The KKK= The Comics Industry-The Last Great White Supremist Institution?

indyman87
indyman87 Members Posts: 1,132 ✭✭✭✭
After all these years of reading comics I've just realized that this industry is racist beyond the pale. It may be America's last great white Supremacy Institution. DC and Marvel comics have been around since the 1940s but I'm positive that the number of Black employees of the comic industry including artists, pencillers and other creators will not add up to a thousand. They have virtually no Blacks working in their office building even to this day.

There have always been a line of black magazines, black novels, Black newspapers, Black banks etc.. but there has never been a line of Black Superheroes until Milestone was published in the 1990s and now today they are no more (however they may come back in a year or so). Just imagine if there was a line of Black Superhero comic books published in the 60s like the great recording studios like Motown and Stacks records?

Today it's still all about the main White Superheroes such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman who are held up and supported by retailers and fans of all races. These people do not want a black Superhero to come up. If you read online message boards you rarely see anyone talking about or supporting Black Superheroes even Black Panther who is doing great currently saleswise but only because the writer is bring in people from outside of the comic book community. And when they do talk about a black Superhero they criticise the character over the smallest of details. When you take together all of these facts it could only add up to them- the fans and retailers wanting to hold up White Supremacy and the racial institutionalization of the comic book community.

Comments

  • The Lonious Monk
    The Lonious Monk Members Posts: 26,258 ✭✭✭✭✭
    This is a pretty extreme reach. Marvel is running a team right now that is like 6 deep and only has one white character and are putting a lot of minority characters in the spotlight now. Not to mention that historically, comics were on the cutting edge when it came to take up Civil Rights issues. Both Marvel and DC had stories addressing the issues.

    You can't call something a white supremacist institution because it doesn't employ as many black people as you want it too. Both Marvel and DC have black employees. Maybe there aren't a lot, but is the number outside of expectation given demographics? Remember blacks only make up 13% of the American population. Also, how many Blacks are actually applying for those positions? You might want to have some of those numbers available before you push the idea that basically a whole industry is racist.
  • genocidecutter
    genocidecutter Members Posts: 17,825 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Speaking of which are there any well known black comic book artists?
  • SneakDZA
    SneakDZA Members Posts: 11,223 ✭✭✭✭✭
    isn't there a black spiderman and iron man? isn't the black panther movie about to come out with a 90% black cast? we just had luke cage on netflix.

    i dunno man, this thread might be a reach in suggesting that the comics industry is somehow more racist than anything else in this country.

    also superman kicked the kkk's ass in like the 40's or 50's.
  • nujerz84
    nujerz84 Members Posts: 15,418 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited April 2017
    Comics has always been a reflection of the times its why you have some stories of popular characters way back in the day that would never fly today. At same time you got folks who feel comics are way to liberal so you will never please everyone.

    For example Chuck Dixon, Frank Miller are conservative republicans..but reading their comics you could easily think they are leftist.

    For some reason unlike other mediums (music, movies, tv shows, sports, plays, novels) the level of minority support for minority characters and/or minority comic book writers and artist isn't as high as opposed to those outlets. Aaron Mcgruder and Milestone Comics (Icon, Static, Hardware etc) being some exceptions, but even they eventually fell off.

    Marvel is having some of its worst comic sales in decades..and its on the heels of trying to push diverse characters, this came out of a Marvel sales executive mouth at this week comic book retail meeting.

    Is it race related perhaps, but changing characters ala making New Iron Man a young black girl, Captain Marvel a female Muslim American, Thor a female, just didnt connect with fans..Captain America now a hydra agent, or cancelling Marvel titles after 6 issues doesnt help either.

    DC went through it with New 52..Rebirth has killed the sales charts since it started (despite being a continuation of New 52) simply by sticking to the basics of what made the characters popular in the first place.