Author: Martha Thomases

Martha Thomases: Criticizing Criticism

Thomases Art 140418This isn’t what I wanted to write about. I would much prefer to tell you about some hidden gem in the world of comics. Instead, once again, we’re going to slog through the mud.

A while ago, a writer, Janelle Asselin, wrote a critique of a Teen Titans cover for Comic Book Resources. The cover is an incoherent piece of art, and she described her problems with it. Her comments included art criticism (mostly centering on the lack of anatomical reality of the depiction of Wonder Girl, a teenager), sociopolitical criticism and observations on marketing. She suggested that sexualizing characters who are supposed to be minors was more than a little bit creepy. She pointed out is that Teen Titans is a book that has a great deal of potential to reach outside of the typical comics market because it was a popular cartoon series, one with a lot of female fans, and, from a marketing perspective, there was a lot of money to be made by doing a comic that might draw in some of that audience.

So, of course, all hell broke loose.

I didn’t read all 40 windows of comments. Life is too short. After I read a few screens, I got the drift. For one thing, many people don’t understand the difference between marketing and editorial. More to the point, guys don’t like it when you notice they’re being creepy. Especially when they’ve been bragging about the creepiness up until this point.

Example? Here’s a comment from someone code-named Rakzo: “It seems like we can’t enjoy sexy superheroes anymore.” Did you see what he did there? He said that because Asselin criticized the (unnatural and/or surgically enhanced) depiction of a teenage girl, somehow this became an authoritarian edict that was actively prohibiting him from doing something.

Now, there are a lot of things that people do sexually that aren’t my thing. If they announce this in a public forum, I will, if asked, admit to the occasional icks. Obviously, this varies with the fetish. Shoes? Not my thing, but have fun. Scat? Not my thing, please don’t tell me about it and clean up after yourself. Your list may be different from mine. That’s what makes being humans interesting.

Being sexually aroused by under-age girls? Please stop talking before I wonder if you’re a registered sex offender.

A few other commentators called Ravko on this, and replied, “Maybe, but that’s not my point, it seems like the comic community has become a place where being a prude is considered ‘cool’.” Because there is no one more oppressed than the poor pedophile.

While this was happening on CBR, there was a parallel nightmare on Twitter. In her Tumblr. Asselin describes how she was ridiculed and hassled. Her professionalism was called into question. So was her safety. She not only was dismissed as a “disgruntled former employee,” but she was also threatened with rape.

Yeah, that’s right. The proper response, when someone has a different opinion about a work of comic book cover art is to threaten that person with physical violence.

My pal Heidi MacDonald wrote a wonderful piece on her blog, in which she wonders why more men don’t speak out against this kind of hate speech. She’s not asking for censorship, just peer pressure. When a man demeans a woman in our profession simply because she is a woman, other men should call him out. That’s not radical. That’s good manners.

On a related note, I’m going to Awesome Con this weekend, an event I’ve never attended before. (Stop by and say hello!) In keeping with my obsession, I’ve noted that, of the 52 guests announced in the comics and literary field, only eight are women. This is a better percentage than lots of other shows, but still woefully non-representative of the number of women actually working in our industry.

And when I went to see what kind of programming they had, including the number of panels that included women as experts, I was struck by this one: “Part Time Writer, Full Time World. The panelists are all women (Lindsay Smith, Jean Marie Ward, and Janine K. Spendlove). The subject: “How do you balance a full time job, parenting, writing, and *perish the thought* actually having some hobbies or perhaps even a social life? Everyone handles it differently; come to find out tips and advice as to how.”

Gee, I wonder why there are no men on that panel. Obviously, they’ve got the full-time job/parenting/writing/hobby balance worked out. It would be really swell if they’d enlighten us ignorant women about how they do it.

Martha Thomases: MoCCA My Socks Off

mocca_logoAs a writer and a long-time nerd, I’m used to spending a lot of time alone.  Especially after the winter we’ve had, I can go for days not only not leaving my apartment, but not even wearing anything my mother would recognize as pants (sweatpants didn’t count).

And then, this weekend, just as the snow finally melts and the sun comes out, is the MoCCA Festival .  All of a sudden, instead of talking only to my cat (who doesn’t require much sophisticated banter), a lot of people I enjoy will be conveniently assembled in one place.

