Hello, and welcome to this episode of Superhero Ethics. Friends, February is a very busy month for us for a lot of reasons, but one of the cool things that’s happening is this is Black History Month, and if you were on TikTok, one of the creators, I hope you’re following, is Jay Panumbra. He’s doing a great series every day on different black comic book characters and things like that as part of Black History Month, and I just saw this, and I was like, this is something we gotta have for our podcast. Jay P, so good to have you here.
I appreciate you having me. Well, so here’s my question. We’ve had Black Panther movies. We’ve had Miles Morales movies. So we’re done, right? We’ve got enough black characters. Like, it’s all, we’re not worrying about it?
Speaker 2: Lord, it’s insane because there was even someone who came through my chat two days ago, I was on stream, and they were like, where’s the static movie? And it’s like, you don’t support the comics, so why would you need it?
Question mark? It’s an interesting dichotomy we’re in right now where it’s like, people want to see representation, but at the same time, the studios don’t see value in it because they don’t believe they’re gonna get another Black Panther. They don’t believe they’re gonna get another Miles Morales.
And in their minds, currently from Disney’s perspective, Captain America, Sam Wilson didn’t work, but they sabotaged it in every way, shape, and form. So if anything, their metrics are skewed. And it’s very weird because it’s kind of the same thing that you see with comics right now, where I had a great discussion with Joseph Illidge, like a well-known milestone editor on my podcast last week, and he even said, their evidence is skewed because they look at past metrics, but they’re not educating about the pre-order system. They’re not educating about how everything works when it comes to the comic book shops. They’re not promoting more, using social media more. So they’re saying, oh, well, you guys didn’t support the last one, but they didn’t know about the last one. And it ends up being a very interesting discussion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is kind of like saying, well, people clearly don’t want women superheroes, because they didn’t go to Madame Webb. Like Madame Webb was a horrible movie. Captain America, New World Order, was doing eight million things that were wrong with it that had nothing to do with how much everyone likes Anthony Mackie of Sam Wilson. Exactly.
Speaker 2: It’s very interesting because like they tried so hard to bury that from the Israeli drama to the random shoving in of the Hulk storylines when they could have just did a Sam Wilson movie. It’s very complicated.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. And it does seem like today, the studios are looking for every kind of excuse they can to say, well, no, it’s not that there’s any racism here, we’re certainly not thinking about racism the fans.
They just didn’t want this, you know? Which is funny because Black Panther is still one of the highest grossing superhero movies. One of the highest grossing movies of all time.
The Miles Morales Spider-Man movies have been incredibly successful. And so one of the things that I like about your stream is, you know, I’m not really a comic book guy. I’m mostly, you know, I care about when it gets to the TV. But I do know that one of the things that gets these things to the TV screen, to the movie screen, is when there’s a big following. And you’re talking a lot about how we need to be doing more to build those followings of characters of color, pretty black characters, but also know you care about all kinds of other characters that don’t get seen a lot. Talk to us about that process because I know I’ve learned a lot just hearing your TikToks about what the business of comic books is like and how people who are, you know, going to the comic book store to pick something up, we actually have a lot of power in this, but we just don’t know it all the time.
Speaker 2: Most definitely because like it’s definitely an interesting situation where like people have a multitude of different situations when it comes to comic shops, where they either have a bad environment because comic book shops are not the safest place for women, not the safest place for people of color, queer individuals, like yourself and myself, they don’t always have the safest environments in those comic shops because while, yes, there are a lot of progressive shops, like we have entered a more progressive age, there are still the basement-dweller stereotypes.
The individuals who felt like their domain was only their domain for so many years in reality and never was, and they just believed it to be so because they felt like they were the shut-ins, the in-sales, et cetera. So that creates a different like situation in that right. But then you look at how comic books are using such an archaic system where for years it was just, oh, we’re ruled by a monopoly. Diamond distribution was a monopoly that controlled the comic book industry for decades because back in the 80s and 90s, Marvel and DC, these different publishers messed up how they were doing distribution. Marvel even tried to buy a distributor and it burnt down and they went back to Diamond, like hand-opened, like please help us.
So everyone just kind of dealt with having one distributor for so many years and even to the point they were like telling the government, please don’t look into this, it will ruin the industry, don’t do this, but then Diamond declared bankruptcy right when COVID hit and that forced everyone to have to figure out what they were gonna do next. But even now it’s the same system that it was previously where you have to go onto a website, pre-order all your books. So when you walk into a comic shop, you walk up to the shelf, pick a book off the shelf, that sale has already been counted. That sale has already been considered because it’s the same thing with like bookstores and magazines and whatnot.
It’s the same process, but it’s not changing. And that’s creating a very interesting situation where yeah, sales exist, but those sales only have been counted because the comic store ordered what they thought they were going to get. So like you’ll hear different comic bookstores say, oh, I ordered one of such and such character and however many of my subscribers, that subscribed to that book and I put one on the shelf. And it’s like, then you look at a book like Batman where obviously Batman’s gonna have 10, 20, 30, et cetera. So Batman’s going to have plenty on the shelf. The most recent comic book event will have books on the shelf. But even we saw last year, Green Arrow was canceled after starting out as a mini series. The sales were so good, it got turned into an ongoing and then it got canceled. And everyone’s like, what happened to this book? What’s going on? And long time writer Scott Snyder caught a lot of flack on Twitter because he said it was sales. But what he didn’t say was it was the pre-order’s fault. And that is a very interesting situation.
Speaker 1: So a couple of things I want to get into here. First is in terms of the bad reputation of the stores. I have to take your word for it because I don’t go to comic book stores.
I go to stores where I play Magic the Gathering on Friday nights and those are oasis of goodness for people of color and women. Are you sure about that? I’m being very sarcastic here.
