s apparently appropriate behavior. The fan, who claimed to have been reading the Ultimate Universe for quite some time, hated the relaunch post-Ultimatum and felt that Marvel was personally slighting him for its creative decisions. After a heated back and forth in which the fan insulted just about everyone at the table, he was told to just stop buying the comics if he doesn’t like them and was subsequently booed out of the room. Joe Quesada attempted to win the crowd back with a quip about the recent Disney acquisition and a “let’s move on” statement, but the fact still remains: whether you agree with this fan or not, whether you agree with Marvel’s response or not (from “we’re making comics we are proud of” to “well, just don’t buy them then”), whether you abhor Joe Quesada’s previous editorial reign at the Marvel offices or not, verbally attacking the man and his co-workers at a panel in front of a packed room who are interested in hearing about the future of the Marvel Universe, who want to ask questions that others might be interested in as opposed to your gripes, is rude both to the panelists and to the other fans.
Continued belowI have plenty of stories like this. I could probably write an entire series of articles entitled “Times That Other Fans Made Me Feel Awkward At Places By Not Knowing When To Stop,” but that’s not the point of these stories. Do you want to know when it is appropriate to address a creator about something you may not have cared for? When the two of you are on equal ground, face to face, and where it can be addressed like adults – at a signing, at their tables, after the panel, out on the convention floor. Heck, it’s even more appropriate to send them a tweet or an e-mail, as long as you do it in a polite way. But it’s just so much easier to try and “call out” someone for their work in front of hundreds of their fans while they sit next to their friends and co-workers in order to make a scene of it. Why attempt polite discourse (“You know, I really enjoy the Punisher, but I didn’t enjoy your particular choices.” “Well, I’m sorry to hear that, but perhaps you could tell me what you didn’t like in particular and I can try and explain my choices in a way you might understand more?”) when it’s easier to try and be a dick about it (“What were you thinking?”)?
It is not cool. It is rude.
But enough with the sideways banter. I’ve gotten the whole “don’t be rude” bit out of my system, so let’s move on to what brings us here today, something that is similar yet different: San Diego Comic-Con and the DCnU, opinions and realities, and the battle of self versus the company.
At panels in this past weekend, there is a story that is making the rounds on the internet with the words “uncomfortable” and “awkward” usually fitting somewhere into the main bits. It’s a story of a female fan who attended with her young daughter, the two of which who were dressed in female character cosplays (Batgirl and Spoiler, respectively, as I’ve been led to understand). The fan came to the mic during one of the Justice League panels and asked the panelists (who included Bob Wayne, Jim Lee, Geoff Johns, and Eddie Berganza among others) why there was a lack of female characters being featured. This is not a new complaint, nor was it an unfounded one; as has been noted in the past both on this site and others, there is a lack of/awkward representation of female characters in the DCU (and their biggest female hero Wonder Woman has her own issues in the DCnU with her pants, as it were). The panelists responded (and obviously I am paraphrasing and out-sourcing my stories here, as I was not there) that they were trying their best to make everyone happy, but this resulted in an awkward back-and-forth resulting in the woman leaving, promising a return.
It wasn’t long before the woman came back during another New 52 panel DC held, in which the fan asked a similar question, this time in regards to female creators and not characters. Dan DiDio responded with a soundbite he’s used before, that DC wants to hire the best writers and artists that they can, which the audience was apparently in agreement towards. At this point, Grant Morrison attempted to make a joke (something about him looking good in a dress) which offended the question asker, which led Morrison to respond that women should submit their work to DC if they want to work at DC.
(For the record, these were picked off of DC Women Kicking Ass, a site that aggregated the stories to one post.)
The things DC have said here are not inherently new information. DC has created a series of soundbites that they use over and over in every interview and discussion (if I hear the word “accessible” one more time, I may just cancel my pre-orders for September). The bit about the “best possible writers/artists” thing isn’t new either, and has been addressed by DC numerous times. They like to remind people that Gail Simone, perhaps one of the biggest feminist activists in major comics, writes for them, and they’ve also mentioned Nicola Scott and/or Amanda Conner having work in the future. There have also been stories from Kelly Sue DeConnick and Marjorie Liu, both of whom who were approached to pitch directly to the company for work and chose not to for their own reasons. Granted, this obviously isn’t wonderful; the odds are stacked against women here. But there’s one bit that begins to get misrepresented to excess in the wild west of the interwebs, and that is that DC “hates women.”
Continued belowThe woman in question at the DC panel is not wrong in wanting to read comics starring her favorite characters and written by writers who could possibly relate to her more. It’s not wrong for a parent to want to have a book her child can read and relate to. However, if all of the reports are true — the ones I am summarizing from a site that aggregated them — the woman was essentially going after DC in a passive aggressive way. DC have made their decisions, and they are ones that they are going to stand by; these are the books that we are going to get. On the same grounds, though, DC has made it rather difficult for fans to be heard, and they only allow certain things to be addressed on their grounds. I am right in the same boat with other fans out there, who have thoughts to discuss and no effective way to know that they are being heard and understood, but I’d argue it’s fairly clear by the reports and the reported mood of the room that other fans who had come to listen to the panel were beginning to not agree with the woman and her complaints. It’s at that point — when you have a legitimate complaint and still lose the people who are by default in your corner with you — that you’ve gone from a fan to a bully. It’s just a different kind of bully in this situation.
