The comics blogiverse is an increasingly diverse network of comics pundits, fans and fanatics — not to mention professional creators themselves — where one can find a variety of fascinating and/or obnoxious opinions to suit any taste, or lack thereof. Every Saturday — now on Mondays! — I’ll offer up excerpts from five of the more interesting, thought-provoking posts I’ve come across over the past week, for better or worse. Enjoy!

May 15, 2007: Money feeds my music machine
¡Journalista!

When female comics fans complain that they want less objectification of female characters in their cape books, therefore, I’d bet a C-note that what Marvel and DC executives are actually hearing is, “We’d like you to please stop making money, now.” The problem is that when dealing with business interested in earning a profit, moral arguments have far less weight than economic ones, and the economic argument here is what is driving the product — I choose that word carefully — that shows up in comics-shop shelves.

This brings us full-circle to the argument that I put forth yesterday: If fangirls want female-friendly superhero comics, they’re going to have to prove that this time an audience is ready and willing to buy them, and to do that, one is basically going to have to be built from scratch. That means new creators are going to have to show up and figure out how to make comics that will sell to this new audience; of the existing creative pool, there are other women that I expect could do the job quite well — Ms. Garrity herself sits toward the top of the list, but she and Gail Simone can’t write them all. New and artistically attractive talent will be required.

Even then, the pervert-suit aesthetic isn’t going to go away. Mainline publishers will be far more willing to buy into the concept if it supplements the current cashflow, rather than taking its place. That means sensible heroines and lipstick lesbians and half-naked lolitas fighting crime; otherwise, you’re simply asking publishers to replace a surefire money machine with one that might grow and thrive, if only someone is willing to throw the dice. I’m sorry, but that’s just not going to happen. Where large companies with fiduciary obligations to stockholders and/or corporate owners are concerned, the money always comes first.

In conclusion…
Digital Femme

Back to the topic at hand. But Cheryl Lynn, you say, I want to read about awesome superheroes and I don’t want to deal with sexist images and I’m tired of people telling me to shut up because somewhere on the planet some woman endures horrific sexism!

If you can draw? Start creating. If you can’t? Start hunting. There are comics out there that can give you the capes you want without the sexism. And when you find them? Support them. Brag about them. Buy them.

And this certainly doesn’t mean that you have to shut up about the things that trouble you at Marvel and DC (or any other company, for that matter). You speak right the fuck up. And it doesn’t mean that you should stop trying to make positive changes at either company. But you have to realize that both companies are very resistant to change. You are working with dinosaurs that want very much to cling to the status quo. And you are not part of that status quo.

Real Talk: Today’s Mathematics
4thletter!

You want comics to be better? Make them better.

I want to see better portrayals of blacks in comics. I want black women that actually date black men (Storm), black men that aren’t thugs (Cage), and black lineages that aren’t forgotten as soon as the wind changes (Black Captain America). I want a comic starring a black character that goes for 600 issues. I want a realistic portrayal of race in comics. I want black women with finger waves and pink lotion and hot combs. I want black dudes to have hair somewhere between “bald” and “afro.” I want to see black women who have black hair that black women could actually have, rather than being a white woman palette swap. I want black characters that my kid cousins can grow up one day and point to and go “That’s dope” or whatever it is kids say nowadays.

I want to see me, reflected eternally. All three hundred and sixty degrees.

And I plan to write the comic I want to see. I’m going to make the fucking comics, because if I don’t, who will? I haven’t done it yet, obviously. I’ve got the tools in the tool box, but I’m not as proficient with them as I need to be. Excuse? No. I can’t write the comic I want to read yet, so I will write it when I’m good enough to do so, rather than dashing out something half-way done.

Where I’m At
ADD: The Comics Weblog of Alan David Doane

The sense of urgency I felt when CBG was created in 2000 has diminished. This is actually quite a good thing, in my opinion. Back in the days when Marvel and DC could still be called “mainstream comics” without sneer quotes around the term, artcomix — you know, the good, worthwhile comics published by folks like Fantagraphics, Drawn and Quarterly, Top Shelf, Pantheon, First Second, etc. — needed help. I’d like to think Comic Book Galaxy was at least in some small way a participant in the total revolution that has occurred in the comics artform in the past few years. I don’t know that we need to push as hard as we used to, I think the tipping point has passed, maybe around the time Time named Fun Home the book of the year, correctly. But seriously, it seems like a lot of the work I thought we were doing has come to fruition, all to the betterment of good comics.

That all said, man, I miss being “Alan David Doane: Comics Blogger.” If you loved or hated this blog in its heyday, there’s no denying it was a blast to write, and I appreciate every reader who read what I had to say, especially those who found actual value in my opinions from time to time. Believe it or not, I still have opinions, and I still want to share them with anyone who wants to know what I think, but after all of the above, I really am left kind of scratching my head wondering how to recreate this blog so that it still in any way matters in a world where Dirk, Tom, Johanna and a select few others really have good blog writing about comics kind of all sewn up. And I don’t bother to read the shitty or otherwise aggravating blogs anymore, because really, I’m 41 years old and who has the time to spare for that sort of obnoxiousness?

Galvanized content
Dick Hates Your Blog

There’s an accompanying sample page which suggests content about cocktails and picking up people in bars. I’m honestly not sure what that has to do with comics culture. Actually, I’m not really sure what “comics culture” is supposed to be. Those two words make me think about sweaty guys playing Heroclix or maybe that oft-discussed Mary Jane statue. Maybe he means comics creator culture, but that makes me think of, I don’t know, people staring at a monitor/drawing table and trying to decide if a few minutes of Gears of War (or, if you want a more sentimental scene, a few minutes of playing with their children) would eliminate all hope of beating the deadline. Honestly, the only aspect of comics culture I would associate with this cocktails and alcohol-fueled hookups is maybe a signing at some hip store in NYC or California, or maybe the kind of heroically drunken convention escapades to which Heidi MACDonald often alludes.