Archie’s dark side

America’s most wholesome comic wanted to remake the comics world in its image.
A new exhibit at Olin Library, “Domesticated Pulp: Archie Publications and the Comics Code,” which runs through December 17, includes ephemera from the Archie offices, including editorial policy, printer’s proofs and original artwork.

By Rosalind Early 

 October 16, 2023

Fans of Riverdale, the CW TV show based on the Archie Comics series, might be surprised to learn that in the comic books Archie Andrews never went to juvie and Veronica Lodge never ordered a hit on her father. Archie and the gang were actually a byword for wholesome, an idealized portrait of small-town American youth where the teens faced problems like making a mess when tie-dying clothes, getting up early to run charity races and making fun of Archie’s old jalopy.

“You get a vision of teenage life that has wacky hijinks but none of the angst and loathing actual teenagers experience,” says D.B. Dowd, a nationally known illustrator and professor of art in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts.

Archie publisher John Goldwater led a self-censorship organization — the Comics Code Authority — homogenizing comics for decades. 

(Courtesy Dowd Illustration Research Archive)

Introduced in 1941, Archie was as popular as it was long-lasting, but Archie’s impact on comics goes further than its popularity.

Archie publisher John Goldwater led a self-censorship organization — the Comics Code Authority (CCA), which set the decency standards for pulp publications — that would homogenize comics for decades. Without the CCA’s seal of approval, comic book publishers were essentially cut off from wholesale distribution.

Goldwater and Archie’s impact is the subject of a new exhibit in the Newman Tower of Collections and Exploration at Olin Library, “Domesticated Pulp: Archie Publications and the Comics Code.” The exhibit, which runs through December 17, includes ephemera from the Archie offices, including editorial policy, printer’s proofs, original artwork from illustrators Bob Montana and Don DeCarlo, and more.

The Archie Comic Collection, which includes more than 100 pieces of original works of art, was amassed by notable cartoonist, author and collector Craig Yoe and acquired by the University Libraries in 2020. The collection is just one of many housed in the Dowd Illustration Research Archive, which aims to preserve the history of illustration and visual culture.

“It was a trove of stuff,” says Dowd, who curated the exhibit along with Andrea Degener, interim curator of the Dowd Illustration Research Archive. But the exhibit is more than just Archie, it tells the history of pulp publishing in the United States and how the Comics Code Authority re-shaped the industry.

“The Archie Comic Collection provides a unique study of how Goldwater leveraged the code to promote the long-term success of the Riverdale universe,” Degener says. “Before the advent of Archie, Goldwater published titles like Close-Up and Dash, which were essentially pin-up magazines categorized in the men’s humor genre. But he seemed to sense an opportunity with the popularity of Archie and began branding Archie Comics as wholesome and appropriate for readers of all ages well before the code was even established.”

Pulp publishing, the rise of an industry

Kids liked pulp publications too, and some of the content was alarming to experts. In the November 1953 issue of Ladies’ Home Journal in “What Parents Don’t Know About Comic Books,” psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, MD, posited that comics could cause juvenile delinquency. (Courtesy Dowd Illustration Research Archive)

The 1930s saw the rise of “what we think of as ‘pulp’ publishing,” although cheap printing for the working class dates to the 19th century. Printed on inexpensive paper were humor comics like in the newspaper, but also detective comics, crime and horror comics, girlie magazines with pin-ups and, later, superheroes.

“There’s lots of experimentation,” Dowd says. The work was “aimed at a working-class audience, and a lot of immigrants read pulp magazines.” But kids liked pulp a lot, too, and some of the content was alarming to experts, most prominently Fredric Wertham, a psychiatrist, who wrote Seduction of the Innocent that claimed comics caused juvenile delinquency.

Wertham’s outcry led to Senate hearings in 1954. William Gaines, the publisher of Entertaining Comics (EC), was advised against taking the stand. His company had titles like The Haunt of Fear, Tales from the Crypt and Vault of Horror. The covers often featured scantily clad women in danger — the exact comic books Wertham was critiquing. One of EC’s covers, “Crime SuspenStories Vol 1 No. 22,” featured a man holding a bloody hatchet in one hand and the implicitly decapitated head of a blonde woman in the other. Her body is on the floor at his feet. Gaines was asked if he thought this was appropriate.

“Yes sir, I do, for the cover of a horror comic,” Gaines replied. “A cover in bad taste, for example, might be defined as holding the head a little higher so that the neck could be seen dripping blood from it.”


“For the most part, the Comics Code just eliminated a whole bunch of comics. A variation of the code — one that would have rated the comics for various age groups — would have been preferable.”Rebecca Wanzo

The public was scandalized. By the fall of 1954, publishers formed the Comics Magazine Association of America and the Comics Code Authority to burnish their industry’s reputation and keep the government from censoring them. As a result, comics had to adhere to certain decency standards: no sex before marriage, no pin-ups, no comics with “horror,” “terror” or “weird” in the title, etc. This meant EC had to end most of its lines.

“For the most part, the Comics Code just eliminated a whole bunch of comics,” says Rebecca Wanzo, chair and professor of women, gender and sexuality studies in Arts & Sciences and author of The Content of Our Caricature: African American Comic Art and Political Belonging. “A variation of the code — one that would have rated the comics for various age groups — would have been preferable.”
The rise of the Comics Code Authority

Behind the censorship was Goldwater, who served as president of the Comics Magazine Association of America for 25 years. He had the market cornered on wholesome: Archie had proved so popular after being introduced in a Pep comic that the company, formerly MLJ Comics, renamed itself Archie Comics. And the editorial policy was clear, as a memo in the exhibit from the company explains: “Archie Andrews is a positive force; he provides wholesome, non-violent entertainment in the role of the clean-cut, ‘typical American teenager’ we wish all teenagers were.” (Emphasis theirs.)