This sort of thing doesn’t end here. There are plenty of stories that get passed around the internet about “how rude” DC is. There are stories about people at DC, there are stories implying flat-out racism from DC, and there is plenty of fun to be made at the company’s expense. But we have moved from a sub-culture that is looking for entertainment so much as we are looking for a fight. New announcements are met with quick hatred because X, Y, or Z is just dumb and how could anyone do that or want to read it? Individual opinions have quickly become facts that can not be denied or reasoned with, and the idea of having a back-and-forth on a subject has moved from two people talking to red faces, hurt feelings, and a fist that’s just wait to be thrown. This medium that is designed for our entertainment has become so ingrained into our personal lives that we are having trouble separating the fiction from reality — and I say “we” because I am of course guilty of this, and to say otherwise would be hypocritical.
However, if my “cool brag” two years worth of conducting interviews, researching comics, and writing reviews has amounted to me learning anything, it’s a very simple conclusion: DC is not racist. DC does not hate women. DC does not hate anyone, for that matter. DC is a company that reacts to their business as they should, and they make decisions that we don’t always like but they always believe in their heart of hearts that it is right for them to make. DCnU? Not necessarily for me, but I’m not the only one in the room. I am guilty of my own moments of entitlement about books and characters, but it has become easier for me to take myself out of the equation to the extent that I don’t feel personally victimized by their actions — because I shouldn’t. It’s not about me. It’s not about anyone. It’s about all of us and people we don’t know. The sad reality is that DC does not hold the same place in the marketplace that it used to, and they are making a bold decision to try and change/”fix” that. Good for them! But just because your characters got lost in the mix, or DC turned into a proverbial “boys club”, it doesn’t mean that the company as a whole is trying to go after “you”. They just aren’t. Nobody is. That kind of thinking is fairly paranoid. So yes, it is a fact that women are represented poorly here, but it is an opinion that the people who run DC are sexist, and the inability of fans to seemingly differentiate between what those two statements mean is just unfortunate.
Continued belowFurthermore, the basic idea that DC has with their relaunch is to tell good stories. If they do that or not is still up in the air, but the way that they reportedly got their pitches was that they would have multiple creators pitch for the same book and then they picked the “best” one. If my understanding of some complaints is correct, the implication is that they chose men over women except in the case of Gail Simone — but I’ve yet to hear of a case where someone’s pitch was rejected who wasn’t a man. The idea here seems to be that DC asked a lot of men to pitch and no women, but as I established earlier in the article other women were asked, and turned it down. Yes, DC should hire more women — but first they need to find a woman who is interested in writing for them in the first place that is going to write a story they as a company feel best represents them. Right now that role is defined by Gail Simone due to her popularity and her great work. While I’d love to see more DC female creatives, there’s still Amanda Conner and Nicola Scott with unannounced work, and Amy Reeder is doing work on Batwoman. They’re the minority, yes, but creative women are still accepted at the company, and I’d guess it’s fair to say that as DC expands beyond their initial 52 we will see more. Grant Morrison isn’t wrong in saying that creative women who want to work for DC should go to the company and attempt to do so, but I don’t know who those women (outside of fans) are (and stay tuned later for a list of women in comics, all of whom are actively doing work).
Perhaps it’s just me. I’ve gotten to a place in my comic collecting habits (which started about as far as I can remember back in the glorious 90s, where the first comic I ever bought was a random issue of Spider-Man because I liked the cover (and still do despite it being buried in a longbox)) where if I don’t like something I just don’t buy it. Is that not the simplest solution? Has that very notion not been brought up hundreds upon thousands of times before from all spectrums of the comic-commenting universe (let alone this very article, which mentioned it earlier)? If the company has performed an action in which you do personally feel victimized by it, isn’t it counter-productive to support them in any capacity? Not to put to fine a point on it, but dressing up as Batgirl and then telling DC how poor of a job they are doing sends the wrong message to the company, who are going to see this and probably assume you’ll still be buying Batgirl come September. It would be a more bold statement, I think, to choose not to buy Batgirl anymore – even if you adore the character and creative team – and instead buy a book that doesn’t actively upset you. The biggest message is sent in sales figures and charts, not in irate or passive-aggressive fans telling creators how much they don’t like their work.
I feel for the woman who does not have her favorite characters anymore. I feel for her daughter who does not get to read new adventures of these heroines anymore. I feel for both of them (and all women everywhere) that this company has an extremely poor representation of women in its character line-up creative department (not including the women that are employed in other capacities, of course). I don’t want to sound entitled myself, but I too am losing characters and histories with the DCnU that I am fond of. However, due to this I’m just not going to support the company. They’ve made it clear that my opinion is not one they want to hear about or consider, and I’ve decided to respect them on this and move on, for one key point: there are other comics out there. I don’t need to buy Green Lantern anymore, and because I’m not buying it I can try out a new book from Image (for example).
