This one slipped under the radar too quickly for my tastes, so I’m going to try and revive it a bit here.
About a month ago, Willow at Seeking Avalon discovered that Vixen’s skin tone had been lightened in Justice League. The post was picked up in a few places, and the natural reaction of many superhero fans is to call the problem a “coloring error.”
Except… her nose is very thin, isn’t it? And her lips, her cheeks, her eyes tend towards the European. Seems someone forgot to tell the penciller the memo that this character is supposed to be black.
And this isn’t an uncommon problem. I remember when I first started watching the X-Men cartoon and reading the comics. How many artists drew Jubilee as an Asian-American character? Very few. I could swear she had blue eyes in a lot of places. And did anyone realize the Wasp in Ultimates was meant to be Asian before they had the scene where another character suggested casting Lucy Liu to play her in a movie?
This has been going on for quite some time, actually. And no one wants artists to start drawing racial caricatures. However, these people are paid to draw stories. These stories come alive with how the characters are portrayed. They have to look different. They have to be able to express emotions. If you can draw a genuine smile and differentiate it from a smirk, you should be able to draw mouths of different sizes and shapes. Noses of different sizes and shapes. Faces shaped differently. Distinctive characters, without going overboard.
More than one person has theorized that this isn’t so much a matter of lack of skill, but a matter of the artist finding white women more attractive than other races. Cheryl Lynn has some advice in that case:
Last, but certainly not least, are those artists who have wonderful artistic skills but simply think that white women are the most beautiful women on earth. Scratch that. The only beautiful women on earth. And because they believe that all heroines should be beautiful, the result is that they depict non-white heroines with stereotypically white features. They give a character like Storm the features they think a beautiful woman should have instead of the features a beautiful woman from Kenya would likely have.And that’s a problem. How do you resolve it? Well I certainly wouldn’t want anyone to change what he or she finds to be beautiful. Hell, that’s impossible to do anyway. But those artists will have to work against their brains a bit. Those artists may think that giving a character a wider nose or eyes without lid creases will make that character unattractive. What needs to be realized is that the audience has a much broader definition of what is attractive. Have you ever given someone a gift that you didn’t like but you knew the other person would love? You put the other person first. Those artists need to put the audience first.
And if the problem isn’t one of personal taste and you just can’t draw any women but white women, why are you drawing a title like Justice League?
March 15th, 2008 at 2:01 am
Thank you. I noticed this when I read it and meant to blog about it. I’m glad someone did and that you’re bringing it back to the attention of readers.
I wouldn’t blame the artist for this, though. At this point, it’s a bit institutionalized, isn’t it? Decades of rarely differentiating character by more than skin tone and hair color makes it hard for an artist to take a chance and submit a character with a slightly wider nose or (God help me, I don’t know a more PC term) more obviously slanted eyes. Or anything else that can be said to be stereotypical of a given minority.
It seems to me that the comic industry is catering to an audience that was always more comfortable with Kirk bedding down a white women in blue makeup than kissing Uhuru. It’s the problem of trying to appeal to the wider audience while appeasing the smaller portion of the audience that wants representation.
“Hey…it’s like it is a white women with brown makeup on, maybe they’ll dig that!” And for years, it seems they have.
March 15th, 2008 at 3:16 am
Jubilee with blue eyes is a Claremont thing, not a colouring error, and I can’t work out whether that’s better or worse, considering Storm’s eyes.
March 15th, 2008 at 4:37 am
I do blame the artist. He should know what Vixen is supposed to look like and draw her appropriately. Dc has recently put some former Image/To Cow artists on JLA and they have run true to type by drawing every female like a white supermodel. The problem is they need to get better, more experienced and more attentive artists on JLA and this would resolve a lot of the problems. I have asked from Benitez’s first issue WTF is he doing on this book??!!
Compounding this difficulty might be that Vixen is supposed to actually be a supermodel; so there you go. Many of these new artists are so inexperienced in dealing with DC’s large stable of characters they may indeed not know what Vixen’s racial characteristics are.
And as for the coloring error, well, so what I’ve seen Batman as a blue person and Superman as green before. It happens.
Frankly, I’ve always been uncomfortable watching Shatner kissing or bedding down anyone. Maybe Khux is just jealous of those lucky, lucky blue women.