“Archie is very much Americana. It was an answer to quiet the adult critiques that comics were the cause of rebellious youth culture,” Degener says. “For several decades, Archie Comics was the only publication with a teenage cast that could speak to both a younger and slightly older demographic. The problems faced by the cast were very cyclical and simple; the predicament was always resolved by the end of the comic and in a way that satisfied both adult and youth readership.”

Goldwater skirted his own rules, particularly with regard to pin-ups. Katy Keene, a spinoff in the Archie Comics world, was the worst offender, always striking a pin-up pose. The excuse: Keene was supposed to be modeling fashions that had been suggested by readers. (Courtesy Dowd Illustration Research Archive)

Goldwater exported his attitude about “typical” Americans to the rest of the industry. “The fixation on the typical was highly normative and majoritarian: Racial minorities were invisible, heterosexuality unquestioned, and gender roles strictly enforced,” a placard in the exhibit points out. “Critics were already speaking out against the ‘conformism’ of the 1950s, and John Goldwater is poorly remembered by the insurgents who created alternative comix in the 1960s.”

Plus, Dowd argues, Goldwater skirted his own rules, particularly with regard to pin-ups. Betty and Veronica both regularly modeled fashions in pin-up-like poses. Katy Keene, a spinoff in the Archie Comics world, was the worst offender, always striking a pin-up pose as she pulled on her stockings or powdered her nose. The excuse for all this leg? Keene was supposed to be modeling fashions that had been suggested by readers.

“Katy Keene is an interesting study because her character sets the precedent for Betty and Veronica’s famous fashion specials and one-on-one dialogue with readers,” Degener says. “Katy Keene was glamorous, and she was always followed around by her younger sister, Sis, who aspired to be like Katy. Katy even had her own fan club.”

“The term pin-up refers to a whole woman shown in an illustration in a cheese-cakey way,” Dowd says. “Betty, Veronica and Katy Keene are like pulp vixens. There’s never any sexual content, but there’s certainly a sense of buried sexuality that’s in this wholesome package. That’s why we called the exhibition ‘domesticated pulp,’ because that’s what Archie did.”

Censorship, then and today

Today, school and public libraries face scrutiny about the books they carry. Across the country, Republicans have introduced laws or regulations to prevent kids from accessing “illicit material” that is not that illicit, such as Fun Home, a graphic memoir about author Alison Bechdel’s family and struggles with her sexuality.

But Wertham was not a conservative. “Wertham was a pretty progressive psychiatrist,” Wanzo says. “He was interested in the problems of racism being represented in comics and things like that.” (This problem may have been exacerbated by the CCA, which once took issue with a Black man being depicted as an astronaut, for instance, despite that not being against the Comics Code.)

Still, the excuse for the censorship, protecting the youth, is a common refrain. “Young people are going to find ways to access things they want to access,” Wanzo says. “But there’s a tension between what the state should do in terms of regulating content and what providers should do.” She points out that parents should be able to regulate what their child sees, but not be able to eliminate legal content that others may want to see.

“The desire to control what young people encounter in the world — and the danger that they will think thoughts that aren’t ours — is deeply unattractive.”D.B. Dowd

“There are ways to talk about content,” she says.

Most publishers stopped using the Comics Code Authority by 2001, and they’d been pushing against the CCA for decades with comics like Watchmen.

One of the earliest publishers to push against the CCA was Gaines. He eventually left the pulp industry and started MAD magazine to circumvent the CCA, and for decades, the groundbreaking publication didn’t even have ads so it could be fully independent. (Learn more about MAD at another comics-focused exhibit: “MADness Unleashed: The World of MAD Magazine” in Olin Library on Level 1 of the Kagan Grand Staircase. The exhibit runs through January 28.)

Despite essentially fostering MAD magazine, very little redeems the CCA in the eyes of most comics and illustration fans. “The desire to control what young people encounter in the world — and the danger that they will think thoughts that aren’t ours — is deeply unattractive,” Dowd says.

Canada Censors Cartoons

While everyone is getting on their high horse about censorship and freedom of speech over the issue of the Danish Cartoons, and I plead guilty, lets look at the fact that in Canada in the Criminal Code cartoons are banned as well. Yep. In particular Crime Comics. By name.

Now these are particular comics that existed during the forties and fifties and were published without the censors seal of the Comics Code Authority on them. They were lurid graphic comics about crime.

Prior to the CCA most crime comics were just as lurid and usually depicted cops being killed by bad guys. The CCA then banned that kind of depiciton . But some comics like the EC series run by Mad Magazine of horror, science fiction and crime comics refused to be censored.

While the comic industry in the U.S. engaged in self censorship the Grundy's in Canada made the publication of crime comics illegal. And they still are. So are horror comics. And sex comics. And horror sex comics. Yet we see them in most comic stores.

So whatcha gonna do about it. This law is so out of date its like one of the mangled corpses that comes back to life in an EC comic.



Offences Tending to Corrupt Morals

Corrupting morals


163. (1) Every one commits an offence who

(b) makes, prints, publishes, distributes, sells or has in his possession for the purpose of publication, distribution or circulation a crime comic.

Definition of “crime comic”

(7) In this section, “crime comic” means a magazine, periodical or book that exclusively or substantially comprises matter depicting pictorially

(a) the commission of crimes, real or fictitious; or

(b) events connected with the commission of crimes, real or fictitious, whether occurring before or after the commission of the crime.

