There's more, I promise

Hey! So this still exists and I'm working on a lot of blogs right now that will hopefully make for some entertaining reading over the next few weeks/months. Summer got the best of me so I didn't get to develop some of the ideas I had at the start of summer into real blogs.

A quick preview of what's to come though:

• Something on whitewashing and stereotypes in movies/TV (I'll let you guess who'll be the subject of that :D)
• Me discussing Marvel's 1,000,000 BC line which explodes my brain
• A set of posts on community engagement and conventions
• An examination of Feminism in Fandoms
• Some comics recommendations

Also, not 100% in that order as some of those topics require a bit more work than others to fully articulate into meaningful things that I want people, or bots or whatever stumbles upon this, to read.

In other news, I will be moderating two panels in the coming months! One at Rose City Comic Con in Portland and another at GeekGirlCon in Seattle. They are part of the community engagement at conventions I am/was/will be talking about because what's all this PhD learning for if it just stays in the Ivory Tower? I'm a Scientist not Rapunzel!

The panel at Rose City Comic Con is entitled "Adaptation versus Appropriation: How to borrow respectfully from other cultures in fiction" and will be on Sunday, September 10th at 1:30pm, in Room 8. I got some awesome people to participate including Tristan J. Tarwater, Yoshi Yoshitani, Jemma Salume, Marissa Louise, and possibly one more person who is not sure if they are coming yet. It's a simialr topic to the panel I ran at GeekGirlCon last year but with a new crop of people and at a larger convention. Join us if you're in the Portland area.

Panel 2 is at GeekGirlCon and is entitled "Scion or shafted: Being mixed-race in science fiction and fantasy cultures". This one is also on Sunday but this time October 1st from 3:00-4:00pm. I also found some great speakers for this one including Kiku Hughes, Tristan J. Tarwater, Symantha Reagor, and Sarah Gulde. If you are in Seattle around that time please come to GeekGirlCon and hear us talk about this awesome stuff.

I'm hoping to be a panelist at Emerald City Comic Con in the next year as well with Miles Greb and a few others. We're hoping for it to be a sort of Science Fiction/Science Fact thing with creators and associated scientists both being part of the discussion. That's still in progress and I hope it goes through.

Anyways, thanks for reading, and I hope next time I've got something a bit more meaty for you to think about.

Where to begin: Getting into comics

Right off the bat: Comics are a Medium and Not a Genre

Don’t argue

If you argue about this point then this blog is not for you, because I’m going to ask you what genres you like and if superheroes are all that you want there are other “where to start” blogs that will probably be more your style. Also, I will not be giving specific book suggestions, this is supposed to be about you (the reader) choosing your own comics adventure.

Anyways, where to begin and how to get into comics. It can be intimidating to start reading comics especially if your goal is to feel comfortable and like you belong in a comic book shop. I will say this, no matter how many comics you read, stepping into a new shop can be intimidating. It’s like going into a new bar, you know a sort of what to expect but it’s still a different place with a new group of people. Anyways, I’m going to pose questions and give suggestions as this is not an absolute guide to getting into comics. Instead, it’s a way to think about what you want to get out of reading them and consider how and if you want to be part of a comics community.

First, what do you want to get out of reading comics? Expand the types of things you read? Get involved with a particular community? Know more about the heroes you see on the silver and LED screen? Know what people are talking about when they reference stuff?

It’s important to know the answers to these questions to understand what sort of commitment you are making. Comics do not have to be a commitment but it helps to understand what sort of “first books” you might be interested in, what sort of recommendation lists you should look for, and where you should be looking to get them. Knowing the answers to these questions helps to narrow down the infinite possible books to start with and the infinite places you might start to look for things. Also it's OK to pick up something and then not like it. That doesn’t mean that all comics aren’t for you, it just means that that particular book wasn’t for you. Comics are an infinite medium so unless you don’t like pictures and words together there is most likely a comic you’ll like.

My next question is what do you want to read? What genres do you currently read? Have you read manga (PS manga are comics so you already read comics!) or watched anime? Do you already read things like xkcd or PhD comics or Hark! A Vagrant? Are you looking for episodic works, stories that finish quickly? Are you looking for specific stories? Or do you enjoy never knowing with something could end?