Yeah, no, it’s the exact same thing and we’re dealing with the same stereotype. And I managed a store that for years we got in Madison, Wisconsin, like a huge college town, second biggest in the country. We got all of the people who weren’t straight white men coming and we went all of those too, but we had all the folks who weren’t that because we did crazy things, like washed the bathroom once a day.
And didn’t let guys get away with saying sexist things. Like a girl sits down next to them and say, oh, did you come here with your boyfriend? Like with so many stores aren’t doing that. But one thing I understand is distribution system here. So if I’m a comic book store owner and I hear there’s some new title out and I think my customers want to buy it, but I’m not sure. So I order 20 copies and then no one buys it. I can’t send them back to the distributor, right?
Speaker 2: I’m just stuck with those 20 copies. You’re stuck with that. Like what you’ll see a lot of the time is stores will have back issue bins. That’s what the term back issue became very popular because after the first week, it’s no longer the new release.
So it’s a back issue now. So you’ll see plenty of stores have giant long boxes. Like I have a long box sitting here where I can keep all my books. And you’ll see tons of them rows alphabetical order where they have all their back issues. Either they didn’t sell or they bought too many or sometimes people who are subscribers end up not ever picking up their pull list. So those get turned into back issues.
That becomes a thing. And that’s a whole different conversation about abandoning a comic book store and how that kind of cost some stores to go out of sale and shut down. But it’s like, that’s kind of the situation where there’s a lot of like, like burden of guilt on the comic book store as well because they have to be the ones trying to figure out their audience.
Try to figure out how to figure out, like I’ll even like use a match of the gathering metaphor. Like you have to figure out how many people are coming to the pre-release every week. How many people are coming to the pre-release?
How many boosters are you gonna need? You have to judge an entire, and not only that, you have to judge how many people are coming to the pre-release each week for 20, 30, 50 sets of cards. And that’s a whole like different situation when it comes to that where it’s like, you have to figure out, will these individuals like this book, will they care about this book? Do I even like invest in this book?
And if not, will I buy a couple of them because someone might come in and try it? Sure, but a perfect example is there was this brand new image comic that just came out this week called Dork. It was a little cute story, but it’s like the artist’s cute, but it’s actually pretty graphic and like violent and whatnot, cause it’s like a fantasy story.
And cute little half orc, half dwarf, little dude, just running through life trying to survive. And it blew up and no one expected it to blow up where so many people like enjoyed it. Oh my God, everyone has to have this and not enough people ordered it. So now it’s like, oh, well, guess we’re going back for a second printing. And it’s a whole different conversation in that regard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I can see that being a real problem because like you’d think these things really depend on word of mouth, you know? Like maybe you’re the one person who orders it, but then you really love it. You make a TikTok about it. Three new people are now like, oh, well I want to go check it out.
But then they go to their store and they don’t have it right there. So yeah, I can see how, and then like when you talk to the magic thing, that’s a perfect example because like, you know, magic of gathering has been doing things like crossing over with other universes. So we did a thing with like Lord of the Rings, for example. Yeah, I was like, yeah, we had a real question because it was, well, how are we going to get Lord of the Rings people who aren’t necessarily magic people to come in?
What Wizards did was a huge ad campaign. I imagine for the store, if they’re like, well, we don’t have many black people walking through the door, but if we get this black comic, maybe we’ll get that. But if no one’s letting people know to come to our store because there’s this new comic hero coming out, it just becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, it sounds like.
Speaker 2: Or like what even happened last year when we saw the new Superman movie come out? Mr. Sharrif, it was like the breakout store. He’s black, he’s very autistic coded, everyone loves him, everyone’s enjoying him as a character. But then only to come to find out that there’s a brand new Mr. Sharrif mini series coming out from DC that already has two issues released, hardly any stores ordered it. So everyone’s like, I would have read Mr. Sharrif.
Where do I jump in? Oh, he’s only had like one ongoing that was canceled back in 2011 after like eight issues. And he’s never had an ongoing ever again. What am I supposed to do? Oh, you can go read like old issues of the Justice Society of America from the early 2000s. What? Like it’s a lack of logic on not only the comic book stores, but DC as a whole, where they don’t think ahead of time to plan these things. They don’t think, maybe we should like give people more than six months worth of like 10, 15 minutes of entertainment. Because the average comic is between 10 to 20 minutes of entertainment for about three to $5. So that ends up being a really different conversation of like, if this really is monthly, how much enjoyment is someone going to get out of this down the road?
It’s a constant like like in a Linux game where they’re trying to figure it all out. And if they’re not seeing profit off of it, or they’re not seeing any sales metrics off of it, they don’t value it. And it’s funny because like I was interviewing Morgan Hampton, the current writer of Green Lantern Core, and he kind of put it best where it’s like, I don’t think DC is doing it maliciously. They just don’t care because they’re looking at the metrics and not seeing value.
So they’re like, whatever. That’s why I even kind of made the meme off of the famous like Kanye West’s stint from back during Katrina where it says George Bush doesn’t care about black people. I put DC comics doesn’t care about black heroes because it genuinely is a situation of like, if they don’t care because they don’t see value in it, you’re not giving them a reason to see value in it.
Speaker 1: And I think that’s such an important point because I think it’s easy to look at this and someone will take away and go, what you think DC is full of a bunch of racists who are intentionally keeping black comics out? And like as I understand it, that’s not the case. It’s that it’s a very tight financial market.
And right now they know that white straight male superhero sell and if they cared about expanding diversity in heroes, they have to take some risks and they have to be willing to put some money behind it. And that’s the, and I think that to me at least that’s the message really is we need to be pushing that both both telling these stores and these companies, no take the risk, we’re here, we will put money in your hands. But also saying, look, it’s not cool. It’s not okay to be cowards.
