Tagged: Emily S. Whitten

Mindy Newell: Moving Day

I had one hell of a weekend, and I don’t mean that in the swinging wild party, gorgeous male strippers in thongs stuffed with dollar bills, wake up and don’t remember what the hell happened. I mean hell in all its Dante’s Inferno Nine-Circles-Of, sturm und drang blitzkrieg, complete with crying jags and sheer, utterly emotional exhaustion.

We moved my parents to what is called in healthcare parlance a “continuous care retirement community.” They’re still living independently. It’s not quite assisted living. Yet.

Not that it’s a bad place. Actually, it’s quite lovely. Their new apartment is more spacious than the place they left; we didn’t have to get rid of any of their furniture, and by the time I left early yesterday afternoon, it looked like “home,” especially after brother Glenn, daughter Alix and her husband Jeff hung all the pictures and what-nots and set up the phone and the cable TV.

Actually, my brother was there with the cable guy when we arrived, so we didn’t miss any of the Olympics opening ceremony. Of course Queen Elizabeth II, with a little help from Daniel Craig, absolutely rocked the evening. Her outfit was stunning – luved the feathered “fascinator” she wore instead of one her standard hats, which I wouldn’t be surprised to find out her new granddaughter Kate picked out – and watching Her Majesty was lots better than watching Team USA wearing Ralph Lauren by way of a Chinese sweatshop.

Previously, my parents had Cablevision but now they have Comcast, so they’re having trouble figuring out how to use the remote, which is waaaaay more complicated and harder to read than the remote you get from Cablevision and Comcast’s channel guide is waaaay more “busy” (visually) than Cablevision’s, which really, really, sucks when you have macular degeneration like my dad does.

And the apartment overlooks a small lake with swans and a walking path and a gazebo. The staff is superb, caring and friendly, everything you could possibly want for your parents. And several of the residents were sort of a “welcome wagon” for Mr. and Mrs. Newell, accompanying them to their first meals in the main dining room.

But the first thing my mom said to me on Saturday morning, when she woke up in her new home was “I want to go home.”

I gave her a big hug, we talked, she went into the shower. I went outside and sat on one of the lovely rocking chairs on the lovely front porch and had three cigarettes in a row…between tears.

But I basically held it together – hung up their clothes in their new closets, folded the shirts and sweaters in the bedroom furniture, even did the laundry for them while they were went to dinner – until this morning, when I lost it completely. The above-mentioned sturm und drang blitzkrieg, complete with crying jag.

Absolutely the wrong thing to do in front of my parents, who are stressed enough. Pissed off Glenn and Alix, disturbed Jeff.

So I went out for a ride. Went to the nearest WaWa, got a whole bunch of bagels – plain, garlic, onion, and pumpernickel. Checked out some nearby dry cleaners, which is the one service the retirement community doesn’t offer. Stopped at Rite-Aid and picked up some personal sundries for Mom.

And smoked some more cigarettes. (I admit it, I smoked a lot of cigarettes this weekend.)

And popped a Xanax.

So here I am, sitting at the computer, writing this column. Meant to write about moving, what it would be like to be Superman moving all that shit, Terran and intergalactic, to the Fortress of Solitude from his apartment in Metropolis. Wondering what was in Diana’s suitcases when she left Themiscrya. And how many times the moving vans have pulled into and out of the driveway of Avengers’ Mansion, with the constantly changing membership of that organization.

And where the parents of super-heroes – and super-villains, for that matter – go when they’re unable to live on their own.

But I’m just too exhausted and emotionally spent tonight to think about make-believe.

Life got in the way for me this week.

TUESDAY: Emily S. Whitten and 15 Minutes

 

Mindy Newell: It’s All About The Image

The first thing that popped into my mind when I turned on MSNBC’s Way Too Early With Willie Geist – yes, I get up for work “way too early”– and saw, instead of Mr. Geist talking about the Presidential campaign or Jon Stewart’s latest and brilliant riff on the newest foolishness in this nation’s ongoing political foibles, a deployment of cop cars and ambulances flashing red, white, and blue – an ironic picture, actually, now that I think about it – in the parking lot of a movie theatre complex in Aurora, Colorado was, “Oh, shit, now what?”

Then, as I discovered that a mass shooting had taken place at the first showing of The Dark Knight Rises, my second thought was, “Wonder how soon it’ll be before they (the media) connect it to comics?”

Not long.

By the time I got to work, changed into scrubs, and was in the staff lounge sipping my tea and watching the television along with everyone else – which was 6:55 A.M. EDT – FOX News was already claiming that the alleged shooter, James Holmes, had stated that he had done it because “I am the Joker.”

