The 2009 Glyph Comics Awards: Submissions Being Accepted

Hi All,

I'm honored to have been asked to participate in the judging for the 2009 Glyph Comics Awards. The Glyph Comics Awards recognizes the best in comics made by, for, and about people of color.

Submissions for the 2009 awards are now being accepted; please read the press release below for details, and feel free to repost the info on your own site!

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE 2009 GLYPH COMICS AWARDS ARE NOW BEING ACCEPTED; JUDGES NAMED

This past May, in the closest race in the brief history of the Glyph Comics Awards (GCA), Sentences, the autobiography of underground rapper MF Grimm, a.k.a. Percy Carey, walked away with the grand prize of Story of the Year. This year promises just as competitive a race.

The GCA Committee has selected their panel of judges for the 2009 competition. They are:

· Valerie D'Orazio, president, Friends of Lulu

· Mathan Erhardt, writer, Comics Nexus

· Ed Mathews, columnist, Pop Image

· Tim O'Shea, writer/interviewer, TalkingWithTim.com

· Elayne Riggs, comics reviewer and commentator

Any comics publisher – small, large, corporate, independent, self-published – as well as online comic creators and cartoonists for newspapers and other periodicals, are invited to submit black-themed material released from January 1-December 31, 2008 for consideration for award recognition. The Committee defines black-themed work as any comic with any combination of the following: a black protagonist(s), or at least a black character(s) pivotal to the direction of the story; a setting(s) or a theme(s) that explores the black experience within the United States and/or abroad, past, present, and/or future; and/or a comic of any kind written and/or illustrated by a black creator(s).

Anyone wishing to submit their comic book or comic strip for consideration in the 2009 competition should e-mail GCA Committee Chair Rich Watson at rich.watson@gmail.com for further information. Hard copies are preferred, though submissions of e-files will also be accepted. Online comics creators and newspaper/periodical cartoonists with websites should send a direct URL link to their site or page. Daily cartoonists must have a minimum of one month's work archived and available for viewing; weekly cartoonists a minimum of two months. The deadline for submissions is January 31, 2009.

The 2009 Glyph Comics Awards ceremony will be held at the East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention (ECBACC) in May 2009.

About the Glyph Comics Awards:

The Glyph Comics Awards recognize the best in comics made by, for, and about people of color from the preceding calendar year. While it is not exclusive to black creators, it does strive to honor those who have made the greatest contributions to the comics medium in terms of both critical and commercial impact. By doing so, the goal is to encourage more diverse and high quality work across the board and to inspire new creators to add their voices to the field.

The awards are named for the blog Glyphs: The Language of the Black Comics Community (http://glyphs.popcultureshock.com), started in 2005 by comics journalist Rich Watson as a means to provide news and commentary of comics with black themes, as well as tangential topics in the fields of black science-fiction/fantasy and animation.

About ECBACC:

The East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention (www.ecbacc.com/wordpress) is an annual gathering of comic book creators and retailers who create and sell material that caters to black readers of all ages. In addition to selling their work, they also take part in panel discussions and self-publishing workshops for aspiring creators. The convention is held in Philadelphia each May. There is also a pre-show reception held at the African American Museum in Philadelphia. ECBACC is an outgrowth of the original Black Age of Comics Convention in Chicago, founded by Turtel Onli.

For more information about ECBACC, contact event coordinator Maurice Waters at maurice.waters@ecbacc.com.

DC: Out With The New, In With The Old

DC's Bold New Direction, as pictured in the LA Times

"What happens is that if a character doesn’t work, we go, ‘We got a brand new direction to put him in! We’re moving him into something new! We’re going to try something brand new and different!"

--Dan DiDio, bemoaning thinking outside the box and doing new things.

Back in 2007, I predicted that Blue Beetle, Firestorm, and Atom would eventually get axed, and soonish. The only thing I would want to clarify here is the phrase I used, "This is the likely fate for most ethnic reboots." As I said in my previous post: I believe that for the most part the comic book reading public have gotten past the race or ethnicity of a character, as long as the book is good. I honestly believe this. If these were such big "deal breakers," the film "Blade" wouldn't haven been so successful and essentially launched the age of the Marvel Movie.