These questions help you to decide what types of comics you are looking to get into as far as genre and length format. While we often think of comic books in their “floppy” single-issue form, many comics are published as complete graphic novels, single page web-comics, and digital or print strips. These are all valid ways to “get into” comics but each type has its own community and place to get those types of stories. And remember, manga and manhwa are comics too, they just have generally Asian-creators and the works are translated but that doesn’t make them any less valid than American style comics.

If short form, or very episodic, is your thing (aka you like comic strips or getting a new page of a story every week or few days) webcomics will be a good place for you to start. There are tons of great ones on websites like Tapas and on websites hosted by their creators. These are often more personal works and catered to the tastes of the creator rather than a particular market, as they are labors of love. This means you can find almost any possible story imaginable in this form. Also some of the more popularized ones (like Hark! A Vagrant) do have published compilations through Kickstarter or are being picked up by publishers like Oni press so you can get them in hard copy form as well.

You know what you want, now how do you get it? How much do you want to commit financially to reading comics? How quickly do you read?

My first recommendation in relation to this is once you know what you want out of comics and the stories you are interested in finding, search “comics” and those topics that you want to read about. You’ll probably get some Wikipedia entries, amazon ads, and maybe some blogs posts. These will all help you pick what you are interested in. If you have not selected web comics, or even if you have my next suggestion will always be your library, local or university.

Why? Because the library is awesome, librarians can help you find more cool stuff, there is a huge variety, and you can try everything with minimal financial commitment. Libraries are great places to be (they often have air conditioning) and allow you to browse what is available with no commitment to spend money. Once you know more of what you want you can ask librarians to help you find more stuff (comics or not) that you will be interested in. If you read quickly, like I did when I was reading manga, the library is a great place to churn through graphic novels. 50 volumes of Bleach? No need to drop $500 on all those graphic novels, especially if you don’t care to re-read or display them, get them from the library.

Lastly, while you might not be helping creators directly, book circulation impacts what libraries buy, so if a certain graphic novel is continuously checked out they will probably buy more of volume 2 of that graphic novel. Also as a patron you can suggest things for the library to buy, in case you aren’t sure about something but think others might enjoy it. I’ve done this for local comics as well, which boosts sales and can put diverse books on publicly available shelves. As a little extra too, many libraries have digital comics access as well as physical comics (generally graphic novels as those do not deteriorate as quickly but some individual branches may have a small collection of floppies). So, if you don’t want to carry fifty graphic novels home with you, you can check them out through apps like Hoopla. Also at no charge. Doing this helps to makes sure you are getting actually what you want and helps you explore in what format to help decide how much you might want to contribute financially to comics down the road.

Do you like having physical copies of books of things you own (cds/dvds/video games)? Do you re-read books?

If you think any of the above is a yes then get to know your local secondhand bookstore (like Half Price Books), Amazon.com, TFAW, and/or a local comics shop. TFAW and your local comics shop will have floppies and graphic novels, while Amazon and secondhand bookstores are better for graphic novels. If you are just starting out local comics shops can be intimidating but if you go in know what you want, and money's no object, you can get great recommendations from the employees. If you aren’t a people person, Amazon is great for graphic novels and has the added benefit of reviews, though I wouldn’t always trust them as they can be filled with old guard gate-keepers. TFAW is a great resource for floppies and graphic novels and during their sales is a great place to snag a wide variety of newer material.

What do you do if the library doesn’t have what you want but you don’t have much to commit financially?

If webcomics, which are generally free, aren’t your thing, but you don’t have tons to drop on graphic novels or floppies consider a subscription service such as Marvel Unlimited or Stela both of which cost $10 a month for unlimited access to their online library of comics. Also consider looking at second hand shops, which might have older or out of print graphic novels.

Do you have gobs of expendable income? Are you interested in having a direct relationship with creators you read? What if you are a bazillionaire and want to dedicate all your money to comics?

Well walk into any store that you want and buy all the things my big spender. OR be even cooler and do things like back Kickstarters and support creators directly via Patreon. Patreons allow you to support those creators directly so that they can keep living and creating cool work. Lastly, most of the time each tier of support (either one time things like Kickstarter or monthly giving like Patreon) you get something like a unique comic or digital version of something for your money so it’s just going down a black hole.