The Dark Age of the Justice Society of America

All-Star Comics #57 not only marked the end of the original run of the Justice Society of America, for many it marks the end of the Golden Age. Many would end the Golden Age with World War II, others at some point in the late Forties, but, regardless, it was quite clearly the end of an era. After all, the Justice Society of America had been one of the last remaining superhero titles from the Golden Age. In the early Fifties the comic book industry would be dominated by other genres. Science fiction, horror, western, and romance comic books could be found on newstands everywhere. Perhaps the two most popular genres at the time were crime and horror. Lev Gleason' Crime Does Not Pay had debuted in 1942 and proven to be a great success. In the late Forties several other companies followed Gleason's lead and produced their own crime comic books. Horror comics appeared on the scene in the late Forties. Among the most popular titles in the genre were those published by E. C. Comics, a relative latecomer to the field. Tales from the Crypt, The Haunt of Fear, and The Vault of Horror were among the best sellers in the industry. Indeed, they would become classics in the medium, inspiring not only a generation of young comic book artists and writers, but novelists and film makers as well.

It seemed that the day of the superhero was past. In 1954 Atlas Comics (formerly Timely Comics) tried to revive their superhero line. Unfortunately their revivals of Captain America, The Human Torch, and The Sub-Mariner failed--Sub-Mariner Comics lasted the longest, at nine issues. Charlton Comics' attempt to revive Fox Feature Syndicate's flagship superhero, the Blue Beetle, in the pages of Space Adventures also met with failure. Superheroes were passé or so it seemed.

Unfortunately for the comic book industry, it might have been better had they stood by the superheroes of old. Since 1947 comic books had been increasingly coming under attack in newspaper editorials and magazine articles. Many people believed that they had a deleterious effect on youth and some even believed that they led to juvenile delinquency. As hard as it is to believe today, some areas even held comic book burnings. Foremost among the industry's critics was Dr. Frederic Wertham, a noted author and at one time the senior psychiatrist at Belleview. Beginning in the Forties Wertham wrote several articles attacking comic books and in 1954 published a book on the subject, Seduction of the Innocent.

Contrary to popular belief, Wertham's primary target was not the horror comic books of the era. Dr. Wertham was much more concerned about crime comic books, although he included a large number of genres under the heading of "crime (including science fiction and horror)." Nor did he single out E. C. Comics in his attacks, though they were one of his favourite targets. In fact, the company whose comic books Wertham cited most often in his works was Fox Features Syndicate, the notorious publisher of sensationalistic and often graphic crime and jungle comic books (who, ironically, had gone out of business in 1950).

Regardless, neither Wertham's articles nor his book, Seduction of the Innocent, were hardly based on sound scientific principles. His conclusions were based primarily on his work with juvenile delinquents and contained no empirical evidence of comic books' effects on normal children. Seduction of the Innocent, in particular, is filled with a priori assumptions, conclusions based on guilt by association, and interpreting material out of context. Despite the fact that Seduction of the Innocent offered no real evidence for the harmful effects comic books supposedly had on children, the book severely damaged the industry. What had once been mere public outcry against violence in comic books soon became all out war against the comic book industry. The United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, headed by Estes Kefauver, would even investigate comic books to see if there was a link between them and juvenile delinquency.

The Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency regarding comic books ended inconclusively and, contrary to what many believe now, there appears to have been no real threat of government intervention in the comic book industry. Even in the absence of government intervention, however, the comic book industry perceived its existence as being threatened. In October 1954 several major publishers joined together to create the Comics Code Authority. The publishers referred to the Comics Code as "the most stringent code in existence for any communications media (sic)." With the Comics Code in effect, most comic books became very squeaky clean affairs, with an absolute minimum of violence and absolutely no sex (not that there ever had been any to begin with). Perhaps as a result, comic book sales plummeted to all time lows.

Another EC classic from artist Johnny Craig. This controversial cover holds a special place in the history of the formation of the Comics Code. I've borrowed the following commentary from Richard Wolfe's excellent crime comic cover website- Crimeboss

[This cover] wins the contest for "most notorious cover illustration" hands down. When the Senate Committe of the Judiciary to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency began hearings in New York City in 1954, this particular cover caught the eye of Senator Estes Kefauver. William Gaines, the publisher of E.C. Comics, was put in the awkward position of having to defend the cover:

"Here is your May issue. This seems to be a man with a bloody axe holding a woman's head up, which has been severed from her body. Do you think that's in good taste?" asked Kefauver.
"Yes, sir, I do...for the cover of a horror comic. A cover in bad taste, for example, might be defined as holding the head a little higher so that blood could be seen dripping from it, and moving the body over a little further so that the neck of the body could be seen to be bloody," replied Gaines.
"You've got blood coming out of her mouth."
"A little."

By the end of the day, William Gaines had achieved nationwide notoriety and crime comics had been pronounced guilty of corrupting the youth of America.

Tags

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Criminal Code
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“The Art of Thai Comics: A Century of Strips and Stripes” by Nicolas Verstappen

Comics in Thailand have enjoyed a long and rich history and have been enjoyed by people of all socio-economic classes, even though they’ve had a reputation as a form of “low culture”. In The Art of Thai Comics: A Century of Strips and Stripes, Nicolas Verstappen goes back even further than a hundred years to show just how long comics have been embedded in Thai culture.

It wasn’t just that comics were seen as lowbrow in Thailand when Verstappen set out to research his beloved art form, but pre-1980s comics were all but unknown to those in Thailand who were interested in this genre.

