“[Creator Ethan] Young went on to ask what readers thought about Cartoon Ethan’s ethnicity. What race did they think he was, what kind of thoughts they had regarding the character or the comic, etc. I followed up with Young a while later and he relayed that the results were about what he expected: about 1/3 of readers thought Cartoon Ethan was Caucasian, 1/3 saw a distinctly Asian influence of some kind and 1/3 never thought about it one way or another. (I fell into this last camp since, as I noted at the time, Cartoon Ethan’s ethnicity was about as important to the story as what kind of cat Garfield is.)”

“So brace yourself for more sacrificial beasts than you can shake a stick at (if that’s your idea of a good time — and if you’re Jacob, it is), along with the grand characters you know and love from Genesis and the high-concept special effects of Exodus.

“It all begins with the beginning…”

Found on Facebook: this forthcoming graphic novel that reinterprets the Torah of the Judaic faith with a number of quirky flourishes. Why does it get a mention here? Because co-creator Aaron Freeman is a brother. Check out his website; the guy’s got quite a history.

Check out more pages from the book here. Looks like a winner to me.

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.

“The Great Ten are the Chinese government’s officially sanctioned superhero team. That “officially sanctioned” part is important, because in mainland China, an independent vigilante isn’t going to last very long. The communist government would crack down on that sort of thing right quick. Also, members of The Great Ten are referred to as “super-functionaries” instead of superheroes. The emphasis is on the role they play – their function in society. But in the world’s most populous nation – a nation that will probably wield the most influence in the 21st Century – these 10 individuals will determine whether that influence is used for good or ill.”

The Great Ten

Baldo is a Latino comic strip that’s been around for over a decade. Its current story arc addresses diabetes in an effort to raise awareness.

I don’t remember where I first read about Stuck Rubber Baby by Howard Cruse. It must have been sometime during the early period during the 90s when I was just getting back into comics. Anyway, whenever people ask me which graphic novel is my all-time favorite, this is the one I hold up. Set during the civil rights movement of the 60s in a fictitous Southern town, it’s a coming-of-age tale about a young white teen beginning to come to terms with his sexuality, in a town racked with racial strife. When the Proposition 8 decision came down in California last fall, and it was revealed that a large number of blacks voted in its favor, many opponents of the bill were shocked that these blacks couldn’t see the parallels between their struggle for equality and that of homosexuals. Baby holds blacks and gays up to the same light and does an excellent job of depicting the perspectives of both groups (though obviously the gay angle is the stronger of the two). There’s a wide and diverse variety of characters on display here, and they’re all believable and three-dimensional. Cruse has a pleasant cartoonish art style which makes use of a meticulous stippling technique which, I admit, he sometimes goes overboard on, but I’ve learned to appreciate it. Baby is filled with warmth, humor, genuine tension and rich drama. You’ll think it’s based on a true story – but it’s not!

Tim Fish does some great gay romance comics. Arguably his best known is Cavalcade of Boys. It’s very much in the spirit of old-fashioned (heterosexual) romance comics from the 50s and 60s, with a large cast of (mostly) young gay men hopping in and out of each other’s beds, drawn in a broad, exaggerated style suggestive of legendary Golden and Silver Age artist Jack Kirby in places. Among his other works include Young Bottoms in Love and Meet Me in St. Louis… Many literature aficionados have heard of Alison Bechdel by now, thanks to her graphic novel memoir Fun Home hitting it big a couple of years ago. If you liked that, I suggest also seeking out the collection of her long-running strip, Dykes to Watch Out For. Similar kind of droll humor, with a bigger cast… Abby Denson‘s work leans more towards the realm of Japanese manga, with androgynous boys and hyper-emotional situations. Her breakout book Tough Love is very much in that vein. (I remember when this was a mini-comic! I should have a copy or two back home in New York.)

All these comics are great places to start for gay comics. For more, check out the website Prism Comics.

Susan says next month is Asian Heritage Month, so the theme this week is Asian and Asian-American creators. And since manga is not exactly something I’m knowledgeable about, I’ll stick to discussing comics by Asian-Americans.

Two of the most prominent AA creators right now are Derek Kirk Kim and Gene Luen Yang. The former is Korean, the latter Chinese, and both creators weave elements of their respective cultures in their work while keeping them accessible to all audiences.

Kim’s books, like Same Difference and Other Stories, are marked by a love of geek culture and the awkwardness of young adult relationships. His autobiographical stories have a self-depreciating humor that also pokes fun at certain unusual aspects of Korean life. He can take on a variety of art styles, and the anthology Same Difference alternates from the semi-realistic style of the title story to a broad, almost diagrammatic technique for some of his single-page gag strips.

Yang’s books, like the critically-acclaimed American Born Chinese, have a more spiritual bent to them, though they stop short of proselytizing. CO and Worducopia readers may recall that ABC made history in 2006 by becoming the first graphic novel to be nominated for a National Book Award.

The two recently teamed up to create a new graphic novel anthology, The Eternal Smile. I just finished reading it. While I think the three stories in this book rely a little too much on the M. Night Shyamalan-like twist (which Yang did use to magnificent effect in ABC), it’s still enjoyable enough to serve as an introduction to the two creators’ work if you’ve never read them before.

