Author: Joe Corallo

Joe Corallo: Comics Are Her Element

This week I’m doing another indie comics spotlight. Last week was about Russ Lippitt and his Kickstarter for The Showdown Volume 2, which is still ongoing. For this column, I’m highlighting indie comics creator Kathleen Kralowec.

I first discovered Kathleen’s work at NYCC 2016 when a friend of mine had picked up The Lion And The Roc. More than anything, the art really popped for me. I don’t know exactly the methods she used to create that particular comic, but it came out looking fantastic.

This past week I read Kathleen’s Electricity Is Her Element. It’s a bit of a mythological space opera, but I’ll get to that in a minute. What I’d like to talk about first is how she went about making this comic.

Kathleen’s approach to Electricity Is Her Element was to do it entirely by hand using only markers. She did this in her sketchbook over the course of a bit over a year, originally releasing new installments as a webcomic until March of this year. Her comic also includes some animation and is now available as one complete story on comiXology.

Okay, I should probably tell you what Electricity Is Her Element is actually about. The story revolves around snake like representations of elementals (don’t worry, they’re cute!) that live out in space. Basically, they feel that some of those in power of these elements have become complacent with order in the universe when really the whole point of all of this is chaos. After all, the universe was born in chaos; so I’m told. I haven’t asked Neil deGrasse Tyson yet.

To help fight back against order, some of the lesser space snakes summon the more powerful ones to combine forces against order. There’s quite a bit or action in the middle leading up to Ms. KerBop, an eccentric messenger of Electricity that helps these elementals understand themselves.

So, you may or may not be asking yourselves “what did Joe think about this comic?” Fine, I’ll tell you! Above all else, Electricity Is Her Element is gorgeous. It’s easy to see that Kathleen put a lot of thought and energy into the design of this comic. The marker work and the color choices make the pages pop from a mile away. The hand-lettering, while occasionally taking a second to understand what’s being conveyed, is leaps and bounds ahead of standard lettering practices. Each elemental has a very unique yet uniform design as well; something that’s difficult to pull off.

Where Electricity Is Her Element could improve on is having clear stakes, a comment that also applies to The Showdown Volume 2. While this comic is gorgeous and worth it simply for the visuals, it’s hard to feel like there are any serious stakes. What happens if they don’t stop order? This is unclear to me. The plot itself isn’t as imaginative in execution as it is in concept and design. This leads to a linear, typical, and ultimately predictable plot structure. Without giving away spoilers, there is a point where we get an exposition dump that I feel would have worked better being eased into the story or at least foreshadowed earlier on.

That said, Kathleen Kralowec is a talented, passionate illustrator and comics creator. Visually, this comic is absolutely stunning and worth your time. Please check out her work in the links above and support aspiring comics creators. If you’re not checking out Kathleen’s work and others like her, then you’re missing out on the future of comics.

Joe Corallo: Indie Comics Showdown!

So my last couple of columns have been a bit on the heavy side. This week I’m going back to telling all of you how I feel about specific comics. This week is a Kickstarter project, The Showdown Volume 2, by creator, writer and letterer Russ Lippitt, illustrator Ezequiel Pineda, colorist Nate Esteban, and editor Jessica Kubinec. Before I get into that though, I’d like to chat a little bit about the indie comics scene.

Indie comics and creator-owned comics are terms that are used pretty interchangeably. While The Walking Dead is one of the highest selling comics every single month and have two different TV series out, it’s not unheard of to see it mentioned as an indie comic. Often folks talk about the big two (Marvel and DC) finding indie talent to bring on board. Indie talent tends to refer to any comics put out by publishers that aren’t Marvel or DC. Image, Dark Horse, and IDW would all be considered comics publishers with indie talent more or less. The tier below that would be BOOM!, Dynamite, and Oni. From there would be Lion Forge, AfterShock and Titan. Then we get into Black Mask Studios, Scout and so forth. You get the idea. It’s kind of indie, but also not quite. Now self publishing comics, that’s where we get the real indie stuff!

Okay, full disclosure, I have self published some comics before so maybe I’m a little biased. Going to Zine Fests, MoCCA Fest, SPX, that’s where you see the real raw indie talent doing what they really want to do. Some of these books you see at those kind of shows are quick little stories, art books, playing around with the format, and so forth. Other self publishing indie type comics look more like what you’d find in any given comic shop like Unmasked or The Showdown Volume 2. Both of those examples are actually a bit more like comics collectives rather than straight up self publishing as The Showdown is part of Broken Icon Comics, but you get what I mean.

Speaking of The Showdown, I should get to talking about it. This volume is 110 fully colored page about a car race in hell. It’s a bit of Wacky Races meets Zenescope’s Grimm Tales of Terror. Basically, lots of bad dead people in vehicular abominations are racing around all the different levels of hell. We jump around following more than a few different groups of racers as they encounter zombies, Nazis, dragons, fire and ice. Some of the racers we follow are more likeable than others, which is the point.