March 15th, 2008 at 5:32 am
Every Willow Lady post ever, Short Version:
http://th168.photobucket.com/albums/u180/pipeking/th_1-11.gif
March 15th, 2008 at 8:27 am
In animation, every character has a model sheet, so that each drawing is uniform. If the animator goes Off Model, then it has to be redrawn.
Comics allow for creativity and style, but it is the editor who must maintain consistency. They hire the talent, they guard the mythology of the characters, they protect the publisher from controversy.
Every culture has different standards of beauty. (Both Fire and Ice of JLI are attractive, but in different ways.) I believe that if the character is interesting, the physical appearances become just another way to identify a character. Otherwise you get “action figure” heroes, where all that is changed are the costumes.
March 15th, 2008 at 9:57 am
this Cheryl Lynn lady must be psychic, knowing what men are thinking and all.
March 15th, 2008 at 10:01 am
oh, not to be a smarty, but perhaps when referring to asian eyes, just say epicanthal folds.
March 15th, 2008 at 11:01 am
I followed back in JLA, and looked at different colorists in books and in particular the colorist that colored Vixen in the last few books. I compared them to other black characters in the book, Amanda Waller and John Stewart. (Also screw you for making me read a comic that ED Benes drew, he’s an awful awful artist incapable of doing anything but getting a ass shot in a frame, and his sister is no better.)
The color for Mari stays pretty consistent, except for that page. (Which happens to be from the scan, which is really muddy, and not from the comic itself.) She’s been depicted lately as being lighter than John and Waller and for the extremely limited color palette that issue has fits about there. The crappiness of the coloring in this particular book makes it very very hard for me to think it was intentional or even subconsciously done.
I agree that Benes is drawing all the females very similar in facial features, is this more towards lack of artistic talent or through subtle racism? Looking at Benes overall work in the last 4 years, I’m going to have to lean towards the former. He relies heavily on “fan service” art. He’s not know for making any of his character’s look that different. It’s not as if he can draw just the faces of white females, he just draws the same exact faces for all of his females. His males are barely that much better.
He’s also gotten flack from DC for that in they brought in a separate artist to give him reasonable layouts. He is also notoriously late. He’s been known to knock out fan submissions before his work. I don’t know why DC still employs him on one of their biggest books either. It could be he has a contract that pays him such a high page rate, that on any other book it would be a totally loss. That last part is speculation but I have heard of artists being priced out of certain books.
In the end, I’m not so assured that this is something more than a horrible artistic team expected to do a good job and failing to do so. It still takes skills to portray characters of different ethnicities. Bad Artist need not apply.
March 15th, 2008 at 11:35 am
I think this is more racist than any whitewashing that is supposedly going on.
Things like this: “Except… her nose is very thin, isn’t it? And her lips, her cheeks, her eyes tend towards the European. Seems someone forgot to tell the penciller the memo that this character is supposed to be black.”
This is the essence of stereotyping. Vixen looks like Halle Berry to me in that panel, I guess Halle Berry is being whitewashed?
March 15th, 2008 at 11:45 am
Also, forgot to add, is Black Lightning or John Stewart being whitewashed as well in JLA?
March 15th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
She does NOT look like Halle Berry, she looks like Brigitte Nielsen!!! Good for you guys for pointing this out. Psylocke is another character where her ethic background is reflected in her appearance occasionally at best.
March 15th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
i agree with Pedro and Darth on the points they brought up. Benes draws all women the same and all men the same. And what, a black woman can’t have a thin nose and thin lips? There’s no controversy here.
March 15th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Though the racial issue has to be addressed a little more maturely in the industry, I think this is much ado about nothing.
March 15th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Also,I don’t remember owning this issue but I’d like to see more pages from that same issue with Vixen in it. Because if it was just a one page thing, then I really don’t see the fuss.
March 15th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
I’d have to concur that claiming Vixen’s face is outside the possible range for brown-skinned people does seem unlikely from a scientific standpoint.
March 15th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
“She’s been depicted lately as being lighter than John and Waller..”
Perdro, why do you think she has been depicted as being lighter than John and Waller lately? I’m not being snarky at all (it’s hard to tell on the internet). I’m really curious. Why was Vixen chosen for change? Why not a darker Wonder Woman or a paler Green Lantern?
March 15th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Wow!!, talk about a story about nothing.