How do I start doing the subscription/pull/regular weekly floppies thing?

If there are individual issues that you want to follow that come out in physical form this is the best way to support that industry. Pre-sales orders (aka what you put on your “pull” or subscription list) are what get reported and influence what series continue and which get axed. It was the source of recent controversy over at Marvel and so pre-sales are a really important way to make sure the books that you want to read keep getting published. For me, this means books that star and/or are created by POC, women, and LGBTQA folks.

Once that’s figured out look around for what shop is closest to you, check out their subscription/pull policy, as they are not standard, and visit it to make sure it’s got the vibe you want. Try to chat with employees to see if you like the vibe, and after checking their pull box policy, ask about starting a subscription box. If you don’t like the vibe or their policy, there are usually multiple options in an area and try those out. If you aren’t in to going to a physical shop for many local shops will ship to people (for an added fee), you can get find an online only service like TFAW, and digital subscriptions through publishers are always a possibility.

What about protecting my comics?

There have been many recent articles and great twitter threads discussing the “value” of comics. Namely, that the collector market in many ways is made up. Regardless of what floppies you buy, get them because you want to read them not because of some assumed increase in value down the line. OLD comics are worth $$ now because they were trashed and so while lots of them existed, few survive. This is no longer the case. Comics are printed in huge batches and many people out there are looking for “perfect” versions. That means, if you want to protect your comics you should be interested in protecting them for your own pleasure. That means bags, boards, or both depend on what you want for your collection and always means an added cost to reading comics in protective supplies. These are better to buy in bulk and to shop around (online or at a variety of local shops) for the best price and if you want some tips on preserving home collection in general check out this.

I read the stuff, now what do I do?

I recommend, once you’ve found creators/writers you like, follow them on Twitter and Tumblr. They often post great art or story tidbits and make you feel part of the comics community, even if you don’t go to a local shop. You can see what new projects are going on and often get great recommendations from them for new books or artists to follow or kickstarters for unique titles.

I want to reiterate There is no “right” way to get into comics. Just like getting to music or print books, everyone gets there in their own fashion, Unfortunately, because of histories of gatekeeping, comics can seem more intimidating than they have a right to be. And remember, however you get here, if you are interested you belong anywhere comics discussions are.

Blog update: No specific topic

My apologies for not having a blog post since April, a lot of things have been happening. Planned things, but things that took up my time and focus that were not this.

Moving: Back in the PNW for the next few months. Hoping to have a cooler summer.

Geek Girl Con Panel: I got accepted. Which is crazy, awesome, I am so scared and excited. It is such an important topic to talk about (Adaptation, Appropriation, and Influence) and has such power to impact the understanding of our world and art. Now I'm waiting to hear back about who may also be on the panel. I can talk about it of course, as a consumer and an academic, but I really want to have creators talk about their processes. I also want this to be a meaningful and positive discussion, not just a rag fest on how people don't do it well. Worst case scenario: I am there and talk about what I know and understand. Best case: I lead an awesome only semi-awkward discussion of the topic. Either way this will be great and scary.

Draft proposal: Submitted and waiting to hear

Wisdom teeth: My teeth are no longer wise but are healing well. Very strange experience.

Getting back to work: There are so many things I need to do that are all, like the Geek Girl Con panel, awesome and scary. Lots of writing, some solo work and some collaborative, some for publication and some for my proposal. They all require reading, so I have some trips to the library planned. Regardless, I hope to have a couple more blogs in the next few weeks. One discussing my response to Captain America: Civil War and another in my "series" of IAA. I hope to work furiously on these soon.

Thanks for reading and I hope to have more for you to read soon

IAA – P2: Pan-Asian Culture in American Visual Media – Dr. Strange v. Firefly v. Kung-Fu Panda 3

I mentioned this in my inspiration post that there were two roads towards this section of the blog. The general one being in reaction to JK Rowling’s mishap with Native American and Caucasian American History and the second was watching Kung-Fu Panda 3. The two are related via the trinity of influence, adaptation, and appropriation because although I enjoyed Kung-Fu Panda 3, I also wondered why I felt more comfortable with their use of East-Asian culture than I did with Firefly. And then the Dr. Strange trailer had to drop. And I was like well…this just stirs up a bunch of mixed feelings. So I’m going to write about how each of these different visual media fairs against the IAA scale. 1 being not too X, 10 being way too X.