I don’t want to give too much away, but it is filled with references to bands and songs, some of the jokes are teenage boy type jokes which is not a knock it’s just that’s the target demographic for some of it. There are also plenty of visual nods to things like Ridley Scott’s Legend and characters like Harley Quinn.

Where The Showdown excels is pacing. The story just keeps moving which helps make this 110 page graphic novel a real page turner. The setting is a familiar enough mash up that you don’t need a lot of explanation to jump right in. I haven’t read Volume 1 and it didn’t stop me from understanding the basic elements of the plot. Where The Showdown falls down is in the stakes. The story bounces around between a lot of different characters so it’s hard to build up a strong attachment to any one in particular. Add the lack of feeling like there are any real stakes and consequences with what happens to the winners and losers and what the ramifications of that will be makes for a bit of an aimless read. (In fairness, part of that may be because I have not read the first volume.)

The other sticking point for me was the artwork. I feel a stronger horror artist might be able to help carry the story better. Some of the elements in the story could have been more terrifying or grotesque and it would have elevated the story. By that same token, if Ezequil would have went harder in the other direction and made it more cartoony that would have changed the feel of the story and possibly enhanced it as well.

If you have an interest in Wacky Racers with a horror twist then you should check out Russ Lippitt’s Kickstarter. One of the best things about it is that the comics is already done, so once it’s funded it will definitely be coming out! That’s usually not the case when it comes to comics on Kickstarter, so no worrying about a creative team switch up or a book being a year or so late. If you’ve been pledging to comics on Kickstarter for years and years like I have you know what I’m talking about.

Thanks for reading my column this week and do me a favor and go support some indie comics. The self publishing kind of indie.

Joe Corallo: Mine! Attack!

This past Saturday was our NYCC panel “Comics for Causes: Planned Parenthood and ComicMix.” On hand, in addition to myself (the center of the three-shot photo, surrounded by Molly and Mindy) were our editor-in-chief Mike Gold, my co-editor on Mine! Molly Jackson, Mindy Newell, Martha Thomases, and Glenn Hauman. The panel was made up of Mike, Molly, Mindy, Gabby Rivera, and myself. The panel was moderated by www.Geek.com managing editor Sheilah Villari; at the last minute Sean Von Gorman joined us as well.

We were humbled by over two hundred people that showed up for the panel, including at least half a dozen more Mine! contributors including Adam McGovern, Alice Meichi Li, Dave Kelly, Keith DeCandido and Tom Daly. Mindy spoke passionately about health care as both a comics writer and a nurse, Gabby addressed the importance of sex education and queer youth outreach, Sheilah talked about her and many other freelancers’ experiences having difficulty accessing affordable health care, Mike talked the current need for political activism, and Sean did an impression of me that was so spot on that someone assumed I had said something that he in fact said.

There was a question asked at the panel about discussing the different stories we’re contributing. I didn’t get a chance to answer that question at the time, so I’d like to use my column to talk about that now. Hey, it is my column after all.

 

One night some months ago a friend and I were talking over drinks. Mine! had come up in conversation, which lead to her sharing a story with me. Years ago she had been out at a club with a guy and that guy had given her something so strong the next thing she knew she was waking up in his bedroom. The next thing she did was go to a Planned Parenthood.

We talked about it further and decided that this was an important story to tell for the anthology. Unfortunately, it’s not important because it’s such a rare and unusual story, but rather that it is far too common. For many people in that situation, Planned Parenthood is their only option. I’m collaborating with artist Kristina Stipetic on this and made sure my friend approved the script before handing it off. I filled in some details and took some liberties, but the core of the story is all there. It was honestly one of the more emotionally draining things I’ve written. I can’t say that I hope you enjoy it exactly, but I hope all of you that pick up Mine! will come to this story and have a better understanding of how these situations often play out.

There are so many other great stories in Mine! too! Mindy is talking about a time before abortion was legal, Gabby about her Catholic upbringing, Mike about a couple that desperately needs health care but you don’t find out which one of them needs it until the end, and Keith came up from the audience to talk about how he and Tom Daly are doing a story about learning self-defense. Sean even made Keith show demonstrate a karate move!

You can preorder Mine! now on Backerkit, and you can preorder our t-shirts as well, if you so desire. Please go check it out if you haven’t reserved your copy yet, and spread the word!

 

Joe Corallo: Mine @ NYCC & #ComicsGate

This past week or so has been about getting ready for NYCC. ComicMix has a panel for our successfully funded comics collection, Mine!, which benefits Planned Parenthood. I’ll be there with fellow ComicMix team members Molly Jackson, Mike Gold and Mindy Newell as well as Mine! contributors Tee Franklin, Gabby Rivera and moderator Sheilah Villari. We’ll be at room 1A02 from 1:30 pm to 2:30 pm on Saturday, October 8 at the Javits Center on Manhattan’s mid-town west side. If you’re at NYCC, please come on by – we’ll have a sneak peek at some new art from the book!

