ConMunity Engagement: Indigenous Comic Con 2

Over the Veteran’s Day weekend the second Indigenous Comic Con took place here in New Mexico at the Isleta Resort and Casino on Isleta Pueblo. This awesome event was organized by the fantastic Lee Francis IV who has been doing superb work with the Indigenous comics community, founding Native Realities and the Red Planet comic book shop in Albuquerque.

What is Indigenous Comic con? Well it’s a con like GeekGirlCon or Blerd con, that is organized around particular community within comics rather than around a location like San Diego. In this case, it is centered on Indigenous creators and communities.

Although I am not Indigenous, the con is one of the most welcoming I've attended. I get to blend in as "an ambiguous brown person" (a quote from "Why can't you-" by Julie Fiveash one of the zines I bought) and listen to voices in comics/the greater nerd community that rarely get asked to speak. And if they do get asked to speak, it’s about diversity in the medium. It’s also a chance to put my money where my mouth is regarding diversity in comics, seeing and buying work by Indigenous people. Their work regularly blends nerd and Indigenous identities but also, like the zine I quoted, just uses of the medium to explore personal stories.

Seeing the amazing work that Indigenous creators produce is one of my favorite parts of the con and this year I bought a bunch of fun things. You check out the whole vendor and artist list here on their website but here's a list of some of the people I got a chance to buy stuff from:

Jeffrey Veregge: A great artist and writer who had shirts, comics, and prints available. I picked up his most recent Star Trek design on a black shirt

Weshoyot Alvitre: Another amazing comics artist whose work I had initially seen on Twitter. The first piece of hers that I saw was an amazing version of Dani Moonstar, which I bought the print of at ICC.

Lalo Alcaraz: Though primarily the cartoonist behind La Cucaracha, he recently consulted with Disney on Coco and had some awesome nerdy magnets, I grabbed a Star Wars one.

Kandi Quam: Is from Natachu INK and had some great small prints and art cards. I grabbed the cards but am torn between sending them to people and keeping them for myself.

Kurly Tlapoyawa: A former archaeology student of mine, who is now a full-fledged archaeologist and just started his own podcast, had book on Nawatl language influence in New Mexico and Southern Colorado that I picked up.

And last but not least were the artists I grabbed short zines from. These were: Tatum Bowie, Damon Begay, Julie Fiveash, and Willow Tomeo. They all had such cool stories to tell and it was great to hear all of their stories about getting to be at ICC.

You can support these artists (and the others from the vendors/artists lists) through their websites, patreons, or other ways to check out and buy their work to support them to do even more down the road.

After my extensive shopping adventures, I got to listen to a panel that on its own would have been worth the admission price. Entitled “Native Sci Fi and Indigenous Futurisms” the panel made me seriously consider a bunch of themes that I hope to credit them with inspiring and discuss at other panels or to see the panelists discuss in the future in other venues. The panelists were Daniel H. Wilson, PhD and sci-fi writer, Elizabeth LaPensee, PhD, artist and video game designer, and Johnnie Jae a writer and the founder of A Tribe Called Geek. The panel talked about everything from kinship to the apocalypse and demonstrated how many amazing things are happening in the Indigenous communities. I had a short live-tweet of the panel you can see here and if you ever get a chance to hear any of them speak I would recommend it. I was blown away by how much I didn't know and went to read more about Indigenous Futurisms, started listening to Wilson's Robopocalypse (finished this week and would 100% recommend), and went to check out the media being produced on a Tribe Called Geek. If you can't hear them speak I highly recommend looking into and supporting their content.

Even if you can't attend cons like ICC or Blerd con it's valuable to think of the other ways you can support such conventions. ICC has a program to sponsor the ticket of an Indigenous child and other cons use the Con or Bust service to reach out to underrepresented groups. These are important (as cons and as ways to support them) because often nerd communities are coded as white spaces and these cons demonstrate that the white nerd narrative is false and that there are many ways to be a nerd. My hope is that mainstream conventions start to take notice and invite more diverse creators to their own conventions. Specifically, I hope that they bring in more Indigenous voices because I was awe-inspired at this convention. In the meantime, talk up ICC, hope for ICC 3, and if there is and you are near New Mexico attend and support some IndigeNerds!

ConMunity Engagement: Bringing science to the con

Science outreach is an important part of all cons, whether convention or a conference. There should be different goals at each but both should have it represented somewhere. Outreach is a common part of science and in many cases there are ‘tried and true’ methods for outreach, such as the public lecture or the museum demonstration day. Unfortunately, these events involve the same thing as teaching a class, with the academic deciding the agenda and the pupils, or public, looking at them in awe. With the plethora of platforms for scientists to take advantage of now and the attacks on science at the Federal level, these are not enough for sciences to stay engaged with the public.

Therefore, I encourage scientific conferences, or meetings, to have outreach as an regular,n ongoing, topic of discussion. At professional meetings, I suggest scientists discuss new methods for outreach, what ideas or topics should be the focus of outreach, and identify the importance and/or value of outreach to the academic and to the field. These are important to explore amongst other academics because it allows whole disciplines to consider what aspects are the most important to convey to the public. It also allows us to explore the pros and cons of different outreach methods as well as tailor certain platforms to particular types of outreach.

I’m pursuing this through a forum I organized that will be held at the Society for American Archaeology meetings in April. Another group that is doing something is the newly established and first #AnthropologyCon that will happen at the American Anthropological Association meeting this year. Forums and events like these provide platforms to explore innovative methods for other academics to figure out what methods will work for them and their work. These interactions between academics also allow us to create networks of professionals that, after the conference or meeting, will be able to help navigate bumps down the road with particular methods and help to provide a group to workshop ideas with at a distance.

Of course, the goal of meetings, forums, and events such as those mentioned previously would be to do the actual outreach. One place that I highly recommend doing this is at conventions, comics or just “geek” ones in general. These are places where you can have panels of scientists or scientists and creators open to the public; hands on activities relating to your science (or the rest of the TEAM); and demonstrate new teaching materials like board games or other outreach platforms like video game visualizations.

Come see me moderate @geniusbeee @backthatelfup @syrrann @sarahmiyoko @GeekGirlCon In fifteen in Furiosa talking about mixed race characters

— Paulina the PhD Candidate (now w/ more character) (@punuckish) October 1, 2017

This is something I have already started doing. While anthropology makes this pretty easy, because conventions are cultural events, blending the expertise of creators and scientists of all types hold great potential for outreach. At comics or science fiction conventions, panels can be organized by anyone and can include scientists, creators, critics, and anyone else who is interested in putting people together to talk about a topic. Conventions represent a unique place to bring scientific topics to a willing audience and we can do our best academic public outreach by involving a wide range of stakeholders. Additionally, almost all panels have a dedicated time set up for questions and answers so dialogue with the public is more open, rather than just having one person lecture. While the topic is often up to the organizer, that person is not always the scientist and panels allow for more discourse to flow between the panelists who may be from different backgrounds.

It is important to have dialogue about science outreach at both conventions and conferences because often as academics and as professionals we’re put on pedestals. Primarily, our work happens “under the hood” or behind a curtain because of academic publishing paywalls. So, unless people enroll in college classes or buy much to expensive access to academic databases, the dissemination of scientific knowledge is rather limited. Conventions allow us to go beyond the classroom to bring our knowledge to a wider audience because it brings us to the public and puts them, to a degree, in control over what gets discussed. It is important also for us to develop better teaching methods to cater to new generations and take advantage of many ways of learning and as temporary events, they allow us to see if certain methods work and which ones don't.