Due to the humid tropical climate of Thailand, monsoons and their unforgiving floods, voracious bookworms and a lack of consideration and archival endeavors, most of the pre-1980s comics production has been wiped out. Roaming markets, libraries, antiquarian bookstores and online groups, I struggled to find the seminal comics works that had been cited in the literature.

He hit the jackpot in early 2020 when more than a thousand comics from the 1930s were discovered in an attic—cut out, curated, and bound into volumes. These comics were not included in the national archives, so they were indeed a great find.

The Art of Thai Comics: A Century of Strips and Stripes, Nicolas Verstappen

 (River Books, April 2021)

Verstappen is a Belgian professor in the department of Communication Arts at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok and has arranged his book according to historical period, but also breaks most of the chapters into chronological profiles of almost two dozen comic writers and illustrators. He begins, however, with some context.

Verstappen goes as far back as the origins of the Thai language in southwestern China and the earliest known illustrated art appeared in Thailand in the 14th century, depicting stories of Gautama Buddha in stone reliefs.

Chulalongkorn University is named for King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) whose son Vajiravudh, later Rama VI, was educated in Britain at the turn of the century, where he learned to enjoy political satire cartoons. He even drew his own caricatures of corrupt officials to expose their vices. Rama VI also wrote crime serials along the lines of Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe, and Guy de Maupassant. His most significant contribution to comics, however, was establishing the Poh-Chang Academy of Arts in 1913, where many of the artists profiled in this book studied.



Sawas Jutharop was a Poh-Chang graduate and the first artist in Thailand to have a serialized comic strip in 1932. One of King Rama VI’s unfortunate legacies was an article he penned in 1914 titled “The Jews of the East”, which combined anti-Semitic tropes from Europe with anti-Chinese sentiment. Sawas Juthrop included in his comics derogatory characterizations of Chinese migrants in Thailand. He also drew a comic inspired by the American character, Popeye.

Thai culture has always been a blend of influences, so it’s not surprising to find this reflected in comics. Another illustrator of that time, Witt Sutthastien, who used the pen name Wittamin and was only seventeen at the time, combined Popeye and Mickey Mouse into a character named Ling Gee.

From the sailor, Wittamin keeps the elongated body shape with over-developed calves and forearms, the ears, the rolled-up sleeves and the famous pipe. From Disney’s mouse, Wittamn borrows the dark skin, the white hands (or gloves) and face, the prominent black nose, the oval eyes with each pupil reduced by a quarter, and the famous pair of shorts with two buttons in the front.

In another instance of blended cultures, Verstappen portrays the cartoonist Tookkata, born Pimon Galassi. The grandson of an Italian government official in Thailand during the reign of King Rama V in the early 20th century, Tookkata was also a graduate of Poh-Chang. He often wrote strong female characters and was a popular cartoonist in the four decades following World War II.

As the Cold War descended on much of the world, these fears and worries were depicted in Thai comics.

For the insurgents and soldiers in the jungle, the petrified students, the disfranchised farmers and the alienated migrants, the muted traumatic experiences of the previous decades seem to have found a derivative—and maybe cathartic—expression in the ‘silent’ and unbridled comics form.

The evolution of Thai comics and the stories they tell show the way in which Thailand changed through the decades. Verstappen has provided a comprehensive narrative to go along with the comics published in this book and displays a variety of illustration styles that range from black and white figures to those that resemble manga in vibrant colors. In the foreword, renowned cartoonist Sonny Liew writes that comics are traditionally seen as American-Anglican, Belgian-French, and Japanese. With this new book from Verstappen, Liew writes that

The work of excavation, exploration and scholarship done here opens up rich new spaces for readers to appreciate and ponder—to empower us, perhaps, to make up our own minds about what an alternative history of the medium might look like.

Susan Blumberg-Kason is the author of Good Chinese Wife: A Love Affair with China Gone Wrong.

 Susan Blumberg-Kason 2 August 2021  Non-Fiction

How a Canadian superhero brought queer representation to Marvel Comics

December 17, 2019 5.23pm EST


Northstar’s marriage was prominently displayed on the cover of ‘Astonishing X-Men #51.’ (Marvel)

Marvel Comics is frequently referred to as “the house of ideas,” yet the idea of a queer superhero did not fully arrive at Marvel until the 1990s. Despite Marvel’s reputation as a campus phenomenon and as a hotbed for liberal — even subversive — discourse, Stan Lee’s comics publishing juggernaut would not feature a canonically gay character until some 30 years after the debut of The Fantastic Four.

There’s a reason for that.

The 1954 Comics Code Authority — a censorship bureau that policed comics content — explicitly banned “sex perversion or any inference to same,” which comics scholar Hilary Chute notes is “a clear reference to homosexuality.” The Marvel Universe as we know it began in 1961, with the launch of Fantastic Four #1. Thus, Marvel Comics was, from the outset, actually prohibited from depicting gay characters.

So how do you a write a queer character at a time when comics are expressly forbidden from featuring queer characters?

In a word: delicately.

The slow coming out

It wasn’t until 1992 — three years after a major revision to the Comics Code officially opened the door to depictions of LGBTQ+ characters — that Marvel had their first openly gay superhero. In Alpha Flight #106 written by Scott Lobdel, the character Northstar (alias Olympic ski champion Jean-Paul Beaubier) declared: “I am gay.”

Even then this move was met with outrage by Marvel’s corporate leadership, Marvel Comics historian Sean Howe explained in his book Marvel Comics: The Untold Story.

Twenty years later, Northstar would also feature in Marvel’s first same-sex marriage, an event that was prominently depicted on the cover of Astonishing X-Men #51.