This past week or so, there has also been more than a little turmoil in the comics community.

Since I wrote my piece about the Aubrey Sitterson incident a couple of weeks ago, events surrounding #ComicsGate have escalated. From blocking and doxxing to accusations and deplatforming, things are really intensifying in the lead-up to NYCC as followers and subscribers keep going up after these conservative comics critics involved. Because of everything that’s been going on I feel that it’s important to discuss this further.

As I stated last time, part of what’s been going on has been that comics critics on YouTube and social media who lean conservative (or libertarian, in this instance) are calling out specific creators for their content; being Social Justice Warriors (SJWs); and are, in some cases using direct and targeting language that attacks a creator for their minority status. Often in cases like this, and #ComicsGate is no exception, some followers end up taking things to the next level and using even more divisive and hurtful language and carrying out acts of targeted harassment and doxxing.

A video one comics critic released last week specifically targeted one comics journalist. The video ended up being flagged, then deleted by the uploader. Not long after, more videos were flagged on this comics critic’s YouTube account, leading to the account in question being suspended. Tensions have risen as accusations of attempted deplatforming of comics critics by comics journalists are being raised. As in #GamerGate, we are seeing similar arguments of “It’s about ethics in journalism,” whether or not that’s the actual issue.

Whenever issues like these come up or any other divisive politically driven issues arise you often hear the same things. You hear people talk about how the other side is horrible, how we shouldn’t even attempt to understand them and how we need to focus on beating them back and diminishing them. But in my case, I usually like to at least understand how things have come to be how they are.

Many of these conservative-leaning comics critics do more than provoke harassment of comics professionals to whom they are opposed: They’ve built a community. Like-minded comics fans who have similar issues with the direction that mainstream comics are going in get together for online hangouts, talk about the comics and creators they like, and more. Some of what they talk about I can even get behind, like how Black Bolt is one of my favorite books that Marvel is putting out right now. It’s easy to paint everyone involved as a troll, and that’s not to say there aren’t any trolls involved, but there are a lot of others who are fans of comics that want to see changes made and get riled up and moved to action when they can rally against perceived hypocrisy and calls to violence from the left.

Look, I’m an unapologetic liberal and political activist — I’m working on a Planned Parenthood benefit anthology, after all. That said, comics is not an exclusively liberal or conservative space and we have to exist without this level of conflict. There are plenty of conservative voices in comics who have put out quality work over the years including Chuck Dixon, Mike Baron, and Frank Miller. I (and others) am not advocating for an eradication of conservative thought from the comics medium.

With that in mind, there are things that cannot be tolerated. Transphobic language and personal attacks targeted at comics professionals and journalists cannot be tolerated. Using a creator’s’ background and minority status to attack them and their work cannot be tolerated. Allowing followers to go unchecked in their further attacks on comics professionals cannot be tolerated. Creators are getting death threats. We need comics professionals to feel safe.

Conservative voices in comics aren’t ever going to go away. If these comics critics, or anyone for that matter, want to be taken seriously by the comics industry that they’re criticizing then they need to drop the bigoted language and personal targeted attacks, and lead by example and call out the increasingly abusive behaviors of some their followers.

 

Joe Corallo: Maxwell’s Demons

Vault Comics is one of the biggest stories on the indie comics scene this year. With publisher Damian Wassel and editor-in-chief Adrian Wassel at the helm, Vault has created a line of science fiction and fantasy comics with seasoned veterans like Tim Daniel doing design and art direction as well as books like Fissure and rising stars including David Booher on Powerless and Alien Bounty Hunter (with producer Mark Wahlberg) and Natasha Alterici on Heathen.

This past week I was able to chat with Deniz Camp and Vittorio Astone about their new comic at Vault, Maxwell’s Demons.

JOE: What’s the elevator pitch for Maxwell’s Demons? What’s the hook?

DENIZ: Maxwell’s Demons is the story of Maxwell Maas, the greatest mind of his generation. Told in a series of standalone stories, each focused on Max at a different point in his life and arranged non-chronologically, it is the story of transformational greatness, as a boy of cosmic importance struggles against the horrors and wonders of a science fiction universe. He’ll journey to other universes, face alien assassins, fall in love, and confront his own demons in as mind-bending a fashion as possible. At the heart of it all is Max himself, his own abilities and inadequacies, and the changes he goes through, externally and internally.

VITTORIO: Nothing to add here, Deniz summed up the story perfectly.

JOE: How did this book come together? Were you both already collaborating, did you find each other?