Lastly, it’s important in these discussions to be aware of the representation that your group is portraying. This means remembering diversity in regards to age, gender, race, and regional knowledge when organizing forums, meetings, or panels. This is because when it comes to outreach at public events that those we are trying to inspire physically see themselves represented. For example, it may be hard to convince the public that you are “de-colonizing” an issue if all of your presenters come from colonizing backgrounds or on cultural appropriation if a majority of you participants are white. Keeping this in mind will help to promote diversity in whatever field is being discussed and help make sense more accessible to all.

ConMunity Engagement: Feminist Fandoms p3, Bringing Feminism to Mainstream conventions

Women, people of color, trans, queer, and the rest of us folx (aka anyone who is not a straight-white-cis-het-white-male) are changing the landscape of nerd spaces. Besides bringing new markets, or increasing holds in those markets, we are critiquing the ways that nerd-culture is unhealthy. Specifically, these audiences are not interested in the white nerd boy club that was the standard in comics, and other nerd communities. Instead, we seek to change the behaviors that have made these cis-het-white-male-centric spaces unhealthy. This means not being “one of the guys” but changing fandoms and fan spaces to be explicitly feminist, and I mean intersectional feminist, and respectful of all people. While using the term “feminist” to refer to fan communities is in some ways oxymoronic, as they act a microcosm for the rampant misogyny in society, it is that sort of reform that is needed to re-forge them into healthy places.

As comics became blockbuster films, and as more people have grown up with access to manga, establishing feminism in fandoms is one part of the swing back to a more inclusive market in comics. One of these expanding comics-related markets is clothing and cosplay, full costumes or the “undercover” variety. Because costuming, and the skills required for costuming, is/are still coded as feminine and this work has brought many more women into these spaces.

However, cosplay is not inherently feminist. There is still an association between the term ‘cosplay’ and sexy because it revealed how impractical and bizarre costuming choices for women characters in comics are. This mean that cosplay can embody the same misogyny that exists in the comics that they draw from and that was inherent to the nerd community.

So cosplay brings in more women, as do many other factors, but how do we bring feminism to mainstream conventions when women just as capable of supporting the patriarchy as men? I’ve touched on this in my previous blogs but it involves supporting feminist programming, artists, sellers, and bringing feminism into whatever fandoms you participate in. For me this starts at home. Am I being a feminist consumer? I try to be and you can read my rule about buying floppy comics to see what I mean. Some people argue that the idea of a “feminist consumer” is problematic because of the rise of “capitalist feminism,” which some people see as antithetical to the goals of feminism . However, conventions are essentially small open markets where the consumer has a lot of power. It’s also the age old claim of the anti-diversity folks that we “diverse consumers” just aren’t driving the market. So it’s paper paper paper to support the diverse work I love.

Sometimes you love what you love, and sometimes that thing is not easy to reconcile with feminism. My example is Star Trek: The Original Series, I love so much of what it brought to the small screen, but its approach to women and culture is still deeply rooted in the 1960s (for an example revisit The Paradise Syndrome). If the fandom you love has problems that deal with culture, gender, sexuality, or race, consider bringing programming to conventions that addresses those issues. We are at conventions because of our love for the medium, genre, or specific work so if you feel like it needs to be critiqued, you are probably not alone. There will be other fans interested in having a meaningful discussion about intersectional issues, if you didn’t enjoy it so much, you probably wouldn’t be annoyed enough to want to critique it.

My last suggestion is to wear your feminist properties on your sleeve. Be open about it, take up space and be seen supporting properties like Feminist Frequency, Black Girl Nerds, and InSEXts. Encourage your friends to support new feminist properties or bring them to panels that support those creators. Wear your Bitch Planet pins to the con, out in the world, and talk-that-shit-up. One of the biggest comments I’ve gotten after talking to people about Bitch Planet, is “I didn’t know that existed in comics” WELL NOW YOU KNOW. Go do the thing. Also, where possible, don’t take shit from people trying to gatekeep you. Assert yourself, ask questions like “why does that matter?” and interrogate them about their knowledge. I have had to explain my “Feminism is my Fandom” pin more than once but that meant that the other person actually had to engage with what that meant. Part of the patriarchy is controlling knowledge, power, and knowledge as power. We can do it too, it's just a matter of using those tools to our advance our agendas.

These are just a few suggestions but it’s clear from the existence of sites such as themarysue, youtube series like Feminist Frequency, comics like Bitch Planet, and films like She Makes Comics (PS don't believe the IMDB ratings, they're heavily gendered) that feminism exists in nerd spaces. Each of these celebrate women’s long history of participation in the nerd community and demonstrates how feminism benefits both women and men and conventions. It means that people, regardless of gender will have respect and be able to participate in the things that they love without fear of bullying or discomfort. We all attend conventions because they should be safe spaces and to make that true requires feminism and feminist fandoms.

ConMunity Engagement: Feminist Fandoms p2 More than "Women in Comics"

This blog comes in response to a tweet from yesterday:

Dear conventions: could you please include women creators in panels along with or other than those Women in Comics panels? Thanks.

— Colleen Doran (@ColleenDoran) October 22, 2017

GeekGirlCon, its existence and its success, demonstrates how unnecessary and belittling the “Women in Comics” panel is. There are women creators throughout the industry, you can have an all women panel that does not center on gender identity. It’s gotten so absurd that some (perhaps many) women creators no longer accept invitations to be on such panels.

But how do you fix this Paulina?

Easily, by not being dumb. Also by having panels that reflect the reality of the industry aka changing from manels (man-exclusive-panels) to all gender panels or by picking topics other than “what’s it like to be a woman” to have a group of women talk about. All of the panels I have organized have been all-women panels and none of them centered on gender. It’s possible I promise. Now go think of some.

Haven’t thought of any? Here are a few I thought of in the last thirty minutes, with full panelist rosters and links to those creators:

Witchcraft and Wizardry in Comics

Short Description: Magic is a regular theme in comic books. What are the commonalities, what are the differences, whose magical inspiration do you draw from, and why do you think this is such a powerful method for storytelling.

Suggested Panelists: Kate Leth, Ming Doyle, Wendy Xu, Caitlin Kittredge, Nicola Scott

Epic Romance in Comics

Short Description: Love is a driving factor for many characters. Let’s talk about some of the epic romances that have taken place in comics and how that acts as motivation for all sorts of events.

Suggested Panelists: Marguerite Bennett, Ariela Kristantina, Fiona Staples, Catherynne M. Valente

What does it take to be a hero?

Short Description: Comics are filled with heroism. Whether they are people with superpowers or people who just want to do the right thing. Why is this a theme people want to keep reading about and what defines a hero in comics?

Suggested Panelists: Kelly Sue DeConnick, G. Willow Wilson, Mariko Tamaki, Gail Simone, Roxane Gay

The Final Frontier: Space as setting

Short Description: What does it mean for a piece to be set in space? Why does space as a concept and as a place tickle our storytelling senses. What do we agree exists in space and what do we debate? How does real science and astronomy play into these ideas? Can we consider "space" to be a character in its own right?