Astonishing X-Men #51. Written by Margaret Liu and illustrated by Dustin Weaver, published June 20, 2012. (Marvel)

A hotbed for queer subtext

Northstar had debuted way back in 1983 as part of the all-Canadian, government-sponsored superhero team, Alpha Flight. The team first appeared in the pages of X-Men, brought to life by Canadian artist and writer John Byrne and iconic X-Men writer Chris Claremont.

At the time, X-Men comics were already a hotbed for queer subtext. Comics scholar Ramzi Fawaz notes that Claremont’s X-Men “articulated mutation to the radical critiques of identity promulgated by the cultures of women’s and gay liberation.”

Another comics scholar, Scott Bukatman, puts it more simply and says: “mutant bodies are explicitly analogized to … gay bodies” in Claremont’s X-Men. It is no surprise then, that Marvel’s first gay superhero should emerge from this series.

Marvel’s first gay superhero emerged from the X-Men series. (Marvel)

Byrne described the impetus of Northstar’s sexuality:

“There needs to be gays in comics because there are gays in real life. No other reason …. The population of the fictional world should represent the real world. That’s why I created Northstar — I felt the Marvel Universe needed a gay superhero (even if I would never be allowed to say it in so many words in the comics themselves), and I felt that I should create one, rather than retrofitting an existing character.”

Validation through storytelling

Northstar’s sexuality first surfaces in Alpha Flight #7 (1983) when he meets up with “an old friend” named Raymonde who is strongly hinted to be a former lover. In the story, written by Byrne, Raymonde comments on Northstar’s good looks. He also references the secretive nature of his relationship with Jean-Paul: “Then you have not really told your sister all about me, after all, Jean-Paul? I thought that would have been odd.”

From Alpha Flight #7 (Marvel)

When Raymonde is later murdered, Northstar snaps with blind rage. The narrative caption tells us: “And Raymonde had led him out of that dark fear, into the bright clear light of self-acceptance.”

In 1983, the narrative of a former lover being murdered and thus spurring the superhero to action and emotional eruption was already a comics cliché. But staging that through a same-sex couple establishes a sort of subtextual validation of Northstar’s relationship as something more than the Comics Code Authority “sex perversion” label.

Two years later, in the 1985 limited series X-Men and Alpha Flight, Northstar’s sexuality is once again woven into a key story, this time written by Claremont. After having his consciousness briefly absorbed by the X-Man Rogue, Northstar becomes furious that she now knows his “secrets.”

In a misguided attempt to help Northstar, Rogue then asks him to dance at a very public reception. When Northstar’s own teammates make fun of the incongruity of Northstar dancing at a ball with a woman, Rogue thinks “None of y’all understand him the way ah do.”

In the face of this ridicule, a stoic Jean-Paul takes Rogue up on the dance. She remarks “You don’t have to,” to which he replies, “Yes, Rogue. I do.”

From X-Men and Alpha Flight #1 (Marvel)

Northstar

On the literal level, Northstar is being ridiculed for his general disinterest in heterosexual romance. But Claremont is crafting a story of a man who struggles with his closeted sexuality in the face of social pressures.

It’s a sympathetic portrayal of the character that helps to normalize the concept of a gay superhero, even if Marvel couldn’t identify him that way at the time.

Whether through delicate subtext or comics covering wedding events, Northstar holds a uniquely prominent and, at times, poignant position in the history of LGBTQ+ superheroes.

As we come to understand the importance of diverse representation within the superhero genre, this is a character that needs to be known, discussed and hopefully appreciated.

How a Canadian superhero brought queer representation to Marvel Comics
December 17, 2019 5.23pm EST
Author
J. Andrew Deman
Professor, University of Waterloo

Disclosure statement
J. Andrew Deman receives funding from SSHRC to study the X-Men comics of Chris Claremont.

Partners
University of Waterloo


University of Waterloo provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation CA.


SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=LGBTQ

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=GAY

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=COMICS

 

Adulting, nerdiness and the importance of single-panel comics

Author cites ‘The Far Side’ as one comic that broke barriers

Ohio State University

COLUMBUS, Ohio – While comics have become a culturally popular and widely studied art form in recent decades, one format remains overlooked: the single-panel comic.

 

Comics like “The Family Circus,” “Ziggy” and “Little Lulu” are often seen as simplistic and not worthy of critical attention, argues Michelle Ann Abate, author of the new book Singular Sensations: A Cultural History of One-Panel Comics in the United States.

 

“There tends to be a belief there isn’t much to analyze there. You don’t need a lot of critical thinking skills to see ‘Little Lulu’ slipping on banana peels and get the joke,” said Abate, who is a professor of literature for children and young adults at The Ohio State University’s College of Education and Human Ecology.

 

And while some one-panel comics do rely on slapstick gags, wordplay, and simple puns, Abate said she found while researching Singular Sensations that there’s much more to many of the one-panels.

 

Even comics like “Ziggy” that don’t have a lot of cultural cachet have something to offer when read critically. 

 

“‘Ziggy’ was often about the hassles of ‘adulting’ before adulting was even a word. ‘Ziggy’ has a lot of clever humor about the everyday setbacks that most people can relate to,” she remarked.  “There’s a lot that resonates even now, decades later.”

 

As Abate notes, perhaps no other single-panel comic has been more acclaimed and loved than “The Far Side” by Gary Larson.

 

“It was among the first places in our culture that really celebrated and showcased nerdiness.”

 

While “The Far Side” doesn’t have a recurring cast of characters, it did have recurring types of characters: mainly nerds of all kinds, from geeky middle-aged scientists to dorky adolescent schoolchildren.

