comic books – Page 2 – Anthony Otero

Black History Month, Black Superheroes, comic books

Black Independent Comics: The Horsemen

As promised, this month I will have several guest bloggers that will promote their work in the independent comic book industry. It is imperative to understand that there are great writers of color out there doing good work by creating characters that are appealing to everyone. With no further ado..

Hello!

My name is Jiba Molei Anderson, owner of Griot Enterprises and I will be your guest blogger today. I am also the creator its flagship title, The Horsemen.

What is The Horsemen, you ask? Well, The Horsemen is the story of seven ordinary people thrust into extraordinary circumstances, as the gods of ancient Africa possess them. They have been chosen to protect humanity from themselves…whether humanity wants them to or not. They have been chosen to combat those who control the fate of the planet. Through their actions, the world would never be the same.

Since 2002, there have been three Horsemen series… Let me break it down for you…

The Horsemen: Divine Intervention
The Orisha emerged from a deep slumber. Seeing that their mission had been perverted, they had set about to free us…whether we wanted them to or not. The Horsemen returned. And their presence will change the world.

The Horsemen: The Book of Olorun
The Orisha emerged from a deep slumber. Seeing that their mission had been perverted, they had set about to free us. But, what if there were others not Orisha, not Deitis, not Human, but something more, a new Race? What side would they choose in the coming war?

And, who truly controls the Eight Immortals but the number seven?

The Horsemen: Mark of the Cloven
Africa is now the new frontier and a beacon of hope for the rest of the world…

However, controlling the world is a family business… And the bastard children of the Deitis want in.

The entire Horsemen series is available in print and download through IndyPlanet, Drive Thru Comics and Amazon. Become a part of the New Mythology… Cheers!

Black History Month, Black Superheroes, comic books

The (lack of) Black Experience in Comic Books

This journey that I have taken as a writer sometimes makes me think about my past. In my high school days I created an entire universe filled with characters. My friend and I created so many super powered heros and villains that the list stretches for pages. Neither of us could draw very well so the focus was very much on the characters themselves. I was very proud to come up with back stories and histories along with story arcs. The name of my favorite hero was Supernova aka Philip Maldonado.

I bring this up because, as I look back at it, there was a need for me to see myself in the super hero genre. Growing up all the comic books I read were of white men saving the neighborhood or the world. If I was lucky enough I would get to see a person of color being drawn or even in costume. In any case, I never thought I was bothered by this. I just collected comic books for the sake of reading about my favorite super heros like Firestorm, Spider-Man, The X-Men, and the Justice League to name a few. Yet with hindsight being 20/20, I realize now that I created an outlet for myself with the understanding that if it was up to me, whatever universe I create would be filled with heros and villains of all colors, genders, and creed.

This brings me to the Big Two (Marvel and DC) and how there is a serious lack of black experience in their characters. This points to the lack of diversity in both companies. I’m quite sure there is a thought that all heros are cut from the same cloth and are some how homogeneous. So someone like Mr. Terrific could act like someone resembling Tony Stark but there is no sense of the baggage the comes from being an African American. It is not ok for Batman to assign the Luke Fox (The new Batwing) to Africa simply because he’s black (the first Batwing was African) without much push back from that character (and laugh about it when it is brought up).

The point is many of these Black/Latino characters are one dimensional because of the lack of diversity from the Big Two. While it can be a good thing for Marvel to have a few books featuring black characters as the lead (The Mighty Avengers, Fearless Defenders), the characters themselves become bland because there is no real depth to them. That lack of depth shows in sales which ultimately leads to the cancellation of books like Mr. Terrific, Static Shock, and Blue Beetle. The only book that has been the exception to all this has been Miles Morales (the Ultimate Spider-Man) and that is because he is getting the complete backing of Marvel to be the hero for that comic line.