It’s not okay to just keep saying, you gotta give us more because most definitely. It is so easy for people to use that economic excuse to say, oh, well, that’s, you know, like how long did they say they couldn’t give us an Asian superhero because just that wouldn’t play in certain markets.
Speaker 2: Shang-Chi, very, well, and it’s funny because like Shang-Chi is a very interesting situation because for decades, Marvel was very much like making stereotypes out of PSA characters. Like if you go and lay in it’s why when you look at how different Shang-Chi and the Mandarin were in that movie, you can’t tell a fan, hey, yo, go read Silver Age, Golden Age, Shang-Chi, you’re Mandarin because it’s very problematic.
Yeah, it’s very concerning. So it’s like there was this issue for a long time where Asian representation was not existing. They were like, oh, well, Asian fans read manga, so we’re not gonna make Asian comics.
And then they tried to, they finally tried to hop on the bandwagon in the early 2000s where they had a new Shang-Chi run. They created Big Hero 6 because Big Hero 6 is actually a Marvel property. They gave that to Disney because they were like, we don’t want this, we’re gonna do what you want.
And they like reformatted it into a whole new thing towards a Disney property. Now, if you look at Baymax in the comments, Baymax looks like a freaking like a transformer more than he looks like a buttollagello. He’s not cuddly. It’s so funny.
Yeah, he’s not cuddly at all. So it’s very interesting to see how that happened to where Marvel didn’t see value in the property because they saw no Asian fans giving a crap. And it got to a point now where you see things like Marvel Rivals or even the different mobile games like Marvel Future Fight or things like that where NetEase and NetMarble came in and was like, yeah, Asians characters suck. So they straight up were like, can we create our own Asian characters in your universe and partner with you?
And they’re like, yeah. So you see the Luna Snow, like a white fox. I forget the name of the little girl with the bear spirit. But there’s a few, oh, I think it was Cressen. There’s a couple of those mixed in with Shang-Chi with a couple other characters like that.
Omni is Cho and whatnot. But it genuinely became a situation of someone else had to come in and tap Marvel on the shoulder and be like, they’re kind of failing. But that’s what I’ve been trying to do until DC where it’s like you’re kind of failing right now and you’re using the exclusive sales when in reality you really didn’t give these books a chance. You didn’t do anything to really move the needle. You just said, oh, I’m gonna watch the bird fall out of the nest and not care about it and then blame the bird.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I’m gonna do the bare minimum so I can say I did the bare minimum. And you’re right, it makes something like Mr. Terrific feel all the more important because you’re talking about like going back to the problematic history. I remember when Luke Cage came out, the show, which is fantastic. And then a whole bunch of people were like, yeah, let’s go read back issues of Luke Cage from the 70s. And I was like, oh, when white people write.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And I remember I went to a great panel discussion right around that time and I was talking about how like people were really excited about Luke Cage and really excited about Black Panther. But one person was saying like, we need a black hero from the suburbs.
Like why does every black hero have to come from, this is the wording they used, the ghetto or Africa. You know? Yeah. And to talk a little bit more about Mr. Terrific, like why that character was so important.
So it’s very interesting because like you have two big great examples of why I think DC has a great opportunity right now. We had both Mr. Terrific and Black Lightning. Black Lightning and Mr. Terrific both are characters from the suburbs. They are characters that escaped poverty.
They are both Olympic athletes that went to like, were in the same circles to the point that even in the newest Mr. Terrific year one mini series, outlets and spun their origins together. And that’s now came in the comics. But it’s like these two characters, like did their work succeed and went on became Olympic athletes were very well studious.
And in Mr. Terrific’s case, is the like the third smartest person in the DC universe behind Lex Luthor and Batman. And it’s like, you have an opportunity here where you have a very autistic like coded character that a lot of black like fans are seeing, noticing. And what’s so funny about him is he’s a legacy character. He because Terry Sloan was a white guy back in the 80s and 70s and the JSA. He was just a guy who didn’t like the like the mean guys down the block.
So his thing was fair play. So he wanted to beat up the people who were causing trouble and Michael Holt was inspired by that. So he took the fact that he didn’t have powers.
He just had a genius level intellect and made the T-spears and made all this technology that way he could be a superhero. And it became it came out of tragedy because of his wife dying and his child dying. And he was like, I’m going to try to be an inspiration to others. But in the case of light lightning, black lightning is the ultimate success story because he came out of the ghetto. He came out of the ghetto, like went to be an Olympic athlete and then became back to his hometown and tried to save it from the problems. And that’s why he is a school teacher and is like in the trenches of it. Rather than just being a ghetto based character, that’s a stereotype like Luke Cage.
He was created in a way to basically give like quite frankly, like representation to Cleveland because his creator is from Cleveland. And genuinely, the story of light lightning is always hilarious to me. And not everyone knows the story because Jenny Isabella was like she created Misty Knight, who was seen in Luke Cage. She created Bill Foster Goliath and she was asked by DC to come on and she straight up was like that was presented to this pitch for a black character. The pitch was it was a white guy who at night would turn into a black guy and he would go fight crime.
Speaker 1: And this was a racial one one half.
Speaker 2: Literally, it was it was in the 70s. It was 1975. He was like she was presented with this idea and she straight up said, you will literally ruin your company if you do this. So she had another collaborate to come in and then like who would do the art and they work together and created this character who is pretty much the exact opposite of this. And you would think this character could be the ultimate representation of giving black folks more.
But for some reason he hasn’t really stuck. And next year is his 50th anniversary. And DC doesn’t care. The DC gave him a five issue miniseries last year and it was short. And the writer like Brandon Thomas was on Twitter saying, hey, pre-order this please pre-order this and no one was paying attention. And that caused a big issue.
Speaker 1: Well, and that’s interesting because I don’t know where you stand on this. But one of my biggest entrees into DC was the Arrowverse, which has some good things about it, has a lot of bad things about it. But I would say it introduced to it introduced the two characters we’re talking about, but both towards the end of the runs. So we did have a Mr.
