GWOG

March 27, 2008

Unimpressed.

Filed under: Comics,Criticism and Commentary,Women in comics — Tags: — Caribou23 @ 8:30 pm

With this:

Ahem.
Let’s get the facts out.
It’s not a weird lighting issue in the image.
It’s not a coloring error.
Vixen is not a freakin’ white woman.

Found via Racialicious.

February 14, 2008

Comics Black History Month

Filed under: activism,Comics,Comics history,Criticism and Commentary — Tags: , , — KPhoebe @ 3:06 am

David Brothers is writing daily posts this February for his Black History Month at the excellent 4th Letter.

Of particular interest to Girl-Wonder.org readers (though it’s all great) might be this entry, where he ponders the lack of reaction to the death of Orpheus, in comparison to that for the Spoiler:

Why is Orpheus forgotten and why is Spoiler an icon? Maybe it’s the cynic in me, but this sounds familiar.

I’m not trying to diss anyone here. It’s just an interesting little comparison that I thought of while I was mulling the two characters over in my head.

I think it boils down to this: Spoiler is much, much more marketable than Orpheus is. If vigilantes were real, and Spoiler went out like she did? It’d be a 24 hour news cycle with breaking updates from various talking heads, constant news tickers, and the whole shebang. She’d be Jonbenet Ramsey, Natalee Holloway, Laci Peterson, and Chandra Levy all in one, with a side of Patty Hearst.

Orpheus… not so much. History bears this out. Crimes against black people just don’t get a lot of media attention, unless it’s something either a) totally outlandish or b) talked about enough that the media can’t get away with ignoring it.

February 10, 2008

Minority Cartoonists Hold a “Sketch-In”

Filed under: activism,comic strips,Creators,Criticism and Commentary — Tags: — Arion Hunter @ 1:14 pm

If you opened your newspaper today and noticed some of the comic strips seemed similar, it’s not unintentional.  11 minority cartoonists have banded together to protest the unequal treatment minority strips receive in many American newspapers.

Listen to NPR’s interview with Cory Thomas (or for those not audio-inclined, read the Washington Post article), and check out his awesome version of the strip.

Other strips participating include Herb and Jamaal, Housebroken, Cafe con Leche, The K Chronicles, Compu-toon, editorial cartoonist Tim Jackson, and Candorville.

September 20, 2007

Jena 6 Day of Action!

Filed under: activism,Politics — Tags: — Caribou23 @ 2:46 pm

September 20th 2007 is the Jena 6 Day of Action. Go here to find out how you can get involved and what you can do to help.  They literally have everything from flyers you can print out and post in your neighborhood, to phone numbers you can call and a list of events that could be happening in your area.

September 5, 2007

The future is blinding!

Filed under: Criticism and Commentary — Tags: , , , — Betty @ 10:05 pm

OddityCollector examines the ethnic makeup of the thirtieth century, and asks what happened to all the brown people.

NYTimes interviews Perry Moore, author of Heroes. Money quote: “Yes, bad things do happen to all people,” he wrote in it. “But are there positive representations of gay characters to counterbalance these negative ones?”

July 16, 2007

FSF&FF Carnival! Yay!

Filed under: Criticism and Commentary,Fandom,Politics — Tags: , — KPhoebe @ 2:03 am

The 15th Carnival of the Feminist Sci-Fi and Fantasy Fans is up at Feminist SF – The Blog!

Dear Kirby,
I regret the delay between letters, but sometimes life gets in the way of correspondence and I had some important work-related issues to handle. We stumbled across a remarkable find in the North Centuria II site. Last month’s dig yielded evidence of a yearly festival held in this area known as “Wiscon.”

Yep, it’s the WisCon31 round-up: con reports, panel write-ups, and discussions inspired by WisCon31! But if that isn’t your bag, there’s also plenty of other great links. Fantastic as always.

July 15, 2007

History of Dazzler

Filed under: Comics history — Tags: , — Lena @ 4:28 pm

At one point in her creation, Dazzler was going to be black. (Scroll down for a concept picture by John Romita.)

I don’t know enough about the character to know whether that would have been a good thing or a bad thing but it could certainly have been interesting.

July 14, 2007

“Holding Out for a Hero”

Filed under: Criticism and Commentary — Tags: , — toddperson @ 7:45 pm

Youtube link to a video of drag queen Tandi Iman Dupree performing Betty Taylor’s “Holding Out for a Hero” – recently(ish) popularized by SHREK 2 – dressed as Wonder Woman and joined by a Superman dancer.

I’m kind of in love with this video and could ramble about the interesting things it says (without even trying!) about conventional ideas of sexuality, race, and identity for hours, but instead I think I’ll just link you to it, because it’s fantastic and says it all without any input from me.

Also, it’s sexy beyond belief.

July 13, 2007

First ever PoC SF Carnival is up!

Filed under: Fandom — Tags: , — Livia Penn @ 9:52 am

The first-ever People of Color SF Carnival, curated by WitchWillow, focuses on issues faced by creators, fans and characters of color in all aspects of science fiction and fantasy media and fandom. My personal favorites are two essays I’d read before, Pam Noles’ comments on the SciFi channel’s adaptation of Ursula K. LeGuin’s “Earthsea.” But WitchWillow has done such a great job, collecting links on a wide variety of topics, that I think there’s something interesting here for just about everyone.

July 12, 2007

Tintin and Racism

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , — Rachel Edidin @ 11:33 am

According to the BBC, “the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) is calling on high street books to pull a Tintin adventure from its shelves over claims it is racist.”

I’m genuinely not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, many of the Tintin books encompass the worst of colonialist bigotry; on the other, “the book’s publishers Egmont said the book comes with a warning that it features ‘bourgeois, paternalistic stereotypes of the period – an interpretation some readers may find offensive.’” So, the edition in question contains printed acknowledgement of the offensive contents and isn’t attempting to excuse them, which casts the issue in a somewhat different light.

Where do you draw that line? Is there a clear line at all? Should the book be relegated to the “adult” section? Should stores even carry it? Is there an ethical difference between what content should be tolerated in Tintin, which is considered a seminal and canonical piece of comics literature, versus other, less “classic” works? Should there be?

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