Just looking through the issue at the other pages she’s on, and her skin is clearly darker. This just looks like a simple colour slip up that’s been blown way out of proportion.
March 15th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Marvel and DC often have a tendency to color their Black Female characters very fairly….I’ve especially noticed that with Monet in X-Factor, how looks very light and anglo, vrs her darker complexion in Generation.
March 15th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
The way I see comic book art, a penciler is responsible for the pencils,the inker for the inks, and the colorist for the colors.
When the three things are done, it’s up to interpertation. Apparently, Vixen isn’t being drawn “black” enough for some peoples taste. Disregarding the fact that an artist’s technique and style are as realistic as they want to be, it would be nice to at least have a consistent image of these characters. If Vixen were to be a six foot tall blond Norwegian woman next issue, that would be a whitewash.
March 15th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
She’s got a face?! With the way the women in that book are drawn I never noticed anything above the neck. Tits and ass people, that’s what sells books. Not story, or character development (unless you count chests) or even a good fight scene. Nope, its all about the sex appeal. Gotta give the drooling fanboys something to fantasize about in their mom’s basements.
March 15th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Hey Cheryl,
I think that some time ago the model for Mari (who is african) was set more similar to being Halle Berry.
I’m not sure if that was a decision by editorial to do so or if Benes took it upon himself to change her look that way and the colorist saw Halle Berry and colored her how he sees the original Halle Berry.
March 15th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Milestone Comics didn’t sell.
Deal with it.
March 15th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
What does Milestone have to do with the discussion? Do you have sales stats that show that most Milestone books did worse than what are okay sales today? Do you know that most Milestone books had many white characters and that the racial mix of Milestone characters was equivalent to what the racial background is in most large cities? You don’t, then please refrain from talking with the rest of the adults here.
I hate Ed Benes so much. His shitty art is the reason we are having the conversation and why you feel the need to talk.
March 15th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
It isn’t that she isn’t being drawn black enough, it’s that she’s being drawn noticeably less black than before.
We’ve come along way from the days when there were just five skin tones in the comic color palette (White, black, asian, latino/indian). There should be some shakeups now that we’ve got scads more colors available, which means variation in skin tone.
Vixen is an actual african, which means she’s unlikely to have Halle Berry’s mixed-race skin tone. The image above is a really, really bad indicator of her skin tone, though, because the entire scene is washed out. That’s why I kind of feel like using that image to say that “she’s been lightened in Justice League” is kind of disingenuous.
She has been lightened in both tone and features. The fault of this most likely lies with the fact that Vixen’s model sheet is the past twenty or thirty years of published comics featuring her. Different depictions, different tones, and no consistency, as much as there can be consistency amongst styles.
Ed Benes is drawing her as a generic supermodel. That doesn’t help. Pete Pantazis’s palette for JLA isn’t quite working for me, either, as it varies between washed out (as in this issue, with the multiple bright white light sources turning everything weird) or muddy (as in the pages in this issue without the bright whites). It’s distracting and tends to screw up skin tones. Even the Jonboy Meyers backup in JLA 17 had that same sharp lighting. I think that Pantazis is a good colorist, but the palette hasn’t been working for me at all. Alex Sinclair, the colorist for 1-12, was somewhat better at skin tones, but not by much.
Did anyone read JLA Classified: Ultramarine Corps? Morrison and Ed McGuinness/Dexter Vines doing the JLA, with Dave McCaig on colors? The three black characters in the last issue had three different skin tones. Vixen was, again, the lightest out of the three, but it was a believable lightest, if that makes sense.
I think that issue has legs, but using a scanned version of part of JLA 18 feels like the worst possible way to discuss it. The color palette is so weird that it makes everyone look off.
Then again, JLA is Vixen’s only book at the moment, isn’t it? So it’s a Catch-22 for me. I think that there is a point, but at the same time my mind is saying “Put a different art team on and watch how much better things get.”
March 15th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
I just find this more of a coloring screw-up from an artist who draws women all the same way then anything racist, of course, I guess people complained when Wonder Woman was being colored with darker skin and Luke Cage/Jessica Jones had a white baby.
I figured more people would actually complain about Ultimate Wasp (something that really bothers me), who’s now seems to be one her THIRD different race.
March 15th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
it doesn’t seem like a mistake. check out the cover newest JLA solicit. Vixen is once again colored white.
