The Comics Journal’s Tom Crippen discusses the potential character change, comparing it to the original incarnation of Ebony as created by the late Will Eisner:

…“attitude (sass)” is a long way off from summing up Ebony White. Yes, he’s mischievous sometimes, but he’s quixotic sometimes. He’s a lot of things: officious, greedy, tender, poetic, warm-hearted. Maybe you could put “sassy” in there, but the word isn’t his hallmark. Ebony makes noise, but the noise isn’t about himself; it’s just a byproduct of him leading his life. He isn’t staking out a place for himself, and he isn’t trying to brush people back. For a 12-year-old black kid in 1947, his position with the Spirit and Dolan, et al., is magically secure and well respected. He doesn’t have to be sassy: he can say what he thinks.

When Darwyn Cooke relaunched The Spirit a few years ago, he set it in modern times (though he kept the 40s-noir atmosphere) and made Ebony a regular kid, in both looks and dialogue. And of course, director Frank Miller did away with him altogether in his film version of The Spirit. This is different; the intent with First Wave (essentially an Elseworlds story, not unlike New Frontier) is to be faithful to the spirit of the pulp hero era. According to Azzarello in the CBR interview, he has the consent of Eisner’s estate to reinterpret the Spirit as he sees fit. Apparently this also extends to the Spirit’s supporting cast.

I’ve always had a blind spot regarding The Spirit, specifically because of Ebony. I have read Eisner Spirit strips with and without Ebony, but it’s next to impossible for me to truly enjoy them. If the purpose of First Wave is to evoke the pulp hero era, this does put Azzarello in a bind, since it’s hard to write about this time period without dealing with the prejudices inherent in that era, especially when one includes POCs in the story (First Wave will also include the Blackhawks, with a reimagined version of Asian character Chop Chop).

Granted, as Crippen says, Ebony enjoys an unusually privileged position as the Spirit’s sidekick, but it’s a fantasy, and how much one is willing to buy into this fantasy depends on how one sees the character within the context of the strip. How often does the Spirit step into Ebony’s world? How aware is he of the life Ebony would very likely live as a black male child in 1940s America? I don’t know for certain, but I suspect Eisner may not have had these questions in mind when he was creating the strip – and even if he did, it’s highly unlikely he would have been allowed to tell stories that address these issues.

Making Ebony a “brash, sassy girl,” however, may not be the best answer. The sassy black female is a greatly-overused stereotype in pop culture. It makes black women seem shrewish and unsophisticated and is almost always played for laughs. I don’t believe Azzarello would consciously feed into that stereotype, but by invoking the words “brash” and “sassy,” one cannot help but draw the correlation. And lest we forget, this would not be the first time Azzarello has written black characters with unfortunate implications, as anyone who remembers his Luke Cage mini-series will recall.

I’d rather Azzarello wrote the Ebony-Spirit relationship honestly: make them partners, make them heroes, but at the same time let each be aware of the positions each other occupies in their world as a result of their race. It’s not something that needs to be in the reader’s face every time we see them, but it needs to lurk just below the surface, ready to pop up at any time. And the same should apply to Black Canary and Chop Chop. Anything less will come across – to this reader, at least – as flawed.

“…The cover of Magic Under Glass? It’s been public since the Liar controversy. Bloomsbury was able to yank the original cover of Liar and change it 2 months before it went to press. They had over six months to do the same for Magic Under Glass. But it was a debut novel whose author didn’t have a foothold in the publishing world that would allow her to protest, as [Liar author Justine] Larbalestier did. Also, the reviewing blogosphere generally doesn’t review books before they’re published. So without the author to spearhead a call to action, there has been none over the whitewashing of Magic Under Glass, and Bloomsbury? Well, obviously, they weren’t concerned.”

“…What concerns me is that there are authors at Bloomsbury who have beans to do with this, authors who have written books about dolphins or bugs or whatever and race has never been an issue for their books. So is it fair to affect them? I don’t think so. Having said that, I am sick and tired of books about kids with color that have a Caucasian on the cover. Why does this matter? Because you are saying that they are not good enough to be on the cover. You are saying you have to hide the dark skinned protagonist behind a light skinned one. You are saying that dark skin is something to be ashamed of. Yes, you are saying all of that.”

“…So really, publishers, if you’re so convinced that a book with a dark-skinned heroine won’t sell unless readers are tricked into thinking she’s white, then just be honest about all of it — admit that you don’t want to risk publishing books about characters of color. Admit that white people are the only audience you really care about. Admit that you don’t give a tiny rat’s ass about that adolescent girl walking through a bookstore, trying to find a story about someone who looks like her and learning –probably for the umpteenth time that day — that only white people can be pretty or interesting. But if you’re not ready to admit all that, then you need to be putting people of color on covers where appropriate and supporting those books with real publicity and marketing budgets, so they stand a chance of not fulfilling your prophecy of doom.”

Magic Under Glass trailer

interview with author Jaclyn Dolamore (from last October)

a review from a conservative critic

religion in current Hollywood films

Plus: A video interview with Zoe Saldana and James Cameron.

Lawrence Fishburne talks Predators.

