So yeah, last night Cheryl Lynn Eaton held a panel discussion on women of color in comics at the Museum of Cartoon and Comic Art, in association with Friends of Lulu and of course, CL’s very own Ormes Society, here in NYC. It was a small panel: former Marvel artist Alitha Martinez (who has a new self-published solo book coming out soon), House of Twelve member and occasional punk rock diva Jenny Gonzalez, and up-and-coming Jersey artist Rashida Lewis.

It was a very lively discussion throughout the evening, as the four women talked about the elements that make up their art, their relationships with their audiences and other artists, and their identities as black and Latina creators. Some highlights:

-Alitha Martinez talked about her childhood and mentioned an incident in which her mother discouraged her from pursuing comics because it wasn’t something girls did. At Marvel she received valuable guidance from Joe Quesada, but she added that she found the small corporate comics industry insular and difficult for newcomers to leave their mark. Later in the discussion, she made a salient point about how the invisibility (her word) of women creators in general and black women in particular is a hindrance.

- Jenny Gonzalez (who I should mention is one of my oldest and dearest friends in comics), talked about her penchant for dark, satirical humor, a result of her early exposure to Mad magazine and underground comics. She, like the others, shared accounts of sexist incidents, in her case from a few male creators, and along with CL, made a point of how indy comics tend to have greater diversity than in the corporates (holding up Love and Rockets as a prime example).

- Rashida Lewis aspired to making comics after initially pursuing a career as a doctor, and though the corporate comics lured her at first, she found that self-publishing allowed her to express herself better; to see herself reflected through her characters. A huge animation fan (especially anime), in addition to making comics she’s also branching into video game and DVD production as well.

- As for CL, she talked about how her family grew up with comics, but it was always assumed that she, being the girl, would get the Archie comics while the boys got the superheroes, which held greater appeal for her. She decried the fact that Marvel doesn’t do enough to push their comics in mainstream outlets and that even though black women characters currently hold positions of power in team books, they never get solo books like white characters Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk. She feels that creators unfamiliar with cultural differences should do their homework and talk to people of color instead of making assumptions.

Definitely a good panel overall. The audience actually engaged the panelists in discussion and stuck around for quite awhile afterward to talk to all of them. CL talked about putting together an anthology in 2008, something she really wants to get off the ground, so hopefully we’ll be hearing more from her on this front in the new year.

Here’s another report on the panel from my pal Elayne Riggs (with a horrible picture of me in it which I swear I did not know she was gonna actually use!).