March 15th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
This is a problem. Vixen, a woman from Africa, should not look like this. In her original appearance she was much, much darker. Perhaps unrealistically dark. Regardless, this shows he as unrealistically white. Even if we discount this as a coloring error, we cannot discount the problem of her looking white.
I understand that the common standard for beauty is based on a white standard, but Vixen SHOULD be a beautiful black woman, actually looking the part. If she were given a darker skin tone, with her current facial features, she would end up looking Wonder Woman with short hair, and in black face.
Benes’ art is attrocious, but with male characters, atleast John and Jeff have blacker facial features, wider noses, and darker tones. They look like they are African-Americans. Vixens was born in African, and lives in America. Her appearance should reflect her history, who the character is, and the fact she’s an African woman, not Wonder Woman with short hair and in black face.
March 15th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
I feel dumber for having read all that.
March 15th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
I might be coming from a different point of view from Cheryl Lynn, but it really bugs me when artists draw characters differently from their established appearance. Vixen as drawn by Benes looks very little like Vixen as drawn by Luke McDonnell.
March 15th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
For reference, this page has a few examples of what Vixen has looked like in the past:
http://galileo.spaceports.com/~xsufiru/databank/Vixen/
which is a lot different than what she looks like in Justice League.
Second, can we declare a moratorium on the Halle Berry defense? First, not every black woman looks like Halle Berry, particularly those who come from Africa. That might have something to do with Berry’s mom being white:
http://updates.absolutely.net/20070403/halleberrystar_038_wenn1229779.html
March 15th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
> “Psylocke is another character where her
> ethic background is reflected in her
> appearance occasionally at best.”
You mean British?
Don’t mind me, I’m just being facetious.
March 15th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
While Vixen looks very white in that image, she is still not as light as Wonder Woman next to here. There are a lot of different shades of skin color, and a lot of tones are considered Black.
I find the facial characteristics to be a tricky situation. When Storm started showing up in Black Panther, she looked different than I was used to. It seemed that the artists had drawn her with more Afircan features than in the past. Which I feel is untrue to the character, since it is incosistent with her past appearances. Also, she looked a bit like a characiture.
As for Vixen, she is a fashion model. Until very recently, it was difficult for women of color to get to the upper echelon of modeling. Maybe Benes draws her with “white features” to criticize the fashion industry for only allowing a certain type of beauty to be seen? I know it’s a stretch, but I am reaching just like a lot of people who think there is a anti-Black agenda in a McDuffie book.
March 15th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Eric, I think you are giving Benes more credit than he should ever deserve.
Iman’s been a high super model forever. If Naomi hadn’t gotten her shit together, she would have been fine.
JK – I’m not using Halle as an excuse to defend Benes shitty art or her coloring, I’m just providing the reason why it occurs. I don’t think it’s a good reason, but it’s probably the reason he chooses to draw her this way.
March 15th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
“> “Psylocke is another character where her
> ethic background is reflected in her
> appearance occasionally at best.”
You mean British?
Don’t mind me, I’m just being facetious”
Actually I think her consciousness was transferred to an Asian ninja assassin a few years ago. Or something like that.
March 15th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Actually this could just be more of a screw-up on the “artistic team’s” part than anything else. It’s probably even worse for minor characters (I know of at least 3 times – in 3 separate books – where Flo all of the sudden changed into a white woman, once with decidedly light hair color as well).
March 16th, 2008 at 12:13 am
nightwing – in that picture (I assume http://www.newsarama.com/dcnew/June08/solicitations.html), she’s about the same as John Stewart. I’d blame crappy colouring there – or at the very least, colouring unsuitable for my computer screen.
March 16th, 2008 at 2:41 am
This is a classic example of overgeneralizing based on a small (in this case, single) sample. The simple fact of the matter is that Benes is limited in his ability to draw characters. All of his women look alike? Sure. But guess what? So do most of his men. He’s a throwback to the days when artists drew one face and characters were distinguished by their haircut and color.
Is Benes the only “offender”? Hardly. But to suggest (as the writer seems to be doing) that the problem is (A) a pandemic among artists and (B) a sign of some kind of inherent racism is a major stretch. There are plenty of artists who have great skill in overall character variation, racial and otherwise: Alan Davis, John Byrne, Jerry Ordway, Leonard Kirk, Ivan Reis, Olivier Coipel, Stuart Immonen, Brian Stelfreeze, and so on.
