Stan Lee Spoke Out Against Bigotry, Again And Again; Comic Book Resources, November 13, 2018

Hannah Collins, Comic Book Resources; Stan Lee Spoke Out Against Bigotry, Again And Again

""None of us live our lives in a vacuum," Lee wrote in 1970, "none of us is untouched by the everyday events about us -- events which shape our stories just as they shape our lives." Here, Lee directly addressed readers who had been disgruntled by his "moralizing," a bell continues to be rung to this day. "They [Marvel comics readers] take great pains to point out that comics are supposed to be escapist reading and nothing more. But somehow, I can't see it that way. It seems to me that a story without a message, however subliminal, is like a man without a soul."

It's alarming and disappointing that so much of what Lee railed against over 50 years ago still feels so prescient in 2018. He also made mention in the same column of his talks at college campuses where "there's as much discussion of war and peace, civil rights, and the so-called youth rebellion as there is of our Marvel mags per se," and Lee continued to connect with people, face-to-face, as recently as last year. A 94-year-old Lee recorded a video message for Marvel's YouTube channel in response to the violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017, reaffirming that Marvel's stories "have room for everyone, regardless of their race, gender, religion or color of their skin. The only things we don't have room for are hatred, intolerance or bigotry.""

Salon Talks: Comics are becoming more inclusive, especially for women, but still have a long way to go; Salon, 10/11/16

[Video] Salon Staff, Salon; Salon Talks: Comics are becoming more inclusive, especially for women, but still have a long way to go:

"Last week on “Salon Talks,” Amanda Marcotte spoke to Ryan North and Erica Henderson, writer and artist for Marvel’s “Unbeatable Squirrel Girl,” respectively. The trio discussed the graphic novel, the role feminism plays in comics and New York Comic Con."

Marvel editor-in-chief: 'Writing comics was a hobby for white guys'; Guardian, 5/26/16

Sam Thielman, Guardian; Marvel editor-in-chief: 'Writing comics was a hobby for white guys' :

"Alonso’s Marvel looks very different: one of two Spider-Men is a biracial kid named Miles Morales, Thor is a white woman, one of the Captains America is a black man, Ms Marvel is Pakistani American and the Hulk is Korean American. All this happened with comparatively minimal backlash from notoriously tetchy readers, because Alonso and the company’s writing and editing teams have made changes carefully, switching costumes among established characters and stacking the deck with popular creators when the possibility of fan rage – which is always at least ambient – seems likely. Marvel has intra-company crossovers about twice a year; when Civil War II launches, its lineup of superheroes will look much, much different than they did in even last year’s Secret Wars...

As the company changes, its iconography grows more powerful: beyond making bestseller lists, Ms Marvel has taken on symbolic value outside her own adventures, with fans pasting cutouts of the character over anti-Muslim bus ads in San Francisco.

This isn’t just a form of altruism. Disney (which bought Marvel in 2009) has excellent business reasons for pursuing a more diverse marketplace. Since the company acquired Marvel, it has given the publisher access to the vast reams of focus-group and test-market data that Disney employs elsewhere in its operations, MacDonald said. In mainstream superhero comics, a minority readership has always been present, if often underserved. Now it makes financial sense for companies to cash in.

“There’s money to be made and that’s why Disney does it,” said MacDonald. “It’s always the right thing to do, to create comics that look more like the real world, but it’s definitely backed up in that way.”"

It’s Time to Get Real About Racial Diversity in Comics; Wired.com, 7/25/15

Laura Hudson, Wired.com; It’s Time to Get Real About Racial Diversity in Comics:

"Like virtually every other form of entertainment, the world of comic books has been increasingly grappling with issues of diversity especially over the last several years as social media and Internet platforms have amplified the voices of minority creators and critics. And in many ways, there’s been a sea change. “Diversity of every sort—racial diversity, gender diversity, acknowledging minority sexualities—is experiencing an explosion of recognition and representation in comics,” says C. Spike Trotman, creator of the long-running webcomic Templar, Arizona.

But as the faces on the pages popular comic books have steadily grown more diverse, the hiring practices of publishers haven’t necessarily kept pace. While there are certainly more minority creators earning bylines than there were a decade ago, the editors and creators of mainstream comics remain overwhelmingly Caucasian—a demographic imbalance that has sparked increasingly loud discussions about what diversity really means and where it matters."