DENIZ: I wrote what would eventually become the first issue of Maxwell’s Demons on my own. It was shorter, about 12 pages. I found Vittorio while browsing DeviantArt and was immediately struck by his work, his ability to capture scale and shadow and light. All of these, I knew, would be crucial to Maxwell’s Demons, so I browbeat him into working with me! When he said he was game, I expanded the page count and added content, and when he said he was game for more, I built a bigger, more intricate pitch for the series and the world, knowing that he could handle anything I asked of him. So far, he’s destroyed every expectation and hope I had! Vittorio will have his own take, I’m sure!

VITTORIO: Before Deniz contacted me, I had a completely different idea regarding my career. As many Italian artists, my goal was to find a job in the French comic book market, so, at the beginning, Maxwell’s Demons should’ve been just a brief diversion for me. But the potential of this series and Deniz’s talent convinced me to see where this story goes – and being a part of i

DENIZ: Vittorio says “talent”, but what he’s not saying is he means my talent for kidnapping his loved ones and holding them hostage. All’s well that ends well, though!

JOE: Well whatever you did, it’s working! So what made Vault Comics the perfect home for Maxwell’s Demons?

DENIZ: Vault has been amazing! At its core, Vault is a family and feels as such. I talked to Adrian and Damian (EiC and Publisher of Vault, respectively) just after their coming out announcement. By then we had already been producing Maxwell’s ourselves, and had many completed pages to show. They’ve been amazingly supportive of the book, and of us as creatives. They understood what we were going for right from the start, and gave us the freedom to pursue our most avant garde and strange formal ambitions, while helping us keep the story and the characters clear. It’s a better book for their involvement; richer, clearer, and more intentional. I’m incredibly grateful, and I think spoiled for all other publishers!

VITTORIO: Vault is fantastic! Adrian and Damian are always helping us in the creative process with their advice. And working alongside many talented artists is something that really pushes me to give my best. In general our working environment is always fresh and cheerful, except for when
Deniz writes too much complex stories and I have to menace him with a voodoo doll. True story.

DENIZ: This is a true story, but this ever-expanding rash and string of bad luck is a small price to pay for great comics!

JOE: I’m glad to see it’s working out! I also see a little bit of an Adam Strange influence in Maxwell’s Demons. What were some of your influences both in the story and the aesthetic?

DENIZ: Maxwell’s Demons was influenced by a lot of science fiction, and some of that pulpy scifi was in the DNA of the first issue, especially in the aesthetic: Flash Gordon (He’s a miracle!!), Buck Rogers, Adam Strange, John Carter, etc. But Maxwell’s Demons is a modern book, and we’re pulling from a diverse range of modern and retro influences to create something that feels new, and (hopefully) surprising. Rather than another world, in the first issue.

VITTORIO: Like Deniz said, pulp sci-fi was a big portion of our inspiration. Calvin and Hobbes was too. Max is, in fact, very much like Calvin, save from the fact that Calvin is often visiting other worlds just in his imagination. Also, we wanted his design to be somewhat naive, to better contrast with the dark tones of the story.

JOE: Maxwell himself is portrayed as a very lonely, yet determined kid. How did you both handle balancing this on the page for the readers to create a flawed and troubled yet sympathetic protagonist?

DENIZ: We’re all flawed, troubled-yet-sympathetic protagonists, right? (Well, everyone except Martin Shkreli, maybe. He F***** w/ the Wu Tang Clan).
Despite the absurd scifi trappings, Maxwell’s Demons is a very personal book for me, and I think it has the potential to be personal for a lot of readers. We’ve all felt isolated, by our intelligence or our inadequacies or interests or appearance. We’ve all had our best moments, and our worst. What I’m hoping to do with not just Max, but with all the characters in the book, is to show that dimensionality, to constantly upturn your understanding of the characters and your expectations as a reader. At the heart of Maxwell’s Demons is the thesis that not only do people change over time, but how the world sees them changes over time, too, as our understanding grows, or as the human being becomes subsumed by the legacy they leave behind.

VITTORIO: I think every one of us felt, at least once in his lifetime, alone because the way he saw the world. It’s very common when you’re a teenager, I think.
Max it’s defined not only by his intelligence and his adventures, but also by the regular, boring (often cruel) world around him, which is the reason why he built a portal to new universes in his closet.

DENIZ: Our metaphors are…unsubtle. :)

JOE: Maxwell has a very complicated relationship with his father. How did you both work on conveying this relationship in a way that would ring true to readers that may also have complicated relationships with family?

DENIZ: You can’t ever know how people will take these things, but speaking for myself: I wrote it from my own experience. When you’re a child, the world is a place of stark contrasts; people are heroes or they’re villains. The older you get, the more you come to understand that everyone’s just doing the best they can with what they’ve got. As a boy, even a very brilliant boy, I’m not sure Max can see it that way, but we can.