But --

My concern is internally, within DC.


I swear on a stack of Bibles or in any court of law that while I was at DC, certain segments of editorial believed that "Black books didn't sell." Then the finger would be pointed at books like Batman: Orpheus Rising, starring an African-American character. There was a feeling like if you had one "Black Book," you filled your quota for the entire line. A pitch for another "Black Book"would be unofficially rejected because we "already had one." In a larger sense, there was a tendency to blame these sorts of factors for a book's demise rather than poor marketing or other circumstances. Bad Girls was a "Girl Book" -- girl books don't sell. Batman: Orpheus Rising was a "Black Book" -- Black books didn't sell.

Well, did you make an effort to target the right audience, to reach outside the box with your marketing and PR, or did you let the book die on arrival because you never had faith in it from day one?

(you know, complain to me that I'm being "negative" here all you want -- I don't care, this really happened, and it is damn relevant)

On the other side of the coin, around 2003 (I believe) we received a memo from Time Warner corporate that noted the lack of diversity in our comic books. This document was real, it did exist. Shortly after that, the current reboot of Firestorm was developed. We made up our new roster for JLA very carefully, actually counting the number of males and females, and noting their ethnicity.

We had Faith that this character would impress Time Warner

This mentality never works. You can't get to the point where you go "yay!" when a character like Faith (remember her?) is put on the team, because she is both a woman and Latino and you've "killed" two birds with one stone.

So my concern with the demise of a book like Blue Beetle is that internally, it will be perceived as failing because it was a "Hispanic Book." You can have one idiot -- and I'll bet you $100 (no, make that $500) this has already been said within editorial -- that will comment on the cancellations of Atom, Firestorm, and Blue Beetle and say it was because the characters weren't white. When I do not see that as the case at all!

The Runaways: A diverse cast and a brand new concept
that successfully reached the teen market

It is far more a question of defining and reaching the demographic that would best embrace these books. And, in the case of Blue Beetle, this would be the teen market who embrace The Runaways. Blue Beetle was a perfect book in every way to penetrate this market. But the bigger issue is, I don't think DC is thinking outside the box anymore:

“There’s a reason the characters are still enduring now. You have to identify what made each character survive through the 1940s, the 1950s, the 1960s, the 1970s…the sensibilities have changed with every decade, but these characters remain pretty much the same. So what is it in the characters that people recognize and identify with? You keep that at the core and change the world around them to make it contemporary and compelling.”

-- Dan Didio, affirming the enduring qualities of the Status Quo

Wow! LOTSH in "Adventure Comics" Again? ZOMG!

When your most exciting new development is a relaunch of Adventure Comics with Legion Of The Superheroes, it's clear what direction the company is taking. Nostalgia sells, I guess -- and it's probably relatively easy to produce. Just have Geoff Johns write every issue, and Alex Ross paint every cover. Bam! You're done.

I thought it was ironic that the new Batman cartoon is made in the style of 1950s DC. And in the first episode, you have Batman team up with the current Blue Beetle. Batman still has his title, because he is "enduring." But Jaime Reyes apparently isn't "enduring." Was he given enough of a chance?

In Search Of Jackie Ormes

Tonight at 7:00 in the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, the New York chapter of Friends of Lulu is hosting a panel discussion entitled, "Women of Color In Comics And Manga." Moderating the discussion is Cheryl Lynn -- known to the blogging community as Digital Femme and a member of The Ormes Society, an organization inspired by the groundbreaking work of cartoonist Jackie Ormes.

But who is Jackie Ormes?


Jackie Ormes, among her other accomplishments, had two successful syndicated comic strips: "Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger," which ran for eleven years during the 1940s and 50s and inspired a doll line, and "Torchy Brown," which first appeared in the 1930s and was revived from 1950-1954.