Firefly/Serenity (2002, 2005)

What: One of the most beloved, and slighted, science fiction shows known within western culture and Science fiction fandom. Essentially a space-western, except everyone swears in Chinese.

How is it related to Asian culture: Everyone swears in Chinese and there are some signs at one point apparently in Chinese. There is also clearly Asian influence in some costume designs

What initially made me concerned: Everyone swears in Chinese, and in the movie there is some clear influence East-Asian pop cultural references. However, there are no main characters that are Asian in the crew nor can I remember ever seeing an Asian person actually in the show.

Influence: 4

Appropriation: 7

Adaptation:2

Why: There are clearly Asian influences in Firefly, the name of the ship and the clothing styles for Inara, they also even use Chinese as a language to swear in. The problem with all of this is the lack of actual Asian representation in the show. As much as I enjoy the diversity of Firefly, especially the number of highly capable women and the representation of Afro-Caribbean/-American actors, there are no people I can remember in the entirety of the show who are actually Asian. There are like a billion characters that draw from American “wild west” tropes but none that are actually Asian, even for use in stereotyped forms (ninjas etc.). You get an English gangster but not one Asian one. As much as I love Firefly, and the idea that these COULD have been developed had the show continued, that’s still no excuse for the lack of Asian representation in the first season. Even the movie doesn’t do much to further rectify the problem, the villains of the namely Empire still don’t represent the culture that they are supposed to be from. The problem with this, having the aesthetics and the language without the physical representation, is, as I addressed in the first blog, that those cultural behaviors are rarely expressed without people. Goods can travel, but language requires regular speaking contact and we can see even in America’s own history that when Asian cultures are present in the Wild West, which they were, they bring their language and a whole host of other cultural traits. To create a future based on this blend without the actual people makes it rate high on the appropriation scale.

Kung-Fu Panda 3 (2015)

What: The third installment in a series about a Panda who does Kung-Fu. It is set in a mythical China where there are no humans and all animals are anthropomorphized. Everyone eats vegetables and there is no cannibalism of other species.

How is it related to Asian culture: The story is about Kung-Fu and set in China.

What initially made me concerned: Why are none of the major voice actors of Asian descent? Is it accurately portraying Chinese cultural traits?

Influence: 10

Appropriation: 3

Adaptation:10

Why: Kung-Fu Panda has a lot of things going for it that make it more on the influence and adaptation side than appropriation. The biggest probably being the fact that Chinese studios are actually involved in the making of at least number three. However, as much as this helped to maintain the authenticity of the foods and aesthetics, and even a Chinese version of Kung-Fu Fighting at the end, there are aspects of the movie that rate along appropriation. For me the biggest problem is that the major speaking roles, except Oogway, are all voiced by Caucasian actors. While this is a kids’ movie, and when it is dubbed anyone could speak the role, it’s frustrating to see an almost stereotypical representation of Chinese culture voiced by a Caucasian man. While Jack Black is admittedly hilarious, and the movie is fun, it’s bothered me that as the franchise has continued Lucy Liu and Jackie Chan, who voice Viper and Monkey, are continually sidelined for additional quips by the male comedians who are often, in this context, not that funny. So even though it’s definitely adapted, animals for people, heavily influenced, it still gets a rating of 3 for appropriation.

Dr. Strange (2016)

What: The most recent Marvel solo movie about a brain surgeon who gets in a car accident and is unable to perform surgery who goes to Tibet/Nepal to find himself after his accident/surgery. Finding himself included finding magic

How is it related to Asian culture: The entire premise for his “magic” centers on Eastern Asian philosophy and in the original comics he learns from a 500 Tibetan Man how to harness powers based on these East Asian philosophies and magic.

What initially made me concerned: A many Doctors and Surgeons in the United States are now of Asian descent and it would have been the perfect chance to ethnicity swap a major but not super critical Marvel character. While the did not do this to the good Doctor himself, they did gender swap (which is positive) but also ethnicity swapped the teacher of Dr. Strange to being white.