MoCCA is certainly a lot bigger than it was the first time I went, back in the days when the museum was separate from the Society of Illustrators.  Still, compared to the behemoths in San Diego, Chicago, and even across town at the Javitz Center.  Instead of Hollywood previews and video game demonstrations, MoCCA’s non-comics exhibitors tend to display hand-made crochet monsters or cal figurines.

I’ve seen people I admire on the floor of this show, just as I’ve seen people I admire on the subway and on the sidewalk. But celebrities?  In San Diego and New York, I’ve seen people like Robert Downey, Jr. and Whoopi Goldberg on the floor.  They are easy to spot because they are surrounded by bodyguards.  And they need to be.  Fans have to be kept away or the celebrity will be mobbed, even physically hurt.  This year’s MoCCA celebrity spotting?  Probably the most high-profile will be Macy’s Charlie Brown parade balloon.  Fans aren’t tall enough to maul him.

That’s cool.  At MoCCA, the books are the celebrities.  And this year’s assortment of new books looks especially wonderful.

MoCCA has books for kids and books for grown-ups without either feeling forced, because, for the most part, the people creating the books are creating what they want to read, not (necessarily) what they think the market wants.  MoCCA is fan-friendly in a way that doesn’t require special events for cos-players. Nor do they need security guards to protect women and/or children and/or queer people and/or other minorities from assault.

Sometimes the aisles get too crowded, and sometimes it’s too hot, but it’s a very friendly show, with plenty of good will.  I wish all comic book shows could be this pleasant.

In case that isn’t enough people for me, I’m also going to one of the two big benefits my family enjoys attending every year.  A cancer charity throws a big party that is attended by huge celebrities, like these from last year.

Come by, if you find yourself with nothing to do in the middle of MoCCA.

Martha Thomases: Frontieres Sans Comics

Please forgive me.  I’m hideously jet-lagged.

Also, I haven’t read a comic book nor any of the news sites for more than ten days.  Whatever the scandal du jour is, I don’t have an opinion.

Although I was in Israel for more than a week, I didn’t see a single comic book.  I saw some newspaper cartoons at the Holocaust Museum, and the international edition of The New York Times in Jerusalem had strips, but that was it.

There were no comic book stores in any of the areas I walked through.  I would think this might be some kind of kink in tourist destinations, but the Arab market in the Old City had three yarn shops.  They were clearly designed for the local market (meaning they had no high-ticket tourist bait), so why were there no comics?

Certainly, the kids new about American superheroes.  On Purim, not only did I see various Supergirls but Iron Men, Hulks, Spider-Men and more.  It’s funny to see a kid with side-curls and a Thing t-shirt.  I hope Jack Kirby would be pleased.

One of the most amazing people I met was in Akko, a city in the Western Gallilee.  He had been in the Army, like many Israelis, but he and also been a junkie and had been in prison for a spell.  He got himself together and was working with teens at risk.  One of his projects was to organize a chess club.  Chess is the hip thing to do in Akko.  Arab kids play it.  Jews play it.  They play in tournaments together.

He told the story of a tourist couple, walking in the old section of town late at night, who saw a group of teen boys standing around a dark corner.  The tourists were frightened, but had to walk that way.  When they got close to the boys, they saw that two of them were playing chess, and the rest were watching.

It’s what the cool kids do.

It seems to me that a kid that can learn how to play chess can learn how to plot a story, or at least appreciate a story with a good plot.  If there isn’t a comic book shop in Akko (and, like I said, I didn’t see one), maybe that’s a business opportunity.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to catch up on The Walking Dead.

Photo by Keshet: GLBT inclusion in the Jewish Community

Martha Thomases: Truth, Justice, and the Israeli Way

Supergirl-in-Israel

Purim in Israel is not like Purim in my life. Everyone is in costume. Sales clerks at the airport had on three-cornered Haman hats.

I love Purim. It is the story of a hero who saved the Jewish people. Kids dress up as characters in the story — Mordecau, Haman, King Ahasheares, and the hero, Queen Esther.

In Israel, it is more about costumes than specific characters, more like Halloween, a secular holiday.