Terrific who came in and was a lot of things you’re talking about. He was actually explicitly gay in the show, which was even more kind of awesome to see, but he’s also a sidekick to a sidekick to Arrow. And then and also it’s in the like the later seasons when they’re sort of like plot, but plot, let’s just write whatever the hell we want.
Speaker 2: And also they did have a black lightning TV show, which I think ran for a couple of seasons. It ran for four seasons. Yeah. And like the biggest issue of that black lightning faced was there was no content to make a show out of. Because when the show was coming out, he had less than 30 issues of a solo series because he had 11 in the 70s.
He had think 13 in the 90s and then nothing. And then they gave Jenny, they gave Jenny Isabella a mini series when the show was coming out, that was six issues. And that was it. And they were like, they kept taking things from when black lightning was a part of the outsiders to supplement it. But it got to a point where they basically sped run Arrow, where they ran out of content so fast that they were just making stuff up. And it became a detriment to where they genuinely had nowhere to go with the show. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So remember the first season seemed like a really interesting thing, especially with his daughter, perhaps becoming a hero. And like you were doing all this great stuff. But yeah, it just sounded like a peed it out. That’s unfortunate. Plus, I think also it started in what year eight of the Arrowverse year nine when because Arrow and Flash were starting to really struggle. I think a lot of people were kind of turning off, turning the whole thing off.
Speaker 2: Most definitely. And like, and then you even had Naomi, which was a show that will became a few like a few years after a black lightning, right? Well, the crisis stuff was going on.
It didn’t end up being connected to any of it. But it was still a DC superhero show. Naomi is a character that was created by Brian Michael Bendis. Like when he came over to DC, that was supposed to be another great black like young black character, like the supplements, like the lack of diversity and what not. But they had a green little TV show for her only after six issues because Eva DuVernay, a well-famous director, just liked the concept. And they were like, let’s make a whole TV show out of six issues of a comic book and thought it was going to be successful. And the minute they announced it, I was like, that’s going to be canceled in less than six months. And I was right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that’s unfortunate. So let’s talk about this project you’re doing for Black History Month. Why tell me about kind of the genesis of this project.
Speaker 2: So honestly, it straight up was just like, I didn’t plan it and it ended up being just kind of off the cuff where I was like, you know what? I’m going to just have fun with it and to see how far I can get. And I let me even yesterday, I was kind of tired and I got home from my day job and was like, I’m going to supplement a video from stream and that’ll be day 12.
And it was very much like I had no energy. But it was like, if anything, I’m going to try to like introduce some people to some some some characters, introduce some people to some creators. Like today is like normally a favorite cover Friday. And like I was in a new, like I have a cover of a video before I once worked on with this, where it’s just like showcasing an artist was showcasing a story that I really enjoy, plus it ties into an interview that I’m dropping on on Tuesday. So it’s just trying to give people the ability to showcase characters they care about.
And that’s a big issue that we notice what currently is that that people say, oh, well, there’s not enough these characters. It’s like, well, I’m a show you stuff. And there was even opportunity where a indie company, NextUpComic, sent me a like brand new black character they created, Pepper Piper Monster Hunter. And I was like, I’ll showcase that. And like, I’m even doing a video on Saturday after I get a tattoo where I talk about like a character from James Hynes universe, something’s killing the children.
That’s a black queer character. And it’s just like trying to talk about the things that matter and like introduce people to these stories they don’t know about because you can’t say if you don’t know about it, if I don’t tell you. But it gets to a point where it’s like the old metaphor of you can lead a horse to water and it’s like, I’m like, I’m like, I’m gonna get you all the way to drink it. And if you can’t drink it, that’s on you. That’s kind of my motto with it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, you’re really doing the marketing that we want DC to be doing.
Speaker 2: Like it’s so funny too, because I even proposed that to Joseph Village last week where it was like you would think that all like, because there was this great thing they did back in the early 2000s called DC all access where they had Jason M. And I forget the young girl’s name who would do alongside him. But they were on YouTube interviewing creators, talking about story lines, giving little synopsis of characters and whatnot in weekly videos and talking about like new news that was coming up.
And it’s like, you know how many creators DC could look to to do that kind of content for free. There’s a great young lady on Instagram and TikTok, same with the monster. She does videos and public and publicity for the James Titans imprint tiny onion when it comes to like boom studios and image comics.
And she is just pumping out content for them and talking about that awesome stuff. But it’s like, what if DC actually looked to creators like me, like yourself and actually try to say, let’s actually utilize this like marketing that’s out here and care about the things that are going on. And you can kind of see that some of the other publishers like Ignition Press Image and whatnot are trying to do that or even trying to let people know when final final order cutoff is, which is like, you have three weeks before a book comes out to where we finally cut off orders for the book that we can process and get them shipped and whatnot. And that’s been a big thing of letting people know when FOC is that way, you know, when you have your deadline to order a book. And that’s been progressive. But it’s like, it’s not enough because you think you would have bigger this about 10 years ago when mine was a thing.
Speaker 1: Other industries do this. Like we’ve talked about Magic Gathering. Part of how I know when do I want to go to my store and say, let me preorder a box of this is because the reviewers I care about have already gotten some of the cards. Right.
Speaker 2: There’s like, there’s preview cards, friggin, um, with wizards, like wizards and sponsoring game nights. Like there’s so many things that people are doing. Why haven’t we figured this out yet?
Speaker 1: I have an interview coming up where I’m interviewing an author of a book on manga that hasn’t been published yet. Because the whole point is that people, she’s on a media tour. People will hear about the media tour.