*Note: Never saw or heard this supposed statement repeated on any other TV or radio news show. FOX News stopped running this bit of faux information, but also never retracted or apologized for it.  

“But Heath Ledger’s dead,” said a staff member.

“Oh, shit,“ I said to myself again.  Out loud I said, “The Joker’s not even in this one. Bane’s the villain.”

“Who’s Bane?” another staff member asked me.

“Stupid fucking comic book people,” said another. Then she looked at me and remembered that I had worked in comics and that I write this column. “Sorry,” she muttered.

I bring this up because of Mike’s column.

Yeah, San Diego got a lot of “mainstream” press, but how much of it was about comics? Not much. Most of it, even in Entertainment Weekly, covered movies and television. The stuff that was about comics was of the usual KA-POW! BAM! variety about the fans showing up in costumes. Except for the announcement of a new Sandman story by my friend Neil (Gaiman), which made the pages of the “old grey lady,” i.e., the New York Times.

It doesn’t surprise me that the Times got the story of the origin of comics publishers and creators’ rights wrong.  The paper also got it wrong when it did a story about Gail Simone being the first woman to write Wonder Woman.  Gail called me to apologize, saying that someone (I forget who) had told her “you’re not the first, Mindy Newell was.” She also told me that she tried to tell the reporter this, but that the reporter didn’t want to hear it.

“Of course,” I said. “Because if DC admits you weren’t the first woman to write Diana’s stories, then where’s the publicity for DC, and where’s story for the New York Times to print?”

The point is that the story about Image was a publicity thing, Mike. Their P.R. department did their work, and the New York Times picked up the story. And if – that’s a big if – the Times reporter did his due diligence, as a good reporter should, and discovered that ‘the creators’ rights movement on a publishing level started with Denis Kitchen and his fellow ‘underground comix’ providers’ and that ‘the actual creators’ rights movement pretty much started…when folks like Will Eisner, Bob Kane, William Moulton Marston and Joe Simon and Jack Kirby negotiated their own deals with the existing publishers and retained certain rights and/or received cover billing and/or creator credit and/or royalties’ and that ‘First, Eclipse, Comico, Now, Malibu, and the rest – took all that several steps further. Creators received certain ownership rights, cover billing, creator credit and royalties,’” and if that reporter took this information to his editor, and if his editor had given the go-ahead to write all this…

Well, then, where’s the story about Image?

Well, yeah, the story could have still been about Image, and about how it’s following in the steps of its predecessors, but that not what the P.R. department of Image started.

And also, imho, the Times would not have cared about Image’s twentieth anniversary except for two things: The Walking Dead being such a huge hit on AMC, and the award-winning (rightly so) Neil Gaiman’s much publicized lawsuit with Todd MacFarlane.

‘Cause it’s all about the image.

And just for the record (and this has absolutely nothing to do with Gail herself)…

That article about Gail being the first woman to write Wonder Woman?

It really pissed me off.

TUESDAY MORNING: Michael Davis

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Emily S. Whitten

 

Michael Davis: Aftermath

I’m back from another San Diego Comic Con.

For almost 20 years (since I was five, Jean) I’ve given a party, a dinner, or both. For nearly that long I’ve hosted the Black Panel.

I’ve had some fantastic events to be sure, but I must say 2012 was my best event year ever. My best party, my best dinner and my best Black Panel.

That, if I say so myself, is saying something.

The party and my panel were reviewed by many news outlets including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, Comic Book Resources and the powerhouse Machinima.

Every year after the Black Panel, the haters come out in force. There are black people that hate the panel; there are white people that hate the panel.

Guess what? I win.

Until you haters get your own panel at Comic Con, throw your own party and get reviewed by some of the biggest news outlets in the world you are more than welcome to hate me.

I will endeavor to do what I can to continue to give meaning to your small life. I will continue to do great things so that you can go on the net and bitch that way you will feel important and in your mind you are.

You are a legend in your own mind.

I’ll be happy to comment on your success if in fact you were successful at anything except being a legend in your own mind.

So, haters continue to hate, because I win. Why do I win?

Because you are talking about me.

Who is talking about you?

Tuesday Afternoon: Emily S. Whitten and the Civil War

Wednesday Morning: Mike Gold, Creators’ Rights, and One Big Wrong

 

 

Mindy Newell: I Am So Tired Of This Bullshit

Just read Emily’s column (which is here) about her, uh, misadventures as a woman who loves comics.