Suggested Panelists: Kelly Sue DeConnick, Nicole Perlman, Marguerite Bennett, Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

Hometown heroes

Short Description: Sometimes the problems we face aren’t going to affect the world but they do hit a close to home. Who are these hometown heroes and where do they come from? How does reading about solutions to day-to-day problems help us learn more about being good citizens and people.

Suggested Panelists: Brittney Williams, Hope Larson, Pamela Ribon, Kiku Hughes

Road Trip!

Short Description: Every day thousands of us end up on the road. So what defines a road trip and what is it about those events that make them great for storytelling. Are there tropes on the road trip or is it just the heroes journey. Can you have a road trip without roads?

Suggested Panelists: Kate Leth, Shing Yin Khor, and Megan Levens

What these topics prove are that in most cases, any panel you could staff with all men (particularly if it’s all white-dudes) you could staff with all women. You might need to tweak the topic slightly, if you happen to have picked a historically sexist topic or maybe just one that’s always been done by white-dudes (google writers of Superman), but if that’s the case maybe don’t have that panel or have a bigger name woman moderate it. Women have been a major part of the comics industry since it’s inception, it's time convention-panels reflected that.

ConMunity Engagement: Feminist Fandoms part 1

I like millions of other people went out on 21 January 2017 to participate in the Womxn’s March. Though I already had my feminist apocalyptic-chic outfit chosen my friend and I sat down to make a sign each and I chose the simple NC from Bitch Planet. I’ve started to use this as a sort of default for creating things now, aka there is only one Halloween pumpkin design, which seems both ironic and appropriate. If everything is non-compliant then it means nothing (there is no compliance bar) but it’s also a simple and powerful symbol. I knew there were probably many other non-compliant womxn out there at the march but I was not in a large city, so I got a few questions about what “my symbol meant” but that meant I got to share more about Bitch Planet.

I like the many other people with fantastic, empowering, and sometimes hilarious signs, I chose NC very deliberately. I chose it because I wanted to showcase my particular brand of Nerd-feminism and to highlight the simplicity behind the idea of non-compliance. One of the reasons I love Kelly Sue and Val’s concept is because non-compliance can be simple or complicated, many or one thing. It simply does not comply. And when I talked with people about the concept it made them think about the millions of things that women are taught that make them un-feminine or can feminize a man. That simple concept can apply to anyone and makes this comic-book-based-feminist idea so powerful. This is also why I chose to fill in the letters with pink and black. For me the use of the color pink is associated with femininity. I had growing up disliking pink and disliking many of the other associations with femininity that came along with it but as I have gotten older I’ve become more welcoming and almost fiercely attached to pink. I’ve taken it up again and paired it with black because it is a color of resistance and power. Black helps connect us to other, and greater, movements of resistance.

What I also like about the symbol is that Bitch Planet is part of a feminist movement in comics and in Fandoms, which have the potential to be feminist havens. For me the intersection between my nerdy interests and feminism was another way place that feminism has to be entrenched. For me, my nerdy interests need to be feminist. Not all fantasy has to help us to be better people but as tools for teaching, it is integral to making us our better selves. Also for so long being a nerd was almost exclusively coded as male and what more recent fandoms have done, by the increase in cosplay and crafting, is incorporate women and transform nerd-dom visually, emotionally, and intellectually.

More than ever at conventions, particularly at conventions like GeekGirlCon, I see people talking about mental health, inclusion, and a myriad of other issues that have made nerd communities more inclusive and cognizant of society’s problems. Before Nerd-dom has a history of being welcoming to women but it, like many professions, has gone through an anti-woman hump that only recently has had a fierce and purposeful restructuring. This has involved opening nerd islands of insolation and discussing how even nerd friendships were unhealthy. Controlling nerd knowledge was just a different form of bullying.

The increase in the number of women and women’s spaces in Nerd dom has meant a re-negotiation of these behaviors. While some have turned from bitter nerds into members of the alt-right, those same feelings of alienation can be used to unite people against the things that reject us. Being part of a persecuted group does not exclude you from negative behaviors but we have a common enemy and those are hate and feelings of loneliness. Additionally, so many works of fiction that create fandoms, whether or not they identify as nerds, are built on ideas of being true to one’s self, cooperation, and resistance to negative forces. Because of that intersectio-nerd-feminism is a must.

For me, nerd-dom is linked to my interest in science-fiction and “nerdom” because it has in many ways helped me formulate and understand my identity. It is a community I participate in and it must be held to the same standards that I require of the rest of the world.

ConMunity Engagement: Representation Matters

I love GeekGirlCon, it does amazing things by creating space specifically for women in the Geek conMunity. These past two years have demonstrated that and each year they are heading towards their goal of being completely inclusive. But (yes the dreaded but) this year I examined GeekGirlCon for how they demonstrate, with real humans, that people of color are part of the Geek community. Which means that the Convention left some things to be desired, though some of those things are out of their control.

I want to and feel the need to address this specifically because:
1. I sat through at least one all white (presenting) panel
2. After my panel someone approached me with concerns about another panel that spoke about their heritage but the person talking was not of that heritage
3. I had a question during my panel about the participation of PoC in Cosplay
4. The room my panel was in ended up being too small, so people were turned away

Everything I love is problematic. I definitely think that GeekGirlCon is moving towards fulfilling their mission of being, essentially, a third-wave feminist convention, but there are holes, which I assume they are aware of, but in case they are not I think should be addressed.

All White Panels (AWPs)

What is this? Panels with only white panelists. This is in no way, shape, or form a problem unique to GeekGirlCon, you could say it’s a Paneldemic at mainstream conventions. Mainstream conventions have an all-white and all-male panel problem regardless of the topic under discussion. As GeekGirlCon has very much progressed past the all-male panel, the next step is to avoid AWPs. In the same way, that in academia there is always a woman expert that could speak, at cons (and in academia TBH) there is a woman of color who should be on that panel.

Why does this matter? Well, it, fuck it just does. Ok you want reasons well here are some. It makes the default relationship to the topic the white relationship to the topic. The panels put together by all PoC groups were labeled as such (Asian, Black, or Mixed-Race experience). In contrast, all-white panels were not labeled even though the presentation would be limited to the experience of a single group. This becomes even more awkward when having an all-white panel talking about a non-American cultural property because race-is-always-a-thing and influences how and why you associate yourself with a product. For example, looking back, Sailor Moon and the rise of Japanese-cartoons were super important for me because at the time they were the only association I had to Asian-heritage in the mainstream. It wasn’t Filipino but it was Asian, the half of my identity that was not being validated or explored through any other medium. Obviously, things not from America are important for lots of people but we cannot accept, especially at GeekGirlCon, the white experience as the only/default experience. It’s also a problem because it reinforces the stereotype that nerd-culture is white culture and reinforces the idea that PoC interested in nerd culture are not allowed or are outsiders.

How can we fix this? There’s no good way to screen for all-white panels but consider putting it into the form to have panel submissions self-select. Something along the lines of “Do your panelists represent diverse experiences with the topic under discussion in regards to race/class/ability/experience?” Then you have to explicitly talk about it, and if you do find out a panel is all white, considering labeling it as such in the same way you would identify an all-Asian panel.

Panel Authority

What is this? I generalized this to the idea of “panel authority” but it’s the idea “do the people on the panel have the right to talk about the topic”. An attendee at my panel mentioned wanting to have more of their heritage represented on panels because they felt that someone on another panel had spoken on behalf of that community without being from that community. This is definitely not unique to GeekGirlCon, but it’s also not uncommon for people “in the know,” particularly progressive people, to assume they are informed when they may not be.