Continued belowThat’s the idea that I’ve been leading up to. It is something people seemingly hate to hear, but there are other companies with female creators and female characters. There are independent creators working their asses off to catch a break with the same thing. So no, you can’t read Batgirl as you used to, and the new/different books might not be perfect for your tastes, but your favorite stories haven’t gone anywhere and can be re-read endlessly. Additionally, there are new books starting up every month written, illustrated, and starring women. Obviously there is Gail Simone writing at DC, but there is also Becky Cloonan announced to be drawing a book at IDW, Fiona Staples drawing a book at Image, Rebekah Isaacs doing work for Marvel and Dark Horse, Emi Lenox with a book coming from Image (I believe) and a webcomic, Natalie Nourigat and her webcomic as well as her work for Periscope Studios, Sarah Oleksyk’s recently released a book from Oni, Janet Lee’s next volume of the Dapper Men series that is coming out soon (hopefully, and which just won her an Eisner!), Erika Moen drawing the webcomic Bucko, Kelly Sue DeConnick writing Supergirl right now with planned Marvel work (from what I hear), Marjorie Liu writing X-23, Laura Martin on several high profile books as perhaps the greatest colorist on the planet, Jill Thompson working on more Beasts of Burden, G. Willow Wilson writing one of Marvel’s Crossgen relaunch titles, Amy Reeder working on Batwoman, Colleen Coover’s just released Gingerbread Girl from Top Shelf as well as some brief Marvel work you can hunt down, Nicola Scott illustrating Teen Titans right now with an unannounced DC book in the works, Amanda Conner also working on a secret project, Katie Cook drawing and writing Gronk online, Kathryn Immonen doing work for Marvel (and, as a note, she has done several all-girl based superhero books, like Heralds (which was great)), Kristin Boucher drawing the webcomic Control, Sarah Sobole’s writing and illustrating the hilarious Doctor Cat, Yasmine Surovec writing and illustrating Cat Versus Human, Meredith Gran writing and illustrating Octopus Pie, Faith Erin Hicks writing and illustrating the Adventures of Superhero Girl, and the always hilarious Kate Beaton writing and illustrating Hark! A Vagrant regularly. These are all extremely talented women working in comics, and no, they aren’t all working on superheroes, and they may not be writing or illustrating your favorite superheroes, but they are here (and this is to say nothing of the men in the industry writing incredibly strong female characters, like Brian Bendis, Greg Rucka, Brian Reed, Bryan Q. Miller, Sterling Gates, and Nick Spencer). And that’s just a few! There are many women out there creating comics, and they are attending comic conventions regularly to find new fans and readers. So it’s important to remember: comics do not end at superheroes, nor do they end at company-owned superheroes.
Talking about race and gender relations in comics is the equivalent of walking a tight-rope – no matter how careful you are, you have to really be trained to not fall off and kill yourself. With that in mind, it is not my intent to offend anyone (and if I have, I apologize right here and now before you even need to ask me to). Obviously this particular op/ed is pigeon-holed to the one discussion spurned by this week’s events at Comic-Con, but my comments are not to designed to call out the woman in question but rather the larger issue at hand. These are discussions that will probably always exist in this medium, but the point of the op/ed here is not so much to say that you shouldn’t be upset at what DC or any company is doing, but that you (the royal you) should consider that there are other options out there. If you’re looking for suggestions, we at MC spotlight books weekly that we adore, and many of them feature prominent female characters and creators. The last Friday Recommendation I wrote was about Ms. Marvel and the 50 issues her latest volume had, which for my money is perhaps one of the strongest pro-female comics I’ve ever read (and it was written by a man).
But the ultimate point I want to make is this: if DC — or Marvel, or anyone for that matter — offends you, there are appropriate ways to show the company that you disagree with their actions. The first and foremost one is to not buy the book anymore. The second and most important one is, if you would like to express your disdain, to try and approach those that have offended you on grounds that is fair to them. Spreading stories about them on the internet and attempting to turn an entire crowd against them is just rude behavior. It’s childish and it’s essentially the same thing as being a random commentator on a forum. It’s also a GUARANTEED way to not be heard. It doesn’t matter how good your point is, you will still come off as a bully. And if you still choose to go ahead and call out a person at a panel in such a manner, then you’re just being a bully. Creators — believe it or not — are people too, and though we may not like what they’re doing all of the time, they’re still trying to do the “best they can” (which is obviously measured on a personal level and a case by case basis). They aren’t actively trying to write bad comics; JT Krul didn’t have Arsenal beat people up with a dead cat because he thought, “Hey, this’ll be hilarious and really piss of Arsenal fans!” (It just so happened that this idea didn’t play out as he had envisioned it in his head when he first wrote the comic, and the fan backlash is still intense.) They don’t like being accused of hating anyone of any race, gender or religion, and until they make statements proving otherwise, there is no reason to accuse them otherwise.
Long story short? Stop reading the books you don’t like, and find a new book you do. Your favorites will always be there, and there is always a smaller creator out there somewhere who would love to share with you their work.