*sigh*

Next year will mark twenty years since I first wrote Jenesis for DC’s New Talent Program. And for the last twenty years everything that Emily said last week has been said ad nauseum by me, Kim Yale, Mary Mitchell, Jo Duffy, Marie Javins, Gail Simone, Joyce Brabner… and the list goes on. Every woman involved in the comics world – writer, artist, colorist, letterer, inker, reader – has experienced the overt and covert misogyny typified by Emily’s experience in that comic book store. Every one of us has been on a Women In Comics panel once, twice or more during our professional lives. We’ve all talked about changing people’s attitudes, fighting the good fight, gaining respect. The faces on the panels, the faces in the audiences, they all change, but in truth, nothing changes.

It’s all the same old guano, just ladled out of a different tureen.

I’ve always said that the comics world is a microcosm of Hollywood, and we’ve all heard or read the stories of what it’s like to be a woman in Hollywood: the struggle for respect, for work, for equal pay (well, maybe except for Meryl Streep). But now I’m thinking, maybe I’ve been wrong. I’m thinking right now that the comics world is a microcosm of American society.

After all, this is an America in which a female law student is called a whore on a nationally syndicated radio show because she wants to be able to get birth control pills through her insurance plan. An America in which the House of Representatives just voted for the 33rd time to repeal the Affordable Care Act – “Obamacare” – which improves women’s access to maternity care, covers birth control without the need for a copay, and bars insurance companies from continuing to discriminate against women. An America in which women in the military who are raped are told to “put up and shut up.” An America in which women are told to hold an aspirin between their thighs – Bwha-ha-ha! That’s a humdinger! – to avoid pregnancy.

And it ain’t just comics or Hollywood. Female nurses – that’s me, folks – make 86.6% of what their male counterparts make, even with the same experience and education. And women in general still make $0.77 on the dollar compared to male earnings.

So what do you do about it? Don’t vote for Romney, that’s for sure. No way is he gonna improve women’s rights.

But what about in the comics world? We’re not quite at the level of law or medical school, where female students now dominate the classrooms, but women are more prevalent than ever in the field, as readers and creative folk. And most of them, I am willing to stake money on, are involved in comics because they love comics, not because their boyfriends or their fathers or their brothers dragged them to a comics shop or to the San Diego Comic-Con.

In other words:

I am woman,

Hear me roar,

In number too big to ignore….

Sorry, I forgot, this is the post-women’s liberation era.

Seriously, my advice to Emily and every other woman out there when confronted with a misogynistic geek?

Laugh at ‘em.

And watch their paraphernalia –

Well, to paraphrase George Constanza:

“The water was cold! It’s shrinkage!”

TUESDAY MORNING: Michael Davis Post-Con

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Emily S. Whitten Post-Civil War

 

Mindy Newell: Sundry Summer Ruminations & Contemplations

Saw my niece Isabel last week. She’s finished The Complete Bone Adventures, Volumes 1 and II and is now reading a collection of Calvin And Hobbes. She also told me that she’s in love with the Percy Jackson And The Olympians series by Rick Riordian; she had already read The Lightning Thief, and was deep into the second book, The Sea Of Monsters. Although by now she’s quite possibly onto the third title, which is The Titan’s Curse. She’s a fast reader. Based on her critiques, I have ordered The Lightning Thief from Amazon, and expect I’ll be ordering the rest of the series, too.

Last I heard Watchmen had not entered the public domain, so I will not be buying any of the Before Watchmen books. I think the whole idea stinks. I don’t understand how other creators who profess to respect creator’s rights could sign on to a rotten deal brokered on a broken promise by DC to Alan Moore. It’s a slap in the face to Alan, Dave Gibbons, and John Higgins. Oh, wait. John Higgins participated in this mockery? Says a lot about your character, doesn’t it, John? If you need money that badly, there are other ways to prostitute yourself. And that goes for the rest of you, too.

John Ostrander’s latest column about “bad things he hates that he loves” caused me to go to my DVD cabinet and pull out a couple of movies that I should despise but actually love:

World Without End (1956), in which a rocket ship returning from Mars breaks through the time barrier and deposits four astronauts on an unidentified planet, which turns out to be Earth in the year 2508, 400 years after a nuclear war. The surviving humans live underground and are dying out because the men are scrawny, weak, and unable to perform their manly duties. In other words, they’re impotent. Which sure sucks for them, because all the women of the year 2508 are curvaceous, beautiful, and very, very horny. The reason the humans don’t live on the surface is because of the “surface beasts” – the descendants of those who did not flee underground during the atomic holocaust – roam the countryside. They look like mutated Neanderthals, and all they want to do – well, the men, anyway – is get their paws on the hot tomatoes living underground. Our brave, resourceful – and, of course, American; this was the 50’s, remember – astronauts reinvent the bazooka (“The good ol’ bazooka!” one of the astronauts says with a backslap to his pal) and defeat the mutated Neanderthals, and help restart human civilization on the surface for the Eloi. Oops. Sorry, wrong story. The horny women get the horny astronauts in the end, so everybody lives happily ever after. Except for the impotent guys, I guess.