Influence: 7

Appropriation: 7

Adaptation:1

Why: Dr. Strange is a strange Marvel character and like Thor represents an aspect of Superheroism that is sometimes hard to reconcile with ultra-modern technology and people with genetic mutations. However, it also made a lot of sense at the time it was written. The problem is that the movie did not do anything to rectify this very historically contingent use of Asian culture. And to a degree they made it worse. The basic premise for Dr. Strange is that a highly successful Neurosurgeon, who is basically a giant jerk, gets into a car accident and the surgeon who reconstructs his hands is unable to make them steady enough for Dr. Strange to go back to surgery. So goes on a quest to figure out who he is and where does he go? Tibet of course. Which is where he eventually learns the arts of astral projection and mysticism. Yay! In the 1960s having that be a white guy made sense, in 2016, personally, I think it would have been better to cast an Asian actor (who goes back to examine his heritage during a time of crises and builds upon the fact that many in the medical field are not white). Anyways, in the comics, he learns from a 500 Tibetan man how to do this. Well, who gets to be that? Tilda Swinton…Well that’s ok, I’m happy that it’s a woman. I’m not so happy that the implication that Tibetans 500 years ago were white, or that an Ancient spirit decided to live in Tibet and choose to be white, or the implication essentially that Caucasians are better at being Asian, or the idea that Marvel couldn’t write a good movie-worthy Asian character. None of those things are good and so as much as Dr. Strange is influenced by Asian culture, it didn’t do much adapting, and instead decided to appropriate.

Influence, Adaptation, and Appropriation: Part 1 – The inspiration

At the beginning of March in response to a pop-culture piece, the specific one I can’t recall it may have been J.K. Rowling, I posted the tweet:

“Pan-culturalism and appropriation in the "future": Dealing with using cultural designs and culture in Sci-Fi worldbuilding”

And one of my friends, suggested I submit it as a panel for Geek Girl Con. So, at the end of March I did with a slight modification to the idea. I retitled it to be the same as the above post and made it more general about using cultures that are not your own to build fantastical worlds. I posted on Facebook about this and people were supportive, both interested in examining this concept and posting ideas for which Science Fiction and Fantasy works should be part of the discussion. Since that time, I’ve been thinking about this topic (Today’s inspiration being Kung-Fu Panda 3). My primary thoughts being, “Am I qualified to lead a discussion about this?” and the following, “I should really put some of my thoughts about this down.”

I am not a writer of science fiction or fantasy, unless you count archaeological interpretation (zing!). I am primarily a consumer with a little bit more education and a compulsion to write my ideas down. I am also a woman of mixed-race so I have a tendency to complicate issues and investigate them within my more complex experience as a human, adding academic insight where possible and if possible.

So let me unpack my tweet a bit. (Anthropologists love unpacking, maybe because we travel alot) It came in response to the use of another culture by someone who was not of that culture to create a fictional story and world. Not necessarily a bad thing but that person was most likely white and was using another culture for personal gain. This got me thinking about how in science fictional futures there is an assumed blending of cultures where as humans progress through time our distinctions between cultures become more blurred and essentially this only one “human” culture. And following the current world trajectory that future is often heavily influenced by Asian cultures and most often East-Asian cultures. We see this in Blade Runner, Firefly, and the re-make of Total Recall, to name a few examples.

This hypotheses, of a blending of cultures, isn’t too far off. We’ve seen in the last 100 years the loss of much of our language diversity and many issues in anthropology boil down to globalization. There are very few, if any, cultures on our planet that have not heard of or interacted with technology in some way and most “traditional” cultures are still influenced at least indirectly by general improvements in medicine and other sciences. So, it is not far-fetched to assume that in the future, assuming we follow our current path, humans across the globe will be more similar to each other in the future than they are today.

However, how you portray this blending is important. Specifically, all of the above listed examples, and there are many more, do not display the biological blending that is also predicted for our globe. They instead preserve modern racial distinctions and grab the symbols of another culture. And there, my friends, is the rub. There is no example in the history of humanity where you have heavy, and dominating, cultural influence without biological mixing and the problem with not portraying that is it allows modernly powerful ethnicities to take on the cultures of others without giving those people their due.

It is, unfortunately, appropriation rather than adaptation or influence and the relationship between the three is what I will explore in more detail in following posts.