If you want to single out certain artists for their creative failings, go ahead. But don’t broadly paint everyone with the same brush (so to speak). But the fact is, with as many artists drawing comics as there are, some are simply going to be better at some things than others.
March 16th, 2008 at 10:26 am
Clearly Infinite Crisis changed continuity so Vixen’s now from SOUTH Africa!
March 16th, 2008 at 10:28 am
//I’d have to concur that claiming Vixen’s face is outside the possible range for brown-skinned people does seem unlikely from a scientific standpoint.//
The point should be whether it’s out of the possible range for Vixen’s face. Vixen is an individual and has generally not been portrayed in the past with such ‘caucasian’ features.
If this isn’t about race then it’s about artists who don’t have the required respect for venerable characters and make NO attempt to portray them consistenly. Or don’t have employers who demand some basic proffessionalism in the artists they employ.
I’m with Torston Adair. Comic book companies should look to animation houses and get a clue on how to run a business rather then a clubhouse.
March 16th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Good God, man! Vixen isn’t being drawn EXACTLY like previous artists have drawn her? And the coloring in a washed-out, badly colored page makes her look less dark than some other black people, although not as white as others in the issue? I say, grab the pitchforks, there’s a castle to storm somewhere!
Is this the only character to have been drawn differently by different artists over time? (“Oh God, Jimmy’s got 10 more freckles in this issue than last — FIRE THE ARTIST!”) We better get out the measuring stick to make sure her lips are as thick or her nose is as wide next time, or else the PC police will be here to take names.
I find MUCH more racism in this whole train of thought than I do in the intentions of an artist with extremely limited ability to draw ANY faces, or a colorist who (to me) seemed to be showing some diversity in the darker skinned characters.
I think this whole “Blogosphere Outrages over…” thing has just jumped the shark, eating itself with the racism it so desperately wants to prevent.
March 16th, 2008 at 11:24 am
I think that not enough attention is paid in art school education and drawing courses on differentiating between ethnic features. Most shy away from this sort of “stereotyping” for fear of promoting some sort of racist mindset, but the truth is that each ethnicity does have it’s own stereotypical distinct features that show up in the majority of the undiluted population. Caucasian features are seen as “the norm” because that’s what most white/European artists learn to draw, and that’s what comes easiest to them.
Take a look at artists like Larry Stroman — he’s very good at giving his black characters distinctly appropriate features. You can tell they are black before the coloring is added. This is most likely due to the fact that he is black, and spent much more time learning to draw black features than, say, Ed Benes. Now, Larry is also good at drawing features of other ethnicities, because he’s a solid, professional artist who knows his shit.
Looking at the example pic of Vixen, I’d not peg her as an African character from that panel alone. Sure, each artist has their own individual style, and some can be lazy or just ignorant when it comes to this sort of thing, but I think we need more evidence to prove some sort of company-mandated “whitewashing” conspiracy is going on here.
That’s my pocketful of change.
March 16th, 2008 at 11:28 am
I do agree that maybe Marvel and DC need to institute some sort of model sheet program to keep their characters looking consistent. Too many times their costumes are used as the only sort of consistent, recognizable aspect of the character. This makes scenes involving alter-egos, or hangin-out-in-their-civvies moments somewhat tricky. I don’t see it working, though, because too many artists probably want to put their own unique mark on each character and would feel pigeon-holed by such a move. Greg Land would really find himself in a pickle, as well.
March 16th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
I say who bloody cares? Every damn thing is about race or men hate women or women hate men. Its a bloody COMIC dont overthink it and dont read too much into it ,most of comics today are utter rubbish and oddly, everyone sit down ,people make mistakes I know how dare they ,but it does happen alot ,so come down off the mountain and move on ,people just screw up it goes with being human.
March 16th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Kalorama, you can spit out a few artists out of the many working that you feel do a fine job (not that everyone will agree with your list), but it doesn’t exactly argue against this being a large issue. Some of the artists you mentioned don’t get consistent work. And…well…it seems a little silly to mention Brian Stelfreeze, as I don’t think anyone would expect less of him than representing minority characters with some differentiation.
March 16th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Storm is a bad example. She’s not MEANT to look African – Dave Cockrum deliberately set out to give her a combination of features from various races. If you’re drawing her correctly, her facial features ought to be broadly Asian.