Why does this matter To paraphrase a previous paragraph, it just fucking does. On the one hand, it's great that people create panels with their friends, but on the other hand you need to consider who your friends are. This is particularly important because as much as we can empathize with people of different backgrounds and may be informed enough to speak for them it never makes up for actively having those people speak for themselves, particularly in regards to culture and beliefs. We all speak from experience and a love for the topic under discussion but sometimes it's better to stop and say, maybe I don’t have the authority to say that, and ask the audience for someone who might be able to speak for that group or on the topic. This also relates to the issue in the previous section in that diverse panelists in terms of race will make that more likely. For example, if you’re going to discuss Mulan, having someone of Chinese (or at least Asian) descent may be good to have on your panel. Obviously, you can’t cover everything and you don’t want to tokenize people, but considering the authority your panelists have should be an important reason why you select them.

How can we fix this? I think the same question I suggested in the previous section could go a long way. Additionally, asking moderators and panelists to be aware of their audience and acknowledge if they are not the authority on the topic would help as well.

PoC in Cosplay

What is this? So one of the questions I had during my panel was about the Cosplay competition asking about how to get more mixed/diverse people not just cosplaying but competing. She also mentioned that of the PoC represented, most were children. We suggested directly asking friends to compete, helping those friends finish their cosplay, and supporting each other to do that. GeekGirlCon actually had the panels such as “Black Cosplay Magic: Cosplayers of Color Talk” and “Here come the “Bla-takus”: Being Black/ POC in the Anime Fandom” explicitly talked about PoC as cosplayers. However, few adult people of color were in the competition.

Why does this matter? A lot of the imagery and room names at the con advertises women of color but public participation is just as important. It matters because it demonstrates we are real and active members of the community. It matters not only that you see yourself represented in media, as characters, but that you can be seen as a valuable creator of that media. There are lots of well-known PoC in cosplay but bridging the gap to competition is important as cosplay contests get heavily featured in the program, which influences who might participate in following years and who the con is projecting is the audience and community they are serving. This comes down to putting your money where your mouth is regarding inclusivity and considering the ways that unintentionally the con might be discouraging adult PoC to participate in contests.

How can we fix this I think this comes back to what we as a panel suggested to our attendee. It may be up to the con to search out and actively encourage adult PoC to participate in cosplay competitions. It may not currently feel like a space where PoC feel that they can participate, as cosplay is expensive and, honestly, intimidating, so maybe hosting cosplay intros in communities of color (geography matters, do not ever forget that) and workshopping them towards competition may be a type of outreach that GeekGirlCon expands into in coming years.

Packed audiences for PoC Panels

What is this? Again it was another packed house for my panel. This sounds extremely self-serving, but my panels fill rooms. This meant that there were people who were turned away from the panel. Can I say that we would have filled the room if we had been scheduled in a larger room? I have no idea, but I do know that last year my panel on cultural appropriation filled a bigger room.

Why does this matter? This matters because people who wanted to attend programming for and by PoC were unable to attend that programming. This is just shitty. It means that people want more programming and want the space to be able to participate. Personally, I’d like to get passed panels that are just about the experience of PoC in nerdom but until we are regularly integrated into the narrative of nerd culture, we will require our own spaces to talk about our experiences as our own because those experiences are considered “unique” rather than the norm. This matters because if we continue to assume the default nerd is white (and in other contexts male) panels and cons need to work against that narrative actively to build an inclusive community.

How can we fix this? Try to get more panels by and for PoC into your programming, as participants on panels and by having more panels with them. GeekGirlCon does have quite a bit of that programming specifically for different PoC groups (“Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling: Examining the Representation of Asians in Film, TV, and Gaming,” “¿Cómo Se Dice ‘Nerd’?”, and “#BlackWomenDreaming” to name a few) but it’s clear that people want even more. These groups should also have expanding presences and be actively recruited to explore the unique experience of nerds of from different cultures/races/backgrounds. This will also be helped by having PoC on all panels at the con (cycling back to the first point) but also having panels about non-specific topics also staffed entirely by PoC. It circles back to reminding us that white-nerd culture is not the default.

My panels are not perfect. I haven’t reached my goals regarding them yet but I’m trying to create the programming I want to see at conventions. I also want to be a role model for others interested in bringing similar programming to conventions. There is a long way to go and lots of shit that needs doing but the success of panels like mine and #BlackWomenDreaming give me hope for how great the future of conventions could be. It requires work and in some cases taking the space we need at the table. It requires reaching out and hoping someone will reach back (and sometimes reaching out more than once to people who may not notice for a while). But those contacts will help GeekGirlCon and the nerd-dom grow into an amazing and new community. In general, this matters because representation matters and that should never be forgotten.

ConMunity Engagement: GeekGirlCon a Feminist Convention

Another weekend and another whirlwind trip to in the Pacific Northwest. I may have been perpetually tired but GeekGirlCon did not disappoint. There was a great collection of artists and the panels were as impactful and important as I could have hoped. GeekGirlCon always leaves me with a lot of feelings. Most good but a few that make me want to push for more from the convention but I'll talk about that later.

GeekGirlCon is a unique convention held in Seattle for the last six years. As a 501(c)(3) (aka a charity) organization the convention is organized by volunteers except for their one paid employee, the executive director. They only were able to hire an executive director this year as what started as a small convention has grown over the years to fill more and more space in the Washington State Conference center.

Unlike many other conventions, it has the mission of inclusivity meaning “ALL ages, gender identities, sexual orientations, sizes, abilities, ethnicities, nationalities, races, creeds, religions, familial statuses, physical and mental abilities, alien species, earth species, education levels, science specializations, operating system preference, fandoms, etc., are welcome.” As defined by themselves. This definition for inclusivity means that their goal is intersectional feminism centered on a geek community.

Last year was a great introduction to the set up and so this year I was more selective. I attended only three panels, besides my own, and my favorite was #BlackWomenDreaming with some of the amazing writers from Black Nerd Problems. The panel was a fantastic introduction into creating your own working, supportive, and accountable creative community. Some of the highlights included: be honest when you give criticism and when you talk about your goals, reach out to people to create your community, and make sure to keep our eye out for opportunities to one another. There were a ton more great moments from the panel but overall it captured the best parts of GeekGirlCon by highlighting the voices of women of color and the outlining ways that we can promote a healthy geek community.

Besides panels, I got to meet up with some old friends and make some new ones too. Ran into my friend Hannah dressed as the awesome Liv Moore from iZOMBiE and caught up a bit. Was ambushed by my friend Carrie, who was a panelist for me last year and who was part of the #BlackWomenDreaming panel. Saw the amazing Tristan at their table and on my panel. I also got to meet Kiku, Symantha, and Sarah who were all fantastic on the panel I moderated (I’ll talk about that in a forthcoming blog). I also introduced myself to a few more people who I may tap for panels for Emerald City. Also my mom came and was at my panel. She was a very fantastic typical mom who is not versed in Geek stuff but seemed to enjoy it nonetheless.