I was in Caesarea, an ancient Roman city built by Herod. It’s a great place to take your family on a school holiday. There were kids dressed like knights and princesses and Voltron.

To me, the stars of the day were two gutsy girls, dressed like my favorite Kryptonian. It’s the right way to celebrate the story of a brave woman.

Martha Thomases: Comic books make me a better person

I love comic books.  I have since I was five years old.  I even love comic books I don’t like. I love the way the whole of words and pictures is bigger (and better) than the parts.  I love the way that great storytellers can take a blank piece of paper (or  computer screen) and make anything happen.

Comic books make me a better person.

This point was brought home to me this weekend, when I read this amazing story.  In case you don’t read it (and you should because, like I said, amazing), it’s about an autistic young man who found a way to articulate his feelings and communicate with other people through Walt Disney Studios animated films.

Now, I don’t know much about autism,and it is not my intention here to act like I’m any kind of expert.  However, in reading the story, I was reminded how much I learned about people from popular culture.  The kid in the story used Disney cartoons.  I liked them, too.

But it was comics that really taught me empathy.

Any fiction (and quite a bit of non-fiction) can put the reader into the head of another character, will let you see the world through her eyes.  Comics can do this, and also let you see exactly how difference another being’s experience can be.

For example, when I was a kid, I loved the Legion of Super-Heroes.  I started pretty much when the team did, with three members, two boys and a girl, all white as the driven snow.  I liked Saturn Girl, but she was not a lot like me.  I had trouble imagining what it was like to be her.  However, as I read more stories, the team got more members.  Triplicate Girl had brown hair, just like me.  Shrinking Violet was shy, just like me.

And there was Chameleon Boy, with his orange skin and his antenna.  He was funny. and cracked jokes, just like me.  Brainiac 5 had green skin, and he was so smart that sometimes he annoyed the other kids, just like I did.  I learned that I could identify with someone who didn’t look like me, whose body didn’t work the same way mine did, who came from a place way way different from Youngstown, Ohio.

Superhero comics literally taught me how to see the world through the eyes of others.  What I mean is, sometimes the artist would depict the scenes from a character’s point of view, not from the outside.  Along with captions and thought balloons, it was like being in another person’s head.

Later, when I was in Sunday School and learned about Marrano Jews, I already had some understanding of what it meant to have a secret identity.  I’d seen people who had them who were not Jewish (although most, I would later learn, had been created by Jews).  It helped me to understand other kinds of people who might feel they had to hide their differences from the mainstream.

It’s a little bit roundabout that I made the leap to understanding other humans through Durlans, Coluans and Kryptonians.  I felt what it was like to be alien from actual aliens, not from meeting people from other countries.  I felt what it was like to be different inside from the Thing in The Fantastic Four, not from knowing someone of another race or gender identity.

Does that sound condescending?  That’s not my intention.  I’m trying to explain how a five-year old, or an eight year old — and sometimes a 60 year old — needs stories (graphic and otherwise) to see the humanity in other humans.  That’s what artists do.

And I’m grateful.

Martha Thomases: And The Winner Is…

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Unlike my esteemed colleague Jen Krueger, I watched the Academy Awards all the way through on Sunday (although at the same time I was also fixing dinner, playing fetch with my cat, and incessantly checking my e-mails, and then later trying to find a position in bed so I could see but still be horizontal).

I like to watch award shows for different reasons than most people, at least if I believe the Internets.  All those technical awards that everybody hates?  Those are my favorites.  I love to see someone who is not a celebrity recognized for his or her work.  I love to see them get their moment literally in the spotlight.  I imagine their mothers at home, kvelling.

When you’re in love, the whole world is Jewish.

It’s also great to see ordinary-looking people recognized, people who are not genetically blessed and then prepped by trainers, stylists and plastic surgeons.

So, during one of the snooze-filled production numbers (and if they don’t want the show to run long, why do they do them?), I started to imagine a televised awards show for comics.

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Martha Thomases: Female Pros and Cons, Part 3

Martha Thomases: Female Pros and Cons, Part 3

If you’ve been following my columns this month here and here, you know I’m on a tirade.  I don’t like it that women are still considered an afterthought in the comics industry, especially as our industry is represented at comics and pop culture conventions.

And so, I want to shine a spotlight on various shows, and discuss what they’re doing wrong, and what they’re doing right.