I guess I’m one of the smaller stops, but still, you know, maybe one or two people. Here’s my thing. Preorders it. So it’s why in the world, wouldn’t they say, let’s go find five people who are talking about black comics and we’ll pre, we’ll give them a pre copy so they can talk about it and help drive sales. Let’s find some of the women who are creators and send them like our newest version of, uh, you know, Wonder Girl, whatever the heck it is. Right.
Speaker 2: And it’s so funny too, because like there was a time during the pandemic where it felt like a black. got into DC and they were trying because they had these like digital comic cons called DC fandom where they would announce certain things and have like little panels with different creators and actors and whatnot. But it was like because we’re locked in a house so we can’t go anywhere. But they didn’t learn from those experiences in a digital age where they could do more with that. And it’s like, do you know how cool it would have been if you would have been like, Ayo, let’s learn from these things that we’re doing, these collaborations and modernize it for now. Because you could be telling people, hey, this is at your local comic book shop. This is like coming out this week. Like I sat with the social media manager for Image Comics last night on stream and we were talking about what books are coming out, what great things are coming out this way. And I want to do more with that. I want to be able to work with DC and Marvel, etc. Marvel’s and thing is Marvel’s trying. I will give Marvel this.
They’re like sponsoring different creators sometimes to Pimp Marvel Unlimited, which is their digital reading application where you can pay a subscription and read a bunch of back issues and whatnot, which that’s cool. But they need to do more. And I don’t think Disney’s paying attention to that because they don’t really take comics seriously. But it’s like genuinely if DC would push more because DC was top seller last year, they moved finally to needle far enough to where they’re the top seller. And then Indies creaming up our Marvel’s. But because Indie is a new avenue that you see image, boom, fall, etc. All these different publishers coming in and saying, hey, we have fresh jumping on points, fresh care like characters and stories that aren’t superheroes that you can read right now. And you see a lot of fans who just want to read a book, not just a superhero book, clamoring for this.
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. I mean, this is over in Marvel, but with a black lead, the show that came out, Wonder Man, you know, we’ve done episodes about it. That is not a superhero show.
That is a show about struggling actors, one of whom happens to have superpowers. It’s fantastic. And it’s again, it’s give it’s the acting is phenomenal and and it’s giving a chance for people to see a story.
That’s not just, you know, I kept waiting for it to fall into the template of, okay, you gave us six episodes of interesting development. Now have the big bad and our hero has to decide that he’s going to be a hero instead of being an actor. Said he only uses his powers to like help his friend. That’s it.
He’s not a superhero. When we talk about the kind of things you’re looking for, obviously we want more black characters. We want more black leads, but not all representation is good representation we talked about like Luke Cage in the 70s.
It’s a step forward, but I got to step back like, um, yeah, when you hear, okay, there’s a new character coming out who’s black. What are you looking at? Are you first are you gonna look at like is it is the writer and the artist like what’s their background? What, you know, are you looking at what are the stories they’re telling? Is it falling to stereotypes? Like what what’s the lens that you’re bringing to it and that we should
Speaker 2: so I would always say in my I will even say I will I’m always someone that craves a good story even even though I’m a big proponent of making sure there is representation and I love the story that showcases representation I am somebody that says hey If if a character is black, I’m going to resonate more with it. If a character is queer, I’m going to like resonate more with it because that’s like my history I deal with every day. So I will be like be more drawn to it. But if you put a book in front of me, I’m probably gonna read it And that’s how I very much am and I will definitely be more like very transparent about that That I will always be down for a good story to have my favorites for sure obviously But when it comes to the like the black lens, I will always say it like it goes back to a video that I saw a few weeks ago Where there was straight up a dude who was like you kind of need to bring like The like the like the hooded sometimes with it or it’s like you have those characters that can represent Like the culture and represent different things But I really do feel like You need a black perspective to write that you can’t just have a white man writing sweet Christmas every all the time Grinning have white you have white Creators done good with that over time for sure one of my favorite comic books ever is caged by guinea tart Tarnacosky The cartoonist did a Luke Cage comic book.
It’s very good. But like That’s our dime a dozen compared to what should be there And it’s like if you actually give black creators the room to tell their own stories You get sometimes it may not have any to do anything to do with with like racial injustice or racism or things of that nature Sometimes it’s just gonna be a story like there like there like there’s just like a like a whole pitch I saw for someone wants to do like a like a demon hunter story No racism. No, no nothing. No police brutality. Nothing just like an old black dude from the south fighting demons I was like that’s a great idea. Let’s do that and sometimes you need that kind of like escapism For real life, but sometimes you need to showcase the realism of it and that’s why There was even a buzz on social media this past week where there was a like the biggest comic book YouTuber straight up said he didn’t enjoy or read milestone because each Like it was just black politics And it’s like that tells me you didn’t actually read it because when you sit down and read milestone the history of milestone Not only is it not just black comics. It’s By black staff at first But they had plenty of of like asian representation plenty of lgbt representation But they made sure to showcase everything Not just the cishet white males everyone else have been reading for decades And that’s where the narrative shifts when you actually look at milestone for the correct lens where yeah Static is a young dude who grew up a little bit in poverty Mom’s working the night shift dad trying to make ends be and like he’s going to high school with average kid problems He’s supposed to be a more modern realistic take of peter parker He’s supposed to be what we’re really seeing there or a hardware Curtis met cath He is somebody that is plucked out of poverty by a rich white man because he sees he has a toady stark level intellect And when he grows up and realizes the white man never really cared about him He then like conspires to ruin his entire company Because he loved what he did to him and then that converts him into being a superhero once he does get his revenge And it’s you can tell different stories when you actually give the person Who the story is about the reins to tell those stories now Brandon you have people like stanley jack Kirby the differ like um My brian michael bendis who have gone on on their like merry way to say i don’t like that There’s no black people here. I’m gonna make a black person and sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t but it’s It’s the only representation a lot of us get that isn’t just imprinting on white characters
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I feel so so important and that we’re gonna think it becomes so important that you’re doing both the You know that the writer is from is representing the experiences that you have And also that because no one character is just one thing when you are writing about things that aren’t your experience You’re asking about them, you know and like misty night is a character who I know a lot of women feel very represented by her And that’s awesome.