Mind you, she generally doesn’t look like that either.
March 16th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Saying “she’s from Africa so she should be really dark-skinned” is like saying “she’s from America she must be white”. There’s a huge variation in skin tones throughout the African countries.
I’m not saying that they haven’t gone back on the original incarnation (as they did with Connor Hawke for a long while, who was a very caucasian asian guy there) but sweeping statements/sentiments are almost is naive as thinking it’s ok for her to be light skinned.
March 16th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
“Storm is a bad example. She’s not MEANT to look African – Dave Cockrum deliberately set out to give her a combination of features from various races. If you’re drawing her correctly, her facial features ought to be broadly Asian.”
?????????????
I’m curious by this…do you any of you guys have a link to an article on this or something…I never heard that before.
Even if all the comments (and the article itself) may not be written with the clearest of minds, too biased in one direction or the other it seems, this IS definitely a conversation that needs to happen, as some of what is being said has bothered me quite often on artist renderings of ethnicity, and was on my mind just last night when I was reading an issue of Uncanny.
March 16th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
I’ve got to say, I do think there’s a lot of sucky one-song artists working nowadays for whom all characters look the same. It’s as simple as that in most cases.
March 16th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Hmm. The comic written by an African American, drawn by a Brazilian known for having limitations in differentiating between faces, is racist?
Too much outrage for too little reason.
Aren’t there some REAL causes people can rally behind, or are we just bored and/or lazy now?
March 16th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Aren’t there some REAL causes people can rally behind, or are we just bored and/or lazy now?
I don’t know about everyone else, but I’m lazy and shiftless. So no, there are not. Comics are the end-all be-all, and admitting that other REAL CAUSES exist does nothing but take away from their majesty.
March 16th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
David, that was such a hilarious and appropriate response.
Jack, how does the writer end up in the discussion? We’ve been talking solely about how the art portrays the character in that issue and how comic books, in general, have portrayed ethnic character in the panel art over the years.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:16 am
@Paul Salvi:
No, it isn’t. And while I don’t agree with every opinion she’s expressed ever, more often than not she’s pretty on-target.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:41 am
While the examples cited are weak, the premise, I think, is a valid launchpad for discussion: there is still an alarming lack of diversity amongst superheroines and the representation of other women is grossly underserved.
I personally would like to see Marvel/DC take a stronger approach to doing so.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:43 am
…Holy crap, Jubilee was meant to be Asian-American?
Sorry, but, in the 15+ years I’ve been exposed to the X-Franchise, and this is the first I’ve heard of it…
I agree that Benes is drawing all the females very similar in facial features, is this more towards lack of artistic talent or through subtle racism? Looking at Benes overall work in the last 4 years, I’m going to have to lean towards the former
In a sense, I don’t think it matters if Benes et al are being actively racist. There’s a tacit acceptance that every ethnic group looks like a caucasian person with funny skin- there must be or we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place- and this has got to stop. Not as a sop to the politically correct, not because it’ll make the fans who care about these things shut up, but because it’ll make for better comics and its our duty as human beings to acknowledge people who are different than us.
Its not a conspiracy- its lazy art + institutional attitudes = a whiter Vixen. And it sucks.
March 17th, 2008 at 1:14 am
“kalorama”
March 17th, 2008 at 1:18 am
“Kalorama, you can spit out a few artists out of the many working that you feel do a fine job (not that everyone will agree with your list), but it doesn’t exactly argue against this being a large issue.”
The list wasn’t meant to argue anything. They were just examples. The argument was the very vlear explanation of Benes’ long on display deficiencies as an artist.
“Some of the artists you mentioned don’t get consistent work. And…well…it seems a little silly to mention Brian Stelfreeze, as I don’t think anyone would expect less of him than representing minority characters with some differentiation.”
Why? Because he’s Black? So it’s a given that all Black artists will excel at drawing Black characters? Now who’s engaging in stereotyping? It’s not a race issue. It’s a skill issue for the artists involved.
March 17th, 2008 at 1:51 am
Kalorama, no…I’m not citing Brian Stelfreeze just because he’s black. It is, also, about the kind of work he’s done over the years and that part of why he gets his cover work is because of how unique is work is. But I’d be lying if I said that his ethnicity wasn’t part of why I made the statement…and that is kind of counter-productive, at the least.
