clairewatchestelly-blog - Tumblr blog

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Biker/Punk Sailor Scouts! One of the pics from #onicon . So much fun! :D Inspired by Babs Tarr. Photographer: 6 Sided Productions. Cosplayers (left to right): Luna Grace Cosplay, Sam, Pixie Dust Cosplay, Mariposa Bella, Sherr Bear (me), & Twee Nee Cosplay. #BabsTarr #bikersailorscouts #bikerscouts #punkscouts #SailorMoon #SailorMercury #cosplayers

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DUDE. This Article is impeccable.

Oner of my newer writers! She’s gooood

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why would you do this

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Have a good time judging’ the ole dvd library. If you are overjoyed by our overlapping taste and must immediately become friends, here I am: @illusclaire

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:’0

OK KAIJU  The eternal cycle of being a handsome Kaiju, but not knowing how to do the whole dating thing, and then ending up sounding like Drake on the phone after getting wasted

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Reviewed Last Man vol 1: The Stranger by Bastien Vives, Balak, and Michael Sanlaville for The AV Club.

‘Last Man’s humor and narrative tension derives from the odd-couple pairing of the young, innocent Adrian and outsider Richard Aldana’s brash, burly brawler. Aldana reads like he’s been dropped in from another book entirely. On one side you have the quaint, proper, beholden-to-tradition-and-custom mindset of the townsfolk, and on the other: Aldana’s gun-slinging interloper, who pooh-poohs magical wind and earth summonings to instead sock people on the jaw. His language is modern, dotted with colloquialisms like “dude” and “back in a flash”; theirs is more formal, archaic—both sides playing parts from specific genres and scenarios. There’s an Eastern-spirituality guff versus Western brute-force effectiveness sentiment threaded in here; nobody comes out of it smelling of roses.’

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Content Warning: Rape, Sexual Violence, discussion of the meat of bodies. Barbara Gordon is frozen and terrified to the point of tears by the man touching her. He points at her mouth, and he points...

So I wrote about vaginas and superhero variant covers.

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Appropriation, Western Imperialism, and Privilege: Thoughts on Mahou Shounen Breakfast Club

Author’s note: When returning to my writing from a short internet hiatus, I came across the MSBC “scandal” after it had generally run its course. I wanted to think about root causes and talk about the responsibilities of artists and critics. I hope that this piece causes you to pause, at least for a minute, and think. Thanks.

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Bantu knots. Moccasins. Hand pies. Color runs. Hummus. Twerking. White people (white Americans in particular) are really good at “discovering” culturally significant things and stripping them of their heritage and identity. This act, called cultural appropriation, or colloquially “Columbusing,” after the genocidal explorer for which the USA has a national holiday named, is a constant practice in the West. And as is often the case, cultural appropriation often comes with white supremacy and racism in tow.

Mahou Shonen Breakfast Club (MSBC), a highly anticipated webcomic by Toril Orlesky and Katie O’Neill about two Japanese voice actors set in modern day Japan, was recently embroiled in controversy and was subsequently shut down by its authors. Orlesky and O’Neill were questioned about the motives of the work, and their responses and the follow up discussion led to some extremely heated arguments. More extensive write ups on the events as they occurred and their sequelae can be found elsewhere.

But cultural appropriation isn’t just what caused MSBC to be shut down less than two weeks after it went live. The real reason is a lot more difficult to parse.

As a white citizen of the United States, I have a lot of privilege. I am soaked in it. I am more likely to receive a higher quality education, and my education is more likely to be tailored to my needs as a student. Even when a person of color has the same education, experience, and qualifications as me, I am more likely to get a job then that person, and I am more likely to be paid more for my work. It is easier for me to vote. I am likely to receive better healthcare than a person of color, and I am likely to live longer as a result. I am less likely to be arrested, ticketed, or searched by law enforcement; a person of color who commits the same crime as me is more likely to be found guilty in a court of law, and is more likely to receive a harsher sentence if convicted.

Those claims are all backed by mountains of academic papers and data. This is the world we live in right now. But importantly, the privilege to which I am accustomed is not called to my attention frequently. I was raised to take advantage of it, and I do so without thinking.

The problem that MSBC ran afoul of was not just cultural appropriation – by many accounts, the comic was not doing anything particularly heinous, despite feeling off or uncomfortable for some people. The problem was appropriation combined with a lack of awareness, a lack of remembering. And when the creators of MSBC were challenged, asked to remember their privilege, the response was typical of that privilege. Deeply seated racism bubbled upward from the creators and hurt marginalized people of color. The blow up wasn’t the comic - it was what came after.