VITTORIO: In issue 1 Max’s father is very two-dimensional. But as the story goes and grows (and Max with it), we start to better explore and know this character, to see that he’s not just bad, but a complex, yet flawed, human. After we completed issue 1, Deniz wrote a beautiful epilogue to the story, to have a better view on him.

DENIZ: Most of issue 1 is told from Max’s perspective, and his father is very much one thing from Max’s perspective. But with the backup we’re able to get a story from Max’s father’s perspective, and that’s necessarily smaller, more intimate, with a less sharply defined morality.

JOE: Over the course of the first issue one thing I did notice was that there didn’t seem to be any female characters. While Maxwell’s Demons at its core is about a struggle between a father and son, will we be seeing any female characters introduced in future issues?

DENIZ: Yes! One particular female figure hangs over the whole series, but we’ll meet a very powerful female character in issue 2, and another (very different, but equally powerful) female character in issue 4. Vittorio has done an amazing job designing both, I might add.

VITTORIO: As Deniz said, later on the series we’ll see important female characters too. Which is good, because they are the one I usually have more fun designing!

JOE: Many comics today often feel that they are written for the trade paperback which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We tend to get first issues with big cliffhangers that leave the reader unable to really tell you what the first issue was about. Here, while Maxwell’s Demons doesn’t answer all your questions, it does feel like a complete story which is very refreshing. What made you both decide to take this route with the series?

DENIZ: Thanks for saying so! I love comics as a medium, and I believe in writing to the medium and the format. Maxwell’s Demons is coming out in 24 page single issues, and each of those issues will be complete story. I want readers to come back because of the content, not because they got a 1/5th sliver of a story that’s unsatisfying on its own. The more you read, the more you’ll see that we’re actually telling one complex narrative, with connections and plot points that modify the issues that come before and foreshadow what comes after, but you can pick up any individual issue and get a complete story. In keeping with “writing to the medium”, future issues will feature a lot of experimentation in layout and the narrative tools that are unique to comics.

VITTORIO: I think this is one of Maxwell’s Demons’ strengths. Each issue is about a given moment in Max’s life, and they can be very far away in time from each other (you’ll see in issue 2!), so having a complete story simply was the best choice of narration.

JOE: Thank you both so much for taking the time to chat with me! Before we wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to add?

DENIZ: Just that we’ve poured our hearts and souls and brains into this book, and I genuinely believe it’s going to be one of the most ambitious and beautiful books you’ll read this year. I hope you’ll give us a chance! Thanks for the opportunity, Joe!

VITTORIO: ’Max’ is the biggest and greatest project I’ve worked on so far and I’m proud of it and my co-workers! Hope you’ll like it!

Maxwell’s Demons hits comic shops October 11th.

Joe Corallo: Diversity, Comics, and the Culture War

There are so many things that have happened in the past week that I’d love to talk about. I’d love to talk about our successful Kickstarter campaign for Mine! which raised $9,360 over our goal. I’d love to talk about what I thought of Runaways #1. Unfortunately, what I need to talk about is Aubrey Sitterson and Diversity and Comics.

Aubrey Sitterson is currently writing one of the G.I. Joe comics over at IDW. He has a reputation for poking the bear when it comes to those on the right who are upset about decisions he’s made in changing characters and the roles of said characters in order to create a more diverse book that will appeal to new audiences; something that properties like G.I. Joe could always use. Last week on September 11th, Aubrey sent off a couple of tweets regarding 9/11. He talked about who has a right to be upset about what happened on that day and questioned the sincerity of some people expressing anger and grief over what happened.

While I agree with Aubrey’s politics in terms of pushing for wider diversity in comics, in comments regarding 9/11 were very inappropriate. They were not comments made to friends in private, or even on a private Facebook page; they were public statements made on his public Twitter account. I have every right to be offended by what he said as do many other people.

Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences. I’ve been disappointed to see some reporting on the left side of comics politics that make it out as if Aubrey Sitterson’s comments didn’t mean what he said they mean, and that by being upset with his words that we are somehow allowing those on the right side of comics politics to score some sort of victory. While I don’t feel that he needs to be fired or anything like that, we don’t have to act like what he said was great and unworthy of criticism either. No one wants to hear your hot edgy take about 9/11 on 9/11. No one.

That being said, if the reason you’re calling for the firing of Aubrey Sitterson is because of Diversity and Comics, then we need to talk about that.

Diversity and Comics is the equivalent of a right-wing pundit for the comics industry; think Alex Jones’ Info Wars. He came to the scene earlier this year and his following has been growing massively on Twitter and YouTube. I hadn’t been paying too much attention to what he was doing, but over time he began to make very personal attacks towards writers I admire like Kwanza Osajyefo as well as personal friends and Mine! contributors Sina Grace, Gabby Rivera, and Mags Visaggio. He has stated that he wants a Comics Culture War. This is a problem that needs to be addressed.