Snotling, you’re right. It doesn’t have to be a conspiracy. Institutionalized racism is that kind that doesn’t require forethought or intention. It just kind of happens without even the participants being cognizant of what is happening, because it has become so common place.
March 17th, 2008 at 1:52 am
“There’s a tacit acceptance that every ethnic group looks like a caucasian person with funny skin- there must be or we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place”
The only thing being tacitly accepted by comic companies is the limited, one-dimensional skill levels of some of their artists. And, for the most part, the only reason the companies accept it is because the fans accept it. Interestingly, that’s the one thing that’s been conspicuously absent from this discussion, a recognition that despite his many deficiencies, the reason Benes continues to get regular work on high profile books is because his work is very popular with fans. So instead of railing against the publishers for giving fans what they want, why not ask why fans want it in the first place?
March 17th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Kalorama- good point. Can’t we rail against both? Fans won’t get to see diverse art until its published, and it won’t be published until fans ask for it- like a chicken and the egg kind of thing.
(sorry to be brief- am at work…)
March 17th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
What kind of dumb @$$ sits around and thinks up this kind of garbage?! It is a comic book, for God’s sake! I like the way it’s drawn and colored. This is the kind of no-brained, idiotic observations that keep race relations in the United States so tense! Get a life and go and do something with the homeless or the sick or the elderly or the or the or the……… There are sooooo many other things to worry about than this trash!
March 18th, 2008 at 3:54 am
TEMPEST meet TEAPOT
TEAPOT meet TEMPEST
Climb IN!
March 18th, 2008 at 3:57 am
Yeah…sure Jay, and I guess you spend 24/7 helping the “homeless, sick and the elderly” as you demand from everyone else…this, from a guy that probably wasted more time reading everything here, and then posted an insult to all. Jay, that argument is the last desperate couple of kicks of the drowning. God… why is it so threatening to some people to talk about a lack of ethnic variety in our entertainment and politics?, if the talk makes them uncomfortable, I can only imagine how hateful they would get if there actually was variety…
March 18th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Like I said “What kind of dumb-@$$ does it take”? Number 62 is your answer!
March 18th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Folks, this was an interesting comments thread. Let’s not get it closed due to ridiculous in-fighting, hey?
March 18th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
I’m curious by this…do you any of you guys have a link to an article on this or something…I never heard that before.
I don’t have a link, ejulp, but he is right.
It was even commented explicitely on some stories in Chris Claremont’s run. Storm really wasn’t supposed to have negroid facial characteristics. Part of her mutation is that her face is more “elf” than human.
The first time I remember seeing Storm drawn more “African” was in the late 90s.
March 19th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Okay, so conclusion, if I may?
1) The art wasn’t purposely part of a racist conspiracy agenda. Benes just does not vary his art very well.
2) Different ethnicities should be portrayed more accurately in their artistic depictions.
Hooray!
March 19th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
“Fans won’t get to see diverse art until its published”
But it is being published, by all of the artists I mentioned and many, many more. Again, the idea that what’s wrong with Benes’ work is somehow indicative of the entire comics industry is simply not true.
March 22nd, 2008 at 7:07 am
Interesting sets of posts.
While a lot of the Caucasian posters here will never understand why this topic is so important to many, JK Parkin’s post (#30) showing Vixen throughout the years puts a pretty solid handle on how she’s supposed to look – period. As an artist myself, I can vibe with an individual putting his personal marks on a character, but dag yo do it right. Great examples of Larry Stroman and Luke McDonnell taking regard to how a character is depicted are key, but there’s also Jamal Igle (who’s Black) and the ‘King’ Kevin McGuire (who’s White) who actually care that their characters are distinct.
Yes, Benes’ artwork is as distinctly mediocre as it is clean and pretty (really odd combo!) but I think as much blame really goes to the colorists, regardless of the bad scan of Vixen at the top of the page. The coloring of Connor Hawke during the last Green Arrow relaunch is a perfect example of this, wherein he was painted as a straight up white guy during the brunt of the early run. Ultimately, that made me drop the book since the editors didn’t give a hoot about his ethnicity.
March 29th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
why is this relevant? well how many succesful solo black characters are there out there last i checked not many and thats a shame abit of good news larry stroemans back at marvel again !and might i suggest trying out mario gullys ant avery well done black heroine