In my last column here, I wrote a lot about ReedPop, the folks who put on big shows in New York and Chicago, among other things.  They only had women creators as about ten percent of their featured comics guests.  Since then, several people have alerted me to the fact that C2E2 is highlighting their female guests in their advertising.  This is a great thing.  I commend them for it.

However ….

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Martha Thomases: Disappearing Doonesbury

Doonesbury is going on an open-ended hiatus. Boo.  Hiss.

In the link above, creator Garry Trudeau says, “I’ve done the strip for 43 years — 45 if you include the college edition [at Yale] — and I’m ready for an extended break.”  He wants to spend his time writing Alpha House, his brilliant series on Amazon Prime that stars John Goodman and Clark Johnson.

But what about me?  What about my needs?

I’ve written before about how much I love Trudeau’s brilliant newspaper strip.  I’ve been reading it almost as long as it’s been running in syndication.  Back before the Internets, my mom would cut each strip out of the paper and mail them to me when I was away at school.  That started when I was in high school.  The Beatles were still together.

Since then, I think I’ve read the strip every day it’s run.  Trudeau took some time off over the years, to take a break, to recharge  his creative batteries.  At first, this caused something of a scandal, since no other syndicated cartoonist had done that before.  The risk of losing income through losing audience and subscribing papers was too high.

Trudeau showed it could be done.  These days, cartoonists take breaks when they need them.

I get that intellectually, and politically I’m with them.  No one should be burned out by over-work, whether that work is drawing Pulitzer Prize-winning comics or making fries.  We each deserve to live a life balanced among responsibilities, joys, family and community.  If we’re going to talk about the “dignity” of work, we should treat all workers with dignity.

Having said that, I really resent this break he’s taking.  He made me fall in love with these characters, to watch them live and grow, and now he’s taking them away.  I’ve loved B.D. and Joannie and Mark and Duke and Mike and especially Zonker as much as — no, more — than some people in my own family.

Trudeau promises they will be back on Sundays, at least for the foreseeable future.  I can read my old collections, and the archives online.  It will be like going off to college, where, instead of seeing your folks every day, you call them once a week.  They are still part of your life, just not as much.

Don’t forget to come home for Thanksgiving, Garry.  We’ll save you a seat at the table.

Martha Thomases: Are Pro Women Con Women?

In last week’s column, I raised the issue of how many women are invited guests at comic book conventions.  As you can see, of the four shows I selected rather randomly (the criteria was that I wanted to go to them because I had heard good things), not a single show had a guest list that was more than ten percent female.

Was I being unfair?  Should I be more systematic?

The short answer is, “Yes.”  There are lots and lots of shows, and somewhere, there must be a few organized by people who want to celebrate the work of women as much as the work of men.  More commercially, there must be some shows that want to attract convention-goers interested in comics that represent multiple points of view, because there is money to be made.

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Martha Thomases: A Call to Alarms

Thomases Art 140207This is the time of year when the ComicMix crew starts to firm up our attendance at various comic conventions in the year ahead. It’s a frustrating process because there are a lot of shows and we can’t go to all the ones we’d like to attend.

It also makes me really angry.

Last year was the first in a long time that I went to a bunch of cons. It was fascinating and fun most of the time, but annoying at others. Twenty years after we started Friends of Lulu, there are still remarkably few women invited to be guests at the shows.

This is odd, because there are a lot of women working in the industry, and (capitalists take note) even more buying comics and tickets to cons. Wouldn’t show organizers like to demonstrate to this market segment that they are welcome and valued?

I, for one, am sick of complaining about it. I’ve decided to do something.

I want to use my position as a busy body on this website to point out conventions that don’t have many women on their guest list. For example, Emerald City Con, which I’ve always wanted to go to and sounds amazing has, on their website, a list of 235 guests, of which 20, I think, are women (I qualify that because there are some names that could be appropriate for any gender).

Here’s another example. Heroes Con, which is one of my favorites, has 48 announced guests, and only four are women.

The Asbury Park Con has announced 54 guests, and three are women. No women listed on any panels currently scheduled.