Queen Of Outer Space (1958) in which ZsaZsa Gabor plays a Venusian scientist on a planet on which once again all the women are curvaceous, beautiful, and very horny. Except for the Queen, who is curvaceous and very horny, but mysteriously wears a mask. But even though Venus is the planet of love, there’s not a man to be found. The story begins when our brave, resourceful, and yes, once again, American astronauts, on board their rocket ship – which looks exactly like the one in World Without End – and on their way to a space station in orbit above Earth, are hijacked to Venus by a strange red ray, which turns out to be the Beta Disintegrator. The ship crashed into snow-covered mountains that look exactly like the snow-covered mountains into which the ship from World Without End end-crashes. Turns out the Queen hates all men, and she imprisons the astronauts. But she’s got a hard-on for the Captain. “A Queen can be lonely, too,” she tells the Captain. The Captain decides to take her up on her, uh, offer to “get information.” This makes ZsaZsa very jealous: “30 million miles away from the Earth,” says one of the astronauts, “and the little dolls are just the same.” Because she has a hard-on for our Captain, too. (No, his name is not James Tiberius Kirk.) Anyway, just as the Queen goes in for the face-suck, the Captain rips off her mask, and – OMG! Her face is burned and scarred and horribly mutated! “Men did this to me,” the Queen says with hatred in her voice. “Men and their wars.” Then she seductively turns to the Captain. “You said I needed the love of a man,” she whispers as she puts her arms around him. “If you will be that man, I will let you all go.” But the Captain is trying not to vomit. Dumb ass. Put a bag over her head and do it for the flag. So the Queen sends him back and aims the Beta-Disintegrator at Earth. Talk about a woman scorned! You really have to see this movie!

It really sucks when your parents are sick.

Here’s the truth. The only thing I really hate about women’s costumes in the comics is that I’m not buff enough to wear any of them.

Political diatribe for the day: Vote for Romney, and we really will be living in the world of American Flagg! (We’re almost there now.)

I can wait for the Garfield/Stone Amazing Spider-Man to hit DVD. I loved the Maguire/Duns Spider-Mans. Perhaps if TPTB had moved the story forward, merely replacing Maguire/Duns with Garfield/Stone, I would have more interest.

Just finished The Lost Wife, a heartbreaking, “based-on-a-true-story,” and beautifully written story about a husband and wife, both Jewish, separated by World War II. He gets out of Europe, she is first is sent to Theresienstadt and then Auschwitz. Highly recommended!

In the middle of The Hunger Games. Loving it. Have to recommend it to Isabel.

TUESDAY MORNING: Michael Davis

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Emily S. Whitten

Michael Davis: Spider-Man, Spider-Man does whatever and who cares…

Am I the only one that could give a flying fish about the new Spider-Man movie?

I have no desire to see that film. You would think that a Spider-Man junkie like myself would be counting the days until it opened.

Nope. It could have opened already and it would still not be a blip on my must see radar. It would be great if the reason I have no yearning to see this film is because The Avengers was so good it made waiting to see any other superhero film unattractive.

Nope. I still can’t wait to see the next Dark Knight movie.

I simply have no desire whatsoever to see the new Spider-Man film. Is it the new actor that turns me off? Maybe, in the clips I’ve seen I have none and by none I mean no emotional attachment to him. Granted, I only get to see snippets of him in coming attractions but in those snippets I can garner no interest in this guy.

None.

Perhaps I’ve gone extreme fanboy and by extreme fanboy I mean, perhaps Marvel Studios has done something that just does not sit right with me so I must go to a dark fan place.

I’ll admit to being a fanboy and I’m mighty proud of that distinction, but being an extreme fanboy is something I’d never thought I’d succumb to. The difference between fanboy and one who is of the extreme kind is this; an extreme fan boy will spend endless hours, debating, blogging and otherwise conversing about whatever is bugging he or she. A regular old fan boy will just enjoy the ride and revel in all that is his or hers pop culture drug of choice.

I think with regards to the Spider-Man movie I have made the move to the dark side of fan boy domain and I think I know why. The more I think about it the more I’m certain what has brought me over to the dark side of fandom.