“…We have to get angry and we have to get loud and we have to get demanding. We have to review books with GBLTQ characters or Kids of Color or different religions all the freaking time. And when we don’t see enough of them in a genre (hello Science Fiction and Fantasy, I’m looking at you) then we yell about it and we ask other people to yell about it. When we read a book about a Black teen that is great then we not only review it but we tell our friends – we suggest they read it as well… That’s a little thing but it’s a ripples in the pond kind of thing. We do the little thing that is easy by recommending and we do the big thing that is hard by screaming.”

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Available this week:

Authority #18. Written by Bernardin & Freeman.

Siege #1 (of 4). The mini-series that reunites the classic Avengers. Art by Coipel.

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Also notable:

Image United #2 (of 6)

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Some more Avatar items for you (now that it’s passed $1 billion worldwide already): Here’s more support for Zoe Saldana getting a Best Actress nomination. Here’s an Oscar-related podcast in which her chances at Best Actress are discussed, among other things. Also, this column makes the argument that the movie is a way for white people to fetishize the Other. And in a related item, Saldana and Sam Worthington’s deleted sex scene will be included on the DVD.

Marc Bernardin will be a guest writer at IO9 this week.

In preparation for Iron Man 2, MTV’s Splash Page interviews War Machine co-creator Bob Layton this week.

ECBACC will host another comic book workshop in Philadelphia this coming March.

Here’s a story about the re-release of a sci-fi alternate history novel about a new African nation formed around the time of the Civil War.

Keith Knight talks with fellow editorial cartoonist Jim Borgman.

“…On one hand I think the scenes portraying Voodoo will really scare young children. On the other hand, I was concerned that both children and adults unfamiliar with Voodoo would come away from ‘The Princess and the Frog’ believing it to be evil rather than a belief system akin to Buddhism or Hinduism or what have you. I didn’t appreciate the African masks in the one Voodoo scene either. It indirectly linked Africa to evil... Although the character who practiced Voodoo—Dr. Facilier aka Shadowman—is clearly evil, the woman Tiana and Naveen visit to undo his work (turning them into frogs) is portrayed as a wise, caring old woman.”

“The opportunity presented itself for us to present our company to Disney as a potential partner with this film, with making products associated with the film.  And it was one of those situations where it was great to have the meeting and it was great to be in the room.  If something comes of it, great, but, wow, wasn’t it a great step to at least have the meeting. My marketing team left the meeting with a deal in place.  Not all the details worked out, but [they had] an agreement to move forward.  It was amazing to have that opportunity and to be affiliated with something as the first African American princess.  It’s wonderful. To have the opportunity to make products that Mom doesn’t have to worry about, that perform… there are so many levels as to why I’m excited to be a part of this project:  the history of it, collaborating with a company like Disney, getting to make products for kids that are great that have a really nice fragrance.  I have a three-year-old daughter:  she tested everything, so she had a lot of fun.”

a mother-(5-year-old) daughter conversation about the film

SPOILERS

Related: Avatar = Birth of a Nation???

“Because it’s not just the black women. In fact, that’s the mildest part of my problems with race on the show. Because, for better or worse, it’s difficult to mess up the portrayals of a demographic you have excised from the world of your characters.

“Black men, on the other hand? Well, that’s where I really hit some brambles.”

Now do something about it, already!

I mean, they’re cancelling War Machine when Iron Man 2 is gonna hit next summer. In the same post Brevoort makes some half-assed promises about possibly using Blue Marvel again. Yeah, Brother Voodoo’s getting a series, but if you were the writer of that book and you saw Brevoort make that statement, well, how would that make you feel? Brian Michael Bendis has made Luke Cage cool again and yet I wonder if a solo series has even been discussed. Yeah, there’s still Black Panther, and Zod knows Hudlin did his best to get people to read it, but now that he’s gone, can the next guy be expected to have the same passion for the character that Hudlin did? (And regardless of what you think of him, you can’t deny that he did have a passion for that book.)

Maybe things will change now that Disney’s in charge. Pardon me if I don’t hold my breath waiting.

Zero Killer

Final Crisis Aftermath: Ink #4 (of 6)

Beta Ray Bill: Godhunter #3 (of 3)

Timestorm 2009-2099 #4 (of 4). Art by Battle.

Gold Digger Tech Manual #7. By Perry.

ZMD #5 (of 6). Written by Grevioux.

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Also notable:

Green Lantern #45. Blackest Night tie-in.

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New entries at my new blog Great Black Comic Books include Birth of a Nation and Satchel Paige. Plus I’ve started a regular poll feature on the sidebar. New polls every two weeks.

Todd McFarlane’s writing a Spawn 2 screenplay.

DC publisher Paul Levitz talks about the upcoming JLA/99 crossover.

The Brooklyn Public Library is so scared of Tintin in the Congo that access to it is restricted.

The new film The Time Traveler’s Wife is based on a book that, according to this lady, has some questionably-written POCs.

An appreciation of the multicultural aspects of Marvel’s War Machine and DC’s Tiny Titans.

Slightly off-topic: I was gonna write about how this Newsweek writer’s review of my friend Josh Neufeld’s Katrina/New Orleans GN AD crapped all over comics in general, but Claudia pretty much said it all for me.

“It was the response of my readers that got me thinking hard about representation. Now those questions are foremost when I write.”

Related: The Liar controversy: why does a book with a black lead character have an image of a white person on the cover?

CBR report on the Cleveland Show panel

Don Cheadle interview

Pam @ AWSM (lotsa pictures)