1298402248 When it comes down to it, the Big Two have no idea what do with theses characters besides using them as a market tool. I tend to use DC in these examples because they seem to fail the most in just about everything except animation, which brings me to my other point. Cartoons like Justice League and Young Justice has done very well with a broad audience and for the most part, that has to do with the late Dwayne McDuffie. It was his development of John Stewart and Hawkgirl that really made the show what it was and by extension Young Justice’s diversity is linked to Milestone Comics, which he was one for the founders of, but I will circle back to that.

There is no way for us to expect any less from the Big Two or any other comic book company that follows the exact same formula. Sure you can create a Black super hero but then what? Do you de-power them or never use them to their full potential? I love how Cyborg has the potential to like Brainiac but will never get there because that would make him a little too powerful. Or we can talk about how DC has a virtual pantheon of characters from their “deal” with Milestone that they are willing to use for a cartoon to draw us in but never use them in the books. That is why it becomes imperative to join a new movement of independent titles created by people of color.

Generally when I think about black comic books, my thoughts revert to Milestone and how those individuals lived the dream of doing it themselves. Their success is a reflection that there is an audience for this but we need to be prepared to support each other. That is why for this month I have invited some independent comic book creators to appear on this blog and talk about their work. It is time show everyone that there are alternatives to the mainstream comics books out there. We deserve better.

comic books, Novel, writing

Crisis: Retconning a Novel

Hi. How you? It’s been a long time.

I have been in state a perpetual stillness when it comes to me writing anything. I imagine myself in a floating one dimensional glass sailing through time and space like Zod. It is possible to jump the shark before anything is published?

This started a few days before July 4th when I was feverishly writing a chapter in the novel. I was at point where I had to make a decision about the main character that might change the tone of the book. So I made a decision to go with something that I now regret and while I can simply hit the backspace button and rewrite this, it has made me think about the whole thing.

The story is very character driven. It is a first person perspective about crazy shit that people do and the dumb decisions that they make. However, through all of this, what makes stories like these work is how believable they can be. Much of that has to do with the human experience. What are we capable of? How fucked up can we be to each other? That is the basis of life experiences.

Then there is the ultimate goal which is to further the story along. You know when you are watching a blu-ray or dvd and you’re looking at the deleted scenes? Well those scenes tell a version of a story or they are just details of things that are really not that important. This is something like but the impact would be felt somewhere down the line. The purpose of that whole chapter was to explain a back story of a minor character but then things got out of hand and fiction became a little unreal.

I knew the moment I wrote it that it did not feel right, but I went along with it anyway and thus now I have been stuck for a week at almost 64k words. This is where retconning comes in to play. For those not familiar with the term retcon, it is more of a comic book term that stands for retroactive continuity. This happens in comics when writers hit a reset button in order to make their comic book universe more current or when they simply want to fix a mistake.

An example of this is when DC Comics decided to make this event in 1985 called Crisis on Infinite Earths. This was a massive retconning of an entire universe which effects lasted for a decade or so until the decided to fix other mistakes they made every few years that ultimately let to Final Crisis in 2008. Of course one would think that it would be over until Flashpoint came out in 2011 that leads us to where DC is not with the New 52.

I know this sounds confusing and that is my point. I don’t want to get to a point where I’m retconning this novel every time I make a mistake. That will only make me feel like Peter Parker when he revealed to the world he was Spider-Man only to make a deal with the devil later which made the world forget that fact (Yes, I am beating a dead horse here).

The only thing I can do right now is try to go back to that chapter and deconstruct it. If that doesn’t work then I will ultimately have to rewrite it. The problem with that is that I had an unwritten rule that I adopted from someone which basically states that you never go back to edit your work until it is time to edit. Which means that I just keep writing until I am done then go back and fix typos and expand on storylines I may have missed. All this is apart of writing a first draft.

Sigh. A draft. That is my saving grace. Who knows if what I have in mind now wont change by the time I actually go back to page one and it. I guess that means I may have another Crisis on my hands.