The side in which I must make my ire known to all that want to listen and more importantly those who don’t want to listen and more importantly still is to get my message of disgust out to those who simply could give a shit about any to this stuff.

That is the essence of the true extreme fanboy; talking passionate shit about something most of the world could give a fish about!

So, what has gotten me to extreme fan boy status over the Spider-Man movie? What has sent me from can’t wait to I could give a shit?

Gwen Stacy.

Gwen Stacy is in this retelling of the new Spider-Man movie.

Why? Oh why is that?

There were plenty of places to take Peter Parker after the third movie but someone had the bright idea to dig up Gwen Stacy. My beloved Gwen Stacy.

Why? Just so I can watch her die again? Everyone knows that Capt. Stacy, Gwen’s police chief dad and Gwen bite the damn dust. Well every real fan of Spider-Man knows that. I guess killing Gwen all over again for the delight of the millions who don’t know is O.K.

O.K?

It’s O.K. to kill the first non-real woman I ever loved?

Well, it’s not O.K. with me. No, I have not seen the movie nor do I have any insider knowledge that Gwen will be killed in the movie but whatever other reason is there to jump back in continuity?  What other reason is there to bring back dear, sweet, lovable, I’m old enough now to tap that ass, Gwen?

I can’t think of any reason except Sony and Marvel studios desire to reinvent Spider-Man and bring in some Twilight or some other pussy franchise’s fan base. What better way then getting you to take your girlfriend to a superhero movie and get you to cry like a little bitch when Gwen dies?

That, my friend, is just cold blooded. Or, to put it another way, that’s Hollywood.

So, no I won’t be seeing this Spider-Man. If I’m wrong and Gwen survives I still won’t see it. If she survives this film you can be damn sure she will be toast in the next one.

I’m not going out like that-seeing her neck broke when I was a little kid was enough for me.

Sony, Marvel you killed Gwen Stacy!!!

You bastards!!

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Emily S. Whitten, real girls, and costumes!

WEDNESDAY MORNING: Mike Gold Follows The Kids!

Mindy Newell: Are Comics Genetic?

Is reading comics genetic? Is there a gene that dictates whether or not you’re going to be a comics lover?

I don’t remember when I first fell in love with reading comics. Hell, with reading, period. Just got off of the phone from my mom, who said that by the time I was in kindergarten I always had my nose in a book, which puts me at about four years old. She also said that I was reading at the third grade level

“What about before kindergarten, Mom?”

“You would go to our bookshelves and pull out a book and turn the pages and talk to yourself as if you were reading.”

“Was I?”

“I don’t know, I don’t remember. Oh, and you loved to look at the illustrations.”

“You mean picture books?”

“No, I mean the illustrations in Last Of The Mohicans and Alice In Wonderland and The Three Musketeers. You got milk stains over our Book-of-the-Month Club leather-bound copies with the N.C. Wyeth drawings and drove your father nuts.”

I still get food and drink all over my books.

“What about comics?”

“I just remember that you always read them.”

“That was in the ‘50’s, right? Weren’t you worried that I was going to corrupt my poor innocent brain?”

“No. You were reading, that’s what was important.”

“But did you ever read comics? Did Daddy?”

“Nope. Neither of us.”

“And Glenn never read them, either, right?”

“You were the only one.”

Are comics genetic? Is there a gene that dictates whether or not you’re going to be a comics lover?

Just got off the phone from Alixandra.

“Hey, Alix, you weren’t really a comics reader when you were a kid, right?”

“Nope. Well, Betty And Veronica.”

“But I don’t remember you reading them the way I do, right?”

“Right. But I loved reading.”

“But not comics. Not like me.”

“No.”

So reading comics isn’t genetic. There is no gene that dictates whether or not you’re going to be a comics lover.

But…

Several weeks ago I went out to dinner with the family – mom, dad, my brother and sister-in-law, and my soon-to-be 12 years old niece, Isabel.

She had Jeff Smith’s The Complete Bone Adventures Volume 1 on her lap, and was trying to surreptitiously read without getting caught or getting food on it.

I was so impressed. Not for trying to sneak reading while out to dinner with others – that’s not exactly polite social manners, is it? – but for having discovered Jeff Smith’s totally cool story on her own.

I love Bone, too, Isabel.

Isabel loves comics. Has it been my influence? I’m not sure. Meaning, what came first, the chicken or the egg? I remember giving her a full year’s worth of Louise Simonson’s Power Pack for her 5th birthday – I think it was her 5th birthday, this is what happens to your brain on menopause; girls, don’t do menopause if you can avoid it – but was it because I knew she loved comics or was it because I wanted to turn her on to comics?