No a lot of black folk who feel very represented by her. That’s awesome. I’m an amputee I use a prosthetic. I am in no way represented by her Her experience makes me where it’s like echo in part because the actress is herself an amputee And settle you know had a lot of input in the writing process That that’s a character I can look at and go like i’m not native. I’m not a woman But like I understand her experience, you know, you know misty night Yeah, she has a prosthetic because of fun comic book gadget. I don’t expect it to be But it’s one of the you know, it’s it’s it gives me it me that insight of like this is why it’s important To have the right from the experience or at least be asking other people, you know Like bring other people into the room that kind of thing
Speaker 2: or like even if you’re lived experience like I’ll let I’ll even take about the Jenny Isabella Jenny Isabella is a trans white woman from Cleveland Who just grew up like before before transitioning in a society where like she was always around black folks She was always around black folks. So she had a authentic experience.
She would ask people questions She didn’t just assume stuff and make things up like sweet Christmas She actually put the effort in to give people representation and not just be a stereotype She actually put the effort in to make jefferson pierce feel authentically black.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that seems so vital, you know and so okay, so For for the average fan now we’re hearing this You know a lot of my fans that I said are more on-screen people But still care about the comic books as well and I think as you’re gonna help and tell us if you want the character to appear On screen you got to go back up the stream somewhat and If you want them to appear on screen you have to go upstream somewhat and get them to have comic books first If I’m gonna walk into my comic books for tomorrow and say hey Who are the people I should be asking about who who are the black characters or black writers that are coming out right now? Or that could be coming out soon that I should be saying hey if you put this on your shelves.
Speaker 2: I will buy it Okay, so like um one great thing that I always tell people is that like there’s a great tool that dc has rolled out over the past Few years called the compact edition. It’s they’re taking stories from their catalog that are their biggest hits or What they view as big hits because some sold well There’s some debate about like what wonder woman books were picked or what’s uh, Batman books were picked But like what sold the biggest numbers and what they saw value in to put in little 10 book Little compact editions kind of like when you go to like like an airport you see a little small book Kind of like that. It’s like the idea like it’s cheap It’s less refined versions of these stories that people can pick up and just like take home There’s a great one that it takes place in the milestone returns universe for static That is a great one that anyone could pick up and find a good black story.
That was from 2021 Anyone can enjoy that. Um, there are some awesome indie creators out right now from image from Boom from vault that are putting on great work. Um, if you’re a horror fan, I have I just got this in the mail the day Philadelphia by Rodney Barnes is literally one of my favorite stories of all time He’s what if um, um, like um, not uh, what if John Adams came back after uh, like being president and after him and his wife went on an excursion to The uh, like the uh to Africa they came back with vampirism and in fact the whole world And that becomes a whole damn thing and it’s all right or like Like there’s a great book out by Stephanie Williams that ignition press called roots of madness where it spins the idea Of madame cj. Walker and turns her into an alchemist not just a chemist And there’s certain things like that where you can find magnificent stories out there But the primary thing when you walk into a shop is just Like as long as you walk in and like the comic books going or isn’t just an asshole off rib Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to be like, hey, I’m looking for this or hey I would like this kind of character and if they can’t give you the answers Don’t be afraid to reach out to me. Don’t be afraid to hit up my comment sections Um, there’s plenty of creators that I share all the time that that that share all these different books Marvel is constantly putting out different things like they have a store miniseries going on right now black panther miniseries Miles Morales just had a great The four-year run of comic books so they hit an ongoing like there’s books out there that you can find when it comes to creators There are some amazing creators that are making books right now.
Like I said, Ronnie Barnes, Stephanie Williams Right farted real quick. Um There is great like individuals Like brain and Thomas that are doing indie stuff right now. David of Walker has done great David of Walker just put out like a brand new A graphic novel not just a comic book but a great graphic novel that did a retelling of John Henry Like there’s a lot of great books out there that you can find and also There’s just really good books that you can find on tiktok right now There are great indie creators making books on tiktok that you don’t even necessarily have to go into a comic shop You can buy it off the tiktok shop and support a creator right now if you want to so like But the biggest thing when you’re going into a comic book shop not even from a black perspective But from like a queer perspective or a women perspective Don’t be afraid to ask questions because so like like I like in I know for a fact There are a lot of comic book shops these days that actually employ women I put like employ people like queer individuals that way they can get authentic stories in their hands my uh big sister mary worked in the comic book shop for years and It got to a point where she was recommending books to a girl one time And it saved her like like from like ending her life one time because she finally found representation and it got to the point where like um like a Popular comic book a website did a story on it and then dc found out and then dc Had all the like the characters from the cw sent her gifts and whatnot So like sometimes you can make an impact by just asking some questions Don’t be afraid to look for what you want to see out there
Speaker 1: And that’s so important and I think the thing especially about like Who’s working at these stores because you know, I talk a lot about the magic stores and frankly like there’s a lot of overlap Like most game stores and card stores are probably going to sell some comic books the most comic stores probably have some magic events and You know 10 years ago A lot of those stores the margins were big enough that you could be an old boys clubhouse and Basically having no girls allowed sign and like a lot of and and you could do it the margins aren’t good enough anymore You need every single customer and yeah, I guarantee you that any shop that’s been open for more than a year That owner if you don’t know if you don’t have a way to give them money They want to find a way so you can give them money So tell them what you give them money for
Speaker 2: Almost definitely like like is to the point where a lot of like you said there’s a lot of overlap I’m lucky that I’m in a larger city. I’m in Akron, Ohio where like I have Three comic shops within spinning distance of me. I have a game store within spinning distance of me Neither my like like There the game store is only a game store But like they have Everything in there when it comes to like magic warhammer all that stuff But then if I go Like 30 minutes one direction over by the college campus There’s a comic and game store combined in a one where like a lot of stores have found you have to do overlap to survive Or like Or like some game stores and some comic book shops will become a funko pop hell Where they have to like have those to survive because those move the margins So it’s like it’s to the point now where you can’t just be one or the other You have to be both sometimes or multi different platforms because otherwise you’re not going to make enough overhead to survive yeah, now