GeekGirlCon is fantastic for being one of a handful of feminist nerd conventions around the world. It promotes girls of color in STEM by having them on their imagery and donating passes to organization such as Con or Bust, which helps People of Color / non-white folks attend conventions. The majority of their speakers are women, non-binary, or trans folks and the content of panels at the convention really brings that inclusivity home. It highlights professionals from those groups in gaming, writing, art, illustration, crafts, voice-acting, science, industry, and other fields. It shows not only women as characters but highlights the importance of women as do-ers and creators, demonstrating how girls and women can decide the narrative and their lives.

This con is extremely valuable in this regard as so often, conventions are coded as male-centered spaces and sometimes, even as extremely unhealthy male-centered spaces. GeekGirlCon contrasts that by specifically trying to build positive community and to highlight topics of discussion, through their programming, that would be considered a side-issue at larger conventions. However, GeekGirlCon is not perfect and I’ll talk about that in my next blog on why Representation at Cons matters.

Con-munity engagement: Building community at conventions

So I’m heading to my second convention within the last 30 days, to moderate my second panel of the year, Scion or Shafted: Being Mixed race in Science Fiction and Fantasy on Sunday at 3pm. This time it’s going to be at GeekGirlCon, which unlike conventions like Rose City, is organized around a central theme, the Geek Girl. Other cons like this, such as Flame Con, rather than being organized geographically, though that’s always a component, are organized around a particular nerdy community. Their mission is to promote intersectional nerddom, the promoting LGBTQA+ community, people of color, and especially women in nerd spaces. While the con is not perfect, with early years being dominated still by a white-girl-nerd narrative, the con has been evolving to better represent their mission statement.

It is also the convention that got me started down the road of “Con-munity” engagement because of their explicit focus on diversity and talking about issues that many “mainstream” nerd venues consider secondary.

So, what is a “Con-munity”?

Conventions, whether comic or centered around any other theme, are a type of impromptu-community. Large amounts of people descend onto a particular space for a limited amount of time, all to celebrate the them. It means that at any given moment at a convention you are probably near someone who shares an interest of your or will get that reference you know none of your co-workers will get. These even get more specific as people self-select to attend panels or other gatherings. This means that, while ephemeral, conventions recur and act as a reunion. Attend enough conventions and be consistent with your interests, you’ll probably find and make a couple of con buddies. These are people who clearly share your interest and probably live in your area, assuming you’ve seen them at geographical cons. So this is the con-munity, people aggregated together for that convention that over time might become part of your actual community.

So, how can they be engaged?

The great thing about the con-munity is that, conventions create a captive audience. Walking around the pop-up mall that is the convention hall is great, but tiring and at one point, you run out of money or credit. Additionally, the people who are interested in what you have to say about pop culture are already there as they choice to attend the convention. Like a conference, people are there to talk about and listen to topics related to the central theme, comics/nerd stuff, so they are looking for what you are selling. Additionally, comics are returning to being more socially engaged. This means the community who reads and creates them are becoming more actively political and engaging with social issues. They want to know how to be better at portraying culture, science, gender, etc. because they know it’s the right thing to do and that it creates better stories. This means if you are a socially-engaged creator having a table, or if you are a specialist in a particular topic organizing panels around that theme

My goal for engagement is to bring issues that I know and care about, discussions of culture and science, to the greater con-munity. Helping them find resources that they can use to make better creations.

Rose City Comic Con in review / What it's like to attend a Comic Convention

Last weekend I attended Rose City Comic Con (RCCC) up in Portland Oregon with the BF. It was super fun and it was a great reminder of how great conventions are for building community, so to ease into a series of blogs on what I term “CONmunity engagement” (community engagement at conventions) I wanted to give a brief description of what comic conventions are like. I assume the majority of my readers have attended at least one but even if you are invested in a fandom, it can be intimidating to go to one especially, if you don’t have a convention buddy.

Comic conventions involve a bunch of different “geek” or “nerd” fandoms. This means that in most cases there will be celebrities, artists, writers, video and board games, as well as all sorts of other meet-ups and opportunities for attendees. If you enjoy something considered “nerdy” or “geeky” you will find community at a comic convention. This also means that there are a variety of entertainment types to appeal to these different communities. For the purposes of this article, I separate these into panels, individual meetings, and shopping.

Specifically, Portland has a high proportion of comics writers and artists and recently Image comics moved their headquarters there to better serve that community. This means that RCCC ends up being a large enough convention to draw big names (from comics and elsewhere) but small enough to be unintimidating. It’s also still affordable to attend and you get a great cross section of the type of work going on in comics, shows, and video games.

Day One: Friday Cosplay: Saya from Deadly Class

Day ones are usually petty chill (assuming it’s a three-day con). They start in the afternoon and not all the special guests (artists, writers, celebrities, etc) are there. Everyone’s setting up and getting prepared for what the con will be like. If you are interested in seeing a big name and they are going to be there on Day One, go to Day One. Generally, their lines will be shorter as many people work on the weekdays, which Day One’s usually fall on, and there’s a tendency to wait until the last minute to do things like ask for a commission or get a signature. Early birds get well-rested creators signing and drawing stuff.

Panels: I attended one that day and that was the Bitch Planet panel. As a creation (comic, movie, show, etc.) specific panel, it included the all creators associated with the book, gave us updates about when new issues were coming out, and then opened the panel up for questions. Creation specific panels are a great way to be introduced to works that sound cool, for keeping abreast of the latest news specific to that work, and for getting any detailed creation-specific questions off your chest. It was a great panel (I love Bitch Planet) and we got to find out about when the new arc will start.

Individual meetings: As I said, Day One is great for meeting creators who might get busy over the next few days at the con as the crowd gets larger. This meant that well-known creators like Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky had short lines and so getting to chat with them didn’t mean a line of 30 people wondering why you are taking so long. For me, it meant that I got to ask if I could get my amazing ODY-C tights signed in the next few days. I also introduced myself to the awesome Yoshi Yoshitani, who was going to be on my panel on Sunday.

Shopping: If you are dying to grab a limited supply item and you do not think it is going to go on sale, grab it on Day One. This is generally the case with items produced by creators themselves, rather than shops who don’t want to carry lots of inventory back with them. Day one for me involved buying an awesome ODY-C pin from Matt Fraction.

Day Two: Saturday Cosplay: Kalliyan from Shutter

If a Day Two, is a Saturday, it will likely be the busiest day of the con. This means big crowds all day. They open early but that doesn’t mean getting there exactly as they open will be the best. They generally open in the morning but probably a little after the quoted time due to scheduling and other sorts of preparation. I’d recommend, if you don’t have an early entrance pass, thirty minutes to an hour after they open will mean easy and relaxed entrances. Day twos are busy, so if you want a commission try to be there early, and if you aren’t, be prepared to wait to meet any of your favorite big name creators. Also be very aware of their schedules, usually posted on a personal website, which outlines when they’ll actually be at their table, so you don’t wander by 80 times wondering why they aren’t back yet. Day Twos (especially if they are Saturdays) usually mean a lot of programming, panels etc., so be aware of when large rooms open and close so you don’t get caught in huge throngs of people.

Panels: There are usually more panels on Day Two/Saturdays as earlier openings and later closings means more time to having events. For me and the BF, we attended the Spotlight on: Matt Fraction panel and the Sex Criminals Panel. The Sex Criminals panel was a Sex Criminals version of the Bitch Planet panel and hilarious. Spotlight panels are different than creation-based panels as it will have only up to two people, a moderator and the spotlit person. These are great chance for attendees to get to know an individual creator better, inquire about their ongoing projects, and ask them about their process. I do have a request though: Please don’t ask about getting around writers/artists block. I have heard this question asked at almost every spotlight panel and the answers do not vary much between individual creators. Their advice usually is: keep writing/drawing/creating even if it is crap, change projects for a time, and go do something to get inspired.