In addition: Adrian Tomine has done a variety of quiet, introspective relationship comics, including his long-running series Optic Nerve… My friend Stan Yan makes humor comics, my favorite being The Wang. He really has gotten better and better as an artist over the years, so if you like raunchy-yet-geeky humor, give his comics a try… This spring has seen the release of an anthology of AA talent called Secret Identities. (Here’s an interview with one of the editors.) Haven’t read it yet, but the buzz is positive… The first time I saw Jen Wang‘s work, it was as part of the phenomenal anthology Flight, and I thought she was one of the brightest spots of what is by all accounts a superlative collection of young comics talent.

And while I’m not that much into manga, there is one manga that I’ve read that left a huge impression on me: Eagle: The Making of an Asian-American President by Kaiji Kawaguchi. Long before America even heard of Barack Obama, here was a story of a minority running for – and winning – the White House. Written during the Clinton administration, some of it may seem dated, especially in this post 9-11 world, but it does a superb job of chronicling the suspense of a political campaign, with all the double dealing, intrigue, highs and lows that come with it.

The questions for this week in italics:

Which is the character who’s the most different from you? (And how? Use this as an excuse to tell us your own background and anything else about yourself that’s important to your self-identity).

The obvious answer would seem to be any superhero or supervillain or any fantasy character in general, but more than enough has been and is being written about superheroes, both in print and on the Net, and I’d rather talk about comics that are off the beaten path. Keep in mind that despite the way the questions are phrased, I don’t consider these the “absolute” answers, just one among a number that I could just as easily write about also.

If the author of an autobiographical comic can be considered a character in their own book – and why not? – one name that instantly springs to mind is Ellen Forney in Monkey Food. I remember first hearing about her at SPX, where her collection of “I Was Seven in ’75″ strips debuted, and despite the buzz on it I missed out. When I finally did get my hands on the book, well, I just fell in love with it instantly. I am a straight black male who came of age in the 80s. Forney is a homosexual white woman who came of age in the 70s. I’d say that’s pretty different.

Monkey Food chronicles Forney’s wonder years in a very bright-eyed, fanciful and just plain fun manner. While it’s definitely written for adults, there are so many moments that make you feel like a kid again, and while Forney presents her childhood self as girly-girl as you can get, something about her character really spoke to me. We see little Ellen and her girlfriends play hand-clap games, make up their own fashion styles, reading (and secretly enjoying) the books of Judy Blume, babysitting, and other girly-girl stuff, which I never did (well, okay, I did read some Judy Blume books), but something about the way Forney presents all of this – complete with obligatory 70s pop culture references – made me feel like I was living this life as well.

Certainly the art style helps. Forney uses a uniform line, probably with a brush, to create a cartoon style that’s suggestive of childhood. It’s never too detailed or over-rendered, but it’s self-assured even if it seems awkward in places.

It’s not all kid stuff, though. We also see Ellen interacting with her brother and especially her ultra-liberal parents, doing things like going to a nude beach, throwing a joint party, going to see Saturday Night Fever (and wondering about some of the more adult elements of the movie) and going to a Unitarian church, things that my ultra-conservative upbringing had absolutely no part of. Ellen gets exposed to ideas that she may have been way too young for, but they don’t keep her from being a kid. While I wouldn’t say I had a sheltered childhood, my parents would’ve definitely frowned on this method of child-rearing. Maybe that’s part of why seeing it in this book appealed to me.

Monkey Food is the kind of book I love coming back to again and again because of its sincerity and openness in the face of a coming-of-age story that may seem unusual and unconventional to some – like me.

Which is the author (this could be fiction, nonfiction, poetry, etc.) who is (or was) the most different from you?

Certainly someone like Will Eisner was a creator very different from me in many ways. The son of European immigrants, whose Jewish identity was a large part of who he was, growing up during the (first) Great Depression and having to make a living at an early age, perceiving comics completely differently from the overwhelming majority of his peers and spending his life trying to elevate the artform long before the rest of the industry caught up to him, making comics that have stood the test of time in a style second to none and continuing to do so into his 80s. He was an American original, and we’ll not see his like again.

“As a young person, he really did not believe that he was someone who could contract HIV or AIDS… It was not explained to him. And AIDS and HIV are not extensively taught in abstinence-only education — which was the mandate, schools would not receive funding if they did not agree to teach abstinence-only education. So in a lot of ways, it’s been a quantum leap backward. This is a health issue, not a moral issue. The previous administration, which did a decent job with AIDS in Africa, seems to feel quite comfortable ignoring what’s going on in our own country. Which is unfortunate.”

On the occasion of an MTV movie about the life of the late Real World star and AIDS activist, his co-star and best friend, comics creator Judd Winick, talks about the movie, Zamora, and the fight against AIDS today.

Sarah Glidden

“…The notion of having a ‘secret identity’ is something that I suspect a lot of people can identify with. You know that mild-mannered guy in the cubicle next to you? Yeah, after work, it turns out he’s an underground breakdancer or something. And I think for Asian Americans, the analogy is even more potent. Because for a lot of us, the idea of a shifting identity is an issue that we deal with on a daily basis.”

Secret Identities

Plus: Here’s a piece about Matt Baker covers.