Just How Progressive Are Modern Comics?
The modern era of comics tends to be seen as fairly progressive. Most companies are pretty liberal in that they do not conform to conservative ideals. There have been several homosexual characters and have been able to admit it publicly for years now. African Americas were represented early on and not just in sidekick roles. Even political controversies have been a mainstay of the industry from the days of Speedy and Harry Osborn being drug addicts to Civil War being fairly obvious analogous to the modern climate.
But we may be given the industry more credit than it is due. Sean Kleefield ponders just how open minded we are as an industry and looks at diversity in its varied incarnations as it appears on comic book covers.
Here's a preview:
Yesterday I was actively looking for comic covers that featured any sort of romantic relationship between a black woman and a white man, and this was the only one I could find. Star Trek was the first TV show to feature an interracial kiss, but there was not even a hint of that in any of the comics. The Star Wars franchise features a fairly racial diverse cast, but nowhere do they cross that line into interracial romances.How about any of the Tarzan titles? The whole point was he was this white guy in Africa! Nada. Conan? Nothing there either.
Fantastic Four, the first title to introduce a black superhero? The first mainstream comic to even mention the idea of homosexuality? Nothing.
He poses some very interesting questions and obviously did his homework. And don't think he relegates himself to the Big Two. He also discusses indie and underground books and creators such as Robert Crumb and Kim Deitch.
You can check out the full article RIGHT HERE.
Goblin
Posted to Comics on 25 April 2008
· Comments (3)
Other stuff like this: Kim Dietch, Robert Crumb, Sean Kleefield
Has Sean even looked at the New Avengers? has he ever heard of Luke Cage and Jessica Drew (Jewel)? Honestly i think comics do deserve credit for being extremely progressive on the matters of gender, orientation and relationships. Ive seen plenty of covers featuring such "moments" from Marvel, i just think he has yet to look at all
I would have to say that I agree with Fredy, Marvel seems much more progressive to me than DC. Not only on the interracial level, but also on the GLBT level. Though Marvel squashed attempts to put in GLBT characters early on (Northstar being an "elf" instead of having AIDS, Shatterstar's whole debacle), they now feature quite prominently. In mainstream continuity two VERY well regarded books (Young Avengers and Runaways) have open gay relationships within the teams, and in the Ultimate universe (which I normally don't care for) Colossus being gay was HUGE. Maybe I'm just looking through rose-tinted glasses, and I will agree that he change is long overdue, but I think that finally the Big Two are letting in the new guard and it's having some effect on the open-mindedness of comics.
Why limit things to covers? How many comic book covers even have people kissing at all?
I mean, Storm and Forge had a relationship in what, the 80s? (And, on the LGBT front, Mystique and Destiny were in a relationship way back then too.) I'm not sure I understand why that counts as something different? It's still interracial. It's still progressive. He seems to be focusing (rather narrow-mindedly if you ask me) on a single type of pairing, in a rather un-progressive fashion. This isn't a debate about interracial couples in comic books, it's a silly complaint about the lack of black women kissing white men on comic book covers. What does that have to do with whether or not comic books are progressive?
And really, I just can't see how comics aren't progressive compared to other media? I was learning progressive values from comic books long before I started seeing them on TV, in movies or in magazines. Comic books have always, to me at least, seemed far more progressive than any other kind of media out there.