She has a huge collection of Archie, including the graphic novel that collects stories from the beginning to the present. Favors Veronica over Betty (she looks like little Ronnie, but she hates when I tease her about it) and thinks Reggie is mean, Jughead is dumb, and Midge and Moose are cool. Izzy really likes the Archie Marries Veronica/Archie Marries Betty storyline. But she’s not so much for the “new look” – she goes for the classic.

Me, too.

I’ve got a comic book she made for me when she was six. It’s about a vampire. Isabel loves vampire stories.

Me, too.

So reading comics is genetic? There is a gene that dictates whether or not you’re going to be a comics lover?

Damned if I know.

TUESDAY MORNING: Michael Davis Expletive Deleted

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Emily S. Whitten, Women, and Costumes

 

 

Michael Davis: Negro, please.

Over the years I’ve had quite a few young black creators insist they should be invited to sit on the Black Panel. For the record, that has never worked and most likely never will. I say “most likely” for two reasons: I try to never say never and I would be happy as a mofo to find someone so damn talented that I put them on the panel at first sight.

The Black Panel, for those unaware, is the African American pop culture forum I founded more than 20 years ago (when I was five, Jean) and for over a decade it has been a mainstay at Comic Con International. One of my pet peeves with some young black creators is they think they are owed something.

The following is typical of how I’m approached…

A few months ago I was walking the floor at Wonder Con with Denys Cowan and a young black artist noticed my nametag, came up to me and insisted he should be on the Black Panel. After he spent a good five minutes or more telling me how good he was I asked him if he felt he was good enough and established enough to be on a panel with Denys Cowan.

He had no idea who Denys Cowan was.

I told him he was not ready and he asked how could I make that decision without looking at his work. I said when he figured that out then maybe he would be good enough for The Black Panel.

A young African American artist who does not know who Denys Cowan is?

Negro, please.

The Black Panel is a forum of truly extraordinary people who have done extraordinary things within the African American media space. The panel is set up so these amazing professionals can share their insights with their fans and with young creators.

This year I expect more asshole haters on the net because there are two white people on the panel. The Black Panel is not just for black people. It’s for people who have done noticeable work within the African American media space. Over the years I’ve had plenty of blue-eyed soul brothers on the panel. This year will be a first as we welcome our first blue-eyed soul sister to The Black Panel.

I’ll see if I can let my ComicMix readers in on the panel participants before Comic Con releases the info on their website. If they won’t mind I’ll post the names here. The panelists are some of the coolest I’ve ever had and I’ve had some cool ass panelists.

Check them out for yourself at theblackpanel.com.

If by chance you are the young artist I spoke to at Wonder Con and you still can’t figure out what I meant when I said you were not ready, here’s some clues:

  1. Know your industry.
  2. Do your homework.
  3. Show some respect.
  4. Shut the fuck up and listen.

If you do that, come find me after the Black Panel and I’ll spend some time telling you how to get to the next level.

Oh and one last thing. Don’t suck.

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Emily S. Whitten and that Deadpool Thing

WEDNESDAY MORNING: Mike Gold Grabs The Kids

 

Michael Davis: Once You Go Black, Part Four

I got the idea for this series when I received a call and was told a project of mine was turned down because “Black doesn’t sell.” I was told to my face more than once by a certain asshole “when it comes to entertainment, black means death.”

Really, Bruce? How you living now, motherfucker? I’m going to guess it’s nowhere as good as I’m living, bitch.

Yeah, I tend to hold grudges but in my defense I’ve been pretty good lately. I’ve been known to rant like a mad man from time to time. In fact when I first started in the industry I did and wrote some shit that got me tagged as the “bad boy of comics.”

You know what I did upon hearing that? I changed the name of my studio from, Michael Davis Studios to Bad Boy Studios and, yes, this was before Diddy.

Why embrace what many think is a negative? Anger. I was very angry back in the day. I figured if people wanted a bad boy I’d be a bad boy.

How that work out for me?

Very well, actually.

Now, young creators, just don’t think you can develop an asshole, take no prisoners, attitude and the world will beat a path to your door. That road is paved with the bodies of many mofos who think that personality equals talent. It does not. People put up with Harlan Ellison’s shit because Harlan is the real deal, or to put it plainly, Harlan is one of the greatest writers to ever pick up a pen: Harlan once told Frank Sinatra to fuck off.