Individual meetings: Personally, this was a great day for individual meetings. The cosplay I wore was from a great comic called Shutter that finished this year and both the artist and writer were there. It can be kind of weird to go up to people you have never met and be like “HEY I DRESSED LIKE YOUR CREATION” but it’s really great. Both Leila Del Duca and Joe Keatinge were awesome to meet in person and loved my cosplay, which was super humbling. Also while I was in costume, the amazing Kelly Sue said she loved my earrings (made out of pipe cleaners and attached to another set of earrings), which was hilarious. I also got my ODY-C tights signed by Matt Fraction, which was great. The pen slipped so he wrote “It’s me I swear” on them as well.

Shopping: I broke my own rule and bought a bunch of stuff on Saturday. I picked up a Bitch Planet Eleanor pin that will join my previous Bitch Planet Pin and a new print from Valentine De Landro that reads “THEY ARE ALL MY SISTERS”. I picked up the Legend of Korra graphic novel and got to meet the artist, Irene Koh, and Kris Anka current artist on Runaways who was manning Jen Bartel’s booth. I also picked up Jen Bartel’s and Irene Koh’s collaboration of Korrasami. I stopped by Chris Sebela’s table to pick up Coffee Shop Dogs and Leila Del Duca’s Afar when I saw her in my cosplay.

Day Three: Sunday Cosplay: None, but I did combine my “We are not things” shirt with my ODY-C tights

Day Threes/last days are also usually pretty chill. However, it’s not the best time to get things signed, especially from big names, because that's when everyone remembers who they forgot to talk to, aka It's Crunch Time. There are smaller crowds and sales at vendor/store booths, as they don’t want to carry product home with them. This means that if you want a bunch of back issues or some last-minute con-exclusives this is a good time to go and haggle for the thing you’ve had your eye on.

Panels: Day three was the panel I moderated on Adaptation versus Appropriation. The panel was great and I am so thankful to have gotten the chance to moderate a panel with the awesome Tristan J. Tarwater, Yoshi Yoshitani, and Marissa Louise. My panel also represents a third kind of panel, which is centered on a particular topic of discussion. These usually involve collecting a group of creators to talk about a particular topic with the aim of providing advice to other creators or to comment on the state of a particular issue in comics. It was a great experience and I was happy to see how many people were interested to see us all speak. The other panel I attended was the Bitch Planet games panel, which focuses on confidence and community building games. As far as I'm aware it's unique-to-Bitch-Planet, kinetic, and fun.

Individual meetings: Getting to chat with Yoshi, Tristan, and Marissa before the panel was great. Also watching the room fill up was crazy and amazing. I also got to meet Ibrahim Moustafa who is an awesome artist. I also stopped by to say hello to a high school friend of mine, Hollie Mengert, who I re-met at GeekGirlCon the previous year. I also said hello to the Jayme Twins who are doing amazing work with their Darkroom Series that is fanart combined with old photographic styles. I loved their work at GeekGirlCon and they contacted me for some information about old-school archaeology to make their works feel more appropriate to the times they were referencing.

Shopping: Although there were great sales, I didn’t take advantage of them. I grabbed the last print copy of Ibrahim Moustafa’s Jaeger , which was a necessary purchase because Nazi-hunting obviously. I grabbed a set of connected enamel pins that Yoshi had done based on the Three Wise Monkeys pictoral maxim, I opted for the See the Evil set. Personally, enamel pins are some of the best things to get at cons as there’s no shipping cost and people come up with such amazing designs that you can rock a pin with any outfit. The last thing I did was pick up a new Rose City meets Stranger Things trucker hat (as seen in the above photo) with a Hellboy t-shirt (as seen in the photo below) from the con exclusives booth. It was the last day, and I got the last hat, so I haggled a bit from the volunteer behind the booth.

Overall, RCCC is a great con for level of any attendee. While I don’t take advantage of everything it has to offer, there’s a huge diversity of things to do, buy, and people to meet. I recommend attending if you’re in Portland when it’s going on and on top of all its other goodness, they have banned Nazi-related costumes for some really good reasons. I saw a set of those cosplays and in today’s world we need more Jaegers and fewer Nazi Hello Kitties. Next blog I’ll go into more detail about Conmunity engagement, what I mean by the term and who is being engaged.

Comics recommendations

So a few blogs ago, I wrote about how to get into comics. Tips, strategies, etc. Now I’m writing about the comics I suggest whenever people ask me about what series to start with. I try to be genre and publisher diverse, though the only thing from DC I recommend is Bombshells but it's not on this list. It's good but it's not the first thing I recommend Anyways, my recommendations are:

- Bitch Planet

- Giant Days

- Monstress

- Ms. Marvel

- ODY-C

Now go read them.
























Just kidding! So all of these are currently ongoing series. This means that they will have new issues coming out. You will have to wait longest for ODY-C because it is currently on hiatus and Matt Fraction has promised us 12 more issues. Why exactly twelve? Well I’ll tell you in a second, or an hour, or you can skip down to the ODY-C segment at the end. I chose ongoing-series in case anyone out there is interested in starting a pull list. Because these are established series, I recommend grabbing the first trades and then picking up floppies after that.

Also, all of these should be available at your local library or local comic book shop as they are not obscure titles. I picked rather widely published books, aka from the major comics publishers, because of that accessibility and, depending on your familiarity with comics, it can be hard to decide what in the “indie” world, Kickstarters or zines, interests you. If you already know, great! I also chose to exclude webcomics because in many cases people are already familiar with the medium because of memes, xkcd, and Penny Arcade. This means that when people ask me for comics recommendations they mean stuff from the floppies -> trade paperback pipeline.

The above are not meant to be read as a “best to less best” list. Each of the titles rotates to bottom of my reading list, for savoring until the end. These are also all things I currently read and collect (except for Monstress on which I am behind and my partner Mychal called dibs on for collecting but I recommend regardless).

Bitch Planet

writer: Kelly Sue DeConnick | artists: Valentine De Landro and Robert Wilson IV | colorist: Kelly Fitzpatrick | letterer: Clayton Cowles | logo and cover designer: Rian Hughes | editor: Lauren Sankovitch | backmatter and design consultant: Laurenn McCubbin | stylist and research assistant: Dani V

Synopsis: Non-compliant women are arrested and sent to a prison planet. What makes you non-compliant? Basically anything a man takes offense with.

Why do I love this book recommend it: Now more than ever we need books like this. Science fiction like Bitch Planet regularly exposes and critiques the faults in our society allowing us to discuss them in a safe space. Additionally, the creators do an extremely thorough job with their research, taking the time to bring all sorts of intersectional feminist issues to bear in technicolor. This is not a book we want, its one we need.

Giant Days

writers: John Allison | illustrators: Lissa Treiman and Max Sarin | colorist: Whitney Cogar | letterer: Jim Campbell

Synopsis: Three first year university students become fast friends.