What Diversity and Comics does, similar to what Trump and the far right often do, is to take a universally recognized problem and spin things to find a scapegoat they can rally around using bigotry and guttural emotions. Many people would agree that the comic industry could be doing better, or at least we would like to see it do better. Diversity and Comics takes those who are looking for an answer to why comics aren’t doing better and offers up a solution; it’s SJWs, the far left, women, queer and minority creators. This results in targeting specific creators and vile, personal attacks fueled by bigotry and hate being thrown around in an effort to try to force people out of comics that they don’t like. I don’t care to share any of those attacks in this piece.

People often talk about leaving trolls alone and they’ll just disappear. In this instance, Diversity and Comics has been growing his following this whole year. He has more Twitter followers than ComicMix, a Patreon where he brings in several hundred dollars a month, YouTube channel with over 37k subscribers and over 9 million video views, with many videos over 10k views a piece with hundreds of comments. I don’t see him going away anytime soon, and his followers and subscribers have grown between this past weekend and me writing this. Many people were wrong about how much support a candidate like Trump would have, and you may be wrong about how much support Diversity and Comics has too.

This is a sizeable group of people that exist. They want comics for them; them being cishet white guys and some outliers. In their effort to do so despite having the majority of mainstream comics already catering to them, they have made many creators at best feel unwelcome and at worst feel unsafe. It’s not a sustainable way to operate in a fandom the size of comics.

Some of the people involved will never change the way they feel or operate, and that’s how it is. Some of them got caught up in the rhetoric and maybe don’t truly believe the horribly sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic and Islamophobic words used to promote the ideals of Diversity and Comics, but rather found his answers about the industry to be plausible on the surface. Those people may come back around one day as they see he does not have the real answers to the woes of the comics industry, but rather an agenda to craft a comics fan base in his own image.

Targeted creators do not want you to look at what Diversity and Comics is saying about them and reporting back. Don’t do that. It just hurts people. What you can do is if you see inappropriate behavior, nasty personal attacks, or threats to report them to Twitter or whichever platform you are using and see it on. The comics community is small, but we need to step up and help creators to feel safe and welcome.

Please help all of us to have a safer, more welcoming community for creators now and well into the future.

Joe Corallo: Save Our Ship!

Last week I talked about my opinions and ended with how I might talk about shipping this week, so I am! No, not that shipping. This shipping.

For those of you not in the know, when all those hip, ironic millennials are talking about how they’d “ship that” what they’re referring to is (mostly) romantic relationships between fictional characters. This is the sort of thing we’ve seen throughout history, and before the advent of the internet fans of soap operas are long-running romantic book series did the same thing just without the cool contemporary jargon.

People ship lots of things in those “will they or won’t they?” situations on TV shows. It’s gotten more attention in more geek centric fandoms like Harry Potter, Xena and Star Trek. It gets even more attention in queer geek circles involving same gender pairings as well as triads and other poly relationships. Kirk and Spock from Star Trek is a prominent and early example of pop culture shipping in queer geek fandom.

Personally, I’d like a Cosmic Boy/Saturn Girl/Lightning Lad triad myself, and maybe one day I’ll commission Kevin Wada to draw them on a date together because he’s incredible and I think he’d nail it.

While shipping is often casually thrown around in fandoms, it sometimes leads to great debate. A recent example of that is with fans of the Supergirl TV show. Many who were shipping Kara and Lena were upset when the cast made jokes about that at SDCC earlier this summer. Last year a Steven Universe artist deleted her Twitter account after she was harassed by fans shipping Amethyst and Peridot. Lauren Zuke had shared art that seemed to support the Lapis and Peridot shippers which initiated the harassment.

There are more examples that exist outside of those two of (arguably) shipping gone wrong, but there are plenty of others and there will be plenty more. So what is a shipper to do? What is someone outside of that aspect of fandom do when things like this happen?

There are definitely a few different ways at looking at these sort of events. We should start by acknowledging that shipping is okay. Hell, it’s often encouraged and teased by people working on these different properties. We also have to understand that for many, LGBT+ representation has been next to nothing for most of these fans lives, including myself. While it’s getting better, it still has a ways to go. Many fans, particularly queer fans, use shipping to fantasize about the representation they’re starved for.

Ultimately, these are properties and franchised owned by corporations or at least owned by people that are not the fans who are shipping in question. Creators need the freedom to do what they would like when they can. It’s often why you like the particular property in the first place.

Fans like the ones in the Steven Universe example are not a majority; they’re a loud minority of fans. In the Supergirl example, people working on a show are not obligated to support your shipping of certain characters. Accusations that they are being anti-LGBT+ by doing so is a little off as there are already characters who are in the show.

Yes, they are side characters, and that’s a big part of the problem when we talk about representation and how much still needs to be done.