Speaker 1: We’re talking about walking the comic stores, which On a podcast like this I’ve probably got one or two listeners who find that idea a little bit socially uncomfortable myself included Um, I know that there are ways to like pay a subscription fee and read Marvel comics online or read DC comics online if i’m doing that Like are they tracking that i’m going to the mr. Terrific stuff so they can keep track like
Speaker 2: so it’s complicated because I’ve had conversations with two different writers over the past few months that have worked for Marvel unlimited which is the marvel-based platform that the disney created to read the older comics and whatnot And they straight up said that marvel and disney don’t view those as like like crazy Like like analytical numbers they make digital exclusive comics for those platforms That anyone can pay a subscription for and read along with the back issues But they’re not going to be the craziest things that move the needle in terms of that right the big the biggest issues right now is that because amazon Absorbed the biggest comic book digital platform comic psychology because The founders of it couldn’t afford to pay the licensing fees and the digital storage fees amazon has Like for a for a long time prior to the pandemic created a monopoly where All you could do was read off a kindle because of the damage they did to comic psychology But over the past few years you’ve seen different platforms pop up like the founders of comic psychology Created me on ichiban, which is a new version of that that houses manga and comics That’s sort of being a new version of what they had before But then you look at um sweet shops sweet shop is a brand new comic platform that is in beta right now Um, I interviewed the creator of that and it’s trying to be a more creator focused creator um catered to platform where not only have they created a comic book creator Link tree system, but they’ve also created a new digital platform where they actually care about the publishers Care about the creators they want to partner with comic book shops that way you can like do like affiliate code system Yeah, right and like where you can do an affiliate code system And like support your comic book shop while also paying for your books because used to have a system like that where you were gonna like comicsology Dot com slash rubber city comics where I give up on said and though your purchasing Purchases would go to your shop not just Comixology and that system was coveted for a long time and sweet shops trying to do that But they’re not fully rolled out yet. So that’s not really a thing just yet But the other big one besides dc Infinite and marvel unlimited is global comics global comics, but like it’s not cs and v in its x They not only do you buy digital comics there You can pay seven dollars a month to read dc marvel dark horse image All these different indie publishers books for like seven bucks a month non-stop unlimited Like it’s almost like a library basically, right and while I know that dc and marvel aren’t crazily like Caring about these They still see oh There was an uptick of these numbers to a certain extent They might look at giving that character a mini series down the road or things of that nature it’s not as Hyper pinpointed as the physical system But it’s still a situation of like Digital isn’t taking fully like taken fully seriously right now because of the issues with the vendor systems Where comics ology isn’t really viewed anymore. The other each one has been fully adopted, etc to where Even like what was really sad though is even before What happened to comics ology happened? They really weren’t tracking digital at all like like they didn’t really care about digital So like there would be so many fans that would be like What happened to the series that I was reading?
Oh it got canceled Well, I was buying it every week off of digital digital as a cow Digital doesn’t count because it’s not print media. They don’t see it as a valuable source. So I would say the analytics aren’t being fully absorbed by the by the like the the publishers But they’re still tracking them. They’re not they’re just not valued to the same degree as print media That makes sense
Speaker 1: and if nothing else if if online reading is just what works for you Read it online and then tell some of your friends about it and then maybe they Have you know it seems like the word of mouth is really what we need to get these things out there Most definitely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would definitely say that’s that’s very true.
Speaker 1: Yes Couple last questions and we’ll kind of wrap up and let you tell people to find you We talked a lot about writers for these things, but I could imagine that a white artist or two might have What are two stereotypes about how to draw black characters? I know shocking right um Are there black artists in particular that you also kind of always kind of keep an eye out for you know
Speaker 2: Most definitely like I will always say the sanford green is my favorite black artist of all time where he As a artist has mastered the ability of showcasing what I feel like is Almost Harlem renaissance level of painting on a paper But also but also like he is able to draw white characters in a very expressive way as well Where it’s like you look at that, you know, what sanford greens work. You know that that is very well done He draws black folks very authentically and it’s very well done
Speaker 1: Give an example of a title or two that he did
Speaker 2: like power man and iron fist for 2016 Is one of one of my favorite ones that he did Him and writers chuck brown and david of walker did bitter root from image comics The like that is one of my favorite title and that is like one of my favorite any titles of all time Like his artwork is some of the best of the game and he’s not appreciated enough Torin Clark is like the black alex ross but like alex ross is like very famous for drawing very realistically And torin clark does the same thing where like he showcases Like characters to almost they fall off the page and you’re like how is that possible? So it like those are great like great character like writers like artists that I care about a lot and it comes to that um, I would say Carrie Randolph is another great one that I really appreciate He has a sort of like almost anime-esque style similar to dan mora But you can tell that it’s like authentically black in its own right if that makes sense like like, um, Carrie Randolph and uh, brad and thompson excellence over at image comics a few years ago or like, um, Carrie Randolph has uh, did mosaic for marvel those different like books you can tell It has a very authentic style to it and I very much enjoyed
Speaker 1: that awesome and uh for anybody who’s like, oh my god I had to pause and write all these down. Don’t worry. I’m gonna go through all this write down all of this I’ll put all these names in the show notes so you can find them All right, um, I am gonna finish up though with two on-screen questions for you First of all, um, one of my favorite black superheroes, uh growing up was john stewart And I don’t mean obviously the comedian but green lantern from the justice league Uh, and now we’re gonna be getting uh tv show with him starring erin pierre who a lot People may not have seen he was in rebel ridge, which is just phenomenal and again a really interesting take on Kind of the role that people expect a black hero figure to take but the way his approach to violence non-violence is really awesome Uh, what how are you feeling about that show coming out?