Why do I love this book recommend it: Its funny and exceptionally down to earth. The characters are people you know. You might not have been friends with them but you know them. It’s not gritty but doesn’t flippantly deal with serious issues. One of the character is training to be an archaeologists too, which doesn’t hurt. I also occasionally forget that it’s set in the UK because the situations have so much applicability to anyone attending university.

Monstress

writer: Marjorie M. Liu | artist: Sana Takeda | lettering and design: Rus Wooton | editor: Jennifer M. Smith | editorial assistant: Ceri Riley

Synopsis: This high fantasy world where an ongoing tension between two kingdoms threatens their world.

Why do I love this book recommend it: Mychal first saw this so got dibs on collecting the individual issues but honestly it’s just an amazing work. There is a great discussion of the issue and variation of being mixed-race, though in fantasy rather than in reality. The art is fantastic and creates a fully immersive world that draws from Asian fantasy genres and designs that people familiar with Manga will find familiar but rests more easily on a balance between a blend of Asian and European aesthetics.

Ms. Marvel

writer: G. Willow Wilson | editor: Sana Amanat | artists: Adrian Alphona, Sara Pichelli, Jacob Wyatt, Takeshi Miyazawa

Synopsis: Comics superfan gets what they’ve always wanted: superpowers. Now what do you with those in Jersey City?

Why do I love this book recommend it: It’s got enough interactions with other superheroes to make their well developed appearances meaningful and has avoided since it started most crossovers. Its full of great references and heartfelt discussions about relationships and identity. It got all the superhero punching you could want and new villains that fit with our modern world and modern problems balanced expertly with genuine interpersonal moments that keep you coming back.

ODY-C

writer: Matt Fraction | artist: Christian Ward |

Synopsis: It’s the Grecian epic The Odyssey but in space and also, Zeus burned all men in existence to death and created Sebex so that women could procreate sans the dudebros.

Why do I love this book recommend it: I love this comic so much I wear the first cover as tights. And well, I recommend it because it’s freaking awesome. Every issue is a psychedelic Grecian inspired righting of a historical wrong and it’s written in hexameter and Limerick as an ode original Homeric presentation styles. It’s a dense worthwhile book and is really the only version of the ODY-C I want to recommend to people, as it has keeps the core of the story without being horrible to women. There will be 12 more issues to round out the cycle following the chapters in the Homeric form. Also the first issue had an 18 page opening spread.

My hope is that based on this recommendation list one of these will be something that you enjoy. I try to give a breadth of genre to deconstruct one of the most common comics myths. Aka it has never been, and never will be, just superheroes. Any time you think that, remember Sunday comics, political cartoons, manga, and Archie. Reading broadly genre-wise in comics is also key to finding what you want to read in a particular moment. Sometimes a book doesn’t work for you, and that’s fine, but there’s lots to read comics-wise so I guarantee there’s something for you.

Whitewashing is not a solution to stereotype

In the last year, we’ve seen many whitewashing efforts by Hollywood and none of them have escaped major criticism. As more whitewashed products come out, *cough* Death Note *cough*, the more it seems that in an attempt to avoid stereotypes showrunners have chosen to whitewash characters.

What is whitewashing?

Well it’s a when a Caucasian actor is put in the role of a character that was initially written for a person of another race. Recently the focus has been on Asian and Asian American characters. See the t-shirt “Scarlett & Tilda & Emma & Matt” above on Lewis Tan who should have been Iron Fist. The irony is, that in attempting to resolve stereotypes they have created bigger problems by taking away opportunities for actors of color and then not doing enough to build a real character.

One example is, in an attempt to get away from “the only Asians in this are ninjas problem” (which, guess what, in Daredevil Season 2 DEFINITELY ALL THE NINJAS WERE ASIAN), Marvel (who I will pick on because I love them and want them to do better) has removed any trace of actual Asianness from the people from their products. In addition, they have actually reinforced those same stereotypes (and added new ones) by giving major roles for Asian people (the Ancient One) to white people and then only leaving the lackeys to actually be Asian (yay!). Additionally, in Privilege in Action (aka Iron Fist) they only reference the fictional K’un Lun and never the real Kunlun (a Tibetan Mountain Range where there are probably real Asian Monks). Yay! So even the idea of a real Asian philosophical tradition that belongs to Humans who live on earth, is actually magical and 100% does not exist on this plane. Yay. Literally real Asians, from real human cultures, that have meaning and history and inform the character’s choices do not exist in the Marvel universe. The closest Asian-Americans get to a character who is Asian and uses that in their character is Colleen Wing, who has to suffer in the hands of truly terrible writing and will drop things like the “bushido code” when in the show that has no real impact to her motivations.

Whitewashing is in many ways worse than stereotypes because you are taking the already marginal representation of those of Asian descent in American Media away from the people that was written for. It also demonstrates that you have not taken care to understand what was actually wrong with the stereotype that property was based on because you are actually removing the Asianness from it. “But we’re changing the context” In many cases, they don’t actually change the context enough for that to be true. For example, the Ancient One was initially old Tibetan man and the way that he’s portrayed in many comics is stereotyped. However, that does not erase the fact that many martial arts masters and founders, at least the ones that they are always referencing in these works, were Asian. Current masters are diverse, and many are white, but they respect the origins of these works by acknowledging the Asian heritage that they owe their existence to. They say that the Ancient one in Doctor Strange is Celtic. Ok Fine. Why is she in Nepal then? Why is there not a center of power in a Celtic Nation? If she’s going to be Celtic then she actually has to be Celtic and that has to have some sort of impact on the character you are creating. Instead of dispelling the stereotype of an old Asian man teaching a white guy mystic arts, it replaces him with someone who makes the story disjoined and doesn’t dispel any stereotypes it instead just relies on different ones.

Being so caught up in the idea of “fixing” the problems of source material, which in many cases is fundamentally and obviously flawed, has actually in some cases made the original incarnations look better than the modern ones because you know there were inherent problems with racism and sexism when they were written. While now, people claim that those don’t exist. In addition, it’s also clear that the stereotypes that those characters came from were based on actual things, at least in relation to Asian characters. Stereotypes in the least contextual sense are a way to essentalize cultures and people to be easily absorbed or understood by others that don't understand cultural complexities. However, forty years (more or less) later this no longer is an acceptable position to tell a story from. We have stereotypes already and since then we have had plenty of time to learn about other people and fill characters in with real details and actual knowledge that preserve the meat of the character and their stories without conforming them to one-dimensional token diversity heads.

And it’s clear that actually MARVEL KNOWS THIS. No seriously I’m 100% certain these companies know what they are doing Why? Because we have well adapted version of Luke Cage and Black Panther coming to consumers. These two characters have had immense changes that have transformed them from two extreme stereotypes of black men to authentic realizations of black identity.

The heart the whitewashing problem is that it demonstrates weakness, laziness, and poor construction on behalf of the script. As Clara Mae wrote in regards to Mantis, stereotypes aren’t bad if you use them to impact the character and if the development of those skills become specific to their context. Mantis is another Asian-descent character in the Marvel universe who relies on Martial Arts for some of her skills, except in the movie where she has become another Madame Butterfly rather than a Turandot. However, as Mae outlines, in the comics, her martial arts skills inform Mantis’ character. The training influences how she makes choices and impacts what she does.