In an era of rampant stereotypes of African-Americans in popular culture, Ormes's comic strips featured women of color who were confident, brave, intelligent, fashionable, and independent. With a mass media that even now seems to have a problem with the same damn cliches, I marvel at how Ormes managed to buck the system and present her own vision.

Yet in spite of her successes, I haven't seen a tremendous amount written about Ormes. Indeed, after 25 years of being a comic and cartoon enthusiast, the first mention I have ever found of her was in a copy of Trina Robbins's "The Great Women Cartoonists."

But recently there seems to be a renaissance in appreciation for her work. In February of 2008 a book entitled Jackie Ormes: The First African American Woman Cartoonist by Nancy Goldstein will be published by University of Michigan Press. And The Ormes Society continues to keep the memory of this distinguished American cartoonist alive.

Turning now from the past to the present and future, I would recommend dropping by the "Women of Color" panel discussion at MoCCA. Panelists include illustrious illustrators such as Alitha Martinez, known for her work on books such as Iron Man and Thor, Jenny Gonzalez, creator of the Too Negative series and contributor to the House of Twelve anthology, and Rashida Lewis, creator of the comic series Sand Storm.

"It's Like Letting Spike Lee Direct Captain America"

In this comics podcast, called "Alternate Reality," we have the following exchange by the hosts (it starts around 7:30 on the counter). They are discussing a new director for the Captain America movie. One host expresses doubts that the rumored director is fit for the job, because he has been associated with violent films. Then the other host says...

Host 1: "You give that script to that director and tell him to make that movie, he may have made that movie to what the script called for."

Host 2: "That may be true, but that's like saying we're going to let...Spike Lee direct Captain America."

Host 1: "Yeah, I don't think that would be right...because The Falcon would be in it a lot."

Host 2: "Why?"

Host 1: "Spike Lee. You know he would. Don't even ask me why."

From Taboo To Mainstream

I must agree with those readers who feel Lois has become too oriented towards "social causes," "minority groups," and so on. A comic book must primarily be a source of entertainment if it is to sell, and it is easy to jeopardize its success in this respect by overemphasizing moral messages. This applies to Lois' Women's Lib convictions also.

--letter printed in "Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane" in 1972.

Here is a rehash of the old complaint that adding too much of the "social causes" of the day will wreck a comic book & alienate its audience. In this case, the complaints were about too much women's lib & "minority" issues in the "Lois Lane." You could easily hear such a complaint today about including gay characters in a comic.

Was it difficult for DC & Marvel to integrate characters of color into their books back then? Did they get complaints? Was the issue ever raised internally that expanding the diversity of their superheroes might alienate fans?

And once they had characters like Black Panther and the John Stewart Green Lantern in place, was there a taboo against having them in any sort of situation that might be construed as an interracial romance?

How did comics get to the point where Jessica Jones & Luke Cage could become a couple? It seems so normal in comics now, but was it a taboo twenty years ago?


Of course, twenty years ago you had Storm & Forge. Was there any controversy over their relationship? Why did it seem harder to have an interracial relationship in movies & TV at that time than in comic books?


I'm throwing these questions out to you now because I see a parallel with the way gay characters are handled in comics today.

Twenty years from now, will having gay characters in the Justice League & X-Men -- ones that are just mainstream high-profile members and don't get killed every issue -- be absolutely commonplace?


Is it all about the passage of time?

Or will gay characters, while included, still have that sort of metaphorical baggage in terms of being disproportionately killed off, having f**ked-up doomed relationships, etc.?

And while interracial relationships in current pop-culture seems somewhat mainstream, are they still suffering from the same metaphorical baggage?

The most overt example of this in my memory is the interracial couple in the "Dawn of the Dead" remake who have the demon zombie baby that has to be shot. And now you have Luke Cage & Jessica Jones's baby possibly Skrully.


Anyway, when will different types of people just be considered people in these pop culture narratives -- without baggage, without subtext, without things that undermine them built-into the script?

Or can that really be? Or do you need a wealth of diversity within the industry itself to achieve that goal?

Or can you really fully escape the baggage of a history of being misunderstood & discriminated against?