Speaker 2: I am conflicted because not only was there a big discussion in the black comic community about the fact that while erin pierre is a very talented Actor he is much like myself very light-skinned and the issue at hand is that like We have always very much seen john stewart being a darker skinned black man So that was very much topic that i’m concerned about and I don’t know if the show was gonna really care about that um I’m also concerned about the fact that like I have a long-time beef with green lantern how jordan And they’ve casted him in the show when they’re making this like a buddy cop thing and i’m like I don’t like that. I would rather just see john showcased on his own and more so Hopefully it is to be more of a passing of the torch thing as the show goes on But that’s been frustrating But also there’s just been a lot of like racism in the community in the community from a lot of alt-right idiots who Assuitment they don’t realize the dude on screen is how jordan state. They’re like, oh green lanterns supposed to be white I’m like Shut up There’s a lot of green lanterns and it’s a whole different issue But I’m trying to be cautiously optimistic because I am a long time fan of john stewart Of currently in can and he’s the most powerful green lantern in existence And that means a lot to me as someone who’s loved him for years So i’m hoping that dc does this show justice Boom just but like it’s one of those things of like I am cautiously
Speaker 1: optimistic I’m i’m probably biased because one of my favorite shows is friday night lights And the start of that uh coach taylor is played by kyle chandler the guy was playing how jordan And the last two seasons of it.
He is the mentor coach to in one of his first roles michael b jordan Playing out vince howard young football star. So i’ve seen kyle chandler be very good at Checking his own racism and dealing with a young black man and and giving him the space he needs I don’t know how to translate over here, but we’ll see but I but I think again That’s the kind of thing where like I’ve heard about the colors and discussions a lot in terms of black actresses I haven’t I think I wasn’t even thinking about it because I don’t we don’t hear it very often in regard to black actors But the same conversations. So yeah, I’d be really interested to see how that plays out last question then um Who is a black character who right now is only on the page that if you know dc came to you or marvel came to you and say You can take any character and give them a three season show or a three movie deal Who is it? Who would who would it be?
Speaker 2: Oh, that’s a great question I’m not gonna lie to you Currently it would definitely be curtis medcaf hardware because he is a character that He could literally address a lot of the concerns we see in comic books right now or just in comic book media where he Is someone who is very intellectually up there with mr. Terrific and he Can give a very authentic experience where? He was plucked out of poverty and plucked out of the black experience very early on So he similar to me would have a very White upbringing where he’s was forced into corporate intellectualism very early on and having him have to encounter the streets having to encounter that what would be a very interesting dynamic and having to balance that but also because like Everyone is very always very quick to give static praise but Hardware was the first hardware was the first the the the first and the last to be put out and He doesn’t get enough respect put on his name because hardware is a very amazing story that not everyone understands and appreciates And I feel like more people need to look in his direction because like in his first six issues not only does he get his revenge and put his um Like like his benefactor into a stalemate to where he stops all of his um Like illegal operations and whatnot and makes him have to like be on the straight and narrow for a little bit But like the dude doesn’t find out his identity He ends up being very like clever about how he does things because he has like a synthetic body covering on top of his suit And and ends up being very but like like powerful in that right But also he ends up defeating some of the mercenaries that the dude hires and then he ends up solving an entire murder case where there was a Punisher standing was um Originally trying to help hardware stop these um prostitutes from being murdered But only for him to find out that the Punisher standing was the one killing the prostitutes because he had a Ed issue because he was assaulted by somebody in a previous crime It’s a multi-faceted story that ends up going on to where even later on they redeemed that character death wish and give him his own series So it’s so crazy that not everyone knows about hardware knows about his his uh story Because it’s so much more impactful than people realize. I would kill for it to be on the big screen
Speaker 1: Yeah, that one sounds like a good one. Well, thank you. It’s been a fantastic time I never want to have you back But for people who are listening to this and going well, I I need to find more of this jp guy. Where can they go?
Speaker 2: I must say i’m on uh tiktok um threads twitter blue sky instagram all those places Like I like because I see myself as the comic journalist. I have to be plugged in so on all those different platforms I’m posting on instagram and tiktok and youtube uh daily when it comes to making content for people Whether it be responding to people or making fresh content in regards to things um my my podcast comics i’m masters a weekly comic podcast where we talked about uh the different things going on in the industry And um, um, we also interview different creators almost on a weekly basis at this point because people keep all like offering Or agreeing to be on interviews like we’re even interviewing um, well-known novelist and he’s gone on to Write a new book for vaults comics called nectar. So that’s really exciting in the next few weeks So, you know, like i’m like you can search me add jp number on socials or look up comics on master You will find us awesome.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much. I think you said you had an interview coming out Tuesday If all goes well, that will be the same day that this episode drops. So I assume that’s on your
Speaker 2: podcast Yes, uh, i’m interviewing the current writer of green lantern core. Uh, he also wrote uh side work back in 2023 Morgan Hampton Awesome, awesome.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, hopefully then uh, when he finished this episode and you’ve listened to the this week’s star wars generations Go check out that. Well, thank you so much jp. This has been fantastic Call our fans right in love to hear what you think. What are your favorite black characters that you’ve talked about?
What are other communities that you uh are a part of or just care about that you want to see better represented both in comic books And when comic books make it to the screen, uh, let us know. Of course, we love to keep talking about it. I’m having a jp myself Thank you all so much. May the force be with you