A press release I received today from Baltimore Comic-Con said, “This year’s previously confirmed guests for the show include: Marty Baumann (Pixar artist); Jeremy Bastian (Cursed Pirate Girl); Dave Bullock (Batman Black and White); Greg Capullo (Batman); Bernard Chang (Green Lantern Corps); Sean Chen (Amazing Spider-Man); Jimmy Cheung (Infinity); Cliff Chiang (Wonder Woman); Frank Cho (X-Men: Battle of the Atom); Richard Clark (House of Gold & Bones); Steve Conley (Bloop); Alan Davis (Wolverine); Tommy Lee Edwards (Suicide Risk); Garth Ennis (Preacher, The Boys); David Finch (Forever Evil); Bryan JL Glass (Mice Templar); Michael Golden (The Ravagers); Cully Hamner (Animal Man); Dean Haspiel (The Fox); Adam Hughes (Before Watchmen: Dr. Manhattan); JG Jones (Green Lantern Corps, Batman Black and White); Justin Jordan (Luther Strode, Green Lantern: New Guardians); Barry Kitson (Empire); David Mack (Shadowman); Kevin Maguire (Guardians of the Galaxy); Ron Marz (Witchblade); Bob McLeod (X-Men: Gold); Tradd Moore (Deadpool Annual); Mark Morales (New Avengers); Dan Parent (Archie, Veronica, Kevin Keller); David Peterson (Mouse Guard); Eric Powell (The Goon); Joe Prado (Justice League); Brian Pulido (Lady Death); Ivan Reis (Aquaman and The Others); Budd Root (Cavewoman); Alex Saviuk (Web of Spider-Man); Andy Smith (Superman #23.1: Bizarro); John K. Snyder III (Zorro Rides Again); Allison Sohn (sketch card artist); Charles Soule (Thunderbolts); Ben Templesmith (The Memory Collectors); Peter Tomasi (Batman and Two-Face); Herb Trimpe (GI Joe: A Real American Hero); Billy Tucci (Shi); Rick Veitch (Saga of the Swamp Thing); Matt Wagner (Grendel); Mark Waid (Daredevil); Bill Willingham (Fables); Renee Witterstaetter (Joe Jusko: Maelstrom); and Thom Zahler (My Little Pony).”

As you can see, that is two women.

There can be a lot of reasons for this. Sometimes, publishers promote their “hot” talent for guest spots. Sometimes, the people planning the show want a particular kind of fan to attend, and that kind of fan has testicles.

However, when there are no women on the guest list, not only does it send the false message that women haven’t achieved prominence in our corner of the entertainment industry, it also reduces the number of women on panels, taking part in our public conversations.

So I’d like to keep track of who is being welcoming to women, and who isn’t. I would also be delighted to report on who is being welcome to other groups who are under-represented, such as people of color and LGBTQ folks. It would be my honor to be your ally.

I’m not asking for a quota at shows. I want to see more women, but I don’t have a number in mind. I’m not making any demands. I’m simply reporting facts, gathered from promotional material (including websites) created by the shows’ promoters.

It is my opinion that if there are more women welcomed as guests at these shows, there will be fewer incidents such as this. As I said in a previous column, “It would be easier for women to be taken seriously by convention goers if they were taken seriously by convention planners. I don’t think we should sit back and wait for others to fix the problem. I think we need to fix it ourselves. Every time we see bad behavior, we should say something, loudly. Every time a convention or industry event ignores women, we should ridicule them for their lack of knowledge about our industry and its future.”

So while I’m trying to keep track of how many women are treated as professionals at shows, I’d also like to also offer my mailbox (martha@comicmix.com) as a place where women can share their unpleasant experiences with disrespectful men and boys at the same shows. With their permission, I’d like to ask show promoters to explain how such things can happen under their auspices. If my editor and I think there is a story, we’ll run it.

All e-mails sent to me will be considered to be “on the record” unless there is a compelling reason to keep it confidential. This means that if, instead of keeping to the spirit of this conversation, you hurl gratuitous insults or threat me, I’ll make it public (including taking it to the authorities if I feel threatened).

Let’s stand up for ourselves and let our voices be heard. The people, united, can never be defeated.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

SUNDAY: John Ostrander

MONDAY: Mindy Newell

A WEEK FROM THIS AFTERNOON: Oh, that would be telling…

 

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