georgethecat:

marcusto:

It’s interesting lately with all the changes going on in the comic world, or lack there of how many different opinions there are about it, from a lot of anger for the changing of a characters race or the excitement of a books relaunch to the importance of strong female characters.

As a creator I am excited to see a new direction in comics to try to bring the medium into a new generation.

As an Asian-Canadian am sad to not see more racial diversity (or at least an asian character that isn’t around just cause he/she knows some kind of martial art)

As a fan am cautious to see how my favorite characters will be treated as they are handed off to new creative teams over and over again.

I do think that talking about it at conventions and on forums and blogs as well as articles like this is a good thing to bring attention to what you readers want to see. But not all opinions are valid or acceptable as I’ve noticed a lot of people online can be very hateful.

I just wanted to put a few cents into the conversation after reading this article because it does hit close to home for me and Jill Pantozzi says it much better than I do.

I’ll stop now since I’m just rambling….

Marcus, you are awesome as usual. (Emphasis mine)

As a fairly young African American living here in the US it’s disheartening to read such negativity from people who are supposed to be fans. I don’t care about the race about a character I just care about what stories you can tell with the character. For some reason or another minorities of race, gender, and sexual preference usually get the short end of the stick when it comes to shelf life in comics.

These characters are either killed or put in comic book limbo where they will be place on a bus and only a competent writer comes along and makes them relevant. The sad thing is that honestly over the last decade the guys in charge don’t seem to understand the fact that in order to make a character relevant you have to be hands of in the creative process. Wonder Woman in my mind has the biggest example of where executive meddling can ruin a perfectly well selling title. Greg Rucka’s and Gail Simone’s runs respectively were well written and well received by fans of the character. Both runs were ended because of editors refusing to let the writers just tell there stories without breathing done there necks and forcing them into crossovers that hurt there runs.