This was during the time when Frank was not only the biggest star in the world but he was also hanging out with more than a few wise guys, if you know what I mean. Harlan takes no shit and he calls a spade a spade. Harlan’s opinions are bigger than life but there is not a single publisher on this planet that would not love to publish a Harlan Ellison project.

But if you think that just being a bad ass is a great way to secure a rep and thus secure a career, you are an idiotic asshole or a Right Wing radio host and that shit will not work in comics.

How did (do) I get away with the occasional rant? Because I deliver the goods. I’m real good at what I do and I generate revenue and it’s all about the revenue.

I’m nowhere, even remotely in Harlan’s league but the people I work with know what they are getting with me and either they don’t care about my rants or they don’t think about them.

Why don’t they care? Would you care if the million dollars someone was bringing you were old or new bills?

It’s all about the money folks. It’s all about the Benjamins. It’s all about the cash. It’s all about revenue.

One day I realized that even though it had worked for me, anger was not the only way to fight against what I thought were injustices some wanted me to endure.

I figured I’d just cool out and not let little things bug me. Why be angry?

So over the past few years I’ve been mostly “rant free” on the comics and entertainment front. Politics is another matter; I regularly lose my mind about that over at www.MichaelDavisWorld.com.

While working on this series of articles I started to get angry. Angry like the Michael Davis of old. The Michael Davis of old that was the “I don’t give a fuck” Michael Davis.

My plan when I started writing these series of articles was to make my case in parts one through three and bring in some of my heavyweight black entertainment friends to underscore that black does indeed sell in this, my final installment.

So much for the plan.

I was on the phone with the director Bill Duke when the anger I’ve tried my best to curtain over the last few years returned with a fury. I told Bill I’d call him back and sat down to write this last segment and, yes, the old Michael Davis is back.

Back and I’m mad as fuck.

Hollywood’s unofficial “Black doesn’t sell” attitude is simply bullshit and the more I think of it the madder I become.

It’s all about the revenue and black properties and people generate revenue in every category of entertainment. Hell, in music and sports we are the rule, not the exception. You don’t see anyone saying that the white players in the NBA who fail is because they are white. No, they fail because they are not good enough, just like the black players that fail.

Duh.

I don’t have to call my Hollywood black powerbrokers to underscore that black does indeed sell. Take a look at what has been done across all entertainment areas. Every single one of the people on my list to call has made a grip in Hollywood and not just selling to black audiences. The Cosby Show was the most successful sit-com on television. Will Smith and Denzel Washington are two of the biggest box office draws ever. In fact, Samuel L. Jackson is the highest grossing film actor…ever.

Black doesn’t sell? Give me a fucking break.

Black projects sell like crack… if done right. That’s goes for every damn project in Hollywood. If done well, the project will do well.

Every time a black project does not do well Hollywood makes black creators in effect show their papers like a freed slave at a southern checkpoint. The black President of the United States of America has been vetted by the CIA, FBI and scores of other agencies. He has showed his birth certificate time and time again and yet some on the right continue to insist he show his papers, again, like a suspected slave stopped in the middle of Alabama in 1850.

Well it’s not 1850 and Hollywood is not Alabama. It’s 2012 and there’s a brother in the White House and Samuel L. Jackson is the highest grossing film actor… ever. If the leader of the free world and the king of the box office are both black don’t insult the intelligence of the people who buy those tickets you sell Hollywood with your “Black doesn’t sell” lie.

I am under no misconception that the Far Right inbreeding bastards will stop the attack on the President, but I still harbor some hope that the entertainment industry and hell yes this includes some comic book publishers will stop condemning projects because some black projects have failed, its stupid and has to stop.

In comics it’s not just a black thing either, projects that feature women fail and that’s reason for some publishers to be wary of the next project featuring women no matter how bad ass the idea is.

That’s just stupid.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

The new Static Shock series was not cancelled because Static was black. It was cancelled because Static was fighting a giant fucking fish.

Grow the fuck up, Hollywood. It’s all about revenue and any project that succeeds or fails in this day and age does so on its creative merits or many other factors, bad marketing, horrible word of mouth, opened on the same weekend as Avengers II.

Reasons for a movie failing or succeeding are many. Making the reason black people is a bullshit reason. Granted if there is ever a movie called Kill All White People and it starred an all-black cast of white people hating black militants and the story line was to kill all white people and that movie failed then Hollywood would have a point.

Then, yes, if that was a real project, black meant death… on more than a few levels, if you think about it.

