THE HARBINGER [VON DOOM] PODCAST

APE IN A CAPE: Wow.

gailsimone:

pantslessinanity:

gailsimone:

I just kind of randomly looked at Dan DiDio’s Facebook page for a minute this morning.

Holy crap.

Okay, let me first get this out. Dan does care about lgbtq portrayals. It’s important to him, I’ve had a dozen conversations with him about it. Out writers like Marc Andreyko have been told, by Dan, not to shy away from gay storylines, characters, and content. And he was a major reason why Batwoman finally got printed. Whatever else you may disagree with, I know this is important to him, and he’s backed it up  in many ways.

This stuff isn’t coming from Dan, this is just a sampling of some of the posts people have sent him on his Facebook page in the last couple days.

“Just giving you a heads up because you’ve been a fair guy, If Wally West comes back gay, i’m done with DC comics forever. Nothing against LBGT, but they can’t have my favorite character.”

“Who will be the gay character?, Please no Superman, Batman, The Flash or Green Lantern!. I’ll throw away my collection and will not buy any. I have gay friends, but the characters who were not gay do not have to be now.”

“Mr. D, I sure hope you all aren’t planning to make Superman gay. You all have already torn the character down enough, please don’t ruin the character for the shock value. Not sure what DC has against having characters that are good role models…married and have a respect for their parents views.”

Yeesh.

I’ll be honest and say that I’m surprised. DiDio always struck me as an asinine misogynist who was hell-bent on forcing anything that didn’t feature straight, white males out of sight (with some exceptions, like the Wonder Woman series, Cyborg being a Token Black Guy in JLA, and firing pretty much every female writer DC had save Gail Simone). Hell, DiDio, and to an extent Geoff Johns, are responsible for the current, post-apocalyptic shambles DC has become, what with the unnecessarily dark storylines and a complete lack of light-hearted characters.Where is Plastic Man? Where’s Stephanie Brown? Why is Harley Quinn a fun-hating skank? Why is Amanda Wallers scrawny? Why is Captain Marvel as gritty as Batman? Why hasn’t Bart Allen acted like Impulse since the start of the pre-boot Teen Titans? Ask Dan DiDio and he’ll bully you instead of giving a straight answer.

However, credit where it’s due. If DiDio is a supporter of LGBT rights, and is willing to make an established character gay, then I’d get behind it. It’d be an awkward, “don’t touch me” support, because I hesitate to throw my full weight behind DiDio no matter what worthwhile cause he fights for, but I’d be there.

Of course, one could assume that, like Cyborg is a Token Black Guy, whenever DiDio shows support for LGBT characters, it’s because the DC Universe requires another Token hero…

(But no seriously Dan DiDio needs to get the hell away from DC Comics)

There’s a lot we disagree on, but Dan is one of the most open guys to lgbt content I have come across in the industry. He was a major supporter of the Batwoman project when others were squeamish, and he supported my idea of Hippolyta and Phillipus getting married, among many other things.

NO major publisher is as progressive as I might hope, and the record for female portrayals is mixed at best.  But a lot of positive stuff can be laid at Dan’s feet as well…I kind of blame the creators for not giving him the credit he deserves for the stuff he has supported, they want that credit for themselves.

He’s made a lot of decisions I am adamantly in disagreement with, just recently we disagreed mightily on a project. But the truth is the truth, and Dan’s support for lgbtq characters is solid and admirable.

How Liberalism May Be Hurting Comic Book Sales by Darin Wagner

gailsimone:

lowarthighcraft:

iandsharman:

Hahahahahaha…what a spectacular crock of shit this is.

First and foremost I’d like to know why this guy is reading comics in the comic store before buying them and then putting them back on the shelf when he discovers their offensively liberal content?

What kind of leftist hippie is he? Comic shops aren’t libraries! He should be a good capitalist and pay for those comics before he reads them!

If he seriously thinks this is why comic book readership is falling then I suggest that maybe, just maybe, he removes his head from his arse and do some proper research into how the industry works.

Won’t somebody please think of the oil companies?!

*************

Okay. This article isn’t particularly making its case well, but I do agree that Conservatives and religious people tend to be portrayed as cartoonish, ignorant or evil in comics. It’s unfair. I’m a lefty to the core and it’s unfair. Some of the few honest conservative characters in comics have had that stripped away over the years (Wally West was presented as mid-West Conservative for a good while, only to have that angle dumped completely).

However, there are two HUGE problems with what he’s saying.

1) At least the Conservatives and religious people are VISIBLE in comics. Dozens of groups aren’t represented in comics at all, or in only the most token way, including liberal-leaning groups like Atheists. Is the occasionally unfair portrayal somehow worse than no representation at all? I know there are exceptions, but there are exceptions in the original complaint, as well. There are at least SOME positive Conservative portrayals.

2) IF what this gentleman is saying is true (and it isn’t, not on any big scale…he’s projecting a personal reaction to explain a problem that is vastly more complex than  that), then wouldn’t Conservative-leaning comics be growing, or at least maintaining their audience with greater vigor than the liberal-leaning comics he’s upset about?  There are plenty of talented Conservative creators: Frank Miller, Dave Sim, Bill Willingham, Chuck Dixon, Beau Smith, Billy Tucci, on and on. Wouldn’t Conservatives be drawn to their work and buck this trend?

When a liberal comment makes him put a comic back on the stands, wouldn’t the lack of same cause him, and those who agree with him, to buy HOLY TERROR?

But there is zero evidence, and I mean ZERO evidence, that any such trend is occurring. If anything, those creators are being hit with the same market softness that the rest of the industry has been. It’s a little ironic that a few of the books he’s chosen to mention as containing Conservative-slamming comments are in fact the top-selling titles in the industry.

Twenty years ago, we didn’t have comics piracy, we didn’t have competition from the internet, we had a different price point and distribution system. There are dozens of factors, some of which may in fact be related to content.

But I could just as easily say, I don’t like books where the characters wear yellow capes, so I put those books back on the stands, and now the industry is much smaller. It MUST be the yellow capes propaganda.

Where is the evidence?

gailsimone:

Without a lot of detail, if you could write ONE DC book with ONE still-living artist, what and who would you choose?