 

At the time when Larson started “The Far Side” in 1980, nerdiness was not at the center of popular culture and valued in the way it is now, according to Abate.

 

Even though Larson’s series relied on wordplay and puns, “it was the kind of puns and wordplay that nerds in particular would enjoy and that you don’t see in other single-panel comics before it.”

 

But it wasn’t just the nerdiness that made “The Far Side” stand out, she said: It was the aesthetics, the way Larson drew the characters, particularly the humans. As one critic said, “his people are grotesque.”

 

The very first “Far Side” comic showed the combination of nerdy subject matter and awkward, gangly, and even sometimes “ugly” humans that made Larson famous. The foreground showed two crabs talking to one another, while two human youngsters build a sandcastle in the background.

 

The two crabs were drawn to look friendly and adorable, Abate said. But the kids were distorted and didn’t look cute like the children depicted in most comics. And the caption was true nerdiness: One crab was telling the other, “Yes … they are quite strange during the larval stage.”

 

The way humans were drawn in “The Far Side” was novel at the time.

 

“In Larson’s series, no child was cute, no man was handsome, and no woman was beautiful by conventional standards,” Abate wrote.

 

“The odd, unusual and even unsightly appearance of ‘The Far Side’s’ human characters did not distract readers from the content of the panel. On the contrary, such depictions echoed and even amplified the theme, topic or message.”

 

Abate said Larson’s aesthetic style defied a longstanding trend in American newspaper comics. Much of the emphasis has been on making the case for comics as fine art. And indeed, many cartoonists, especially graphic novelists, are known for the beauty and skill behind their incredible artwork. But Larson’s drawing is intentionally unflattering and awkward.

 

“It just really went against the grain of what was happening in comics,” she said.

 

“It gets readers to think about the aesthetics of ugliness and — paradoxically — what might be called the beauty of ugliness.  Moreover, it also invites us to ponder what we deem ugly and why. It may even get us to learn to value what we thought of as ugly, rather than denigrate it.”

 

While many people have rightly focused on Larson’s impact on nerd culture, Abate hopes to call more attention to his contribution in the realm of comics aesthetics.  The awkward, unflattering, and gangly way that Larson rendered his nerdy characters, Abate argues, is just as important as the nerdiness of their personalities.  Many online comics — such as “The Oatmeal” and “Hyperbole and a Half” — render their human figures in ways can be seen as echoing and even extending Larson’s style.

 

Beyond just “The Far Side,” Abate said that single-panel comics deserve more recognition as an important type of cartoon art. Many of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed titles over the years — from “The Far Side,” “Ziggy,” and “The Family Circus” to “Heathcliff,” “Marmaduke,” and cartoons in The New Yorker — have been single-panel.  Comics as we know them and especially as we love them in the United States would not be the same without the single-panel form. 

 

Singular Sensations examines an array of popular one-panel comics from the 1890s through the present day.  In addition to her discussion of “The Far Side,” she has chapters on political cartoons, comics from The New Yorker, “The Family Circus,” “The Yellow Kid,” “Little Lulu,” the groundbreaking series “Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger” by Jackie Ormes, “Ziggy,” and “Bizarro.”

 

“Single-panel comics are not only comics,” Abate’s book asserts, “they are examples of the medium at its most concentrated, compact and concise.”

 

Gary Larson — and his nerdy characters — would likely agree.

Two Black former DC Comics editors describe the career obstacles they faced, from white leadership saying they'd never be promoted to their achievements being undercut

tclark@businessinsider.com (Travis Clark) 

© DC Comics; Samantha Lee/Business Insider DC Comics; Samantha Lee/Business Insider

Harvey Richards and Lateef Ade "L.A." Williams, two Black former DC Comics editorial staffers, told Business Insider they felt their careers at the company were hindered because of their race.

Richards was fired in December 2019 after 22 years and was the only Black editorial staffer at DC when he left. He was only promoted once. 

Williams exited in 2000 after six years without a promotion and after disputes with white members of DC leadership.

The careers of Richards and Williams cut across two decades, but the similarities in their experiences, from being told they'd never be promoted to a feeling that their achievements were not valued, show how little has changed for Black staffers.

DC's small editorial team shapes the comics that inspire lucrative movies, video games, and merchandise. Richards and Williams said that it's important for Black editors at DC to be in a position to champion diversity.

Harvey Richards and Lateef Ade "L.A." Williams have a lot in common. They both grew up reading comics with aspirations to work in the industry one day. They both ultimately nabbed roles on the editorial staff of DC Comics in the 1990s.

And they are both Black men who say they never achieved their full potential at DC Comics because of their race.

There are differences in their stories — notably, the time periods. Williams exited his role as an assistant editor in 2000 after six years without a promotion, while Richards spent 22 years at the comics giant with just one promotion before he was fired in December 2019.

But the similarities that cut across those two decades are striking and speak to how little has changed for Black editorial staffers at DC Comics and in the comics industry at large.

Richards was the only Black staffer in the main DC editorial department at the time of his exit in 2019, which included about 15 people, he said. He added that DC had since hired a Black assistant editor. DC declined to comment on personnel matters.

DC, which is home to Batman, Superman, and other iconic characters, is much larger than its comics editorial department, with around 200 employees on the publishing side. But the small team of editors shape the comics and characters that inspire lucrative movies, video games, TV shows, and merchandise.

"You need [Black] editors to help nurture talent to foster diverse characters," Richards said.

Besides being the only Black editorial staffer at the time of his exit, Richards felt stymied in his own career, he said. In his 22 years at the company, he was only promoted once. He began as an assistant editor and 12 years later, in 2009, he was promoted to associate editor.