I know how hard Hollywood hates change, so here’s my idea. Ready, Hollywood?  Keep that silly black doesn’t sell bullshit line when a film that features a black storyline or actor in a leading role fails. Keep that but the next time Will Smith or Sam Jackson star in a film that makes a zillion dollars say the reason it did so is because they were black.

I’d be OK with that, but somehow I don’t think you would be.

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Emily S. Whitten

WEDNESDAY MORNING: Mike Gold

 

Mindy Newell: Success And Failure, Part 2

We pick up the story a few months after my parents pulled me out of Quinnipiac and sent me off to work to “learn the value of a dollar.”

I joined the drones commuting to lackluster jobs on Wall Street. Got a job as a receptionist. Had my first experience with sexual harassment from the big boss, though it wasn’t called that back then and zero-tolerance policies were still twenty years in the future. Didn’t crumble. Called the guy an asshole and quit. A good feeling. Went home. Worried about what the parents would say. Told them I got laid off. Said I would start looking for a new job “tomorrow.” Picked up my battered copy of Exodus (by Leon Uris) and started reading. Started crying instead. (Failure). Coincidentally the movie version of Exodus was on television that night. I watched it. Paul Newman as Ari Ben Canaan. Oscar-winning score.

Went to sleep. With the soundtrack of Exodus and Paul Newman’ blue eyes – hell, just everything Paul Newman – keeping me company in my dreams.

The next day I told my parents I needed a little time, I’d start looking for a new job on Monday. Went to the laundromat, and while my clothes were spinning in the washer I finished Exodus. Also decided that I was going to go to Israel. Live on a kibbutz. Meet my own version of Ari Ben Canaan and marry him. Raise a bunch of sabras. (Look it up.)

I was still just along for the ride.

Now my family was never especially “Zionist.” Supportive of Israel? Of course. But I once asked my grandmother – whom family legend says walked from Poland to Germany with two little kids in tow (my Aunt Ida and Uncle Philly) and hiring herself out as a laundress, cook, whatever, to make money for the journey to Hamburg, where they took passage to America – why she didn’t go to Palestine instead. “Why would I go from a country where the Poles shot at Jews to a country where the Arabs shot at Jews just to live in tents and dirt?” she scoffed. “Here you can live like a mensch.” And when my dad, who was a fighter pilot in WWII – flew Mustangs in the CBI for you WWII history buffs out there – was approached by the fledgling – well, basically non-existent back then – Israeli Air Force to train pilots, he and my mother were not willing to give up their American citizenship, which was a real possibility at the time.

So when I announced that I was going to go to Israel for six months, live on a kibbutz, study Hebrew – no one in the family was exactly jumping for joy. Especially Grandma. But they knew I was unhappy – hell, they knew I was “lost” before I did – and were questioning their decision to pull me out of school, so, well, being good and loving parents, they said okay.

I hated Israel.

Yes, I must be the only Jew in America that hated her visit to the land of her forefathers.

Well, let me rephrase that a little. I didn’t hate Israel itself. I couldn’t stand the Israelis I met. The kibbutz I landed on was Shefayim, one of the original kibbutzim (which was cool), founded by Russian Jews imbued with Theodore Herzl’s dream, sitting on the Mediterranean coast. It was beautiful, but the kibbutzniks were another matter. I found them incredibly arrogant and judgmental towards America and the Americans. They were always saying really nasty things about the United States to me and the other Americans in my group of starry-eyed wanderers. And at the same time, they were trying to recruit us to move permanently to Israel. All they ever said to us Americans was that we were Jews who happened to be American and we belonged in Israel. All I ever said back to them was “No, I’m an American who happens to be a Jew, thank you very much.” Okay, so that didn’t exactly endear me to them, but c’mon. I wasn’t going around telling them that I thought the way they treated the Palestinians was shitty. I just wanted to learn some Hebrew, pick oranges in the orchards and milk the cows in the barn, and take side trips to Jerusalem and Haifa and Tel Aviv and the Sea of Galilee, explore the country of my ancestors.

I wanted to belong somewhere. I hadn’t belonged at Quinnipiac. I sure as hell didn’t belong at that job on Wall Street. I had wanted to belong in Israel.

But I didn’t.

After two months I called my parents and told them I was coming home. My father said, “Don’t come home. Fly to Paris or Rome or London or Madrid, instead. Call me when you land, I’ll send you money through American Express. Take advantage of being there. See Europe.”

An incredibly generous – and loving – offer.

But what I heard was “Don’t come home.”

Feeling like I didn’t belong anywhere.

Feeling like an utter failure.

To be continued…

TUESDAY MORNING: Michael Davis, black in back

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Emily S. Whitten discusses creativity and togetherness

 

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