Blog
On Saturday night, the Chicago Comic Book Meetup group met at Third Coast Comics in Chicago. Generally we just have comics related discussion over beers but this time we did something different.
We held a Super Character Draft with the idea being that when we were done we'd pitch a comic to the group. There were 13 participants and 15 rounds.
The Rules:
Each team must have a supporting character.
Each team must have 1 real life person who has appeared in a comic book at least once.
Note: During the draft players were precluded from picking me as I have been in a comic book. Points to you if you happen to own one of those rare works of art.
The 1st pick was Betsy and here is her team:
Muhammed Ali
Superman
Power Girl
Judge Dredd
Sif
Alfred
Batwoman
Kamandi
Gene Simmons
Atomic Robo
Guy Gardner
Dracula
Fin Fang Foom
Sinestro
Devil Dinosaur
The Pitch:
Justice League meets Lost.
Sinestro gets a new ring, an iridescent "Time Ring" and uses it to manipulate the timeline.
The Justice League is tries to stop him, but he uses the ring to send several members (Guy Gardner, Superman, Power Girl) "away."
"Away" is the Land of the Lost, Sleestaks and all. Objects and people from different timelines have been displaced here by Sinestro (including legendary/literary characters like Dracula). A few people/creatures, like Kamandi and Devil Dinosaur, are natives.
Currently Fin Fang Foom is the ruler and uses an army of dinosaurs to terrorize the land.
Our heroes have to find each other, avoid getting eaten by monsters and find a way to defeat Sinestro and get back to their own timelines.
The first cover would be Mohammad Ali punching a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
www.thirdcoastcomics.com
We held a Super Character Draft with the idea being that when we were done we'd pitch a comic to the group. There were 13 participants and 15 rounds.
The Rules:
Each team must have a supporting character.
Each team must have 1 real life person who has appeared in a comic book at least once.
Note: During the draft players were precluded from picking me as I have been in a comic book. Points to you if you happen to own one of those rare works of art.
The 1st pick was Betsy and here is her team:
Muhammed Ali
Superman
Power Girl
Judge Dredd
Sif
Alfred
Batwoman
Kamandi
Gene Simmons
Atomic Robo
Guy Gardner
Dracula
Fin Fang Foom
Sinestro
Devil Dinosaur
The Pitch:
Justice League meets Lost.
Sinestro gets a new ring, an iridescent "Time Ring" and uses it to manipulate the timeline.
The Justice League is tries to stop him, but he uses the ring to send several members (Guy Gardner, Superman, Power Girl) "away."
"Away" is the Land of the Lost, Sleestaks and all. Objects and people from different timelines have been displaced here by Sinestro (including legendary/literary characters like Dracula). A few people/creatures, like Kamandi and Devil Dinosaur, are natives.
Currently Fin Fang Foom is the ruler and uses an army of dinosaurs to terrorize the land.
Our heroes have to find each other, avoid getting eaten by monsters and find a way to defeat Sinestro and get back to their own timelines.
The first cover would be Mohammad Ali punching a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
www.thirdcoastcomics.com
While this topic has been beaten to death at this point as it relates to "Should DC have hired Card or not", I'm feeling like the real problem with DC hiring Card is that it looks to me like DC is treating Card's detractors the same way it treats diversity in general.
DC knows that there are only so many members of of it's buying public who are not straight white males but that isn't news. This is comics. MOST comic book readers/buyers are going to be straight white males but given the efforts of publishers and fans even on smaller scales, this is changing and faster than DC seems to be willing to admit.
DC didn't just hire a famous writer who annoyed people to write Superman. Comic book companies seem to troll Hollywood for leftover plot ideas, leaping from the minds of vain celebs all the time. That could have been Kevin Smith or Michael Bay. People on the Internet and in comic shops would have had all sorts of gripes but everyone would have gotten past it pretty quickly.
These guys went for OSC and I have to believe someone in a meeting said, "You do know this guys is ON RECORD as a champion anti-gay bigot don't you?" I'd be willing to bet someone then explained that OSC and some other more desired writer shared an agent or something and if they hired OSC, they could get BIG FISH X to come on board for a Batman GN in time for Christmas!"
Note: Mark the date down so that when the announcement happens, you know I called it.
The problem with OSC goes beyond bigotry on the part of the politics and finances of the writer. The problem goes to the alleged efforts the publisher has made towards respecting and promoting diversity. it's as if DC has said, "Come on people, it's not like we've been cancelling comics starring minority characters, which we KNOW tend to have a hard time maintaining traction in a market dominated by white male reader dollars."
DC is hiring people and making business decisions as if each one takes place in a vacuum but for how much longer is this a viable option or way of approaching the quest for sales?
www.thirdcoastcomics.com
(posted here because the FB link on twitter just goes to the HRC)
I'll try and make this simple. With all the publicity Orson Scott Card has gotten for being a bigot and getting to write a Superman story, Challengers Comics decided to give the proceeds of any Card Superman stories sold to the Human Rights Campaign.
Apparently some folks on Tumblr and FB don't understand how fighting bigotry works and have been giving Patrick a little bit of lip about it (in typical Internet fashion).
I happen to think Challengers is on the right path with this and fuck bigotry so therefore Third Coast Comics will also donate 100% of the profits of any copies we sell of Orson Scott Card's Superman to the Human Rights Campaign.
Personally this is why we read the exploits of superheroes, right? To be inspired to fight against injustice and inequality wherever we see it.
I don't see this as mixing business with politics. I see this as mixing business with human rights.
The damn books is gonna blow anyway.
http://www.hrc.org/www.thirdcoastcomics.com