L.A. Williams can relate.

"My personality and work style is different than Harvey's, who is different from every other name I could rattle off," Williams said. "But no matter how different our work styles or personalities are, the reality is that every one of our stories ended up the same. When it keeps happening year after year, person after person, you have to ask yourself what all of these people have in common."

A Latinx former assistant editor, who exited in 1999 after five years without a promotion, shared similar concerns with Business Insider about a lack of a career path forward at DC and a sense that her work was undervalued.

The stories of these three former DC editors are also similar to that of Charles Beacham, a former Marvel editor who spoke with Business Insider in July. Beacham was one of two Black editorial staffers Marvel had employed in the last five years and quit in 2017 because he felt his voice wasn't heard.

For Richards, there were many instances during his time at DC where he felt he was treated unfairly because of his race. He recalled specific instances with Paul Levitz, the DC publisher at the time, like when Levitz told Richards he had "grammar problems," and when Levitz told him "some people think you deserve this" when Richards won an award. Richards was never promoted while Levitz was publisher and president.

Williams also described a confrontation with Levitz, in which Levitz told Williams that he would never be promoted as long as he was publisher.

In response to a request for comment, Levitz said: "I'm not going to comment on decades old incidents. I'm proud of the increasing diversity at DC in my time as an executive there, and while we didn't achieve an ideal balance, I think much changed for the better."

Since Richards' departure, DC has taken some steps to promote diversity and inclusion.

Two women — Marie Javins and Michele Wells — were named interim editors-in-chief after recent layoffs. DC recently hired former Activision Blizzard exec Daniel Cherry, who is Black, as its new senior vice president and general manager, overseeing marketing, sales, and more for the company.

DC is also reviving Milestone, a division of DC that focused on Black characters like Static Shock and was founded in 1993 by four Black men. It ceased operations in 1997 but will return in February.

But for Richards and Williams, it's essential to have Black voices on the editorial front to help inspire change and champion a diverse set of voices and characters.

© DC Comics/Jim Lee Milestone Comics, including Static Shock, is returning in 2021. DC Comics/Jim Lee

'I've had my doubts about you'

For Williams, comics were his life. He had written his senior thesis in Afro-American studies at the University of Massachusetts on the history of Black characters in superhero comics.

So when he got a job at DC Comics in 1994, it was a dream come true. But he faced roadblocks that previewed Richards' own experiences in the coming years.

Williams, 51, recalled an instance in 2000 when some assistant editors were given a monthly comic to edit on their own by then-executive-editor Mike Carlin, who is now a DC Entertainment creative director. Williams said the assistant editors of color were set up to fail and given comics that were doomed from the start.

But Williams turned his assigned book, "Impulse," starring a Flash sidekick that had been hurting in sales, into a success.

Carlin wasn't happy. Williams said Carlin cursed him out for getting veteran comics creator Walt Simonson to draw two issues of the comic, and "wasting his time on Impulse when he should be drawing other characters like Superman."

Carlin did not return a request for comment. DC declined to provide a comment on his behalf.

That sense of not being valued even when he succeeded was a hallmark of Williams' time at DC, he said.

After a white associate editor was fired, Carlin offered Williams to take over that editor's books, which included one of DC's best-selling comics at the time, "Wonder Woman."

Williams remembered vividly what Carlin told him: "I've had my doubts about you, but you've delivered. Everything is always on time, it sells, and critics like it."

"I thanked him for my promotion," Williams said. "And he interrupted me and said it didn't come with a promotion. I feel so stupid now, but at the time I was so confused and asked why it wouldn't come with a promotion."

More than two decades later, Williams said the answer was obvious to him.

© Harvey Richards Richards. Harvey Richards

'Some people think you deserve this'

Williams' DC career ended just as Richards' was just getting started.

Richards, 48, moved from Akron, Ohio, to New York City in 1995 and began his comics career with an internship at the original Milestone, which then shut down in 1997. His Milestone connections eventually led him to DC, where he started in the mailroom and then became an assistant editor.

"I was living my dream at this point," Richards said.

In 2001, after four years as an assistant editor, Richards was offered the chance to work on the Superman titles. It wouldn't have been a promotion, but a chance to prove himself (the chain generally went like this: assistant editor, associate editor, editor, group editor, and executive editor).

But Richards was given what he said was the "unusual" task to write about what he "could bring to the Superman books." Paul Levitz, then the EVP and publisher of DC, told Richards he had "grammar problems" after he completed the assignment.

"After that, Levitz made up his mind about me," Richards said. "I felt he already had because most people are promoted after four years. But after that, it was over, even if I got a good review or worked on good projects or got company awards for going above and beyond."

Richards won two such awards, called "Carrots," which were given by DC's parent company, Warner Bros. After he won the second time, Levitz handed it to him and said "some people think you deserve this," Richards said.

Richards was finally promoted to associate editor in 2009, 12 years after he was hired, when Diane Nelson took over as president of DC Entertainment.
'Change is going to come'

Richards' time at DC came to an end in December.

He had been put on zero-tolerance probation in August of last year. The document Richards provided Business Insider outlined "poor time management skills and an inability to meet deadlines." Richards said he was being overworked.

The day after he returned to the office from Thanksgiving break last year, he was let go with a six-month severance and told he "no longer fit company standards."

He's still looking for work while honing his digital art skills. He said a potential employer asked him why he was only promoted once in all that time at DC.

"It wasn't because of my work performance," Richards said. "I feel like they blacklisted me."

19 years earlier, Williams had left DC with similar sentiments.