Creators and people behind different properties need to avoid alienating fans as well. One of the reasons they still get to do what they love is because of the fans. Upsetting fans isn’t necessarily a great model for continued success. Telling fans what to feel and how to enjoy your property isn’t always helpful either.

Intense fandom can be alienating to people too. I know more than a few people, including those in my fellow ComicMix columnist ranks, who aren’t opposed to things like Steven Universe but the rabid fans that pop up in those situations are what gets reported and it makes them want to avoid it. While I do love the show and think it’s important LGBT+ representation particularly for people a bit younger than me, I can’t say I don’t at least somewhat understand why someone would feel that way.

Shipping is A-OK in my book, and you should have at it. Don’t let anyone ever make you feel bad about it. However, if the people behind the property don’t agree with or support your ship, getting mad and attacking people on the internet won’t change that. They can’t make you change your mind or want something different though, so don’t worry about what they say; ship who you like!

Joe Corallo: A Certain Point Of View

Okay, so I haven’t written musings on my feelings on fandom in quite a bit, so here goes nothing!

Marvel’s Secret Empire event has received a lot of flack for continuing the storyline of Captain America as a secret Hydra agent. Much of that flack has revolved around the notion that Cap being associated with Hydra is an affront to co-creator Jack Kirby, a Jewish man and a World War II veteran. By having Cap be associated with Hydra, it goes against the creator’s intent.

But – how much so we actually care about a creator’s intent?

From my experiences, it seems we don’t really care that much about a creator’s original intent if the story is considered good. A prominent example is how Gene Roddenberry was opposed to the idea of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (or at least some reported it as such) and was made anyway after his passing. The show for many Trek fans is one of. if not the best Trek despite its perceived deviation from some of Roddenberry’s core principles as previously expressed in the show.

A prime opposite example would be George Lucas and how his vision, particularly in the prequels, of Star Wars is viewed less favorably than Star Wars: The Force Awakens despite the fact that George was not a big fan of the film. He felt the movie was what the fans may have wanted, but not the direction he would have gone. There are many accounts, books, and documentaries covering the franchise and Lucas’ involvement in Star Wars where some try to take credit away from him by saying the original film was saved by editing and it was Irvin Kershner who made The Empire Strikes Back the success that it was. Is that because that’s ultimately how it really played out, or is there some stretching of the truth to fit a narrative that the fans want because George Lucas fell out of their favor from the prequels?

Returning to comics, there is quite a lot we can discuss Jack Kirby and his Captain America co-creator, Joe Simon. They also created Cap’s sidekick, Bucky, who went on to become a Russian assassin during the Cold War known as The Winter Soldier. I think we can all agree that was not their original intention with the character. Some of Kirby’s other works like X-Men are largely impacted more now by Chris Claremont, John Byrne, and others than by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby; many of which have gone against what X-Men was originally about at its core to much wilder success. Instead of people that were considered freaks trying to get by in a world that hates them, the focus of the X books moved to mostly attractive characters dealing with soap opera type angst. That being said, Jack did do his fair share of romance comics as well.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t put some historical context when we consider these things. It’s absolutely understandable and justifiable for people to react based on those factors with something like Hydra Cap. Perhaps a slightly changed story that struck a different chord with the audience would have had a different result with a similar origin. We can’t know for sure.

One of my favorite Legion of Super-Hero stories is Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, and Olivier Coipel’s Legion Lost. I think it’s perfectly paced and incredibly compelling. It’s hard for me to not want to read all 12 issues in one sitting. That being said, the story absolutely goes against the original intent of the Legion. These characters were made to be optimistic children following in the ways of Superman. In Legion Lost they are a terrified group in a dark future where everything seems grim and dark. Part of why it works is that there aren’t many stories like this. That’s part of what made things like The Dark Knight Returns stand out before a lot of people wanted to copy that success, despite it not being much like the Batman we knew at the time.

While yes, some people do care about what a creator’s original intent is, it often seems to be much more about the quality of the story telling. If you like the story it just doesn’t matter as much. If you don’t like the story, it’s a reason you can draw from in your argument supporting your feelings. It just might not be a very good or persuasive reason.

Thanks for reading my rant! Maybe next week I’ll talk about shipping characters. I have a lot of opinions on shipping characters.

I Spidey

Before we move on to my regularly scheduled column, I have to plug the Kickstarter going for a ComicMix comics collection running through September 15th. It’s got a lot of great talent like Neil Gaiman, Gabby Rivera and Gerard Way. Check it out!

Now that that’s out of the way, let me get back to my hot takes on the comics biz.

Last month I wrote about Spider-Man: Homecoming and how I wish they had more comics the reflected that interpretation of the character. There isn’t really a comic they put out recently that does, but I heard Spidey is kind of close so I picked up the first trade.