There is an integral Western ideal that likely plays an additional role in the controversy surrounding MSBC; that of colonization and conquest. From the Spanish and Portuguese (and later British) Empires to Manifest Destiny in the USA, dominion, colonization, possession, and exploitation of foreign lands has been the status quo of the West. And the glorification of this shared history is reinforced in public education and media. History is written by the winner, and this victory is celebrated. Winners are celebrated in Western culture, are exemplified. In this regard, the exceptionalism of the Western person, particularly the white American person, is enshrined in our culture.

The coupling of imperialism and exceptionalism in Western thinking combined with a lack of awareness of privilege is a nasty combination. And the two are inextricably linked. Cultural appropriation is a demonstration of the imbalance of power that remains between the culture of the Western colonizer and the culture of the colonized. This stew of ingrained beliefs and behaviors is hidden in plain sight. And when art that does not recognize these problems is made, it can easily become toxic.

One thing I’ve learned from Twitter over the past year, and from various frustrated artists fending off yet another “please draw my comic” request is that there is no lack of ideas out there. Artists have scads of ideas. And many artists create an art practice that gives them the tools to generate these ideas. But art isn’t the act of having the idea. Ideas must be refined and translated. And it’s important to examine these ideas.

How often do we ask ourselves, “Why do I want this?” or “Why do I need to tell this specific story?” How much better could we all be if we asked ourselves these questions even a percentage more than we already do?

The life of an artist is a life of not just creating, but editing. Deciding to NOT create something is just as powerful as the decision TO create. Productivity is not a measure of worth. There is no inherent value judgement to be made based on if a work is abandoned or continued. It is normal for an artist to abandon projects and should continue to be. 

Some critics and responders have noted that they feel it is a good thing that Orlesky and O’Neill stopped doing MSBC because it showed a sensitivity to the concerns of people of color. I disagree. In truth, Orlesky and O’Neill weren’t sensitive enough to hear and address the concerns of marginalized persons of color when they first started developing the project, and only after they hurt people did they decide to cancel it. We must do more work, more thinking, more asking, more listening, before and during the creative and critical process.

I believe that creators and the critical community have an ultimate responsibility to listen to marginalized cultures and peoples in regards to the creation and critique of art. This is especially true for whites and the privileged majority. It will take constant work, care, and self-examination to break down the disparities that exist today between the privileged majority and people of color. The work required for a person in that majority to represent experiences of marginalized people in their work is more taxing, and will require more of the artist. But that learning, listening, respect, and caring is essential to making good art.

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I cried, guys

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Operation Margarine Katie Skelly AdHouse Books April 2014 Operation Margarine sees a young woman meet a young woman. They're both having troubles. They ride motorcycles together. I made three tweet...

In fact it is also within my power to be nice about things

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This is Andy Khouri he’s the former editor of Comics Alliance (the Kotaku of comics sites) and he’s now working as an editor at DC Comics because again the comics industry is in the shitter right now and they are trying to pander to SJW’s and feminists not realizing that SJW’s and feminists don’t really give two shits about comics and just want to complain about stuff because that’s all they know how to do.

You know what’s funny about this whole thing? Comics Alliance used to be very anti DC back in 2011 when the first issue of Red Hood and the Outlaws came out they trashed that first issue and it’s writer Scott Lobdell (even going so far as to publish a hit piece on him calling him a misogynist and sexist because of the way he depicted Starfire) so I don’t understand why anyone from DC would look at this fucking site and decide to hire someone from there to work as an editor. 

Call me crazy but if I was someone who worked at DC and I saw someone trashing the stuff we were publishing I would ignore those people and try to not make contact with them because they’re a massive liability to the business. I wouldn’t bend over and hire someone who worked there to please the “progressives” because those people aren’t the main target demographic. 

This is why I want to make it into the comic business to give people like myself who actually care about good writing and storytelling an alternative to this bullshit. We as comic fans deserve better than having our hobby be run by idiots who constantly defend con artists like Anita Sarkeesian and her ilk. 

I kinda wish ComicGate was a thing because shit like this needs to fucking stop. But that’s the problem with the world that we live in companies are too scared of being called sexist, racist and homophobic that they have bow down and kiss “progressive” ass just to stay relevant in the media. 

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Midsummer Zodd by SaNNaS