After a confrontation over Williams using the likeness of the Alabama governor in an issue of "Impulse," Levitz told him: "As long as I am publisher of DC Comics, you will never be promoted. You're welcome to stay here in the role of assistant editor for as long as you like."

Williams thought the timing of the dispute — shortly after he had filed a racial-discrimination complaint with human resources against Carlin — was suspect. He quit shortly after.

"I naively thought that as long as I do good work, the comics sell, and the critics like them, I'm going to do well," he said. "As a Black man in America, I knew I wouldn't be able to make as many mistakes as others. But I thought the solution was, work harder and do better."

Their experiences highlight why editors of color are so important, Richards said. They can help "realize a creator's vision" and promote more diversity in comics. He lamented that he never got that opportunity. And Black editors in senior positions could provide a source of support for ones in assistant or associate roles, he said.

"Ideas came down, they didn't go up," he said. "And I didn't have anyone above me advocating for me."

He hopes the recent shakeup at DC affords marginalized groups more opportunities and he sees more women in comics than ever before. Jessica Chen, who is Asian American, was promoted from associate editor to editor last year, for example. But Richards also noted there is still a lack of Black women in the industry.

"Change is going to come," he said. "It has to."

From comics kept under the bed to printed collections, a new publisher is saving N.L.'s illustrated past

CBC
Sat, April 27, 2024 

Kevin Woolridge launched Heavy Sweater Comics in November and he has already published seven titles. (Elizabeth Whitten/CBC - image credit)

Kevin Woolridge launched Heavy Sweater Comics in November. He has already published seven titles, including three of his own. (Elizabeth Whitten/CBC)

Newfoundland and Labrador's very own comic book publisher is introducing readers to comic books made in the province and wants to push local artists to get their work out there.

Kevin Woolridge, who launched Heavy Sweater Comics in November, marvels at how quickly it has grown since then, as he now has seven titles in print.


"It's built up very quickly," said Woolridge at his vendor table during last weekend's annual Sci-Fi on the Rock convention in downtown St. John's.

At his table was a sign proclaiming "Local Comics" and a display of the titles he has published, including Andrew Hawthorn's My Milkshake Brings All the Boys to the Yardarm and his own Fishsticks and Andy and the Magic Box, as well as buttons and watercolour prints.

When people hear there's a local comic book publishing company, he said, it grabs their attention.

"The local comic community, the cartooning community, are really excited about this work. Because in a way it's kind of lighting a fire underneath some of their butts, you know?" he told CBC News.

During the convention he also released three new titles: Jennifer Barrett's Werebears and Only Children: The Good Ones, Sam Dinn's Dirty Laundry and his own autobiographical comic Nothing Super Important.

An official launch party for the new comic books was scheduled for Friday at the LSPU Hall's Cox & Palmer Second Space, he said.

Heavy Sweater Comics is currently the only active comic book publisher in the province.

Woolridge previously told CBC News that prior to starting his company he had been self-publishing his comics under the name Little Grey Dog Comics and Games but he realized there was already a publisher with a similar name, so he had to select a new name for his company.

He said his friends started throwing out words they associated with him, and Woolridge happened to like heavy sweaters, and the name stuck.

Preserving the past

Woolridge said he has experience self-publishing his own comics so it wasn't a big leap to decide to start the company and publish the works of others.

"There are people here doing it, and it's just sitting underneath their bed in a box. Why not get that material out there to the public?" he said.

Many of the books he's published are collections of previously published works. That wasn't intentional initially, he said, but it's a way for people to read comics when they're no longer easy to find.

He pointed out Werebears and Only Children was initially published on a blog and then in the Scope, an alternative newspaper in St. John's that folded in 2013. Likewise, Hawthorn's book is a collection of his webcomic On the Bounty.

"That kind of material is kind of getting lost unless it's published, right? I think I'm doing a little bit of a service just to try to get this history of comic strips, especially, out there," said Woolridge.

Artists Dinn and Barrett were at the convention for book signings.

Jennifer Barrett says publishing her comic Werebears and Only Children through Heavy Sweater Comics is a dream come true. (Elizabeth Whitten/CBC)

Barrett said Werebears and Only Children started off as a "goofy webcomic" about two unnamed characters, beginning on her blog, then in the Scope, and then back online. But it had been years since she'd posted anything.

"I haven't been doing it consistently for almost 10 years, so it was nice to go back and revisit it," said Barrett.

Bringing her characters back in a collection was something that had been on her mind while she had been making her comic but never got around to, she said.

Then after a hole unexpectedly opened up in his publishing schedule, Woolridge reached out to Barrett, asking her if she wanted to put together a collection of her comics.

"I thought I should just take advantage of that because I already had all the work, the actual comics, made," said Barrett, adding that she pulled out the comics, scanned them, cleaned them up and added some new content like puzzles.

"It's just kind of like another little dream to come true after many years."

Having a local comic book publisher opens up possibilities for local artists, she said.

"What Kevin is doing is amazing, and there's a lot of great comic makers in the province already. So this is just another way to help expose that."

New titles coming

Woolridge said he has big announcements on future titles coming in the next few weeks, including a fantasy apocalyptic story and a coming of age story. He's also working on a children's book and a painted 200-page book, he said.

For the moment, Woolridge said, his focus is on publishing N.L. artists but he's been seeing submissions from across the country.

"Once I have the kind of distribution network in place, I'd like to be able to publish some more stuff — with a mandate of remaining mostly local."

Heavy Sweater Comics titles can be bought through the company's website, as well as local comic book shops Timemasters, Downtown Comics and Heroes & Hobbies, he said.