This is important because as much as we can experience Asian cultures through Korean dramas, food, and video games, many people, myself included, grew up and helped to bring those Asian cultural products into the mainstream. I remember wanting to read more volumes of a Manga and finding out that the publisher decided not to translate the rest of a series so I was shit out of luck. While these are all things that anyone interested in Asian culture experienced it does not mean that we all experienced the hardship equally. Especially because many of the things I listed are products, and not cultural behaviors. Behavior is important, not something easy to "correct" by eliminating stereotype, because it ends up divorcing the real, though sometimes mythologized, experience of Asian Americans from the rest of the United States. While we have an abundance of Asian products available to us, even so accessible we are able to whitewash them, we don’t have the same number of real Asian and Asian American stories. While mainstream white culture is aware of many of those “stereotypes,” they are also stereotypes because it is what people experienced. Removing those and there by eliminating the unique experiences of the Asian and Asian American communities continues to alienate us within our own nations and should not be covered over but instead addressed.

It honestly should be obvious by now to people who make films like this that whitewashing is not acceptable but it continues to happen. Even as recently as this month, the movie reboot for the Hellboy Franchise had cast Ed Skrein (aka FRANCIS) as an Asian American character. Thankfully, Ed, NOT THE PRODUCTION COMPANY, decided that was a bad choice and to step down. Thanks for doing the right thing, now tell your friends. So rather than replace/rebrand, writers and showrunners need to engage with the stereotypes of their characters and understand them. Rather than see stereotypes as inherently negative (although some are) view them as seeds to grow from. We now know enough about cultures around the world or can hire writers that do (for fuck’s sake you can get one Asian writer on your goddamned staff) and leverage on their experiences where you can or, you know, research the lives of the people you are depicting, to inform the characters you are writing. Stereotype should not be ignored because in many cases that’s what drew early diverse comic book readers to those characters and to keep us as adults, we want the depth that those characters deserve.

Me and 1 Million BC (AKA Marvel, that's not how this works)

It might not be super clear in this blog but I’m an archaeologist. This means that at the most basic level I’m interested in what people did in the past and I try to access that by looking at the things that they left behind. (My specific research toes that line but that's another story). If you can stand some strange hours and a lot of learning, it’s a really cool gig. Special note: WE DO NOT INTENTIONALLY LOOK FOR DINOSAURS. If that’s your gig, look into paleontology. Archaeology digs people stuff.

So here’s my beef with Marvel’s 1,000,000 BC, it is on the very edge of making sense but is just one order of magnitude off. You say 100,000 and I’m there. But at 1 million you are in the territory of "do we call what we evolved from people” or "are they still not quite similar enough to us for that".

Yes. I. know. it. is. fiction.

The problem is that in many other ways comics do things that undercut what we know about the human past (Kree involvement to make the inhumans etc.) that this extremely close but not quite right event becomes the last straw and I can't suspend my disbelief. Besides the Inhuman influence, the implications of the 1 million BC arc are so far reaching that in some ways I seriously question if the “regular” humans in the Marvel Universe would even be recognizable to us as regular earth people. On top of that I hate that this timeline actually undercuts human achievement because we came up with the cool shit they are doing/wearing much more recently than 1 million years ago. AKA in less time we came up with the same complex stuff. For me errors like 1 million BC are closer to Ancient Aliens than something I would want people being inspired to do archaeology from because it takes all the cool shit away from people and makes them supernatural. If they had just removed a couple of zeros, let say 10,000 BC, I would have been fine but 1 million (so exactly 1,002,017 years ago), nope cool story Marvel, you're drunk please go home.

What is going with the Earth and our ancestors at 1 million years ago? Well we’re chilling as Homo Erectus, with some possible variation into maybe a few other species maybe just some cousins who are from a distant relative, and making some of the first stone tools, not the first but more advanced stuff. We probably make fire and it’s an ice age. There is nothing like Homo Sapiens for like another 800,000 years give or take. There is no such thing as symbolic culture at least that we have evidence for. Being white doesn’t exist yet and actually is a phenomenon that outside of Neanderthals may not have been common in Homo Sapien Sapien until the last 12,000-8,000 years. Related to this, there probably were not the ethnic separations that would produce the type of “avengers” Marvel is selling as of 1 million BC and also red hair didn't exist yet. So who were these "Avengers"?

Starbrand – The concept of a “Brand” doesn’t exist in the sense of signifying similarity or ownership

Agamotto – Fine basically except for there not being Ethnically Asian people yet

Iron Fist – We have not developed metallurgy enough to smelt iron

Black Panther – Possible except the human evolution hang up explained above

Ghost Rider – Not clear that we had the symbolic capacity to understand an afterlife and hence “ghosts” or if the concept of “riding” something had been invented

Phoenix – We just got around to fire and Phoenixes are associated with Ancient Greece which does not exist yet

Odin – Not human, so of all the Avengers he is actually the only that makes sense in this context because he did not evolve on Earth so doesn’t fall under my critique. The irony abounds.

My annoyance with settings like this are that we know a lot about what happened in the past. We spend a lot of time excavating sites and reconstructing climate and behavior by examining material culture. So to not take those as facts or even consider that as an avenue for consideration is really frustrating. While this is probably something that other scientists regularly get annoyed with, many of those technologies and sciences exist to some degree in the “future” of humanity. They are things that we are moving toward, in some cases, going from science fiction to science fact on the back of scientists interested in creating what was envisioned as part of our future. Unfortunately, that is not the case with historical sciences like archaeology. By remaking the history of the earth, and of human evolution, you are going from science fact to science fiction.

We can’t increase the pace of human evolution just because we wanted to have extra zeros to make our event look more existing. On top of the pace needed to sustain that, there’s also the problem that all of the characters come from what would essentially be complex civilizations that would need to have come about extremely quickly to support the symbolic behaviors, particularly with the mantle-like traditions of Iron Fist and Black Panther. We didn't even farm until 10,000 years ago during something called the Neolithic Revolution.

I also have to address the possible existence of people with the x-gene in 1 million BC. We would all have the x-gene by now, most likely, if people with it started popping up a million years ago. Especially if those were children of, or they were, the people who were smartest, most powerful, and had good reproductive power (all helpful for making sure your descendants continue to live). Most likely, in the absence of too many supervillains, such new “powers” would be highly adaptive and fitting for the unpredictability of the early Pleistocene so those with the X-gene would have definitely taken over the world by now. No Doubt. Also I’m very confused by the weird Starbrand/Hulk thing that is going on. Is It supposed to be Gigantopithecus (which is what Sasquatch might be based off of)?

So why do I even care so much as to write this? Well right now, as the March for Science demonstrated, science is being regularly attacked and under funded. Particularly, anthropological sciences, such as archaeology and paleoanthropology, that teach things like evolution are under attack and are presented as “one of many possible explanations”. And because of that it matters a fucking lot that comics espouse an evolutionary agenda more akin to creationism than evolution, especially when people like to think of comics as science fiction rather than just fiction or fantasy. From a storytelling point of view, it is a disservice to feed the public a thinner fictional world when we have a wealth of knowledge about the realities of prehistory. Particularly when prehistoric life rarely gets the sort of publicity that a Marvel event brings. This could have been a great chance to collaborate and use archaeological knowledge to color a fictional world using the comics art to illustrate a complex prehistory. A chance to do something fun but also use what we have learned about the past to give it a depth that goes beyond prehistoric “cavemen” stereotypes. In the same way I think that comics should be doing better with culture, they should be doing better with science. We know more about science and culture than we did in the 1960s, it's time we did something about it.