Spidey originally hit the stands back December of 2015 at #25 on the sales charts equating to 65,503 copies sold. The idea was to do an out of continuity Spider-Man that went back to basics; Peter Parker is back in high school, he’s back to crushing on Gwen Stacy, he’s back to taking pictures of Spider-Man for JJ, Aunt May is back to struggling to pay her bills, the bad guys aren’t quite as deadly serious, the book is more light-hearted and the stakes are lowered.

The series is written by Robbie Thompson and the first three issues are illustrated by Nick Bradshaw with Jim Campbell and Rachelle Rosenberg coloring. In the first three issues we have run ins with Doc Ock, Sandman, and Lizard. All three of them are doing what you normally expect them to do; Doc Ock is trying to steal technology, Sandman is trying to rob banks, and Lizard is trying to make more lizard people. While it’s all pretty goofy and at least somewhat self aware, Nick’s art is very sleek and his heavy inks with Jim and Rachelle’s colors really make the pages pop. It feels like Saturday morning cartoon quality work. Some of the characters could look a little more different from each other as I felt his Peter Parker and Harry Osborn look too similar, but I also acknowledge that’s a bit overly critical.

After issue three, the series takes a bit of a turn.

Nick Bradshaw has a very distinct style. Once he leaves after issue three, the rest of this trade is illustrated by Andre Lima Araujo. Andre’s style is drastically different from Nick’s. Gone are the heavy inks and Saturday morning cartoon look. In its place are very thin line inks, and the kind of art you may expect in a Top Shelf or Pantheon type graphic novel. Facial expressions and other little details like sweat are more prominent. The teenage angst and awkwardness spills out of the pages more, but the tone is so different from this art style that it’s jarring. On top of all that, in issue six Iron Man teams up with Spider-Man to stop Vulture from stealing things and it felt like such a push to do something that might tie in somewhat to Spider-Man: Homecoming that it immediately sucked me out of the story.

The most disappointing thing about reading Spidey after seeing Spider-Man: Homecoming is seeing how few liberties they take with a comic that isn’t in continuity. They don’t really change up the characters too much, everyone is still white who was white, all the characters are back doing exactly what you already know they do. What’s the point in taking another shot at retelling the early years of Spider-Man if you’re just going to give me everything we already knew and how we already knew it? This is likely at least part of why the series ends at issue twelve, making it only two volumes on trade paperback.

Overall, Spidey Vol. 1 was fun, had a few exceptional moments, but overall fell a bit flat. If you absolutely need more simple Spider-Man stories, you absolutely should pick this up. Or if you have a child in your life around ages 8-12 this is probably the most appropriate Spider-Man title for them to read. Spidey also gets bonus points for not having parallel universes, time travelling, and clones. Especially for not having clones.

It feels good to write about comics I’m reading again. So good even, I may just do it again next week!

Joe Corallo: Still Mine!ing

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mine-logo-300x169-4324410This column going up marks the first full week of our Kickstarter campaign for Mine!, our comics anthology to benefit Planned Parenthood. As of this typing, we’re 44% funded. Not bad for one week.

And a busy week at that. It’s been all hands on deck over at ComicMix and Molly Jackson and I have spent time together than we’d care to discuss. It’s a wild ride, and we still have a few weeks to go.

One of our stops on said wild ride was Flame Con. I’ve been going since the first one in 2015 and have tabled at the past two. This year Molly printed out a lot of fliers, brought recording equipment, signs, and coffee. That last part may have been the most important.

Pat and Amy Shand

We had quite a few of our Mine! contributors at the con including Sina Grace, Justin Hall, Marc Andreyko, Pat Shand, Amy Shand, Mags Visaggio, Aria Baci, Alexa Cassaro, Stevie Wilson, Robby Barrett, Rosalarian, Tee Franklin and Fabian Lelay. Molly took some great pictures with everyone, got fliers to their tables, talked us up at panels, and more. We were also approached by people about potential venues for book release parties and signings. One of the people that approached us about that was our contributor Andrea Shockling, who is illustrating ComicMix own Mindy Newell’s story. It was wonderful to get to see so many friends and meet contributors that I hadn’t previously gotten the honor of doing so.

Flame Con, as always, is a positive experience for me. I’ve tabled both years with Robby Barrett and he always does well with his prints. Steven Universe and Pokémon are both still real popular at this convention.

I realized that one of the things about Flame Con I like so much is they don’t have a lot in terms of people looking to flip comics, or those guys with the short boxes on a cart that try to get creators to sign entire long runs or comics they’ve done. Part of that is because they don’t have a lot of people selling back issues and another part is because they don’t have too many legacy creators you could do that with, but it’s still nice. I hope it stays that way as long as it can.

Okay, I know this is short and I didn’t really get into much, but working on this Kickstarter is time-consuming and I have to get right back to that. Thank you so much to everyone that’s pledged and spread the word so far. Keep spreading the word about the Mine! Kickstarter and I’ll be back next week to complain more about how tired I am.